Archive for January 2010

Not for resale as a single unit

In Rants on 17 January 2010 with Comments Off

The poverty of stimulus theory argues (something along the lines) that language must be innate, not learned, because a child could not develop knowledge of complex grammar and language based on the limited input they receive from adults. It’s also something that keeps popping into my head as I get frustrated by myself and my inability to write.

I read A Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, and came out thinking that if I could write like that I could really write. And I think of incidents I could write about, how I would write about it. And then I get to the computer and instantly turn to Google Reader to catch up with the latest Lolcats before switching my attention to Twitter to see what knowledge I can glean in 140 characters.

And then I beat myself up because I order a copy of Didion’s non-fiction from Amazon since the library doesn’t have it and it seems to be hard to get. Because technically, I can’t really afford it.

And I beat myself up because I sign up for two courses I really want to do. Because technically, I can’t really afford it.

Lolcats? Lolcats are free.

But in this case, is free necessarily good? Is free healthy? It’s the cheap but bad for you food versus the expensive but good for you food argument, but in knowledge form.

Is information worth paying for? Can the stimulus be made richer simply by investing in it? How to tell the difference between what’s worth paying for, and what you wouldn’t (shouldn’t) use, even if it were free?

You can be an expert on anything on the internet. Pick a topic, make some lists, wait to be interviewed on other blogs – cha-ching, pop-up Expert. This is not necessarily expertise worth listening to. This is unlikely to be expertise worth listening to. That may be an unjustifiable comment, to assume that someone who blogs their knowledge knows less that someone who write journal articles.

What really matters is the provenance of the information. I trust Didion on grief because she has been there. Do I trust her more because she can write well about it? Because she has been published on the subject? If I wrote about grief, would I trust myself as a source? I have a degree in linguistics, but there are so many more places I would send you for information on linguistics than my brain, which can barely recount the poverty of the stimulus argument. I would send you to books. I would refer you to other people’s brains. Does that mean they’re experts? Or just that I trust in the provenance of the information? I trust them to tell you what they don’t know as well as what they do know.

I don’t know.