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Eww, I hate this:
A âdebate flowchartâ that Them in the subsequent example is following verbatim.
Me: âHi, excuse me, but you dropped your wallet before you stepped off the train, I thought youâd want it baââ
Them: âCan you envision anything that will change your mind on this topic?â
Me: âNot sure what you mean, I just thought you miââ
Them: âIf one of your arguments is shown to be faulty will you stop using that argument (with everyone)?â
Me: âI mean, statements are context-sensiââ
Them: âAre you prepared to abide by basic principles of reason in discussing this topic?â
Me: âSuch as?â
Them: âFor example, the position that is more reasonable and has more supporting evidence should be accepted as true.â
Me: âNot sure what you mean by âreasonableâ, and there have been false convictions made in cases where there seemed to be more indicia in favor ofââ
Them: âOr that the person asserting a position bears the onus of demonstrating its truth.â
Me: âI just thought you might wanna considââ
Them: âThis is a discussion. I will talk to you about this topic provided the following rules are obeyed.â
Me: ââObeyedââŚ? Iââ
Them: âRule number one! Do not introduce new arguments while another argument has yet to be resolved.â
Me: âSometimes a new argument, a new perspective can can help shine a new liââ
Them: âRule number two! Do not move on to another argument if it is shown that a fact you have relied upon is inaccurate.â
Me: âBut why should we dwell on a faulty argument for an otherwise true proposition if that argument has been disprââ
Them: âRule number three! Provide evidence for your position or arguments.â
Me: âEvidence? I didnât have a notary public with me when you drââ
Them: âRule number four! Do not argue that you do not âneedâ evidence.â
Me: âI just thought that perhââ
Them: âYou have breached the rules in the discussion. You cheated.â
Me: âI didnât even try to âwinâ, I justââ
Them: âThe discussion is terminated. You are deemed to have conceded all opposing arguments up to this point.â
Me: âWait a minute, I definitively donât thââ
Them: âYou forfeit any right to complain about the discussion. Congratulations! This is how rational human beings exchange ideas. đ Have a nice day.â
There are a ton of issues with this approach.
It comes across as unilateral. You are not saying anything about whether you are willing to change your own mind, you seem so sure youâre right. Don't worry, I'm not asking for false balance or arguing for every li'l sea lion to get to have their hours at the pulpit. Youâre just coming across as a steam roller.
But, OK, thatâs just rudeness.
The bigger problem is a foundational epistemological flaw. Humans betray the honest and curious search for truth when they entrench themselves before walking the road fully. We jump to conclusions. For example, you see a glint in the starry sky and you dig in to a camp of âit was definitively a flying saucer piloted by Zeta Reticulans with big eyes and small mouthsâ. We love a silver bullet. We love answers that are just one single simple consistent answer, that makes is feel like âOK, now we know the whole truth of the matter, glad thatâs settledâ. Itâs the Buddha-on-the-road that we forgot to kill.
Sometimes to understand something thatâs very far from what we currently know, we need to get a variety of new perspectives. That's not to condone gish galloping or overwhelming someone. You need to let each other breathe and pause and think. A true conversation takes time. Modern fundamentalist religion is based on the same fallacy that gave us string theory and Ayn Rand: you think youâve found this perfect, consistent, closed âsystemâ, and there you dig in. This flowchart was originally made by atheists with christians in mind, and Iâm sure in that context people were cheering it on, but imagine the exact same approach but placed in the hands of⌠letâs say a tobacco-risk denialist.
When youâre like âevery single statement you make needs to be followed by Evidenceâ while also playing loosey-goosey with the truth like saying âthe position that is more reasonable and has more supporting evidence should be accepted as trueâ. Supersymmetry was super reasonable (some would say that was the problem). Susy had a ton of evidence. But in the end it was not enough.
Donât worry, you donât owe every single billion people out there a genuine and heartfelt conversation. There is a lot of bad-faith approaches out there. But when we do decide to talk to someone, a friend perhaps, then letâs really talk and not just fall into a robotic and victory-oriented âdebateâ.
Instead, I wanna teach you something I think you mightâve missed (if not the entire concept then maybe a new aspect of it, or a way to think of it) while holding my own ideas loosely and being ready to change my own mind.
Wondermark: The Terrible Sea Lion
I found the original text and itâs a little bit gentler.
I do feel bad for digging into it because itâs a real person, discussing their private issues and the grief they get from their high school friends, and itâs also not on the real internet anymore, only Wayback Machine. So Iâm trying to address this with more nuance. Iâm simultaneously doubling down on some of what I wrote above while softening other parts.
The flowchart felt more fair game since itâs been posted and reposted including by some pretty sus types.
Conversations are a two way street in which both participants need to be willing to alter their position if it makes sense to do so.
Yeah. Itâs mutual. The flowchart version doesnât contradict that, of course, but spends so much time focusing on how I need to be willing to change my mind and not the other way around.
Iâll need you to tell me what could change your mind
And here we are again with the one-way street. Anything can make me change my mind. Iâve had some pretty big changes of heart and realizations over the years. But you need to offer the same if youâre asking for this. Or, rather, not all conversations have to be about changing minds. Sometimes people just wanna share.
Second, if I show that one of your arguments is a bad argument, how will that affect your position? Will you alter your position accordingly or will you maintain the exact same position and just move on to the next argument, and the next, and the next, and so forth?
This is being sloppy with âpositionâ; by âpositionâ they mean a particular argument, not (as I misunderstood it above) a proposition as a whole.
If you advance a fact and I show that fact to be inaccurate, do not simply throw out another argument as though we are finished. It is important to resolve individual arguments before moving forward.
Iâm super notâon-board with this but I can rephrase it in a way that gets me on-board: âit is helpful to explicitly say things like âOK, youâre right about that one. I have another issueâ or âCan we please put a pin in this one because I think this next one willâŚâ People like clarity and explicit validation.
Also, either provide evidence for your position or against mine.
The âor against mineâ was a pretty crucial omission from the original flowchart. The text version is generally more nuanced and âsymmetricalâ.
Whichever position is more reasonable and has more supporting evidence is the one that should be accepted as true. If you start making excuses for why you donât have evidence or for why you should maintain your position even though itâs unreasonable
Eppur si muove.
I never wanna argue semantics but youâre using âreasonableâ in an unusual way. More often it means just, fair, lagom, a reasonable price, a reasonable amount of time, etc. I am not trying to be uncharitable but itâs genuinely unclear to me whether theyâre saying âaccording to most peopleâs general common senseâ (in which case itâd be in the company of so much wrongness over the year) or âaccording to reasonâi.e. deducible from premisesâ; seems like theyâre equivocating those two meanings.
Iâm not a denier of objective truth but Iâm also not a fan of clinging too tightly to hasty guesses of what that objective truth really is.
if your faith is a matter of utter certainty, then it has not integrated humility and doubt; and if your position will not change in the face of contradictory evidence, then you are not searching for the truth
Here, Iâll grant them something big: The kind of religious practice that deliberately disdains reason and questioning in favor of unyielding, pure-hearted trust can not also schlep out âthereâs no transitional fossilsâ Kent Hovind-style faux science and fake evidence. That is dishonest to both themselves and to the person theyâre talking to. Great point.
Whenever I agree to meet with someone, I insist that the conversation be filmed. Afterward, I will post it unedited to my blog (you may also post the video of our conversation wherever you wish)
⌠holy shit no. I shoulda read all the way to the end before trying to be nuanced because that is messed the heck up.