Doodlings on logic
Dec. 10th, 2008 06:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamer_easySo why get into pointless arguments online - as I have been doing for the last 15 years? Habit, ego, indignation... and in the face of the craziness, the inability to shake the delusion that people are basically rational. All I have to do is explain something the right way, and they'll get it.
Alas, our brains did not evolve to think rationally - to use facts and logic - any more than they evolved to understand probability or physics, which is why we think heavy objects fall faster and that we might win the Lotto. Debate (in fandom, in politics, everywhere) is almost never about seeking the truth by testing out different ideas. It's about (a) which side you're on and (b) your self-esteem. People on my team, the Blues, are good and right, and the other team, the Greens, are unfair and mean. By extension, I am good and right.
This leads to many of the most familiar logical fallacies. Everybody knows argumentum ad hominem, the personal attack, an attempt to discredit the argument by slagging off the speaker. Unfortunately, someone can act like a complete asshole and still have a good point (Richard Dawkins, me, etc). They can also be a total hypocrite and still be right: "You're a fine one to talk" is the fallacy called tu quoque, which is Latin for NO U. (Watch out: abuse can rebound on the attacker.)
The "straw man" is also familiar - distorting an opponent's argument and then attacking the distortion. Beware retorts which start, "Right, because..." This isn't always malicious; online debate is swift and shallow and few participants really give much of a damn, driving the small proportion who do care about it out of our tiny minds.
Another familiar fallacy is argumentum ad populum: lots of people believe this, so it must be true. Online, this often appears as the result of groupthink: all my mates say this, so everyone says this (so it must be true). When RTD dismisses fandom's complaints as a couple of hundred loudmouths, he's pulling the rug out from under this fallacy. You'd think the shipwar involved a thousand fans; in reality, it's only about a dozen people making a lot of noise.
Maddeningly, the exact opposite is also common: the fallacy called "hasty generalisation". A single posting can become "what everyone thinks" or "what the Blues say". (And of course, if you're a Blue, you obviously hold that opinion too.)
A fun one which Jon's always encountering in OG is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, which goes something like this:
A: The new show is a failure.
J: Actually, it's a success - look at the high ratings.
A: The public will watch any old rubbish. It's a failure with the fans.
J: Erm, actually, it's very popular with the fans, too.
A: Not with real fans.
We are not born knowing these things are fallacies, any more than we're born knowing that if a coin comes up heads ten times, the chance it will come up heads on the eleventh toss is still just one in two. It's not a matter of intelligence or virtue, but learning to use the tools that will give us the right answers.
And, crucially, allowing ourselves to be wrong. This is one of the hardest and most useful things anyone can do in an argument. I bloody hate to be wrong. Being wrong has, on occasion, freaked me out so badly that I could barely function. But if your goal is to test ideas to find the truth, what choice do you have? Disconnect being right from your self-esteem; attach honesty instead. (If nothing else, it will confuse the hell out of your opponent.)
Alas, our brains did not evolve to think rationally - to use facts and logic - any more than they evolved to understand probability or physics, which is why we think heavy objects fall faster and that we might win the Lotto. Debate (in fandom, in politics, everywhere) is almost never about seeking the truth by testing out different ideas. It's about (a) which side you're on and (b) your self-esteem. People on my team, the Blues, are good and right, and the other team, the Greens, are unfair and mean. By extension, I am good and right.
This leads to many of the most familiar logical fallacies. Everybody knows argumentum ad hominem, the personal attack, an attempt to discredit the argument by slagging off the speaker. Unfortunately, someone can act like a complete asshole and still have a good point (Richard Dawkins, me, etc). They can also be a total hypocrite and still be right: "You're a fine one to talk" is the fallacy called tu quoque, which is Latin for NO U. (Watch out: abuse can rebound on the attacker.)
The "straw man" is also familiar - distorting an opponent's argument and then attacking the distortion. Beware retorts which start, "Right, because..." This isn't always malicious; online debate is swift and shallow and few participants really give much of a damn, driving the small proportion who do care about it out of our tiny minds.
Another familiar fallacy is argumentum ad populum: lots of people believe this, so it must be true. Online, this often appears as the result of groupthink: all my mates say this, so everyone says this (so it must be true). When RTD dismisses fandom's complaints as a couple of hundred loudmouths, he's pulling the rug out from under this fallacy. You'd think the shipwar involved a thousand fans; in reality, it's only about a dozen people making a lot of noise.
Maddeningly, the exact opposite is also common: the fallacy called "hasty generalisation". A single posting can become "what everyone thinks" or "what the Blues say". (And of course, if you're a Blue, you obviously hold that opinion too.)
A fun one which Jon's always encountering in OG is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, which goes something like this:
A: The new show is a failure.
J: Actually, it's a success - look at the high ratings.
A: The public will watch any old rubbish. It's a failure with the fans.
J: Erm, actually, it's very popular with the fans, too.
A: Not with real fans.
We are not born knowing these things are fallacies, any more than we're born knowing that if a coin comes up heads ten times, the chance it will come up heads on the eleventh toss is still just one in two. It's not a matter of intelligence or virtue, but learning to use the tools that will give us the right answers.
And, crucially, allowing ourselves to be wrong. This is one of the hardest and most useful things anyone can do in an argument. I bloody hate to be wrong. Being wrong has, on occasion, freaked me out so badly that I could barely function. But if your goal is to test ideas to find the truth, what choice do you have? Disconnect being right from your self-esteem; attach honesty instead. (If nothing else, it will confuse the hell out of your opponent.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-10 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-10 10:57 am (UTC)God knows we're more likely - maybe I'm being presumptious - to click on a forum thread marked 'Books are not canon' than one that says 'Russell T Davies is brilliant', just because we're there for a scrap. I like theorising debates, so long as no-one's trying to guess the plot of the next story - because someone's bound to manage it, aren't they?
no subject
Date: 2008-12-10 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-12 09:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-10 11:08 am (UTC)Hmmmm. This must be what being self-aware feels like.
But where does things such as these fit in
Date: 2008-12-10 01:24 pm (UTC)<img src="http://www.iheartchaos.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/pbkbqcsks980ogeuxp0ytkbz_500.jpg" alt="My hair is a bird />
<img src="http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a233/Satima/windmill.jpg" alt="My beard is a windmill" />
Are they the macro equivalent of an arguer saying, "I'm right because you're stupid," even when visually they seem to prove otherwise on the part of the poster?
Re: But where does things such as these fit in
Date: 2008-12-10 01:31 pm (UTC)Re: But where does things such as these fit in
Date: 2008-12-10 08:53 pm (UTC)Re: But where does things such as these fit in
Date: 2008-12-10 10:10 pm (UTC)