A semantic stopsign or curiosity stopper is a meaningless, generic explanation that creates the 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 an important part of any anti-epistemology.

When specific words act as stopsigns, placing a rationalist taboo on them may help. Epistemic hygiene allows excluding some of the stopsigns raised by partial arguers or by 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