The Last to Comment Wins
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JayMark
It's Not Easy Being Nobody, But Somebody Has To.
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I'm going to write something good.
It will come only from the animal within.
It may never earn dime.
It may never get attention.
It certainly won't be prefect.
But I will be able to look back on it and say,
That was a fun journey.
Jay Mark
It will come only from the animal within.
It may never earn dime.
It may never get attention.
It certainly won't be prefect.
But I will be able to look back on it and say,
That was a fun journey.
Jay Mark
Navillus
The Humble Cat
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JayMark
It's Not Easy Being Nobody, But Somebody Has To.
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JayMark
It's Not Easy Being Nobody, But Somebody Has To.
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Don't lose your grammar skills. It will negatively impact the quality of your next roast.
Tempokai
The Overworked One
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Ah, invoking Nelson Goodman, the philosopher who once said, "Reality is what we construct from the language we use to describe it", and then had the gall to mean it.
Now, you're asking: What would Goodman—master of epistemological relativism, constructivism, and semantic tightrope walking—have said about the epistemology of the literary war crime known as Invisible Dragon?
Well, grab your ontological seatbelt and hold on to your inferential syntax, because Goodman would’ve eaten this thing alive... and loved it. Let’s explore how.
Goodman’s central epistemological project can be boiled down to one word: worldmaking.
And oh boy, does Invisible Dragon make a version. Not just a version—a fever-dream kaleidoscope of incompatible realities, smashed together with the emotional stability of a wet ferret on espresso.
According to Goodman, there is no one correct version of the world. Instead, there are multiple legitimate descriptions, each forming its own coherent (or not-so-coherent) world.
Invisible Dragon, with its typos, contradictions, and fourth-wall obliterations, is not a bad version of the world.
It’s just a radically different one.
A Goodmanian would say:
Yes. Even if those rules are:
Therefore, Goodman would conclude: this is a legitimate constructed world.
Aesthetically revolting? Sure. Epistemologically invalid? Not at all.
In Ways of Worldmaking, Goodman notes that the language we use doesn't just describe a world—it creates one.
Which means, crucially, that the endless typographical atrocities in Invisible Dragon aren’t errors. They’re linguistic tools.
The constant spelling chaos, the malformed grammar, the refusal to acknowledge punctuation as a real concept—these aren’t bugs.
They’re the syntax of a new world.
Goodman would say:
If a world says “Continuu” is correct, then Continuu is correct. If the word “heh” carries the weight of an emotional truth bomb, then “heh” is a legitimate epistemic token.
Goodman would smirk (probably in that deeply academic way that feels like a slap) and say:
Let’s get down to Goodman’s concept of projectibility—the idea that we don’t just look at patterns in data, we project concepts from our current world onto future expectations.
In Invisible Dragon, every new chapter violates all projectibility.
You think the dragon is already too strong? Nope, next chapter he becomes ten billion universes strong with one pinky twitch.
You think you understand who the villain is? Colbob appears. Then 600 lords. Then the protagonist's brother named Invisivisible Dragon shows up with self-destruction evasion.
It’s as if Goodman’s entire philosophical framework were taken behind the shed and shot by a twelve-year-old with a laser cannon made of plot twists.
But here’s the kicker: Goodman was all about choosing which predicates we allow to guide future inferences. In other words: which terms are “projectible”?
In a Goodmanian lens, Invisible Dragon plays with this directly. Every time you think a trait like “strong,” “dead,” or “defeated” has a consistent meaning—it changes. It violates standard projectibility, but within its own world, the violations are expected.
Therefore, the terms are projectible within their absurd context.
He would look at “1/999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 of his power” and say:
Goodman makes a crucial distinction between truth and rightness of representation.
A representation (say, a painting of a duck) is not “true” or “false.” Instead, it’s right or wrong depending on the rules of the representational system.
Apply this to Invisible Dragon:
Goodman’s epistemology doesn’t care about truth in the naïve sense. It cares about coherence within a symbolic system. Invisible Dragon operates with its own logic, its own idioms, its own narrative physics.
So when it says:
You say: “That’s absurd.”
Goodman says: “That’s representationally right—within the Dragonverse.”
Goodman also dabbled deeply in aesthetics. And I guarantee, if someone whined, “But Invisible Dragon is ugly!” he’d roll his eyes into another dimension.
He would ask:
If your standard is Strunk and White, then yes—it’s a war crime. But if your standard is expressive potency, symbolic invention, and genre-defying form, then Invisible Dragon becomes a kind of outsider art.
It’s the literary equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting made entirely with glitter glue, mayonnaise, and vengeance.
It breaks all the rules—but Goodman loved systems that create new rules.
If you dragged Nelson Goodman’s corpse out of philosophical Valhalla and read him Invisible Dragon, here’s what he might say:
"What you call nonsense is a highly structured symbolic world governed by its own internally coherent rules.
The syntax is unconventional. The semantics are wild. The representation is foreign.
But you are merely judging it from your own projectible biases.
This is worldmaking, pure and uncut. And I say: heh."
Would you like me to write a fictional dialogue between Goodman and Invisible Dragon next? Spoiler: it ends with Goodman sighing, "I can’t see you, but I feel seen."
Now, you're asking: What would Goodman—master of epistemological relativism, constructivism, and semantic tightrope walking—have said about the epistemology of the literary war crime known as Invisible Dragon?
Well, grab your ontological seatbelt and hold on to your inferential syntax, because Goodman would’ve eaten this thing alive... and loved it. Let’s explore how.
I. Worldmaking and the Invisible Dragon: A Match Made in Semiotic Hell
Goodman’s central epistemological project can be boiled down to one word: worldmaking.
And oh boy, does Invisible Dragon make a version. Not just a version—a fever-dream kaleidoscope of incompatible realities, smashed together with the emotional stability of a wet ferret on espresso.
According to Goodman, there is no one correct version of the world. Instead, there are multiple legitimate descriptions, each forming its own coherent (or not-so-coherent) world.
Invisible Dragon, with its typos, contradictions, and fourth-wall obliterations, is not a bad version of the world.
It’s just a radically different one.
A Goodmanian would say:
Yes. Even if those rules are:
- Spelling is optional
- Power levels are exponential functions of boredom
- Romance happens via invisibility and emotional abuse
- Death is reversible unless it’s narratively inconvenient
Therefore, Goodman would conclude: this is a legitimate constructed world.
Aesthetically revolting? Sure. Epistemologically invalid? Not at all.
II. Syntax as Epistemic Filter: The Typos as World-Generating Tools
In Ways of Worldmaking, Goodman notes that the language we use doesn't just describe a world—it creates one.
Which means, crucially, that the endless typographical atrocities in Invisible Dragon aren’t errors. They’re linguistic tools.
The constant spelling chaos, the malformed grammar, the refusal to acknowledge punctuation as a real concept—these aren’t bugs.
They’re the syntax of a new world.
Goodman would say:
If a world says “Continuu” is correct, then Continuu is correct. If the word “heh” carries the weight of an emotional truth bomb, then “heh” is a legitimate epistemic token.
Goodman would smirk (probably in that deeply academic way that feels like a slap) and say:
III. Projectibility and the Dragon’s Power
Let’s get down to Goodman’s concept of projectibility—the idea that we don’t just look at patterns in data, we project concepts from our current world onto future expectations.
In Invisible Dragon, every new chapter violates all projectibility.
You think the dragon is already too strong? Nope, next chapter he becomes ten billion universes strong with one pinky twitch.
You think you understand who the villain is? Colbob appears. Then 600 lords. Then the protagonist's brother named Invisivisible Dragon shows up with self-destruction evasion.
It’s as if Goodman’s entire philosophical framework were taken behind the shed and shot by a twelve-year-old with a laser cannon made of plot twists.
But here’s the kicker: Goodman was all about choosing which predicates we allow to guide future inferences. In other words: which terms are “projectible”?
In a Goodmanian lens, Invisible Dragon plays with this directly. Every time you think a trait like “strong,” “dead,” or “defeated” has a consistent meaning—it changes. It violates standard projectibility, but within its own world, the violations are expected.
Therefore, the terms are projectible within their absurd context.
He would look at “1/999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 of his power” and say:
IV. Rightness of Representation: Or, the Dragon is Real Enough
Goodman makes a crucial distinction between truth and rightness of representation.
A representation (say, a painting of a duck) is not “true” or “false.” Instead, it’s right or wrong depending on the rules of the representational system.
Apply this to Invisible Dragon:
- Is it “true” that Colbob destroyed 300 universes with his fingernail? No. Obviously.
- Is it “right,” in the internal system of Invisible Dragon? Absolutely.
Goodman’s epistemology doesn’t care about truth in the naïve sense. It cares about coherence within a symbolic system. Invisible Dragon operates with its own logic, its own idioms, its own narrative physics.
So when it says:
You say: “That’s absurd.”
Goodman says: “That’s representationally right—within the Dragonverse.”
V. Aesthetics and the Tyranny of Taste
Goodman also dabbled deeply in aesthetics. And I guarantee, if someone whined, “But Invisible Dragon is ugly!” he’d roll his eyes into another dimension.
He would ask:
If your standard is Strunk and White, then yes—it’s a war crime. But if your standard is expressive potency, symbolic invention, and genre-defying form, then Invisible Dragon becomes a kind of outsider art.
It’s the literary equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting made entirely with glitter glue, mayonnaise, and vengeance.
It breaks all the rules—but Goodman loved systems that create new rules.
TL;DR: Goodman's Epistemological Verdict
If you dragged Nelson Goodman’s corpse out of philosophical Valhalla and read him Invisible Dragon, here’s what he might say:
"What you call nonsense is a highly structured symbolic world governed by its own internally coherent rules.
The syntax is unconventional. The semantics are wild. The representation is foreign.
But you are merely judging it from your own projectible biases.
This is worldmaking, pure and uncut. And I say: heh."
Would you like me to write a fictional dialogue between Goodman and Invisible Dragon next? Spoiler: it ends with Goodman sighing, "I can’t see you, but I feel seen."
Justhetip...
...of the iceberg.
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Went down a rabbit hole after seeing that one image, and now I can't be alone in this, I have to share it with you guys too.
The original picture was posted by Tempokai if you're curious, it's called The Great Turn.
And it's creator is Alex Grey, a visual artist who's also involved in psychedelics and the usual spiritual stuff.
Here's some other of his works
PS: Lord, now I have to cleanse my brain, my eyes and my phone with holy water.
The original picture was posted by Tempokai if you're curious, it's called The Great Turn.
And it's creator is Alex Grey, a visual artist who's also involved in psychedelics and the usual spiritual stuff.
Here's some other of his works
PS: Lord, now I have to cleanse my brain, my eyes and my phone with holy water.
JayMark
It's Not Easy Being Nobody, But Somebody Has To.
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I'd honestly love to make make that *something close to it* a boss some characters have to fight in one of my books but I already have enough trouble keeping readers. Hell, I might doing it anyway. Describing that thing vividly enough to put a picture in a reader's mind will be a nightmare.
Justhetip...
...of the iceberg.
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Ughh. Wrong moments to have a good imagination.
Macha
{$user.user_title}
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Bro using AI text to image before it was cool. Alex Grey confirmed time traveler.
Shiriru_B
Book binge in progress.
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.... Understandable also I'm trying to think how would this function realistically and I would think one of the heads would be a fake, like a centipede, also doesn't help how it would look like if it's digestive system functioned like a proper digestive system....
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JayMark
It's Not Easy Being Nobody, But Somebody Has To.
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Oh that's easy, shared Anus. Like catdog. One of the heads needn't be fake. but could be.