Judging books (random gibberish versus meaningful): is it merely a subjective judgment?

[PseuTonym]

We need a rule book of unconditional, absolute rules for the English language before we can judge books. In the meantime, if you think there’s any measurable difference between a book of nonsense poetry and one of the works of Galileo or Sir Isaac Newton, then you are simply deceiving yourself.

People read the first page or two of a book, and then skim through. They taste a book. Then they study it more carefully, chewing on the content. Eventually, they may become like food critics while talking about the words in books. They are lexical epicureans, and it is all just a matter of taste.

After all, you cannot live by eating books. Books provide no actual nutrition. If you don’t believe me, then do the experiment yourself: go beyond chewing and actually swallow and digest a book. See what happens.

However, would it be good enough to have a rule book of unconditional, absolute rules for the English language? Maybe language rules aren’t enough. Language rules won’t tell you whether or not the books cited as references are acceptable books. A book that is cited as a reference might be itself nonsensical gibberish.

What if you see in the list of references a book that you used as a textbook in school? Because of the process of indoctrination in school, you might recognize and trust the reference book. Instead, you should go back to kindergarten and apply some quality control this time.

Perhaps the real problem is that authors attempt to explain ideas so that readers can understand them. People understand by means of a variety of short-cuts, such as examples and figurative language. Examples might not generalize, and figurative language might go beyond what the dictionary authorizes. Can you recite the rules of English syntax correctly from beginning to end? Perhaps we should forget about language and just play checkers instead. At least checkers is a game with rules.

 

[Qoeleth]

Well- ‘rules of language’ tend to be descriptive (i.e. they describe what the practices of actual speakers of the language), and only secondarily prescriptive (instructing others how to use the language).

There are many books (James Joyce, Derrida, etc.), which might read like ‘gibberish’ to many. Yet, a book on calculus would be incomprehensible to me (although I would recognise that it probably wasn’t ‘gibberish’ to experts). So, the phenomenon of ‘meaning’ depends upon a certain agreement between the text and its readers, about content, form and syntax, and a certain body of common knowledge.

The possibility of judging books depends upon certain accepted standards. There are certain ‘standards’ for Western literature, although these are fluid and not precisely defined. For this reason, there is a degree of variance in opinions and evaluations.

This does not mean, though, that all opinions are equally well informed. In the same way, certain musicians are better than others, although there are no precisely defined criteria for musical merit.

 

[inocente]

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Philosophical explanation here: explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1576:_I_Could_Care_Less

I’d add that in frame six, Megan (the character with dark hair) is reflecting the standard way of judging a great work of art - it communicates what the author intended, by whatever means in whatever medium.