12 ms·
In addition to Sokal's hack on "Social Text", I believe that Rob Pike did a test in which random texts produced by running a Markov chain over Derrida were foun
by pmetzger 19y ago
In addition to Sokal's hack on "Social Text", I believe that Rob Pike did a test in which random texts produced by running a Markov chain over Derrida were found to be indistinguishable by informed readers from actual Derrida. (I'm probably misremembering at least some details of the actual incident but the gist is, I'm pretty sure, true.)
- pmetzger 19y agoI've done a bit of research -- the Pike incident involved Baudrillard, not Derrida.
- kcl 19y agoAll that proves is that Baudrillard's message is invariant under Markov chains. I'd like see a mathematician produce an argument of such fine structure.
- jey 19y agoIn other words, contains 0 bits of information?
- sketerpot 19y agoPike's comment at the beginning of the Markovified text is brilliant: > For those unfamiliar with M. Baudrillard's work, the thesis of the essay is, in a nutshell, that reality is indistinguishable from good simulation.
- pg 19y agoI did the same thing with Paradise Lost to produce the "poem" at the start of ANSI Common Lisp. When read aloud it passed as poetry to a sample of 1 English Lit grad student.
- dfranke 19y agoThat is hilarious. I plan to repeat this experiment.