Placeholder nonsense holds a place open in language and mind, in lieu of secure knowledge concerning a subject. Nonsense is put in as a placeholder, anticipating that someday it may be replaced by confirmed truth and sound knowledge. In that respect then, placeholder nonsense is an aspirational form of thought and language looking forward toward eventual new truth. Martin Gardner described how Arthur Eddington attributed that very status to nonsense in physics.
“Jabberwocky” was a favorite of the British astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington and is alluded to several times in his writings. In New Pathways in Science, he likens the abstract syntactical structure of the poem to that modern branch of mathematics known as group theory. In The Nature of the Physical World, he points out that the physicist’s description of an elementary particle is really a kind of “Jabberwocky”—words applied to “something unknown” that is “doing what we don’t know what.” Because the description contains numbers, science is able to impose a certain amount of order on the phenomena and make successful predictions about them. Eddington wrote:
By contemplating eight circulating electrons in one atom and seven circulating electrons in another, we begin to realize the difference between oxygen and nitrogen. Eight slithy toves gyre and gimble in the oxygen wabe; seven in nitrogen. By admitting a few numbers, even “Jabberwocky” may become scientific. We can now venture on a prediction; if one of its toves escapes, oxygen will be masquerading in a garb properly belonging to nitrogen. In the stars and nebulae, we do find such wolves in sheep’s clothing, which might otherwise have startled us. It would not be a bad reminder of the essential unknownness of the fundamental entities of physics to translate it into “Jabberwocky”; provided all numbers—all metrical attributes—are unchanged, it does not suffer in the least.61
Nonsense also apparently functioned as a placeholder for Francis Galton as he wrestled with solving problems in his mind. Galton (1822–1911) was an influential scientist who contributed to fields as diverse as meteorology, geography, genetics, statistics, and psychology. He also invented identification by fingerprints.
Galton was habitually introspective. He paid close attention to his inner process of thinking about problems. Galton said that he never thought in ordinary words. Sometimes, though, he would experience an accompaniment of nonsense words in his mind as he was deep in thought, working at solving problems. He said that experiencing the nonsense words was just “as the notes of a song might accompany thought.”62
To summarize, nonsense is an integral factor in reason and the pursuit of truth. Nonsense is neither true nor false, yet nonsense comes in degrees and sometimes transmutes into new truths. Nonsense seems to be built into some basic concepts of science, such as time, and therefore nonsense serves as a placeholder in the search for knowledge.
Nonsense interacts dynamically with reason in the quest for knowledge, and we have developed a body of systematic knowledge about nonsense itself. Can we apply rational knowledge about nonsense to speed up the process of acquiring knowledge alone or point it in promising new directions? Those are questions for the future. In the meantime, we will look at some implications and applications of the rational principles of nonsense developed thus far.
[contents]
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60. Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 46.
61. Carroll and Gardner, The Annotated Alice, 192–193.
62. Galton, “Thought Without Words,” 29.
Chapter 7
The Theory of Nonsense
It’s frustrating to know in your heart that what you’ve just heard is nonsense but not to be able to pinpoint why it is nonsense.
Robert J. Gula
Common sense is wrong about nonsense, for common sense views nonsense as an unknowable, formless nothingness that is inherently separate from reason and logic. However, in this book we have reduced a large amount of knowledge about nonsense to a few transparent statements that are rationally comprehensible and confirmable. In effect, the statements in this book form an emerging preliminary theory of nonsense. This chapter will shore up the theory by refining concepts, closing loopholes, and forestalling foreseeable objections.
Nonsense operates by its own intelligible, internal logic. Aristotelian logic works only with true or false statements that are of literal meaning. In other words, it is a binary code that allows only two values: true and false. Moreover, according to Aristotle’s law of the excluded middle, a statement must be either true or false.
Earlier, though, we saw that nonsensical sentences are neither true nor false, even if they look like statements. Accordingly, then, we can think of nonsense as a third value of logic, apart from truth and falsehood. Yet, as we also saw, in some cases nonsense can somehow transmute into truth. Furthermore, nonsense exists and is defined in terms of the same rules and conventions that govern ordinary language and logic.
The upshot of all this is that rational principles of nonsense constitute an auxiliary non-Aristotelian logic of three values. In effect, a piece of reason was missing. By filling in the vacant space, the theory of nonsense opens a new level of reason and analysis.
Borderline Nonsense
Nonsense is bounded in part by borderline cases. Common sense puts nonsense on one side of an unbridgeable divide and meaningful language on the opposite side. The reality of the situation is not so simple, though. Some language falls somewhere in the middle and blurs the boundary between nonsense and meaningful language. As James Thurber said, “Ours is a precarious language, as every writer knows, in which the merest shadow line often separates affirmation from negation, sense from nonsense, and one sex from the other.”63
Reflecting on borderline cases brings the concept of nonsense into sharper focus. After all, borderline cases of nonsense exist because there are clear-cut cases of nonsense with which to contrast them.
Ornamental English
What is known as ornamental English provides illuminating borderline cases of nonsense. Ornamental English is a form of decorative writing used mainly in Japan. Using writing as a decoration is a time-honored tradition of Japan. In the aftermath of World War II, many Japanese favorably associated the English language with modernization. Strange messages, such as those below, soon began to appear on clothing and accessories manufactured for domestic consumption.
On a handbag:
ReSpice Enjoy fashion life,
Nice to Heart and Just Impression
On another handbag:
The New York City Theater District
Is where you can and us, anyone
On an eyeglasses case:
This case packs my dream and
Eyeglasses