Ben Evans

I. Outlining the Bluff If you are in a conversation with another person, and you cannot understand what they are saying, various possibilities present themselves; two of which are as follows: 1. They are much more intelligent or knowledgeable than you. So much more intelligent or knowledgeable than you, in fact, that you are unable to understand them. 2. They are talking nonsense. In any given case, it may be highly unobvious which of these possibilities pertains. Everyone who is even the least bit self-reflective knows that – as a statistical matter - there must be a great many people far more intelligent than them[1]. Moreover, everyone knows that there are even more people with knowledge of specialist fields, about which they know little. To resolve this problem, people look to social cues. These may include their interlocuter’s education, class, qualifications, and social position. This also extends to their behaviour: their confidence, the rapidity and ease of their responses to questions, and so on. Where arguments are textual, still other factors apply: the sophistication of their language and complexity of their arguments often ranking chief amongst them. This presents an extraordinary opportunity for incomprehensibility bluffing: being deliberately unintelligible, to convince your audience of the intellectual superiority of you or your arguments. The perversity of this phenomenon is startling. It is already a truism that confidence and social capital make people more convincing. It is far less remarked upon – if at all - that such factors’ efficacy may increase, as the sense that their possessor is making declines. II. Characterising the Bluff And there are still more fascinating characteristics of the incomprehensibility bluff to remark upon: 1. Of least interest, but potentially greatest relevance, is its ease. There are a great many more nonsensical than sensical statements in the possibility space of ideas[2], so it is much easier for peop