Day: February 7, 2013

Caveat: 까마귀 날자 배 떨어 진다

Banalities & Journaling / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

Notme
까마귀 날자 배 떨어 진다
crow fly-WHEN pear shake-down-INF-PASS-PRES
When the crow flies off the pear falls down.

This is actually about false correlation – mistaking coincidence for causality. This is highly interesting to me, and I like crows and I like pears and I like the zen-koan sound of this proverb. I've made it my new status message on Kakaotalk. Kakaotalk is Korea's ubiquitous instant messenger service that I use on my phone now, mostly to answer the singular question: "teacher, whats the homework?"

I've meditated on false correlation a great deal. There's a name for it, in philosophy: [broken link! FIXME] apophenism.

Caveat: Pie in America

Background Noise / My Photos

What I'm listening to right now.

Don McLean, "American Pie." This song seemed very meaningful and significant when I was 17. It seems less so, now, but it's still an excellent song. I remember sitting on a sand dune on Mad River Beach in Arcata, memorizing this song. I spent a lot of time memorizing poetry and song lyrics in high school – is this something nearly universal to adolescence?

Here's is a picture I took on a dune at Mad River Beach in Arcata, in 2007.

200708_ArcataCA_M041

 

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