Saturday, April 12, 2008

Logical debate

If any two people are arguing and one wants to prove the other incorrect they need to locate at least two beliefs (probably much more) the other side has (which may be easy or difficult). they then leverage the first belief(or beliefs) to develop a logical conclusion based on them to disprove the other.

One can then argue from the first point to the second or from the second to the first, its not clear which one the person will reject (it could be bullet biting or surrendering the debate). Also since the proof from the first point is now moved into the domain of the second the closest belief to the argument would presumably be a contradiction of a belief that that person has previously stated - eliciting a 'you obviously don't understand'. Prior to assessing if there are logical flaws in the argument.

Maybe the lesson is one needs to get the person to agree the intermediate steps are true before throwing the final conclusion in their face and possibly to ask in the hypothetical which of the two beliefs they would reject if they contradicted each other.

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