In college, I had a professor ask us to pick any subject, make-up any ‘facts’, and try to make a compelling argument. He then had us evaluate others peoples essays. Let’s just say I wasn’t impressed with some of my fellow classmate’s arguments.
What I am proposing would be more of an exercise in argument structure. Either the ‘facts’ are irrelevant to the given argument or there are more ‘facts’ needed to support the conclusion.
Huh … I had thought that it had been posted here. Oops!
Anyway, the rationalization game is an exercise for learning to notice what it feels like to rationalize your existing beliefs rather than looking for evidence. It pretty much amounts to taking an arbitrary proposition as your “bottom line” and trying to come up with “support” for it. The goal is to be aware of what sorts of arguments you use when you rationalize, so you can try to stop doing it.
In college, I had a professor ask us to pick any subject, make-up any ‘facts’, and try to make a compelling argument. He then had us evaluate others peoples essays. Let’s just say I wasn’t impressed with some of my fellow classmate’s arguments.
Sometimes you see this in the courtroom as a failure to state a claim
Would it be interesting to have an open thread where we try this out?
[pollid:814]
How does this differ from the rationalization game?
I am not sure. A quick search on LessWrong only lead me to Meet Up: Pittsburgh: Rationalization Game
What I am proposing would be more of an exercise in argument structure. Either the ‘facts’ are irrelevant to the given argument or there are more ‘facts’ needed to support the conclusion.
Huh … I had thought that it had been posted here. Oops!
Anyway, the rationalization game is an exercise for learning to notice what it feels like to rationalize your existing beliefs rather than looking for evidence. It pretty much amounts to taking an arbitrary proposition as your “bottom line” and trying to come up with “support” for it. The goal is to be aware of what sorts of arguments you use when you rationalize, so you can try to stop doing it.