Are we at CFC intellectuals (2018 update)?

[warpus]

What do you define as 'research'? This seems to be what your position is based around so it seems prudent to at least elaborate what you mean by it.

I copied and pasted that straight from wikipedia, so I assume academia level of research standards would be satisfactory here, i.e. something that would be accepted as a source in a paper published in a scientific publication.

No matter how obvious, statements that are based only on simple observation do not meet the rigorous @warpus standards of intellectualism.

Only a non-intellectual would accept simple observation as a high enough standard for intellectualism!

 

[Synobun]

So essentially, your criteria for an intellectual is a scientist.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Funny, a couple of weeks ago I found an article of famous linguist, academic Andrey Zaliznyak. Usually I'm not so interested in linguistics, but this article was about the word "ass" in Russian (not meaning the animal) and he was researching why the stress falls on the first syllable, while other words of Slavic origin almost always have it on the second syllable. I was so surprised that this can be a topic of academic research, that I even read the article!
Not joking.

Sounds like quite the Assignment.

 

[red_elk]

Sounds like quite the Assignment.

He made assessment based on associations. I assume.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm a bit taken aback that the Russian word for butt is multisyllabic. That seems really inconvenient.

 

[Gori the Grey]

And how's Sir Mix-a-lot going to get it to fit the beat in the Russian translation of his famous rap?

One really needs it to be a monosyllable there.

 

[red_elk]

I'm a bit taken aback that the Russian word for butt is multisyllabic. That seems really inconvenient.

It's not our fault.
Zaliznyak hypothesized that the word ("Жопа") has proto-Indo-European origin.
A major discovery, by the way.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It's not our fault.
Zaliznyak hypothesized that the word ("Жопа") has proto-Indo-European origin.
A major discovery, by the way.

You're saying that until this guy came along Russia couldn't find its ass with both hands?

 

[Gori the Grey]

I'm a bit taken aback that the Russian word for butt is multisyllabic.

That said, for the French, it's three syllables, and English even borrows derriere for certain purposes.

But the Germanic strain in English makes one heavily predisposed toward monosyllabic words for very basic fundamental elements of existence, as one's backside certainly is.

But then, come to think on it, our favored contemporary term, "booty" makes it polysyllabic, even though we had perfectly good monosyllables available. And that has seemed to me a gain for the language.

An interesting question this: the most appropriate number of syllables in the term for one's posterior.

 

[red_elk]

You're saying that until this guy came along Russia couldn't find its ass with both hands?

In some sense, yes. The guy was real badass in linguistics, I watched his lecture about Novgorod birch bark manuscripts a few years ago. A pity he died last year.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

In some sense, yes. The guy was real badass in linguistics, I watched his lecture about Novgorod birch bark manuscripts a few years ago. A pity he died last year.

Excessive study of linguistics is seldom healthy.

 

[warpus]

So essentially, your criteria for an intellectual is a scientist.

Well... Not all scientists are intellectuals, and non-scientists can easily perform academic research and satisfy all the other criteria. So the two groups overlap, but are by no means equivalent

I'm just pretty much going by what wikipedia told me an intellectual was. I sort of have an idea of the topic of course, but I am trying to go by some sort of a more formalized definition. That's why "research" came up, because it was one of the first points in the article. If you read my first post in which "research" comes up, all the other main points from the article are listed as well, I believe. Research is by no means the most important variable, or anything like that. It's just one of the factors, at least if we go by that definition

I like the definition because it raises the bar high, but yeah it also explains why a lot of recent great thinkers have also been scientists!

Who are we, mere forum posters, to equate ourselves with such greats as {insert famous intellectual 1} or {insert famous intellectual 2} ? If you want to be an intellectual, go out there, do it right, and get back to us with some big ideas and some nobel chemistry prizes, or whatever. You can't just read Guns, Germs & Steel and become an intellectual. We're just keyboard warriors who happen to know more than the average person about the Byzantine Empire

In my mind the word "intellectual" sits at the top (or near the top) of a hierarchy of intelligence and inquiry:

At the top: The Ultimate Thinker
Near the top: Intellectuals
Above average: CFCOT posters as a whole
Average: Guy on couch
Rock bottom: A potato

Do I raise the bar too high? I guess maybe? It just seems like it should be high. And some of us on here reach it! That's great, we should be proud of that, that such people want to be a part of this community

We're an awesome group of people overall, sort of, compared to all the other forums I've ever been on anyway. But we're surely not pretentious enough to claim that we're all a bunch of intellectuals

 

[Gori the Grey]

But we're surely not pretentious enough to claim that we're all a bunch of intellectuals

Some of us are

Spoiler :

pretentious enough,

And stop calling me Shirley.

But if your standard is that all of us would have to be intellectuals, for us to call us intellectuals, then certainly you are correct.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I copied and pasted that straight from wikipedia, so I assume academia level of research standards would be satisfactory here, i.e. something that would be accepted as a source in a paper published in a scientific publication.

Then I'm out. Everything I do is proprietary and will not see the light of day.

 

[warpus]

But if your standard is that all of us would have to be intellectuals, for us to call us intellectuals, then certainly you are correct.

There's a rather large gap between "some" and "all"

Then I'm out. Everything I do is proprietary and will not see the light of day.

If it would be theoretically acceptable as a source, then it's fine, IMO. You are probably pretty close to an intellectual, dude. Or even maybe one. I don't really feel well informed enough to say

 

[Gori the Grey]

Then I'm out. Everything I do is proprietary and will not see the light of day.

Drat, there goes what I thought was our ace in the hole.

This site has a rocket scientist, I was going to argue. You heard me a freakin' rocket scientist!

How we not intellectual if we got ourselves a freakin' rocket scientist?

Spoiler :

never mind that he can't change a lightbulb

 

[warpus]

How we not intellectual if we got ourselves a freakin' rocket scientist?

You can't just gather 5,000 monkeys around a rocket scientist and a theologian and call that a group of intellectuals

Not that the rest of us are monkeys, but I am using a different species for an emotional effect

 

[Gori the Grey]

How smart are the monkeys?

 

[Broken_Erika]

How smart are the monkeys?

I dunno, but some people seem to like their music...

 

[hobbsyoyo]

If it would be theoretically acceptable as a source, then it's fine, IMO. You are probably pretty close to an intellectual, dude. Or even maybe one. I don't really feel well informed enough to say

Well at least I got the self-reflection down. Everyday I'm thinking to myself, How did I blow off that guy's fingers? Don't do that again!