Georgia Tech computer science PhD student Mark Nelson sends along what is surely the best piece of writing ever about ontology and burritos, Specters of Tacology.
As Mark notes, I sometimes joke that after my career as a game scholar (a ludologist, if you insist) is over, I’ll take up the burrito as my subject (a field I once dubbed tacology). But Mark has an early lead, addressing the very filling of the issue before I’ve even unwrapped its shiny foil exterior. An excerpt that will whet your appetite for more:
What happens when the incautious scholar turns an eye towards the burrito itself? As a first step, one may take notice of the burrito, but still claim to not really be interested in it. “I am here only to adjudicate some dispute”, says the professor. “There has been a legal dispute involving a burrito, and as a professor of law I must investigate the facts and explain how the law applies”. But here already confusion and unease arises. For the professor does not really know what a burrito is.
Nelson’s conclusion? “The burrito must be studied, but today it surfaces among scholars only as trauma.” One can hope, as Mark does, that tacology will indeed wrap up such an era of sorrow and ignorance.