Fractal Wrongness

posted: 1439 days ago, on Wednesday, 2008 Feb 27 at 12:30
tags: skeptic, psychology.

noun    \'frak-tël\ \'rông'nùss\

"The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

"Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite regress, as every refutation you make of that person's opinions will lead to a rejoinder, full of half-truths, leaps of logic, and outright lies, that requires just as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It is as impossible to convince a fractally wrong person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the Mandelbrot set in finite time."If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong person on the Internet--in mailing lists, newsgroups, or website forums--your best bet is to say your piece once and ignore any replies, thus saving yourself time."

(Keunwoo Lee, 2005 November)

Also see Dr. Goodword's Language Blog for 2008 March 04.

via: Gustav Paul

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