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this doesn't guarantee that the conclusion is correct, or is in scope of expertise of either of you
It doesn't, but at least it makes both think and hopefully improve the quality of the arguments. And with internet at our finger tips, it doesn't take much to double check a couple things :)
That's a part of the enlightenment and purpose for open-minded people. One or both may learn they really don't understand what they so firmly believed.
Hmmm, but why?
Why do you ask?
Why wouldn't they ?
Because if we did that all the time and everywhere, we would become smarter as a whole human race and maybe gain enough knowledge to stop slaughtering each other ❤️
Why do you think that is?
Because every human is continuously forced to check why they believe in what they believe and if it still makes sense. You build on pillars you once assume are stable. But with your latest knowledge and the question „Why?“, you may recognize some to be more brittle than you thought.
This also comes back to the "why?" game so many kids play. Parents get annoyed by it, but are they really annoyed at the game or their lack of knowledge depth?
I used to think this as well, until I had a three-year-old. One day she yelled under the bathroom door, "WHY ARE YOU POOPING??" I've realized that young kids may ask "why" more often to annoy and test social boundaries instead of actually trying to learn something. When she does ask "why" in order to learn, it's fun explaining and teaching her. But it's not as often as I thought it would be.
Well, why were you pooping?
💀
Ah, I see :D I guess it is important not to miss those actual sparks of curiousity though
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This process is generally referred to as The Socratic Method. As you said, the devil is in first convincing both parties within a debate that they should be searching for shared understanding through the process of attacking and defending ideas, not attacking and defending each other.
Not always. A lot of the time people will just lie about what they actually believe and why they believe it.
For example. People are going to say they support free speech because they believe in it as an important principle for a free society. No one is going to say they support free speech because actually they're a full on Nazi and this is the only way to get their message out to the public until they get the reigns and then they can dispense will al the "free speech" stuff and lock down the opposition.
Actually this applies to a lot of politics related stuff. For example politicians always talk about how tax breaks are going to stimulate the economy, none of them say "well my mate paid me a few million under the table to push this, even though 'trickle down' has never worked in the 100+ years that it's been around".
Security patches, Everyone says "We need to insure that all new software has up to date security and patches.", no one says "We want to collect every single bit of telemetry and integrate end to end DRM and the only way that can work is if the device is completely locked down so the users can't bypass or root it.".
You're right. Going down through the levels of "okay, and why?" works on a theoretical level but requires both the person asking the right why-question and a level of intellectual honesty from both parties that is incredibly hard to find.
It's not a bad approach for questioning your own beliefs though, if you can muster the strength to be honest with yourself.
Be very careful @dominicHillson, you are close to realising that the dumbest 95% of people defaulted to their views and rationalise their surrounding beliefs. The important part is that at no point have they or will they verify their beliefs. They are literally copying others and aren't aware of it. If you press them most of the time they will get progressively more "uncivil". There is a reason fascists genocide their enemies and don't care about honesty or correct language. Power is how you go against nature, and if you are wrong, the only way to "win".
If you guys want to rebuild your beliefs so they are actually true, you have to start with figuring out what truth is. I know philosophy is a scary and worthless sounding thing, but its literally the attempts to understand things through reason(literally having reasons for believing) and refining those views.
Epistemology is the philosophy of truth and knowledge. Some examples of epistemological thinking are
- Are the people around me a reliable way to determine truth? ex. In a Hindu region, the average person will vouch for Hinduism, in an Arabic region, Islam etc etc. Can mutually exclusive things in different regions become simultaneously true just because people around them believe it?
- Are experts a reliable way to determine truth? ex. Blood letting was a common profession, as was astrology.
- Are family members a reliable way to determine truth? ex. one family believes one thing, another believes the opposite.
- Are the most popular people a reliable way to determine truth? ex. Hitler could be argued as a popular person in his area and time, so also could any random influencer.
- Are the most powerful people reliable sources of truth?
You can clearly see a path this takes, so let me give a silly story.
The most popular politician during a debate says "You all trust me and my skill! That's why I'm popular. The answer to the great question is three!". Then, the expert mathemagician takes the spotlight to answer the question of one plus one. "Clearly an expert knows the answer and not some silly politician! After great calculations, the answer, is four!". The crowd thinks, clearly the answer must be either three or four, maybe the uncertain could compromise to three and a half. If only there was some way to reliably come to a true conclusion.
To me personally, truth is the most internally consistent configuration of information that I have, cleaned up using cognitive dissonance as my guide!
That works only when people are ready to question their opinions. Many are not. The 'why' question does not seem to make sense to them – why ask for reasoning, when we know 'the fact'?
The only meaningful 'why' in such situation may be: 'why I am still talking to them?'
I had a commander who used to drive all the techs crazy by asking "Why?" His philosophy was to ask "Why?" six times whether he understood or not to make sure his sergeants had thought through any proposal.
eventually both of you will come to a conclusion
But not necessarily an agreement.
I remember asking my father in law why he doesn't believe in climate change. It boiled down to him saying the democrats just want to control us. When I asked why he said just so they have more power for power's sake. I told him I'm willing to accept that politicians can be like that (because many are) but why does he believe that the republicans are immune to this craving of power or if he thought republicans denying climate change could be just for the sake of controlling people to get more power (like he accused democrats of) and surprise surprise he couldn't give me an answer other than democrats are corrupt and want more power but republicans don't (which isn't an answer because I'm asking why).
Turns out most everyone thinks based on reasoning developed by years of cumulative, biased experiences that ultimately amount to fundamentally distinct axioms of how the world works. Few people actually have opinions based on "logic", least of all the people who fly the banner of "rational" or "emotion free" opinions. Answering why just provides post-hoc explanations rather than an actual cause (which humans are great at coming up with, just look at split brain cases). Which just turns most "big topic" disagreements into competitions over who can come up with a better sounding justification.
Or, alternatively - you'll be accused of Sealioning
Haha, yes that indeed might be a problem! Any idea how to approach this without being incredibly annoying?
i've never come across this before but this is an excellent term. nobody is entitled to an unchallenged opinion but at the same time forcing someone into that type of conversation is unlikely to be productive.
I think the only way to avoid it really, is for the two people to agree in advance that they will each be open to questioning and will take the process in good faith. Know what yoiu are getting into.
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Whoops! I may have been guilty of this in the past
Haven't we all.
More annoying though, is when you are really trying to understand the other person's point of view and they shut down debate by the accusation of sealioning. There should be a word for that
The word is "tired", I think. A lot of people just don't have the energy to answer the whys and are used to bad actors using why to exhaust them. So when it comes to things like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia...etc.. it's a) an exhausting subject to begin with when its aimed at you, and b) a magnet for disingenuous bigots and trolls, so people will just shut down the conversation rather than try and explain their whole existence.
Honestly, I think isms are the only times when sealioning is sealioning, because that's the only time you get people arguing in such bad faith.
I think the only time I was accused of it was when trying to engage with a climate change denier. I wouldn't be surprised if they were tired. I'm not particularly sympathetic.
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I think what you are looking for is kinda related to street epistemology.
Great responses in this post. Thank you for additional source
Why should I do that?
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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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