
Faulty Logic: Debating won’t bring us closer to truth - kawera
http://reallifemag.com/faulty-logic/
======
Yen
The author references reddits "Change my View" subreddit, and dismisses it as
a failed experiment, "the instances of the original poster actually changing
their view were discouragingly few."

I think this is an unnecessarily dismal take on an interesting community.
While out-and-out 180 degree reversals of viewpoint are comparatively rare, a
very notable portion of posters approach the debate in good faith, and often
the discussion results in a softening of views, and an admission of "maybe it
wasn't quite so black-and-white or extreme as I originally thought".

i.e., where the author of this article asserts

> Today, the fundamental orientation of online debate culture is toward
> universals, which are more likely to spark a reaction. There is a heavy
> reliance on words like “always” and “never,” as well as a tendency towards
> extreme responses to perceived social ills:

I think the CMV community, on occasion, manages the miracle of pulling away
from universal absolutes, and towards an empathetic understanding of concrete
situations.

~~~
sanxiyn
CMV is a great community. I also found its dismissal unpersuasive.

In my opinion, the phrase "discouragingly few" shows the author's unrealistic
expectation, not the quality of CMV debates.

------
sanxiyn
I very much disagree with the thesis. Logic is asymmetric: logic works better
for the true side. As for the "rhetorical power of social media networks",
it's symmetric: it may be advantageous for the author's side right now, but
tide can turn and it can favor the other side.

The author talks of "hate speech" and assume the certain side should win,
otherwise debate is useless. This is wrong. The true side should win, and you
don't know whether your side is true or not. This epistemic humbleness is the
essential ingredient of the useful debate.

~~~
jadedhacker
It's often clear that one ideological disposition relies on laughably untrue
rhetoric more than the other, but on their best days, the left and right both
agree on facts, they just disagree on their interpretation of them and what
that means we should do.

Debate doesn't work because the idea of the right is to restrict resources to
the "deserving" (individualism, tax breaks, etc) and kick around everyone not
in the in group. The left says that we can make a more equal society and so we
should try to solve our problems by redistributing resources.

This is not a gap you can bridge with logic, it's a fundamentally different
moral interpretation of reality. This is sharing vs defending.

EDIT: However, Noam Chomsky gave a very interesting talk about how moral
senses develop and change. There is some flexibility in our moral systems. For
instance, until like, a year or two ago, casual homophobia was acceptable in
public, now it isn't amongst a growing swath of the population. It's kind of
fun to look at old Tweets by media personalities and see how much they've
changed their positions (something very desirable) either because their
beliefs changed or because their audience did.

~~~
pwinnski
Or, for a more reasonable description of the differences: the American right
is interested in equality of opportunity, while the American left is
interested in equality of outcome.

There are good points to be made for both positions, although 2018 sees both
parties skewing heavily from these historic emphases, one more than the other.

~~~
tunesmith
Just a data point, as a lifelong democrat I definitely view the American left
as being more interested in equality of opportunity than equality of outcome.
Although that's gotten a bit muddled in recent years, since I see a split
between the center-left Democrats and the more "progressive" wing. (Not sure
there will be much of a home in the future for people that believe an expanded
EITC is better than a massively-increased minimum wage.)

------
tunesmith
I also had trouble following the author's point. It appears the author is
saying that since people don't change their mind as often as the author would
like, then it means that reason doesn't matter. (That's probably a wrong or
(unintentional) straw-man summation.)

The weird part is that the author seems to take pains to draw a distinction
between reason and rhetoric, but it seems her general conclusions conflate the
two. If I have a conclusion based on logic, and someone comes at me trying to
convince me with rhetoric based on ethos or pathos, it's not going to be
convincing to me no matter how many points it scores on the audience. But that
doesn't mean logic won't change my mind.

And most conclusions along the lines the author describes are normative
conclusions. If, through logical debate, it's discovered that both parties are
reasoning correctly, basing their conclusions on _different_ moral (axiomatic)
values, and neither has changed their mind, that is perfectly okay and should
be considered a victory for responsible dialectic. Dialectic is about finding
shared understanding and unsound reasoning, not about humiliating your
opponent for having different values than you.

I haven't taken a close look at Kialo but if, for all their structure, there
isn't much effort spent on the logical relations between statements, then...
well, it might still be helpful to a degree, but I can also see it inviting a
lot casuistry.

~~~
horseLOGIC
It is a questioning of the merit of debate versus just plain virtue signaling.
The last sentence summarizes it pretty well:

 _" The idea of “debate” imposes an adversarial framework on online
interactions, as well as privileging logic as a tool of discovery."_

>> It appears the author is saying that since people don't change their mind
as often as the author would like, then it means that reason doesn't matter.

It's more that if you want to effect positive change (like "ending slavery"),
reason doesn't get you far. To the contrary, a very _reasonable_ argument
could be made to non-slaves on why freeing the slaves would be a mortal risk
to them. Changing "morals" on the other hand, is effective, because morals
transcend reason. This is the playbook of the left.

~~~
sanxiyn
Agreed. The author says debate privileges logic as a tool of discovery, as if
it is a bad thing! What does the author propose to privilege as a tool of
discovery instead? "moral honor"? Really, LOL.

------
mlazos
So I disagree with the thesis that debate doesn't bring us closer to truth. I
think it does, just _astronomically slowly_. For example, I often get in
arguments where I vigorously debate one side, and then realize I might be
wrong, and I may continue to argue in order to "win", but deep down after the
argument my beliefs have changed slightly in the opponent's direction. I feel
like this process over time has gradually approximated to some sort of truth,
the truth believed by all of the people I've ever interacted with. Even after
this noisy process, there is still a thread of reality left where people have
at least concluded internally what is truth, and there is only one set of
axioms which allow all of the parties to arrive at their separate conclusions.
In short, as the number of people you debate approaches infinity, I think the
truth emerges.

EDIT: I also think it is really ironic that she is using reason to say that
reason doesn't actually let us arrive any closer to the truth: why write the
article at all then?

~~~
zaarn
> I may continue to argue in order to "win"

I do that too sometimes though I think the reason is deeper than simply
winning. The few times I concede a point, the opposition is very likely to
ridicule me for that (on the internet at least that is my experience, even in
so called "welcoming communities").

It's a rather hostile behavior to laugh at others for having learned or
discovered something new.

------
Bucephalus355
The author of this article really took a lot of time to write an intelligent
and reasoned post that is, unfortunately, painfully oblivious to a core truth
that underlies everything she is unsuccessfully trying to understand.

Fake news, online hate, disrespect, etc are part of an extremely innovative
and subversive reactionary movement (for better or worse).

This movement is a reaction to the failing economies of the late 20th century
(generously padded over by ever-so cherry picked statistics), the fact that
secularism never really came up with any kind of raison d’etre, and the
hijacking of legitimate means of truth seeking (government departments,
universities, think tanks etc) by powers with ulterior motives.

Saying “the earth is flat” is the best example of this. It’’s such an
amusingly false claim, to continue to believe it and declare you believe it is
a kind of emancipation from / attack on the systems of power. There is nothing
they can do.

Also the best example of the last point regarding “hijacking of legitimate
means of truth seeking” is replacement of public intellectuals like James
Kenneth Galbraith, who lead all rationing for the US during WWII, with the
likes of those desperate for more PR, sales, and conference speeches such as
serial-plagiarizer Fareed Zakaria.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Since _when_ were government departments and think tanks legitimate means of
truth seeking? Some, sure, and at some times.

But on the whole you can practically guarantee both of those methods will be
primarily PR mechanisms, and / or used for the advancement of those who
control them.

Universities used to be, but they are becoming increasingly politicized again.

~~~
mark_edward
Universities were never non political. What you more likely mean is they used
to agree with you more. None of these social institutions were ever non
political, the political context has changed, the national politics have
changed, and you've changed and I've changed. I just want to push back against
anyone thinking anything going on is new, all of these social and political
institutions have always been sites of political struggle.

Perhaps they used to be better at producing an aura of speaking and deciding
from up above or from a mythical social consensus that "everyone" (suitably
filtered) agrees on.

~~~
Houshalter
No there really was a time a few decades ago when republican professors and
democrat professors weren't under or overrepresented by more than a factor of
2. Now it's something like 30 IIRC. And really a lot of the "conservatives"
turn out to be libertarians, centrists, or even moderate liberals that are
turned off by the more extreme people around them. That's at least in the
social sciences, it's slightly better in less politically relevant fields.

~~~
AstralStorm
Oh the other hand, mainstream politics everywhere seems to edge towards social
conservatism and mixed economic stances.

Some countries are more "pure" on one side or other.

~~~
Houshalter
From my point of view most western nations are extremely liberal politically.
Compared to how they were historically and compared to other countries.

~~~
duncan_bayne
That's true; but I worry about the overall trend. Perhaps it's unfounded but
my fear is that we are trending towards less liberality, rather than more,
except in a few areas.

------
roenxi
I strugle to follow the authors point, but the topic goes to two interesting
problems I'd like to pick out to see if there are any opinions on them:

1) Once a person has decided they have enough evidence to form an opinion,
they form the opinion then forget the evidence. This makes it excruciatingly
difficult to change their minds, because they can no longer check why they
formed their original beliefs.

2) Debate will likely be one of two cases:

\- A factual debate, where one side who is 'wrong'

\- A values debate, where both sides are necessarily focused on different
issues

Both of these are very delicate situations where empathy, moderation (as in
mildness) and consideration are quite important in getting to a good place.
Unfortunately, if participants suspect the audience perception is that they
are losing in a factual debate rather than learning about others in a values
debate they get very defensive very quickly.

~~~
TheChaplain
I get the impression that debate these days is more of a game to see whose
opinion wins, rather than debating to see others opinions and reflect on your
own in order to jointly come up with a better result.

~~~
AstralStorm
Instead of the word debate, why not use something better understood, such as
discussion instead?

------
colanderman
Pet peeve: the name "Kialo" in Esperanto _doesn 't_ mean the type of reason
the people who chose it think it does. "Kialo" means something closer to
"motivation" or "cause" [1]. "Racio" is "reason" in the sense of debate or
logic [2].

(It's unfortunately common for non-Esperantists attempting to use Esperanto
words or sentences not to fact-check their translations. There are plenty of
fluent speakers who would be glad to fact-check a translation you're going to
publicize. Shout-out to the New Yorker who _did_ fact-check a recent one-off
Esperanto translation.)

On the topic of the article though, I've come to believe a similar thing
lately, with one caveat – reality is often a forcing function to align the
"honor world" with logic. Cognitive dissonance can only get you so far, and
e.g. in the workplace I find it easiest to resolve debates by demonstrating
hard consequences of some particular faulty logic. The places we see the most
disconnect in today's society tend to be the places where demonstrating
consequences is difficult (e.g. global warming).

[1]
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kialo](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kialo)

[2]
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/racio](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/racio)

------
notacoward
This reminds me of something I read once in a book about false memories. 90%
of psychotherapy is based on the idea that examining and talking about your
experiences is helpful, but that's really just an assumption. There are some
situations where it is predictably and categorically false. There are many
others where it might be true but remains unproven. Debating is kind of the
same way. We _believe_ that at least some forms of vigorous debate will lead
to "best of both" understanding or solutions, but can any of us _prove_ that?

~~~
fladrif
I'm not sure about prove, but I definitely believe that it can lead to
actionable statements. Logical arguments are a layering of priors, arguments,
and conclusions, which can be deductively analyzed to find proper conclusions
given a known set of priors. I find that a lot of unconcluded arguments are
based off of an unresolved set of priors that are never acknowledged, but are
blamed on the lack of logical arguments made by the opposing party. Other
times debates fall apart when one party approaches a conclusion that they do
not agree with and form arguments that conveniently side-step that outcome.
Because of these possibilities I think we may write off vigorous ~logical~
debates as relativistic and populist pandering, or uncouth shouting matches,
but if logical principles are applied properly with a distinct lack of emotion
(not morals) debates can be effective in finding truth.

------
panic
I thought this was an interesting point:

 _> In his 2010 book The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, philosopher
Kwame Anthony Appiah shows that arguments are not what change people’s minds
on moral questions — honor is. The end of dueling, or Chinese foot-binding, or
the Atlantic slave trade, did not come about, Appiah writes, because of new or
more convincing arguments — the arguments against these practices had been in
place, sometimes for centuries, before most people were turned against them.
What changed was the “honor world” — the group of people who understand and
acknowledge the same codes of behavior. Dueling was illegal before it came to
seem dishonorable, in part because a newly created popular press brought the
aristocracy’s honor code into discussion in lower class circles. This exposure
to ridicule or mimicry put a new complexion on a practice that had persisted
despite all logical argument against it._

It seems like the culture of rationality, logic, and debating is itself one of
these "honor worlds", where defending your positions against logical attack is
an expected code of behavior. If you're not part of this culture, you may not
be prepared to defend yourself, even if what you're saying is totally true.

I think this is really what the article is talking about -- not that debate is
intrinsically bad, but that it only operates well within a particular cultural
context. Since most important decisions affect more than just rationalist
debaters, the tools of rationalist debate may not be enough to make a correct
decision.

~~~
AstralStorm
Did you just pose a strawman that a rationalist debater would ignore
irrationality?

Or that only use of rational arguments is rational, as opposed to rhetoric?

As we stand, accrual debating is likely to entrench views of people rather
than change them, even if irrationally.

Experiment and results are more convincing than any amount of words.

------
Houshalter
The author's examples are all moral issues. There is no "right answer" to a
moral question. Morality is all just subjective personal feelings, biases and
culture. But even in politics, there's an entire world of questions that do
have objectively correct answers. You can't debate "should people be allowed
guns" but you absolutely could debate whether guns statistically increase the
murder rate. And there's all sorts of data and examples you can point to on
that subject.

I do think you could make a more interesting argument for the author's view
though. One thing that's always disturbed me is just how highly heritable
political views are in twin studies. And that's after excluding the influence
of family which share much of your genetics. If people's political beliefs are
so predictable, then there can't be that much influence from reason and
debate.

Perhaps this is just a consequence of the above. Perhaps most political issues
are just about people's subjective moral feelings about things. And that could
be mostly genetic.

~~~
drdeca
You are incorrect. There is a fact of the matter as to what is good.

I do not mean to say that my beliefs as to what is good are always correct. It
is quite possible for me to be wrong about such things.

But I am not incorrect when I say that there is a fact of the matter.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yes and no. You'd have to answer, what's the objective source of morality?

If you're a believer, you may say God - though that still leaves two questions
open. One, of implementation details - where is that morality codified, so
that we can tell good from bad? In God's word? In our brains? Two, (almost?)
all religions teach we have free will. So we can accept or reject God's
morality. That decision is based on _something_ that's purely in us. I'd
suggest that this something is morality.

If you're not a believer, the only reasonable source of somewhat-consistent
morality is the shared architecture of human brains. That is, we're all born
with mostly-same hardware and firmware, and as members of human race, we find
ourselves in agreement to some basic moral ideas - like "suffering bad", "joy
good" \- from which each culture weaves its complicated moral lattice.

~~~
dredmorbius
Is "good" a matter of morality?

Can there be a conceptualisation of "good" independent of morality?

How or how not? To what limits? Or is good axiomatically moral?

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'd say good is moral by definition :).

As for morality, I don't see how it can be objective. It's not a feature of
the universe, it's a feature of a mind. Humans have common values, because we
naturally have common brain design.

~~~
AstralStorm
Not just brains, simular biology too.

Consider that outright murder (in-group) and cannibalism are considered
immoral by almost all moral systems. There are very good reasons why. (Both
are due to is how fear works and social survival.)

Also why any act of killing is very restricted and the individual is cut out
of the group.

Being moral does not guarantee a good outcome...

------
jryan49
Maybe truth in the end doesn't really matter? Only actions taken from
perceived truth that increase the fitness for a moral, rule, opinion or
belief. Debate and arguing maybe are just entropy like random mutations in DNA
that drive cultures to differences where some are benign, some fatal, and
everything in between. Morals or rules you see universally across cultures may
have been highly selected due to their necessity. Culture and morals change
over time because our environment changes, the context differs. Maybe that
could be called truth?

------
toufique
Behind every logical argument is a vehement emotional one. Debates rarely
change minds because they rarely address the real underlying anchors.

------
horseLOGIC
TLDR: Obtusely veiled apologia for moral outrage culture. (you can skip to the
last paragraph).

The reasoning for this is the idea that slavery ended because it was deemed
"dishonorable" through a transformation of "morals", not through "logical
debate".

Further points against "debate culture":

\- winning a debate is not about the "truth", but about "persuasion"

\- ensuing moral relativism

\- debates don't actually change minds

I disagree with the last point. People simply don't change their minds in real
time and many people are too invested into their points of view. I've
personally _gradually_ changed my viewpoint away from the left in large part
due to the general failure of leftists to persevere in debate. What a
coincidence then, that some of the same people would question the merit of
debate altogether...

~~~
badmadrad
The author seems lost in this article. It seems she's just seems frustrated
that parts of human nature extends itself in the free market of ideas.
Everything is about persuasion and winning. That's life...and it extends
itself into the exchange of ideas. However you need this exchange to drive
meaningful change...and you can only fool people for so long if you don't have
logic and reason on your side. So I don't really understand what the author is
driving at. I guess they are upset certain arguments they don't like are
winning...which isn't really an argument at all.

------
sudosteph
I was ready to hate this piece based on the title, but after giving it a read
with an open mind, I'm not actually all that upset with it. The author does
have some salient observations buried in there, but ironically enough, the
author's language betrays that she is clearly engaged in exactly the type of
debate that she finds so tiresome and uninspiring.

Ie:

> Today, the fundamental orientation of online debate culture is toward
> universals, which are more likely to spark a reaction. There is a heavy
> reliance on words like “always” and “never,” as well as a tendency towards
> extreme responses to perceived social ills

Yet is the author not herself attempting to spark reactions by making broad,
universal claims like:

> Debating won’t bring us closer to truth

> Was logic an inappropriate tool with which to approach this question?

> The ostensible divorce of reasoning from identity becomes a meta-argument
> for universal truths and solutions. It works to shore up the idea that a
> logical truth will stand on its own no matter who is delivering it.

> The fixation on logic as an ideal vehicle for human progress is less a
> reflection of the practicality of this means of resolving our shared issues
> than it is a longing for a moral framework beyond human perceptions.

Seems a bit extreme to pigeonhole all advocates of using logic as a valid
piece of an argument as people who advocate for exclusively logical arguments.
It's perfectly reasonable to discuss logical arguments divorced of identity.
That doesn't mean that a logical argument must be divorced of empathy though.
John Rawls' "Veil of Ignorance" and other works make a compelling, logical
case, for social justice and liberalism, and that concept revolves entirely
around learning to think in terms other than one's identity.

I also found it interesting that right after the author laments how
ineffective facts and figures are for convincing people > But logical
argumentation rarely makes people change their minds; neither does exposure to
facts.

She uses cites a well known academic body that analyzed facts and figures to
strengthen her argument! > Cornell analyzed data from Reddit’s ChangeMyView
community, where users propose a thesis and invite others to debate. While the
results showed that some tactics are better than others...

My final bit of amusement comes from that while she counter-argues that
"honor" and experiences are a better way of convincing people > In the
behavior of social media users posting under their real names, identity —
contrary to logic-proponents’ assumptions — may be among the strongest
persuasive tools.

It's mentioned in the same article, that Aristotle considered _ethos_ a
fundamental component of rhetoric, along with logic. It's strange to see that
she is clearly arguing for the inclusion of ethos and pathos in online
discussions over social issues, yet she seems to be sarcastically deriding
Aristotle along with the online debating platform crowd by aligning them with
hate speech?

> Aristotle saw the possibility of misuse in laying out his theory of
> rhetorical tactics; in the wrong hands, persuasion could be used for ill.
> But he generally agreed with the site administrators of QallOut — that it
> would be easier to convince people of things that were just and good than of
> things that were not. So “the average Jew would kill you over a penny”
> should be easy to argue against, and your audience should find arguments
> against this thesis more persuasive.

On the positive side, I do agree that "sport debate" and the tactics it
engenders are often meaningless and sometimes to dangerous to an individual's
pursuit of truth. Logic itself as a means to question assumptions though? The
author clearly knows better than to think that's actually the case. Like so
many others out there, she's exaggerating to enhance the impact of her
argument on the listener.

