If the goal is intellectual progress, those who disagree should aim not for name-calling but for honest counterargument.
and
DH7: Improve the Argument, then Refute Its Central Point...if you’re interested in producing truth, you will fix your opponents’ arguments for them. To win, you must fight not only the creature you encounter; you [also] must fight the most horrible thing that can be constructed from its corpse.”
I would add that the goal of intellectual progress sometimes extends beyond you-the-rationalist, to the (potentially less than rational) person you’re arguing with. The goal is not just to “produce” the truth, or to recognize the truth with your own two eyes. The goal is to both locate the truth and convince the other person that it is in fact the truth.
Often, I find myself in the following scenario: Someone says, “X and Y, therefore Z!” And off the bat, I have a good idea of what they’re thinking and where the logic goes bad. But in point of fact, they are being loose with semantics, and there exist definitions of X and Y consistent with their original (loose) statements which would imply Z. I could ask them clarifying questions and get them to pin down their position further...but alternatively, I am free to say, “Surely you don’t mean this one thing [which they really do mean] because here’s how that would go bad. Perhaps you really meant this other thing? Am I understanding you correctly?”
This makes it much easier for people to “back down” from their original position without losing face, because they are framed as not having ever committed to that position in the first place. The reality is that we often have a choice between nailing someone in place and offering them up as a sacrifice to the logic gods—in which case we don’t really win since the logic gods can’t actually touch people who don’t submit to their power—or deliberately leaving them untethered, so that they will more willingly adjust to new evidence.
Here it’s not so much that I’m constructing the best argument from the corpse of their fully formed argument and striking it down. It’s more like encouraging the growth of an adolescent argument in a direction that does not require it to be struck down, in the process striking down the bad argument that the original argument would have grown into, and trying to ensure that my “opponent” doesn’t end up getting slain along with the bad argument.
This would be out of place in the above post, but I thought it was worthy of a discussion on Better Disagreement. Because I used to think the way to win was to pin people into logical corners, but if you’re goal is partly to convince people, and those people are like most people, then in my (limited) experience, this way works So. Much. Better.
I find this is the most constructive way to resolve a debate between two people (see: http://lesswrong.com/lw/881/the_pleasures_of_rationality/) But in long-running debates, or ones with heated debaters, this is much harder. Firstly, because many debates are long running precisely because this strategy cannot be applied to the,. The issue with heated debaters is that this requires an open mindset of looking for truth versus looking to prove yourself right, which I find lacking in many debates.
and
I would add that the goal of intellectual progress sometimes extends beyond you-the-rationalist, to the (potentially less than rational) person you’re arguing with. The goal is not just to “produce” the truth, or to recognize the truth with your own two eyes. The goal is to both locate the truth and convince the other person that it is in fact the truth.
Often, I find myself in the following scenario: Someone says, “X and Y, therefore Z!” And off the bat, I have a good idea of what they’re thinking and where the logic goes bad. But in point of fact, they are being loose with semantics, and there exist definitions of X and Y consistent with their original (loose) statements which would imply Z. I could ask them clarifying questions and get them to pin down their position further...but alternatively, I am free to say, “Surely you don’t mean this one thing [which they really do mean] because here’s how that would go bad. Perhaps you really meant this other thing? Am I understanding you correctly?”
This makes it much easier for people to “back down” from their original position without losing face, because they are framed as not having ever committed to that position in the first place. The reality is that we often have a choice between nailing someone in place and offering them up as a sacrifice to the logic gods—in which case we don’t really win since the logic gods can’t actually touch people who don’t submit to their power—or deliberately leaving them untethered, so that they will more willingly adjust to new evidence.
Here it’s not so much that I’m constructing the best argument from the corpse of their fully formed argument and striking it down. It’s more like encouraging the growth of an adolescent argument in a direction that does not require it to be struck down, in the process striking down the bad argument that the original argument would have grown into, and trying to ensure that my “opponent” doesn’t end up getting slain along with the bad argument.
This would be out of place in the above post, but I thought it was worthy of a discussion on Better Disagreement. Because I used to think the way to win was to pin people into logical corners, but if you’re goal is partly to convince people, and those people are like most people, then in my (limited) experience, this way works So. Much. Better.
I find this is the most constructive way to resolve a debate between two people (see: http://lesswrong.com/lw/881/the_pleasures_of_rationality/) But in long-running debates, or ones with heated debaters, this is much harder. Firstly, because many debates are long running precisely because this strategy cannot be applied to the,. The issue with heated debaters is that this requires an open mindset of looking for truth versus looking to prove yourself right, which I find lacking in many debates.