Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Strange Searching

Looking at the statistics for this blog, I am amazed by the most common keywords which return a hit here. They have obvious connections, some of them; but some of them are just peculiar.

Excluding words like 'are', 'the', 'and' and so on, the highest ranking search keyword is 'knowledge'. That's probably inflated by people looking for something that will help them with TOK essays or something.

But the next highest ranking search keyword is 'Frankenstein', which must be linked to 'Victor' at #6. I don't know what I've said about Victor Frankenstein which is unique and makes so many people from around the world visit my blog. The relevant article, victim of many hits, is this one.

#3, 4 and 5 are 'different', 'areas' and 'extent'. #7, 8 and 9 are 'truth', 'meeting' and 'strange'. #10, 11 and 12 are 'ethics', 'arts' and 'mathematics'. #13, 14 and 15 are 'God', 'discovered' and 'invented'. #16 and 17 are 'claim' and 'discuss'. #18, 19 and 20 are 'order', 'glimpsed' and 'chaos'.

It's like some sort of peculiar message from the back of beyond, a strange message in half-seen, half-heard poetry. It probably reads something like this:

Knowledge.
Victor Frankenstein,
Different areas extend truth;
Meeting strange ethics,
Arts, mathematics.
God discovered, invented
Claim, discuss
Order glimpsed chaos.

Sometimes I think there is something to be said for emergent meaning in the midst of apparent randomness. It is the holy grail of qualitative research; it is also a limitation of human cognition, making us see meaning where there may be none at all.

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Note: Hmm, I suspect that 'strange' and 'meeting' come from my citation of Wilfred Owen's poem here and also here. The latter is probably more useful to literature students.

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