Semantic stopsign

Semantic stopsign or curiosity stopper is a meaningless generic explanation that creates an illusion of giving an answer, without actually explaining anything. Semantic stopsigns destroy curiosity, giving surrogate answers and stopping the search for truth prematurely. Can preserve incorrect beliefs for a long time, insisting on following cached thought without rethinking anything. A tool of dark arts and important part of any anti-epistemology.

When specific words act as stopsigns, placing a rationalist taboo on them may help. Epistemic hygiene allows to exclude some of the stopsigns raised by partial arguers or your own cognitive biases.

Blog posts

• Semantic Stopsigns
• Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions
• Fake Explanations
• "Science" as Curiosity-Stopper
• Explain/Worship/Ignore?
• The Futility of Emergence
• Conversation Halters

See also

• Curiosity, Separate magisteria
• Improper belief
• Fake simplicity, Cached thought
• Anti-epistemology, Logical rudeness
• Rationalist taboo, Epistemic hygiene
• Phlogiston