irreversible

If you’re going to put yourself above everybody else, you might end up alone.

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt (via fuckyeahjgl)

(more…)

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


(more…)

Can we know the truth?

last weeks linguistics class was cancelled and made me feel like shit for the whole week but todays made up for everything! :)

to update you on our progress today
(actually its just for my own revision)
we’ve moved from semantics to pragmatics (finally!)

effective communication, in general,
is when you learn something about how the world really is

apparently it seems as if the process of learning consists of us frantically stuffing ourselves with information, be it rubbish or facts
and hoping our knowledge will grow as a result

but in reality,
when someone gives you a new piece of information,
(granted that you believe what you have been told)
your brain narrows down your knowledge to the set of possibilities with which that piece of new information is compatible with,
and rule out the other parts of your “knowledge” which is now irrelevant because it doesnt correspond to what you have recently learnt!

isnt it amusing how this gives a whole new meaning to the terms narrow-minded and broad-minded!

are you still following?

and that question above in fact, not only implies that you are paying close attention to me now, but also assumes you have been doing so right from the beginning

in pragmatics, this is called a presupposition

when we speak, we tend to include in our sentences presuppositions – stuff we take for granted the other party is aware of as well
and these presuppositions will in turn determine whether the sentence spoken is semantically true, false, or undefined.

what do you mean by undefined, you ask.
it simply mean its impossible to prove exactly which side it should belong to because there are infinite possibilities for a context to allow this particular sentence to be true

It’s always possible to find a rule, a justification which allows a (mathematical) series to be continued by any number – it all depends on how complicated the rule is.


to cite an example given by my prof,
If John has the dog, a dog is hungry.

naturally, we can say its not the truth because it does not really mean anything
but can you say its entirely false?

the sentence might refer to a person called John who owns more than one dog. John can only afford to feed one dog, and hence if he has the one dog with him now, another dog which he cant feed is probably hungry.

sounds absurd??
but who knows?! anything is possible,
it all depends on your imagination….

“There is a gulf between what is true and what is provable.
We can never be sure of all the facts about a phenomenon, and to lack just one could change everything.”

all quotes from The Oxford Murders :)