Discuss!

[subsymbolic]

This:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/ ... -our-minds

[plebian]

If the heart's motive is to pump, the brain's is to be right.

[ruby sparks]

I think the writer's surname is of German origin. As such, I'm not sure how accurate or fair we can expect the article to be.

[Politesse]

Surety is an emotion, not a conclusion. If you believe that it is best to align that emotion to actual facts, I think that's great, but it will always be an uphill task; the part of your brain that handles normally social tasks like feeling right or wrong is not known for being easily controlled by abstract reasoning. Indeed, the more certain you feel, the more suspicious you ought to be that your brain is misleading you somehow.

[Hermit]

[quote=""ruby sparks""]I think the writer's surname is of German origin. As such, I'm not sure how accurate or fair we can expect the article to be.[/quote]
Germans are renowned for accuracy and fairness in all things. Unsurprisingly, Kolbert's article confirms this. Of course.

It's Austrians you need to be wary of. Them, and those fake Germans - Bavarians - who are the missing link between Austrians and humans.

[dancer_rnb]

Don't forget those bastard Anglo-Saxons........

[Koyaanisqatsi]

[quote=""subsymbolic""]This:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/ ... -our-minds[/quote]

This applies rather nicely to my thread on primary source research. Nicked!

One thing though:

There was little advantage in reasoning clearly, while much was to be gained from winning arguments.

Reasoning clearly is how you win an argument, so the author must be thinking of something else by "winning arguments."

[Hermit]

[quote=""Koyaanisqatsi""]

There was little advantage in reasoning clearly, while much was to be gained from winning arguments.

Reasoning clearly is how you win an argument, so the author must be thinking of something else by "winning arguments."[/quote]
Trump won an argument without resorting to reason.

[ruby sparks]

[quote=""Koyaanisqatsi""]Reasoning clearly is how you win an argument, so the author must be thinking of something else by "winning arguments."[/quote]

I think there are many ways to win an argument, even with the same 'facts' available. This seems to be one reason certain lawyers are highly valued. One might even, at a stretch, consider arguing an art, or partially an art.

[ruby sparks]

It might be possible to question the evolutionary explanations offered (in the article), since they are bound to be of the speculative, "human trait x exists and has evolved for plausible reason y" sort of explanation.

I'm not sure these questions can be answered and I would not be asserting a counter-theory.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

[quote=""Hermit""]

There was little advantage in reasoning clearly, while much was to be gained from winning arguments.

Reasoning clearly is how you win an argument, so the author must be thinking of something else by "winning arguments."

Trump won an argument without resorting to reason.[/QUOTE]

Well, again I think you mean something else. There is only one way to "win" an argument and that is by superior reasoning that discounts any other solution, so you must mean something else by winning in regard to an argument (i.e., one side just keeps repeating their same fallacy until the opponent simply quits or the like, which is not winning an argument).

Yes, I'm being pedantic, but then, that would be the point (I think). If we can't agree on what it means to win an argument, then all we have is endless spin.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

[quote=""ruby sparks""]

Reasoning clearly is how you win an argument, so the author must be thinking of something else by "winning arguments."

I think there are many ways to win an argument, even with the same 'facts' available. This seems to be one reason certain lawyers are highly valued. [/quote]

Well, again, that's not the same thing. In fact, that would be the exact opposite; i.e., winning in spite of a lack of superior reasoning. Winning an argument means you have provided superior evidence/reasoning than your opponent. Anything other or less than that means you have not won the argument. You may have avoided the argument or cheated the argument or your opponent was not equal to the task and could not figure out the superior argument/flaws in your argument, etc., but that is all different than winning the argument. The emphasis is on the argument and not on how one might have the same effect as winning in spite of not having specifically defeated (or supported) the argument.

One might even, at a stretch, consider arguing an art, or partially an art.

For the purposes of clarification, though, I would say you actually mean debating is the art. What you mean by "arguing" in this context is really more like "spinning" (i.e., avoiding actual argumentation, where the subject of the argument and the truth claim inherent to the argument is what is being avoided or reframed by one or more opponents).

[Hermit]

[quote=""Koyaanisqatsi""]There is only one way to "win" an argument and that is by superior reasoning that discounts any other solution[/quote]
Manifestly not. Trump argued that he would make a better POTUS than Clinton. He convinced a sufficient number of voters to make him president. It was an argument. He won it despite not using any discernible reasoning and despite Clinton's reasoning to the contrary.

[quote=""Koyaanisqatsi""]so you must mean something else by winning in regard to an argument (i.e., one side just keeps repeating their same fallacy until the opponent simply quits or the like, which is not winning an argument).[/quote]I mean you can win an argument without using reason. Are you suggesting that Clinton made no reasoned argument against Trump's suitability or that she simply quit or the like?

[Koyaanisqatsi]

[quote=""Hermit""]

There is only one way to "win" an argument and that is by superior reasoning that discounts any other solution

Manifestly not. Trump argued that he would make a better POTUS than Clinton.[/quote]

First, no, he did not. You are merely characterizing it that way. Second, regardless, that's not an argument; that's a popularity contest. Arguments are judged objectively and without bias (in the ideal). Third (and most importantly), even if he had made a formal argument that he would make a "better POTUS than Clinton," he would have been demonstrably wrong, since he possessed/possesses none of the qualities or abilities that are necessary for the job of POTUS, while Clinton possesses all such qualities/abilities with decades of actual government service.

If you'd like to make such a formal argument, we certainly could debate it, but then we'd have to define terms and establish a fair and impartial judge, etc., etc., etc.

and He convinced a sufficient number of voters to make him president.

Actually, he did not. The Electoral College failed in its mandate due to the fact that all states but two effectively castrated the EC, etc., etc., etc.

It was an argument.

Again, no. It is you characterizing it as "an argument."

This is an argument: Donald Trump is more qualified to be POTUS than Hillary Clinton.

This is a subjective assertion: Donald Trump would make a better POTUS than Hillary Clinton. Because the focus is "better" it cannot be argued, only agreed with or rejected. "Better" in what sense and according to whom?

[quote=""Koyaanisqatsi""]so you must mean something else by winning in regard to an argument (i.e., one side just keeps repeating their same fallacy until the opponent simply quits or the like, which is not winning an argument).

I mean you can win an argument without using reason.[/quote]

Then, again, to be pedantic for the sake of the point of the thread, you are using an esoteric meaning of "to win." By definition, there is only one way to win an argument and that is by reason and not merely because I want it to be that way. Arguments are constructs. They have structure; they are quantifiable and are objectively true or false (in the ideal; meaning as close as we mere humans can fallibly invoke an objective, non-biased standard). If you just want a fist fight or a popularity contest, by all means, but that is NOT an argument nor is that a way to win one.

If you had said, Trump is better at playing golf than Hillary Clinton, then you would have made an argument that could be measured. Here, let's explode it: Trump is better than Clinton. Is that an argument? No, it's not, but that is essentially the same thing as saying, "Trump would make a better POTUS than Clinton" because what goes into being a POTUS and then by what metric of "better" is Trump to Clinton is hopelessly undefined and it would take us pretty much to the end of our lives trying to define all of the conditions that go into all of that and STILL be faced with the "better" problem. She's better. No, he is. Add infinitum.

ETA: Just to be clear, I am of course aware of the fact that due to the hard problem of consciousness it is never possible for any of us to be objective and blah blah blah, but then that is the exact point I'm making in regard to why we created "the Argument" and the invoking/imagining (to the best of our ability) an objective, non-biased magical Judge as the ideal. That is in fact one of the reasons we made up gods, so that we could win any argument when we got frustrated by the fact that others were not bowing to the superior intellect/argumentation.

How do you know that's true?
GOD TOLD ME IT WAS TRUE!
End of debate (for 90% of us).

The purpose of an argument is to measure--objectively as we are able--a truth claim and not make it a popularity contest; to merely say, "Who here thinks that's good enough?" The whole point is to measure it as close to zero-bias as we are able and then go even further precisely because, in the end and ultimately, it's a popularity contest and what we really want is a god to stamp THIS IS TRUE on whatever we are bickering about, but there are, of course, no such thing as gods to do that for us. So, structure and form and reason are supposed to win an argument. Right makes might, not the other way around.

What we are seeing today, however, is just the opposite from the Trump occupation. Hence the OP. Or so that's what I took from it.

[ruby sparks]

[quote=""Koyaanisqatsi""]What we are seeing today, however, is just the opposite from the Trump occupation. Hence the OP. Or so that's what I took from it.[/quote]

The writer was certainly linking the issue to the election, and using 'argument' in a non-formal way, but the studies themselves seemed to be revealing something more fundamental. Yes, I agree with you that structure, form and reason are supposed to win an argument and that arguments are, ideally, judged objectively and without bias. But what I took from it was that that's not the way it actually works, because we're not the rational arguing entities we think we are. We're flawed, and as a result, so is our arguing.

[dancer_rnb]

I've gotten the impression that a lot of debates don't involve facts. Give me a written paper any day that I can go over what is being stated.

[Hermit]

[quote=""ruby sparks""]

What we are seeing today, however, is just the opposite from the Trump occupation. Hence the OP. Or so that's what I took from it.

The writer was certainly linking the issue to the election, and using 'argument' in a non-formal way, but the studies themselves seemed to be revealing something more fundamental. Yes, I agree with you that structure, form and reason are supposed to win an argument and that arguments are, ideally, judged objectively and without bias. But what I took from it was that that's not the way it actually works, because we're not the rational arguing entities we think we are. We're flawed, and as a result, so is our arguing.[/QUOTE]
I started a long-winded rebuttal of Koy's long-winded reply to me, but then decided your post is much better. So I'll just make one comment: What you said.

[praxis]

[quote=""subsymbolic""]This:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/ ... -our-minds[/quote]This article looks to me to be an informative piece of research turned into a hit piece. The corporate media just keeps doing this, and what I find amazing is that seemingly intelligent people just keep swallowing. It's either that or you're intentionally no less part of the problem.

[derail]There are lots of people who would like to argue that what determines one to perform the duties of the POTUS is familiarity with government operations and which established lobbying firms to get along with, and that all might be helpful if the person is an establishment choice, however, the only actual qualifications to become POTUS is;

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
https://usconstitution.net/xconst_A2Sec1.html

Both Clinton and Trumps were equally qualified by that definition.

So, yes, it is a legitimate debate or argument as to who would make a better president. People who survive on the status quo just don't like unconventional approaches to issues, whether they are in agreement with those approaches or not is irrelevant.[/derail]

[praxis]

[quote=""plebian""]If the heart's motive is to pump, the brain's is to be right.[/quote]That's a terrific way of viewing it.

It seems to me that any person could justify their thoughts, whether reasonable or not, as long as they can determine, and, argue, that they are in fact still standing in spite of themselves. Their thought process as gotten them to where they are, so why not continue to hedge the bet.

[ruby sparks]

[quote=""praxis""]This article looks to me to be an informative piece of research turned into a hit piece.[/quote]

Yes. That's one way to describe its 'arguments'.

Did the author come across the science and then while reading it, it dawned on her that it might be applied to Trump........or........

Though I think it's apt that it's Political (with a capital P) because there are times when I think almost every human utterance in public is either Political or political.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

[quote=""ruby sparks""]

What we are seeing today, however, is just the opposite from the Trump occupation. Hence the OP. Or so that's what I took from it.

The writer was certainly linking the issue to the election, and using 'argument' in a non-formal way, but the studies themselves seemed to be revealing something more fundamental. [/quote]

Exactly. Which is why my pedantry. We created structures in order to bootstrap objectivety precisely because we are "not the rational arguing entities we think we are." Structures require upkeep and devotion or else they crumble and collapse. That's what we're seeing now with the election; a permissioning not to keep up the structures; a concentrated effort to make them crumble and collapse (by people like Roger Stone who know exactly what they are doing in destroying those structures).

[Koyaanisqatsi]

[quote=""Hermit""]

What we are seeing today, however, is just the opposite from the Trump occupation. Hence the OP. Or so that's what I took from it.

The writer was certainly linking the issue to the election, and using 'argument' in a non-formal way, but the studies themselves seemed to be revealing something more fundamental. Yes, I agree with you that structure, form and reason are supposed to win an argument and that arguments are, ideally, judged objectively and without bias. But what I took from it was that that's not the way it actually works, because we're not the rational arguing entities we think we are. We're flawed, and as a result, so is our arguing.

I started a long-winded rebuttal of Koy's long-winded reply to me, but then decided your post is much better. So I'll just make one comment: What you said.[/QUOTE]

What he said is what I said.

[subsymbolic]

[quote=""praxis""]

If the heart's motive is to pump, the brain's is to settle at a lowest energy state...

FIFY

[plebian]

[quote=""subsymbolic""]

If the heart's motive is to pump, the brain's is to settle at a lowest energy state...

FIFY [/QUOTE]

you say tomayto

[plebian]

the more I think about the whole eliminativism thing, the more it strikes me that the flaw of recursive level error is damaging. The intentional stance is a strategy but so is the design stance. Neither are 'wrong', they are strategies. This matters because the physical stance is also a strategy and I see no good reason to privilege it especially considering it is essentially useless in most of the cases we want to apply it to regarding people.

I deliberately chose the functional/design stance for my statement because it is useful in exactly the context of the op. When we think of subsystems as they relate to a larger system, we are using a design stance or else we are using the wrong stance.

Discuss.