“Matter,” said the Dalai Lama, “is the experience in consciousness of a deeper non-material reality”. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Would it make you think quite so much, though, if it was uttered by Kim Kardashian?
Actually, it was said by neither. It is, instead, “pseudo-profound bullshit”, a phrase automatically generated by a pretentious algorithm. Now a new paper, the latest in the burgeoning field of pseudo-profound bullshit studies, has shown that even though the phrase is nonsense we are more likely to take it seriously if it is uttered by someone we respect.
The authors suggest this might cause us to assess the profundity or otherwise of some people considered public intellectuals, while also illustrating a very human need to find meaning in ambiguity.