Info: Why forum discussion are bound to escalate

Eggs are for breakfast, hence they must come first. Chicken is for Dinner. Duh.
 
Learn something new every day. :)
I'll try to not mix them up again.

The chicken-and-egg scenario is not a suitable example to take, if we are going to discuss this point; so if you really want to, i suggest you start a new thread.

Hell no, not yet another thread with you and me discussing ad nauseam! :laugh:
But well, go ahead and suggest a topic you find more suited - i might bite... ;)

But I totally disagree: a discussion which limits itself to a basis of rational thinking. and excludes everything else, is pretty damned useless in most contexts.

Discussion IS logics, Discussion IS rational argueing - everything else is not a discussion (or well, not a fruitful one).
If you derive an argument from an emotion or belief, everyone can just "agree" or "disagree", but not dispute it.


Even most (perhaps all) significant advances in science were kickstarted by a flash of intuition (which is not rational).

There, you said it yourself: Kickstarted by intuition - if you want to discuss it, you have to stick to facts - not saying that intuition cannot be the source for ideas, but before you "throw them into the ring", you'll have to apply some logics and turn your intuition into an actual argument, otherwise it is just belief (see above).

Rational thinking is just one of the mental tools at our disposal, and not a very sharp one at that, in most cases.

If rational thinking is not a sharp tool, what is? Can't think of anything better. Actually, it is the only tool there is if you want to separate myth from facts.


Just look at how many conflicting ideas are amenable to rational support

Aaah, this is where you come from! :D
Well, there is logics, the pure white light of indisputeable truth - and then we have pseudo-logics, which is way more common, usually (ab)used like pretty much every unfair discussion technique, to make someone believe in something that is not true - what you see most is i.e. that someone states two commonly known facts nobody would dispute - and then he deducts some utter bullcrap - and people swallow it, because it started off oh so logical!!
 
Eggs are for breakfast, hence they must come first. Chicken is for Dinner. Duh.

I work the night shift, so I wake up in time for dinner, then work all night and come home for breakfast. So i'm thinking the chicken comes first.
 
The chicken-and-egg scenario is not a suitable example to take, if we are going to discuss this point; so if you really want to, i suggest you start a new thread.

As I see it, the chicken and egg scenario was meant as an example for the bigger, main topic of how we all can do better when we express our thoughts here on the forum, so that things don't get out of hand. What I also see here, is a statement that says "this is what I believe, but I'm not opening this statement up for debate." However, if you want to turn the chicken and egg debate into an emotional or moral or ethics debate example, while it is obviously not such a debate, you can turn it into one with a little bit of creativity. For example, "The good book of lootius says that on the third day came the egg, therefore, we must believe that the egg came first." This is how the most controversial morals debates usually start out. ;)

I actually have more to write based on what has been said by all parties so far, but my time at the moment is limited, so I will have to post later.
 
Hell no, not yet another thread with you and me discussing ad nauseam! :laugh:
But well, go ahead and suggest a topic you find more suited - i might bite... ;)
Heh. Heck. my intuitiion is a little lame, atm. Can't come up with a suuggestion



Discussion IS logics, Discussion IS rational argueing - everything else is not a discussion (or well, not a fruitful one).
If you derive an argument from an emotion or belief, everyone can just "agree" or "disagree", but not dispute it.



There, you said it yourself: Kickstarted by intuition - if you want to discuss it, you have to stick to facts - not saying that intuition cannot be the source for ideas, but before you "throw them into the ring", you'll have to apply some logics and turn your intuition into an actual argument, otherwise it is just belief (see above).
A somewhat minor point. perhaps, but a really fruitful discussion would consist in intuitive people throwing their ideas into the ring, and the more logical people picking them up and either supporting or negating them. People who excel at both intuition and logic are pretty rare. Also, it often takes a flash of intuition to discover the flaw in a comminly-held belief. So a really good discussion is bound to have elements of both.



If rational thinking is not a sharp tool, what is?
As I observed above, rational thinking is not everybody's forte. It's a very blunt instument in some people's hands (but you'll never keep those people out of discussions, will you?). Intuition, in general, might be said be sharper because its faster, of course. It can take years to develop credible rational support for an idea that you intuitively grasped. Sometimes,. when faced with a decision, its better to go with the intuitive idea, rather than dismiss it. I'm sure there must be times in your life when you really wish you had (You're a very unusual individual, if not)


Aaah, this is where you come from! :D
Well, there is logics, the pure white light of indisputeable truth - and then we have pseudo-logics, which is way more common, usually (ab)used like pretty much every unfair discussion technique, to make someone believe in something that is not true - what you see most is i.e. that someone states two commonly known facts nobody would dispute - and then he deducts some utter bullcrap - and people swallow it, because it started off oh so logical!!

You're quite right, as far as you go. That's one of the dangers of an over-dependancy on logic. "logic" can be used to lead people down the garden path. But that's not always deliberate. You also have people who rweally do believe their own bullcrap, who think that they are being very logical, and who look down with disdain on anyone who takes a different POV. These are the "over-rational" people that I mentioned. The fact is that nobody is entirely rational, but some people identify almost exclusively with the rational side of their mind, and suppress or deny everything else. The result is that everything that pops into their head is either assumed to be rational, or else rejected out of hand. Since rationality can't make effective snap judgements like that, but the guy's self-image is at stake, you get really thin, but stubbonly adherered to reasoning, with a lot of pertinent marterial ignored. Worse, the repressed emotional material has an absolute field day, because it will get out in sorts of sneaky ways; and if the personality is blind to this stuff, then it won;t be subject to the usual rational controls.

And logic , btw is decidedly not "the pure white light of indisputeable truth" if such a thing even exists.
Take mathematics. (can we find a more logical disciplinee than that?) It begins with a set (or rather several sets, to be picky about it) of rigorous axioms, and proceeds to deduce a whole mass of conclusions from those axioms, using strict logic at every step, We can pretty sure (unless our reasoning is faulty) that if those axioms are true then all the rest of it it true.

The ancient Greeks believed that the Euclid's axioms of geometry were "self-evident truths". This survives as a dictionary definition, but modern maths has moved way beyond that simplistic view, and realised that axioms, in general, are not necessarily true at all, but quite simply unprovable. In general, if you can show that axioms are true of some kind of real-world problem, then you can confidently apply a whole body of maths to that problem (eg the surface of the earth conforms well enough to Euclid's axioms, that you safely apply Euclidian Geometry to it ...if you take a small enough section). However there's, no clear indispuable set of axioms just a number of alternative axiomatic systems, with mathemetiicians endlessly debating their completeness etc

Enough about maths, when it comes to anything less rigorous, we're really up the spout, because how ever "logical" people are, they almost never define their basic assumptions (or axioms) or even realise that they are making them. The result is that you can make any old crap appear logical, to those who share your basic assumptions (yourself included of course) In the average forum debate, you'll never pin down all those pernicious assumptions and question them

Fortunately we have our irrational faculties (intuition and feeling) to help us police this process and stop it getting too far out of hand. Of course, these are not infallible either. We have the rational side to curb the excesses of the irrartional side, and vice versa. That's how a healthy human psyche functions.


er, here endeth the lecture :laugh: (i'll try to shut up about this now)

jay :)
 
However, if you want to turn the chicken and egg debate into an emotional or moral or ethics debate example, while it is obviously not such a debate, you can turn it into one with a little bit of creativity. .
Indeed. I was just checking with Wizzszz that he really was happy to see his own thread escape his clearly defined parameters, like that :laugh:
 
I know the chicken and egg was just an example but since it is the only thing really being debated I just thought I would point something out. The chicken and egg question is a metaphor for a debate that started with Darwin. Did God create all the creatures or did everything evolve from single celled organisms? With the chicken representing Creationism and the Egg representing Evolution.
So this debate would never last long on this forum since it would be a religious debate.
 
A somewhat minor point. perhaps, but a really fruitful discussion would consist in intuitive people throwing their ideas into the ring, and the more logical people picking them up and either supporting or negating them. People who excel at both intuition and logic are pretty rare. Also, it often takes a flash of intuition to discover the flaw in a comminly-held belief. So a really good discussion is bound to have elements of both.

This is where it blows up already, people love their "intuitive ideas" way too much to let logics get in the way.
Intuition should only be used to set up a theorem, to prove or disprove a theorem, only logics should be applied.


As I observed above, rational thinking is not everybody's forte. It's a very blunt instument in some people's hands (but you'll never keep those people out of discussions, will you?). Intuition, in general, might be said be sharper because its faster, of course. It can take years to develop credible rational support for an idea that you intuitively grasped. Sometimes,. when faced with a decision, its better to go with the intuitive idea, rather than dismiss it. I'm sure there must be times in your life when you really wish you had (You're a very unusual individual, if not)

A scalpel is a very sharp tool, and a surgeon will be able to get the max out of it - that some people are not able to handle a scalpel does not mean a scalpel is not a sharp tool - and you are basically saying that a scalpel is a blunt tool, because not everyone's a surgeon? Sorry, that doesn't make much sense.

Intuition in contrast is no tool at all, it can only be the initial spark, or the source for new arguments, but these must be always exposed to logics before you know if those arguments hold any water.

You're quite right, as far as you go. That's one of the dangers of an over-dependancy on logic. "logic" can be used to lead people down the garden path. But that's not always deliberate. You also have people who rweally do believe their own bullcrap, who think that they are being very logical, and who look down with disdain on anyone who takes a different POV. These are the "over-rational" people that I mentioned. The fact is that nobody is entirely rational, but some people identify almost exclusively with the rational side of their mind, and suppress or deny everything else. The result is that everything that pops into their head is either assumed to be rational, or else rejected out of hand. Since rationality can't make effective snap judgements like that, but the guy's self-image is at stake, you get really thin, but stubbonly adherered to reasoning, with a lot of pertinent marterial ignored. Worse, the repressed emotional material has an absolute field day, because it will get out in sorts of sneaky ways; and if the personality is blind to this stuff, then it won;t be subject to the usual rational controls.

Dunno what to say here, you are painting the world in black and white only, it's not like people who strictly apply logics are incapable of finding an intuitive approach and vice versa.


And logic , btw is decidedly not "the pure white light of indisputeable truth" if such a thing even exists.
Take mathematics. (can we find a more logical disciplinee than that?) It begins with a set (or rather several sets, to be picky about it) of rigorous axioms, and proceeds to deduce a whole mass of conclusions from those axioms, using strict logic at every step, We can pretty sure (unless our reasoning is faulty) that if those axioms are true then all the rest of it it true.

Once again you contradict yourself here - no logics means no axioms, no logics means no math at all...
Math is a derived discipline, derived from logics, pretty much like every science - every other way to gain knowledge is (at best) fuzzy.

Logics follows incredibly simple rules, unlike math, and is therefor indisputeable.
(i.e. if something is true, it cannot be false at the same time, if you base an argument on a disproven fact, all derived arguments are void, too - but it is LOGICS that defines exactly these rules!)

The ancient Greeks believed that the Euclid's axioms of geometry were "self-evident truths". This survives as a dictionary definition, but modern maths has moved way beyond that simplistic view, and realised that axioms, in general, are not necessarily true at all, but quite simply unprovable. In general, if you can show that axioms are true of some kind of real-world problem, then you can confidently apply a whole body of maths to that problem (eg the surface of the earth conforms well enough to Euclid's axioms, that you safely apply Euclidian Geometry to it ...if you take a small enough section). However there's, no clear indispuable set of axioms just a number of alternative axiomatic systems, with mathemetiicians endlessly debating their completeness etc

Dunno what you're aiming at here - an axiom is just that, an unproven theorem - math can be pretty fuzzy at times, too: i.e. knowing pi to the 20th decimal place was enough to make manned missions to the moon - it all depends on how much precision is needed to complete a certain task.

But why this makes logics a blunt instrument is above me, sorry.

Enough about maths, when it comes to anything less rigorous, we're really up the spout, because how ever "logical" people are, they almost never define their basic assumptions (or axioms) or even realise that they are making them. The result is that you can make any old crap appear logical, to those who share your basic assumptions (yourself included of course) In the average forum debate, you'll never pin down all those pernicious assumptions and question them

Yeah, let's not strive for logics, because we will never be able to apply logics everywhere all of the time... i beg to differ.

Fortunately we have our irrational faculties (intuition and feeling) to help us police this process and stop it getting too far out of hand. Of course, these are not infallible either. We have the rational side to curb the excesses of the irrartional side, and vice versa. That's how a healthy human psyche functions.

So, too much logics = bad, and feelings and intuition are there to stop us from applying too much evil logics?

I couldn't disagree more.
 
i think therefore i am
 
Hmm replying to you this time is gonna take some effort, Wizzszz , because I can't do without the quotes that you're responding to. I think you need to look at them more closely (if you care).

So I'll make a start, but I prolly don't have time to finish atm

A somewhat minor point. perhaps, but a really fruitful discussion would consist in intuitive people throwing their ideas into the ring, and the more logical people picking them up and either supporting or negating them. People who excel at both intuition and logic are pretty rare. Also, it often takes a flash of intuition to discover the flaw in a comminly-held belief. So a really good discussion is bound to have elements of both.
This is where it blows up already, people love their "intuitive ideas" way too much to let logics get in the way.
Intuition should only be used to set up a theorem, to prove or disprove a theorem, only logics should be applied.
People are also way too attached to their more "logical" propositions, as I explained further down. Nobody's perfect. Also, note that I didn't disagree with your point about using logic to prove or disprove, did I? I said that since, generally, some excel at logic, others at intuition, you get best results when the two groups work together, rather than one group (the logicians) excluding the other group, which is what you advocate in effect (not directly excliding ofc, but insisting that they play to their weakness- logic- rather than their strength; which makes them look like obstructive asses if they buy that deal)


As I observed above, rational thinking is not everybody's forte. It's a very blunt instument in some people's hands (but you'll never keep those people out of discussions, will you?). Intuition, in general, might be said be sharper because its faster, of course. It can take years to develop credible rational support for an idea that you intuitively grasped. Sometimes,. when faced with a decision, its better to go with the intuitive idea, rather than dismiss it. I'm sure there must be times in your life when you really wish you had (You're a very unusual individual, if not)

A scalpel is a very sharp tool, and a surgeon will be able to get the max out of it - that some people are not able to handle a scalpel does not mean a scalpel is not a sharp tool - and you are basically saying that a scalpel is a blunt tool, because not everyone's a surgeon? Sorry, that doesn't make much sense.
The intellect is an organic tool, Wizzszz, It doesn't come ready machine-tooled out of a box. How sharp yours is depends on how far you develop it. In contrast, a scalpel is a scalpel is a scalpel and I'm sure they're all pretty damned sharp. No comparison.

Intuition in contrast is no tool at all, it can only be the initial spark, or the source for new arguments, but these must be always exposed to logics before you know if those arguments hold any water.

I'm sure that intuition has many more uses than that, but let's leave that point aside.
What you say here is analogous to saying that the compass is no tool at all, because it can only point the hiker in the right diection, and he still needs his hiking boots to get there


You're quite right, as far as you go. That's one of the dangers of an over-dependancy on logic. "logic" can be used to lead people down the garden path. But that's not always deliberate. You also have people who rweally do believe their own bullcrap, who think that they are being very logical, and who look down with disdain on anyone who takes a different POV. These are the "over-rational" people that I mentioned. The fact is that nobody is entirely rational, but some people identify almost exclusively with the rational side of their mind, and suppress or deny everything else. The result is that everything that pops into their head is either assumed to be rational, or else rejected out of hand. Since rationality can't make effective snap judgements like that, but the guy's self-image is at stake, you get really thin, but stubbonly adherered to reasoning, with a lot of pertinent marterial ignored. Worse, the repressed emotional material has an absolute field day, because it will get out in sorts of sneaky ways; and if the personality is blind to this stuff, then it won;t be subject to the usual rational controls.

Dunno what to say here, you are painting the world in black and white only, it's not like people who strictly apply logics are incapable of finding an intuitive approach and vice versa.

Yes it's a black-and-white picture, but in the same sense that the yinyang symbol is a black-and-white picture, Since you highlight the yang side, i highlight the yin side, but I'm saying that we all have - and need to use- both sides., aren't I? You surely haven't missed that point? It's not explicit in this para, but its perfectly clear in other paras.

In this para I'm describing a certain, fairly common, personality type, no more than that. Are you trying to say that this personalty type does not exist?

And logic , btw is decidedly not "the pure white light of indisputeable truth" if such a thing even exists.
Take mathematics. (can we find a more logical disciplinee than that?) It begins with a set (or rather several sets, to be picky about it) of rigorous axioms, and proceeds to deduce a whole mass of conclusions from those axioms, using strict logic at every step, We can pretty sure (unless our reasoning is faulty) that if those axioms are true then all the rest of it it true.

Once again you contradict yourself here - no logics means no axioms, no logics means no math at all...
where did I say otherwise? and where did i say we should dispense with logic? Nowhere.

Math is a derived discipline, derived from logics, pretty much like every science - every other way to gain knowledge is (at best) fuzzy.

To be pedantic, it's derived from a system of axioms, using logic, not "derived from logics" as you put it.

And every single way to gain to gain knowledge is fuzzy, IMO, partly because, ouside of Maths, we don't examine our fundamental axioms. and/or constantly need to revise them . Take Physics for example. Cast aside the old assumption that the speed of light in vaccuo is constant, and everything changes, even though the logic is/was watertight. You might also note that such fundamental quantities as speed, distance , velocity, are defined in a somehat circular fashion, and it's pretty much impossible to tell which are really fundamental and which are merely derived, if you think about it.

Go further into philosophy, say, or psychology or any human issues, then a "logical" argument is always highly suspect, and not just because the logic might be faulty. The underlying asumptions might well be wrong. Note. I'm not saying , throw logic out of the window, then. I'm saying over-dependency on logic will lead to overconfidence, and bullcrap winning the day. There is no simple solution. People who insist on keeping things neat and tidy and irrefutable are best off sticking to Maths. They'll get the rug (of certainty) whisked from under their feet, repeatedly,when it comes to human issues. And if they want to pretend (as some do) that the rug hasn't been whisked away, then they become an absulute menace.

Logics follows incredibly simple rules, unlike math, and is therefor indisputeable.
(i.e. if something is true, it cannot be false at the same time, if you base an argument on a disproven fact, all derived arguments are void, too - but it is LOGICS that defines exactly these rules!)
Right, But, please, not let;s set up logic as God. Its a set of simple rules, yes. It enables us to move from hypothesis to conclusion , yes, and to communicate and debate that process. I don't think we should get into a philosophical debate as to whether the rules of logic are irrefutable (I'm happy to accept,that for most practical purposes, that's certainly true, just wouldn't wanna make a Holy Cow of it). If you base an argument on dispoven fact, all conclusions are void, indeed. Note, it doesn't foillow that all conclusions are untrue, just unsubstantiated. Note also, its hard to tell just how many unprioven "facts" people are basing their arguments on. Read Albert Camus ( I love the guy, nonetheless) or almost any other bleedin philoshopher! :laugh: All very logical, but if you stop to question every questionable statement, you'll never get to the bottom of the page. And these are intelligent people who pretty much set out to identify and state their assumptions. What hope for the rest of us? So... how the heck shall we choose our philosophy?

The ancient Greeks believed that the Euclid's axioms of geometry were "self-evident truths". This survives as a dictionary definition, but modern maths has moved way beyond that simplistic view, and realised that axioms, in general, are not necessarily true at all, but quite simply unprovable. In general, if you can show that axioms are true of some kind of real-world problem, then you can confidently apply a whole body of maths to that problem (eg the surface of the earth conforms well enough to Euclid's axioms, that you safely apply Euclidian Geometry to it ...if you take a small enough section). However there's, no clear indispuable set of axioms just a number of alternative axiomatic systems, with mathemetiicians endlessly debating their completeness etc

Dunno what you're aiming at here - an axiom is just that, an unproven theorem - math can be pretty fuzzy at times, too: i.e. knowing pi to the 20th decimal place was enough to make manned missions to the moon - it all depends on how much precision is needed to complete a certain task.

An axiom is one thing; a theorem is something else altogether. Look it up!

But why this makes logics a blunt instrument is above me, sorry
Well ,I won't let myself feel too flatterered by that statement. I suspect that you really mean "beyond" or "beneath" you.

Nothing that i've said makes logic a blunt instument. It makes it a limited instrument. The" blunt" instrument part should be read in context, as I'm sure you realise...if yopu troubled to read (as opposed to skimming over, looking for points you could quarrel with)

Enough about maths, when it comes to anything less rigorous, we're really up the spout, because how ever "logical" people are, they almost never define their basic assumptions (or axioms) or even realise that they are making them. The result is that you can make any old crap appear logical, to those who share your basic assumptions (yourself included of course) In the average forum debate, you'll never pin down all those pernicious assumptions and question them

Yeah, let's not strive for logics, because we will never be able to apply logics everywhere all of the time... i beg to differ.

at least you don't disagree with my observation here, just my overall conclusion (after twisting it, to make it look ridiculous)

Fortunately we have our irrational faculties (intuition and feeling) to help us police this process and stop it getting too far out of hand. Of course, these are not infallible either. We have the rational side to curb the excesses of the irrartional side, and vice versa. That's how a healthy human psyche functions.


So, too much logics = bad, and feelings and intuition are there to stop us from applying too much evil logics?

I couldn't disagree more.

Hehe, well, put like that, who could possibly disagree with you, wizzszz?
Of course you totally disregarded that all-imprtant term " and vice versa "

Well, I've taken the trouble to clarify my meaning this once, but I doubt that it really needed clarifying, and I doubt that I'll be led into doing it again. For all your lauding of "logic", you;ve barely troubled to use it, but fallen back on cheap debating tactics instead.

If that's the best that you're willing to do, I think we'd better just agree to disagree, don't you?

jay :)
 
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Jay, you perfectly know that english aint my first language...

With every new post you seem to make an effort to post even more text - and meanwhile, this wall of text appears to serve hardly any other purpose than to splice hairs, you trying to show off your intellectual abilities or you trying to lecture me ("Look it up!" and "I suspect that you really mean "beyond" or "beneath" you.", "Discussion v. Debate")

Maybe look up "arrogance" - do you really think you are the one to lecture me? My english aint perfect, it will never be - how's your german?




And do you even know what the terms and phrases you use here in abundance really mean?
Seeing how often you contradicted yourself in the last posts sure looks like you copy random snippets from wikipedia, w/o understanding what they say...

I grow tired of the style of your posts, let alone the sheer amount of words you use to express a simple circumstance - you can intersperse as much yin yang, Camus and latin words as you want, it will not really help you - more words will not make a bad argument any better.
(Especially the yin yang thingie puzzles me a bit - it sounds like your only point is "For the sake of balance within our universe: Against, no matter what!!")




Time you let others have a say, too - this thread was meant to point out why discussions are bound to escalate, it was not meant to become your personal roadshow - i know it has hit you hard that i didn't support your friend Dalas, despite your obsessive efforts - but you now show the same anancastic behaviour here, so let us please leave it at that now.

However, you have proven that not all threads are bound to escalate - some drown in words which pretty quickly solidify into some kind of concrete-like monument of "posts with too many words".
 
Actually, you two are doing a very good job of demonstrating how threads escalate.

About now is where friends or others who agree with one side more than the other should hop in and start pounding on the two of you.
 
Actually, you two are doing a very good job of demonstrating how threads escalate.

About now is where friends or others who agree with one side more than the other should hop in and start pounding on the two of you.



Suddenly, I have this straaaaaaaaaaange feeling that I've read this thread before...
Sort of like Deja Vu, or a dream. For real.

And it creeped me out a bit, because something very seriously bad happens, but I don't remember what. :scared:
 
Logics follows incredibly simple rules, unlike math, and is therefor indisputeable.
(i.e. if something is true, it cannot be false at the same time, if you base an argument on a disproven fact, all derived arguments are void, too - but it is LOGICS that defines exactly these rules!)

[...]

Yeah, let's not strive for logics, because we will never be able to apply logics everywhere all of the time... i beg to differ.

[...]

So, too much logics = bad, and feelings and intuition are there to stop us from applying too much evil logics?

I couldn't disagree more.

there are forms of proposition which are logical true, yet false. i.e. People drink more cold drinks in the summer; cars over-heat in the summer; therefore drinking cold drinks make cars over-heat. so much of cause/correlation errors are due to this incorrect use of logic, and that is just an example of one type of logical error. we need intuition or empirical knowledge to tell us when logic is wrong. logic is not infallible, as much it is a very useful and powerful tool.


i think therefore i am

now that is the only irrefutable truth.
 
Jay, you perfectly know that english aint my first language...
So what? So you didn't know the difference between "discuss" and "debate" (which I naturally assumed you did, since those topics are so dear to your heart ). And you asked about that , and I told you (and said that it wasn't that bad a mistake, because some engish people make the same mistake) and it was all perfectly amicable. Then i went on to assume that you knew the meaning of most of the other words that you're using, because you actually do speak English better than the average native; and nothing whatsoever about your writing style suggests that you're struggling and that you really wish that people would patronise you by making things more simple (in fact, I'm pretty sure that would offend you).

I thought you used some words (or rather the concepts they represent) really carelessly, so I pulled you up in one or two places. This is fair enough, never mind the language, if you're trying to make a case for "logic" above everything else (as you were). Being vague about your terms is really inappropriate to the kind of points you were making, and amounts to a self-contradiction. You say that's because of your poor grasp of English? I find that hard to believe. But you could have avoided using those words, if you weren't too sure about their meaning. It's up to you to find your level, not me.


With every new post you seem to make an effort to post even more text - and meanwhile, this wall of text appears to serve hardly any other purpose than to splice hairs, you trying to show off your intellectual abilities or you trying to lecture me ("Look it up!" and "I suspect that you really mean "beyond" or "beneath" you.", "Discussion v. Debate")

Well, well, well.I warned you that we'd writing ever longer posts back and forth, if you wanted to debate a particular point, but you wanted to debate it anyway. And thus it came to pass. :laugh: So what's your beef?


Maybe look up "arrogance" - do you really think you are the one to lecture me? My english aint perfect, it will never be - how's your german?
Crap. I simply wouldn't enter into a discussion in German, period.

And do you even know what the terms and phrases you use here in abundance really mean?
Seeing how often you contradicted yourself in the last posts sure looks like you copy random snippets from wikipedia, w/o understanding what they say...

I grow tired of the style of your posts, let alone the sheer amount of words you use to express a simple circumstance - you can intersperse as much yin yang, Camus and latin words as you want, it will not really help you - more words will not make a bad argument any better.
(Especially the yin yang thingie puzzles me a bit - it sounds like your only point is "For the sake of balance within our universe: Against, no matter what!!")




Time you let others have a say, too - this thread was meant to point out why discussions are bound to escalate, it was not meant to become your personal roadshow - i know it has hit you hard that i didn't support your friend Dalas, despite your obsessive efforts - but you now show the same anancastic behaviour here, so let us please leave it at that now.

However, you have proven that not all threads are bound to escalate - some drown in words which pretty quickly solidify into some kind of concrete-like monument of "posts with too many words".

Wow! this just gets more and more personal, and more and more off-the-wall doesn't it? I'm not interested, Wizzszz. This is nothing but inflammatory BS

I thought we were having an impersonal discussion about one or two interesting little questions.

All that I've accused you of, here, is "using cheap debating tactics" which I decidedly stand by, of course.
 
Doesn't everything tend to get messed up given enough time?

I'm thinking 'entropy' here, geddit? ;)

Stuff starts out OK, eg relationships, species, stars, jobs, cars, life, forum threads, international relations...all good at one point then they sort of go bad.

Some of the above you can delay going bad if you really, really work at it.

But then it goes bad.

Hmm...that's not very optimistic is it...please tell me I'm wrong about this (I've just got back from the pub and rambling here) ;)
 
ummmmmm

I didn't read this whole thread but, does anybody know where's a good place to loot pixie feetguards?

:laugh:
 
People who excel at both intuition and logic are pretty rare. Also, it often takes a flash of intuition to discover the flaw in a comminly-held belief.

Are you certain about that? I don't think these are quite the words you are looking for:

Logic: an interrelation or sequence of facts or events when seen as inevitable or predictable, or a particular mode of reasoning viewed as valid or faulty, or a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration

Intuition: the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge, or cognition without evident rational thought and inference

Your intuition can lead you to believe that you've been abducted by aliens from another planet, but without logic, reason, and fact, you'll never be able to prove it.

Reason: a statement offered in explanation or justification, or the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking especially in orderly rational ways; the sum of the intellectual powers

Fact: something that has actual existence; an actual occurrence

To continue with the definitions of some commonly-flung words:

Rational: relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason, or having reason or understanding

Rationale: an explanation of controlling principles of opinion, belief, practice, or phenomena

Discussion: consideration of a question in open and usually informal debate

Debate: a regulated discussion of a proposition between two matched sides

If you base an argument on disproven fact, all conclusions are void, indeed.

Are you certain that the fact has been disproved? Just because one study by one scientist proves that x does not equal y, doesn't mean that scientist's study, or logic, or application of knowledge wasn't flawed.

Well, I've taken the trouble to clarify my meaning this once, but I doubt that it really needed clarifying, and I doubt that I'll be led into doing it again. For all your lauding of "logic", you;ve barely troubled to use it, but fallen back on cheap debating tactics instead.

If that's the best that you're willing to do, I think we'd better just agree to disagree, don't you?

TBH, this is a low blow. Wizz is actually arguing against the points you're making, and not attacking you personally. What is this quote above? Nothing more than an elaborate personal attack, from the sounds of it. "I took the time to explain myself for you, you poor little dummy, even though my points are SO obvious that they didn't really need explaining." This is the kind of thing that this thread started out discussing... how can we prevent the escalation of a thread to the point where it gets locked? If everyone dropped the high-and-mighty attitude and spoke to each other with respect, regardless of whether they agree or not, instead of trying to provoke each other to anger, then the majority of discussions would be more fruitful.

The big flaw with a list such as Silverice's is that it consists entirely of advice to individual posters, Now , I don't think that we suffer from a deficiency of good advice ; just that people will be human and ignore the advice.

No, it does not contain advice. It is a set of guidelines that would help everyone if the majority of people were to follow them. Guidelines and advice are not the same thing. It contains informal guidelines for forum participants on either side of a debate, and it contains guidelines for people who would be either on the giving or receiving end of insulting comments. It appears that so far, in this thread, everyone is following those guidelines but you. Do you not wish to improve the likelihood that any given discussion will result in anything fruitful by abiding by those guidelines (or maybe even contributing more such ideas on how we can improve things, instead of arguing that things will never change because some people are intuitive and some are logical,) or do you really just rather enjoy trying to incite people into the ugly world of insults and flame wars by telling everyone who does not agree with you that they are beneath you? I believe the first question in this thread that was directed towards the readers asked "what can we do better?" I was answering that question instead of trying to come up with an argument for why we can never have discussions that are better than the ones we have had in the past and are having currently.

Guideline: an indication or outline of policy or conduct

Advice: recommendation regarding a decision or course of conduct

My advice to any individual would be to follow the guidelines that were listed in every thread, and maybe even try to contribute some more that haven't been thought of yet in this thread. I do perfectly understand that not everyone will follow the guidelines, and even that not everyone who tries to will be able to all of the time, but if the majority does follow the guidelines most of the time, then the minority will only make fools of themselves, and not drag everyone else to foolishness with them.
 
A lot of points there, Silverice, but I think I'd better respond to this one fast, befiore this really blows out of proprtion.

TBH, this is a low blow. Wizz is actually arguing against the points you're making, and not attacking you personally. What is this quote above? Nothing more than an elaborate personal attack, from the sounds of it. "I took the time to explain myself for you, you poor little dummy, even though my points are SO obvious that they didn't really need explaining." This is the kind of thing that this thread started out discussing... how can we prevent the escalation of a thread to the point where it gets locked? If everyone dropped the high-and-mighty attitude and spoke to each other with respect, regardless of whether they agree or not, instead of trying to provoke each other to anger, then the majority of discussions would be more fruitful.

You're taking the quote out of context. This comes straight after two clear examples (which I pointed out) of wizz using the straw man fallacy against me. Now if you're not allowed to accuse somebody of cheap debating tactic on a forum... well, i dunno. I think we'd better not hold debates at all. You can argue that he didn't use any straw men, if you like, but you haven't even quoted that part.

Also, in your elaborate rephrasing of my point, you're reading an attitude into this that wasn't there.

What I meant, as regards "my points probably didn't need further explaining" was that I thought I'd explained myself well enough, and that Wizz had followed me well enough, but that Wizz was deliberately twisting my words, into something else, just to score points. which is really another way of saying that he was using using straw men, and not meant to imply any of those other things that you read into it

How do you expect me (or anyone) to respond to that tactic?

I went on to say that he was choosing not to use logic, not that he couldn't use logic instead. I really would have been insulting his intelligence if i'd interpreted it otherwise, IMO.

I think that finding fault with someone's debating technque is as far from making a personal attack as you can get, and a legitimate part of any debate. And that there's nothing remotely surreptitious about it. The evidence is right there, out in the open, on a public forum, and people can look at it and come to different conclusion, if they like

jay :)

PS I could say -with much more validity- that using straw men is a low kind of personal attack, but I didn't. I chose to laugh it off instead
 
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How do you expect me (or anyone) to respond to that tactic?

"Wizz, are you really not understanding what it is that I'm trying to say, or are you trying to use a strawman tactic?"

"Wizz, I don't quite think you're understanding my point. Here, let me rephrase it."

"Wizz, I don't agree with the way you are countering my argument. Here's why."

Those are a few appropriate examples. The way your sentence was phrased, it really did sound like you were trying to phrase an elaborate insult, one that perhaps he was too dumb to even interpret as an insult. ;) Do you see how it could be taken that way?
 
there are forms of proposition which are logical true, yet false. i.e. People drink more cold drinks in the summer; cars over-heat in the summer; therefore drinking cold drinks make cars over-heat. so much of cause/correlation errors are due to this incorrect use of logic, and that is just an example of one type of logical error. we need intuition or empirical knowledge to tell us when logic is wrong. logic is not infallible, as much it is a very useful and powerful tool.

Logic does not allow the deduction you've made above.
(Actually, it is a deliberate misinterpretation of empirical data, logic got nothing to do with it - you can, at best, set up a theorem from it, and then try to falsify it)
That people always try to make such a deduction look like a logically derived statement is sad enough.

I think we'd better not hold debates at all.

You clearly mean discussions here, using your own definition... ;)


Jay, as you came up with your little hairsplicing thingie about "discussion vs. debate" i thought it'd be nice to let you show off what you've learned at school, and indeed, you were so proud, like a kid showing off what it got for christmas... and everyone was happy. But you didn't leave it at that - like an addict, you were trying to lecture me about pretty much every line from there on... and seriously, you went not only a bit too far there... but allowing you to run wild a bit paints a pretty good picture of your character structure.



This is just one of many evidences that hint that you are trying to "win" an argument, dunno why, maybe you need it for self-esteem purposes - but what you ignore all the time: A discussion is not about "who wins" - at least it should not be:
Discussions should serve the purpose to find the truth, a final result everyone can agree on.
It is done by exchanging and weighting (verifying/falsifying) pro and contra arguments - together.

Who came up with a particular point is totally irrelevant.


And this is exactly what makes so many of your lines here futile:
Your points will not have more weight, no matter how nicely you phrase them, no matter how much you try to sound superior.


It is cumbersome to read thru all your lenghty posts, just to come to the same conclusion once more:
You aim at pretty much everything (to "win", to look superior, personal fights) else but to find a solution or at least try to contribute to the quest...
There is no point in feeding you further.
 
A discussion is not about "who wins" - at least it should not be:
Discussions should serve the purpose to find the truth, a final result everyone can agree on.
It is done by exchanging and weighting (verifying/falsifying) pro and contra arguments - together.

Who came up with a particular point is totally irrelevant.

This is another great point. :)

Pity it was buried in the middle of another personal attack.

I think we'd better leave it to others to judge which of us ignored it (if that matters).

jay :)
 
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I didn't read this whole thread but, does anybody know where's a good place to loot pixie feetguards?

:laugh:

Yes, many people know a good place to loot pixie feetguards :cool:

Exarosaurs sometimes have them, so I'd recommend hunting west from Port Atlantis as many exarosaurs can be found there.
 
I hope this isn't interpreted as a personal attack, but ...

...
cheap debating tactics ...

...by way of example...

.....
Yeah, let's not strive for logics, because we will never be able to apply logics everywhere all of the time... i beg to differ.
....

Reductio ad absurdum (reduction to the absurd) is a very poor debate tactic, even more so when one is defending "logic", because it is a logical fallacy that assumes only an "either/or" position. In the vast majority of discussions there exist many intermediate positions between "all" and "nothing". Ironically, its main appeal is "emotional", which would be another reason to avoid using it in defence of "logic".

Perfect intuition is as effective as perfect logic, because they would both arrive at the same conclusion, even if there is no absolute truth to a matter. It behoves us to exercise all our faculties, of which logic and intuition are but two.
 
Reductio ad absurdum (reduction to the absurd) is a very poor debate tactic, even more so when one is defending "logic", because it is a logical fallacy that assumes only an "either/or" position. In the vast majority of discussions there exist many intermediate positions between "all" and "nothing". Ironically, its main appeal is "emotional", which would be another reason to avoid using it in defence of "logic".

I am quite sure you are able to grasp the sarcasm in that line, which invalidates the statement within a rational discussion anyway...

Perfect intuition is as effective as perfect logic, because they would both arrive at the same conclusion, even if there is no absolute truth to a matter. It behoves us to exercise all our faculties, of which logic and intuition are but two.

While you would, by definiton ("perfect"), arrive at the same conclusion using intuition, there is no way to check how close to "perfect" your intuition actually is - a problem that will not arise from using logic.
And, how are you going to explain it to someone else when you have nothing but intuition to base your conclusion on?
It may be still perfectly valid to you, but outside of your own strawberry universe nobody will subscribe to your conclusions when all you have is "i had the perfect intuition" - you will still need to apply logics to underpin your point.


This is another great point. :)

Pity it was buried in the middle of another personal attack.

I think we'd better leave it to others to judge which of us ignored it (if that matters).

jay :)

Well, it wasn't me bringing the "personal" component into this discussion - that you cry wolf about personal attacks now that you got some of your own medicine is hypocrisy in my book.
 
Okay, bored with sweating so I came back here for some amusment :)

Jay and Wizz, you both claim that the other is making personal attacks. Thing is you are both making attacks, trying to hide them as condecending advice. Neither one of you appears to be trying to convince the other of anything, instead you guys appear to be grandstanding. Your arguing for the audience, trying to gain popularity. If you ever watch Canadian politics you will see that they argue in much the same fashion.

Just my two cents and not an attack on anyone :) Well except for maybe politicians :)
 
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