this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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The metaphor attempts to lead the reader to the answer themselves. When the Great Philosopher asks which has more value, the reader should be able to answer that question even if the answer isn't written in the text. Of course, both $30 in bills and $30 in coins are worth exactly $30, despite the differences in their mass. Through the magic of reading comprehension, one can link that to the original question: despite their differences in mass, both are equally valuable, because both are breasts. The question was invalid.
Ironically, I'm having trouble parsing this. Can you rephrase it?
The context I was referring to is the assumed purpose of the Great Philosopher's use of the metaphor & the assumed scope of the comparison between bills and coins to be of their representative money denomination only. You have acknowledged in your explanation that both are equally valuable despite their differences in their mass, but this same qualification is not included in the OP and that's the source of the confusion. After the difference is mentioned in their penultimate question, the word 'but' is used as a soft indication of an ultimate answer converse to the previous answer, coins, which have greater mass. In the text and subtext, the use of this word is the first and only indication whatsoever of the Great Philosopher's implication and answer. But with this info alone it still is still equally possible that the Great Philosopher's point is that both $30 of bills and coins are of equal value and therefore, both big and small boobs are of equal value; or that bills subjectively have greater value as a result of their lower mass and therefore that small boobs are greater in value than big boobs.
This is not further clarified in the text. You can use your relevant formative experiences to figure out the intended point, probably more than 50% of the time. But if you posted this on a small boob enthusiast forum, everyone there would understand this meme to be justifying their enthusiasm about small boobs.
I used the word lieu incorrectly. The respondent has recognised the same subtext that is present and that you had recognised but they did not understand in spite of this, because it does not indicate what you're suggesting
I'm still a bit confused. Which respondent? The only three people in this line of comments are you, me, and the person talking about how most US adults don't read at a high school level. Do you mean thatguyfromthatwebsite? He literally doesn't recognize the subtext—he remains under the assumption that because a question with two answers was posed, one of those two answers must be right.
The respondent in the actual post, their assumption is that the metaphor would demonstrate the answer to the proposed question, which for many readers it did. It didn't for thatguy, and this is explained by the following respondents in the meme as being a result of thatguy's existing biases. The reality is that all readers came to whatever conclusion they did based primarily on their existing biases, like for an example a bias toward memes which equally represent big and small boobs. Because there is no complete literal interpretation of the parable as it is written.
If it were a matter of the shared social goal & responsibility of general comprehension between reader & writer (& other readers), there are a few clues which should have suggested to thatguy that both sizes being equal was the intent. There was some missed responsibility on the part of the writer to ensure clarity there too. Of course, no one is perfect and that's why most people just subjectively fill in whatever gaps exist, usually subconsciously. But that's not reading comprehension. The fcat you are albe to raed tihs sntenece and udnrsetnad it is not raednig cmoerpehrnison, any more than when I misspeak to you and you understand what I meant. That's just science. Neurology and free association. A concept fully divorced from reading comprehension. Maybe people want a better term for it now and thought 'reading comprehension' made sense, but it's already taken and means something else.
In reading comprehension, it doesn't matter how confusing or not the parable is, or whether the reader truly understands the writer's perspective once they've finished the text. All that matters is the reality of the text. If it is a text, there is some literary convention in it. Objectively you can understand it or not, and reading comprehension is a way to measure this.