From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Fri Apr 04 2003 - 17:46:02 MST
On 4 Apr 2003 at 12:08, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> --- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com> wrote:
> > How do we promote discussions based on "facts" (or
> > perhaps
> > qualify them when the facts may be open to debate)?
> >
> > This may get very hard -- even considering the
> > relatively neutral
> > topic of cosmology -- recent articles have created
> > questions about
> > everything from the shape (and lifetime) of the
> > universe to cosmic
> > ray particle densities. If one can't count on the
> > "facts" of the
> > universe itself -- what "facts" can you count on?
>
> Indeed, and Damien makes a good point about how some
> people are not even open to the idea of considering
> evidence that counters their point of view in the
> first place.
>
> Debate - honest, rational debate - requires commitment
> from both sides. If you enter a situation where the
> other side is determined not to be convinced,
> including such things as rejecting as lies any facts
> you supply, refusing to evaluate any logic you
> provide,
> and so forth, then you can not change the other
> person's mind, at least at that time on that
> subject.In those situations, if convincing the person
> is truly
> important, the solution is to find what channels for
> input said person's memes have left.
I have to agree with the above. Even on this forum, where logic, reasonable
debate and carefully considered positions are all actively selected for, the
actual number of well reasoned debates that I've encountered here have been
small.
One of the major problems that I note is communication. Its amazing how
often one person will very clearly state the position: A->B, only to have
their opponent 'interpret' this as: F(A)->G(B) where F and G are arbitrary
functions imposed during the interpretation such that the results which are
'understood' by the opponent have no bearing on what the original poster
stated. When BOTH sides are doing this interpreting (as seems to be the most
common case) is it any wonder that nothing can be agreed on?
One of the ancient Greeks (Aristotle? Sophocles? I forget) once pointed out
that in order to have an actual DEBATE you must first carefully sit down and
compare your axioms and your language. Otherwise, you wont know what someone
else means when they say something, nor will you know those things that they
feel go without saying.
To bring things back to the topic line, I have been in discussions where
someone has succeeded in changing my point of view. So far, this has only
ever occurred when discussing something in person and never in an online
debate. Examining what these events have in common might shed some light on
the whole topic (or perhaps just on what it takes to persuade me of
something...)
So, all of these events seemed to have the following things in common:
1) They were all long, intense debates. By that I mean that we traded
arguments back and forth at the rate of several a minute for the better part
of an hour. This is not an unsually long conversation, but would be an
unusually long thread in most online communities.
2) There were only two of us. Its hard enough to keep track of what you've
discussed and what the other person appears to believe when there are only
two of you. When there are three or more, its hopeless.
3) I was talking with someone who's opinion I respect, and who I know has
respect for me. Thus, whenever things appeared to be heading towards
personal attacks or deliberate misinterpretation, I KNEW that it was in fact
due to some sort of communications problem, and would focus on that until we
were once again on the same wavelength. Sadly, this is practically unheard-
of in the online world.
4) My opponent was willing to SHUT UP long enough for me to think about the
implications of what they had said. I find that in any number of occasions,
someone has said something profound during a conversation. Something that
MIGHT potentially challenge my viewpoint, and cause me to change it, but they
wont stop talking long enough for me to commit it to memory, and it gets
lost. And, of course, they never know what they said that might have been
profound (to me) and cannot repeat it. This at least is not a problem in the
online community, where you can take (and should take) as long as you need to
think about someone's post before you reply.
5) The clincher to any debate, the thing that turns the tide, is almost
always something trivial to the speaker. Its usually one of the 'goes without
saying' things that we disagree on, and until someone actually expresses this
minor point, we don't even know that its the sticking point of the entire
conversation. Once this point has been brought into the light, we then end up
in some sort of agreement, either by someone changing points of view, by
discovering that we agreed all along but from different viewpoints, or by
discovering that we totally disagree on that one axiom, and there's nothing
further to debate on the subject. I think that because typing takes more
effort than speaking (for the vast majority) then its these trivial points
that never get stated, since the effort is always put into presenting one's
(in one's own oppinion) more complex and more 'persuasive' arguments in as
clear a manner as possible.
-- Stirling Westrup | Use of the Internet by this poster sti@cam.org | is not to be construed as a tacit | endorsement of Western Technological | Civilization or its appurtenances.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Apr 04 2003 - 17:53:15 MST