Sep 29, 2007

Discordianism

Discordianism is a modern, chaos-centered religion founded circa 1958–1959 by Malaclypse the Younger with the publication of its principal text, the Principia Discordia. It is widely regarded as a parody religion, and has been called “Zen for roundeyes”, based on similarities with absurdist interpretations of the Rinzai school. Discordianism recognizes chaos, discord, and dissent as valid and desirable qualities, in contrast with most religions, which idealize harmony and order. The religion is largely composed of whimsical and absurd ideas, though many adherents claim there is a deeper meaning to their flippant attitude. Eris is the matron deity of the religion.

The funny thing is, the wiki entry perfectly exemplifies the thing it describes: it’s chaotic, full of absurdity and discord. I guess you could call it an autological wiki entry (autological words are words that describe themselves).

This leads to a paradox, called the Grelling–Nelson paradox, which we can state in terms of wiki pages instead of the usual words. A wiki page is autological if it describes itself. If it doesn’t, it is heterological. Now, would a wiki page on heterologicality be heterological? If it would, it would be autological, leading to a contradiction, and if it wouldn’t, it would be heterological, also a contradiction.

About
Daily Meh is written and edited by Simen (contact me). I live in Norway. This blog is about whatever interests me. Here are some of my favorite posts from the archives. You can subscribe via RSS.