If you haven’t read the “About” page, you should. It’s cool. I’ll wait.

I play EVE Online. I wait recreationally.

As I mention, in order to keep this exercise from devolving into a meandering mess, entries from the main page will archived categorically and hierarchically. That way, the day-to-day randomness will (hopefully), over time, build toward something more systematic and comprehensive.

As I introduce new (sub-)categories to the site, I’ll do so through an introductory post (like this one) that explains the purpose and scope of the discussion that will fall under that particular header.

Cannot wait until we get to the “sophistic horseshit” category.

Since the purpose of this site is to stake out and explore this thing I’ve dubbed, “morology,” it seems fitting that discussion should start there.

If we’re going to be talking about morology as a serious “study of nonsense,” then it would be useful to begin with the sort of deliberate self-reflection that should be expected of any intellectual enterprise. What is the nature of the investigation? How does it relate to other projects that have come before it, and where does it fit on the overall map of existing knowledge? What are its core concepts, and how should those be defined? What does it aim to accomplish, and by what method(s)?

In the social sciences and (empirically-based) humanities, such self-reflective discourse is sometimes referred to as “meta-theory.” In actuality, the concerns are more of a philosophical than a theoretical nature—an admixture of ontological, epistemological, and methodological questions/commitments that lay down the necessary (if arbitrary) ground-rules for theory and research in that field.

No, it’s not on the test. Put your hand down, spaz.

Luckily, we’re only just getting started. And I’ve never been one for metaphysical navel-gazing, anyway. (More on that, later.) So, that’s about as many big, technical terms in such close proximity as we’re likely to encounter for some while.

In the meantime, tho, we do need a starting point. So, how about this? Is a “science of nonsense” itself a sensible proposition? …