The Flawless Debate

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Mr. Smile Face Hat: Sep 15, 2003; Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

I reject the concepts of "truth", flawlessness of debates or provable logic in reasoning pertaining to worldly affairs. Even math has inconsistencies and is based on unprovable axioms.

That is not to say that there aren't debating styles I like better than others. I see debates here and elsewhere more or less as a beauty contest of ideas that I either accept or reject to a degree. There are extraneous factors that influence the reception of an idea like how early it has been put forth, whether adherents take the time to address all counterpoints etcetera that shouldn't necessarily have an influence but do.
In many threads here, for example, there are one or two posters who vehemently put forth their viewpoint and who after a few pages fill 50% of the thread with their longish answers to every little point made against them, until the other side gives up for lack of time or nerves. That does not make one side better than the other but I'm afraid it often feels like the people with the longest breath have "won" the discussion.
I don't think it's possible to rid debates of these factors.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2008 01:40

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 00:00

Mr. Smile Face Hat: Sep 15, 2003; Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

Atomic Number 42 posted:

Keeping the "Yeah, but, I meant..." to a minimum is key, through discipline.

That has two sides, like all things. It can be legitimate if someone's words had been misconstrued to mean something else or it can be moving the goalposts.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2008 02:20

Mr. Smile Face Hat: Sep 15, 2003; Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

Atomic Number 42 posted:

Again, with perfect debate, these spins and twists would be minimized

I had missed that: In a perfect debate, problems would not exist. Otherwise it'd just be a very good debate by your standards.

Atomic Number 42 posted:

Again, those would be personal debate flaws that need to be acknowledged and called out.

How do you objectively determine dodging and spinning?

I guess our concepts of logic are too different.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2008 02:33

Mr. Smile Face Hat: Sep 15, 2003; Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

Atomic Number 42 posted:

But, honestly, deep down you know when you alter your own argument in order to circumvent a solid problem with it. You don't actually BELIEVE your new altered argument, you have just used it to circumvent this one instance of the problem, and you still retain your base beliefs.

Right, but I can honestly also tell you that I've had many instances in which I had to explain myself better because language barriers or definitions came into play. The problem is that all communications are imperfect and won't always (if ever) convey 100% of any mental concept.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2008 05:02

Mr. Smile Face Hat: Sep 15, 2003; Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

Canasta_Nasty posted:

math does not have inconsistencies

Okay, I had heard that somewhere and I am not a mathematician. Anyway, math deals in unprovable things like all things do.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2008 08:00

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 00:00

Mr. Smile Face Hat: Sep 15, 2003; Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

Grundulum posted:

I suppose it was a bit of a derail on my part. I have a pure mathematics degree, so I'm familiar with the field. I was hoping that flavor would expand on his statement, since I've never heard that claim made before.

I am thinking along the lines of Doom Mathematic. Math is a construct built on axioms (= reasonable sounding, but unprovable postulates). That's what I meant by "dealing in unprovables": You can prove things following from the axioms, but you can't start at zero and prove the axioms themselves.

I am not a Mathematician so my terms might be off, but that's how I have always understood it.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2008 09:39

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