I am new to this site but judging from HPMOR and some articles I read here, I think I have come to the right place for some help.
I am working on the early stages of a project called WikiLogic which has many aims. Here are some that may interest LW readers specifically:
-Make skills such as logical thinking, argument construction and fallacy recognition accessible to the general public
-Provide a community created database of every argument ever made along with their issues and any existing solutions
-Highlight the dependencies between different fields in academic circles
The project requires knowledge of Bayes networks, linguistics and many more fields that I have little experience of although i am always learning. This is why I am looking for you guys to review the idea and let me know your thoughts. At this stage, unfiltered advise on any aspect of the project is welcome.
The general idea along with a short video can be found on the front page of the main site:
Feel free to explore the site and wiki to get a better feel of what I am trying to do. Please forgive poorly written or unfinished parts of the site. It is early days and it seems unproductive to finish before I get feedback that may change its course...
It seems there is some overlap with your list here
Generally what I’ve noticed about them is that they focus very hard on things like fallacies. One problem here is that some people are simply better debaters even though their ideas may be unsound. Because they can better follow the strict argument structure they ‘win’ debates, but actually remain incorrect.
For example: http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=1437 He uses mostly the same arguments debate after debate and so has a supreme advantage over his opponents. He picks apart the responses, knowing full well all of the problems with typical responses. There isn’t really any discussion going on anymore. It is an exercise in saying things exactly the right way without invoking a list of problem patterns. See: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ik/one_argument_against_an_army/
Now, this should be slightly less of an issue since everyone can see what everyone’s arguments are, and we should expect highly skilled people on both sides of just about every issue. That said the standard for actual solid evidence and arguments becomes rather ridiculous. It is significantly easier to find some niggling problem with your opponents argument than to actually address its core issues.
I suppose I’m trying to describe the effects of the ‘fallacy fallacy.’
Thus a significant portion of manpower is spent on wording and putting the argument precisely exactly right instead of dealing with the underlying facts. You’ll also have to deal with the fact that if a majority of people believe something then the shear amount of manpower they can spend on shoring up their own arguments and poking holes in their opponents will make it difficult for minority views to look like they hold water.
What are we to do with equally credible citations that say opposing things?
‘Every argument ever made’ is a huge goal. Especially with the necessary standards people hold arguments to. Are you sure you’ve got something close to the right kind of format to deal with that? How many such formats have you tried? Why are you thinking of using this one over those? Has this resulted in your beliefs actually changing at any point? Has this actually improved the quality of arguments? Have you tried testing them with totally random people off of the street versus nerds versus academics? Is it actually fun to do it this way?
From what I have seen so far I’ll predict there will be a the lack of manpower, and that you’ll end up with a bunch of arguments marked full of holes in perpetual states of half-completion. Because making solid arguments is hard there will be very few of them. I suspect arguments about which citations are legitimate will become very heavily recursive. Especially so on issues where academia’s ideological slates come into play.
I’ve thought up perhaps four or five similar systems, but none of which I’ve actually gone out and tested for effectiveness at coming to correct conclusions about the world. It is easy to generate a way of organizing information, but it needs to be thoroughly tested for effectiveness before it is actually implemented.
In this case effectiveness would mean
production of solid arguments in important areas
be fun to play
maybe actually change someone’s mind every now and then
low-difficulty of use/simple to navigate
A word tabooing feature would be helpful: http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/ (The entire Map and Territory, How to Actually Change Your Mind, and A Human’s Guide To Words sequences would be things I’d consider vital information for making such a site)
It may be useful for users to see their positions on particular topics change over time. What do they agree with now and before? What changed their mind?
I hope that helped spark some thoughts. Good luck!
You bring up a few worries although i think you also realize how i plan to deal with them. (Whether i am successful or not is another matter!)
One problem here is that some people are simply better debaters even though their ideas may be unsound
One part of this project is to make some positive aspects of debating skills easy to pick up by newbies using the site. Charisma and confidence are worthless in a written format and even powerful prose are diluted to simple facts and reasoning in this particular medium.
It is significantly easier to find some niggling problem with your opponents argument than to actually address its core issues
In my mind, if a niggling issue can break an argument then it was crucial and not merely ‘niggling’. If the argument was employing it but did not rely on it, then losing it wont change its status. Being aware of issues like the ‘fallacy fallacy’ is useful in time-limited oral debates but in this format its ok to attack a bad argument on an otherwise well supported theory. The usual issue is it allows ones bias to come into play and makes the opponent feel the whole argument is weak. But this is easily avoided when the node remains glowing green to signify it is still ‘true’.
manpower is spent on wording and putting the argument precisely exactly right instead of dealing with the underlying facts
Is this so bad? We are used to being frugal with a resource like manpower because its traditionally been limited, but i believe you can overcome that with the world wide reach offered by the internet. People will only concentrate on what they are passionate about which means the most contentious of arguments will also get the most attention to detail. Most people accept gravity so it wont get or need as much attention. In the future if a new prominent school of thought is formed attacking it, then it may require a revisit from those looking to defend it.
[limited manpower] …will make it difficult for minority views to look like they hold water
I think the opposite is true. In most other formats, such as a forum, the one comment can easily be drowned out. Here there will simply be two different ideas. More people working on one will help of course but they cannot conjure good arguments from nothing. We also have to have faith (the good kind) in people here and assume that they will be willing to remove bad arguments even if they support the overall idea. Furthermore they will be wiling to add and help grow an opposing argument if they can see the valid points for it.
What are we to do with equally credible citations that say opposing things?
I have lots of design issues noted in the wiki but it needs a bit of a cleanup. I will give a brief answer here instead of linking you to that mess! ;)
If two ideas are expressed that contradict each other, a community member should link them with a ‘contradiction’ tag and they both become ‘false’. This draws attention to the issue and promotes further inquiry—another benefit of WL. If its key to an argument and there is no other experiments then it shows what we need to fund to get our answers. If future studies result in continued contradiction we need to go the next level down and argue about the nature of the experiment and why x is better than y. If there is no disagreement about the methodology but still the results contradict, perhaps the phenomenon is not will enough understood yet and we are right to keep them false to prevent its use in backing other statements.
‘Every argument ever made’ is a huge goal.
Perhaps im exaggerating slightly… but only slightly! I think a connected knowledge base is important and i dream of a future where coming up with a new idea and adding it to the human knowledge pool is as natural as breathing. But as there are probably an infinite number of arguments to be made and mankind is so very finite, i have recognized my design must handle the inevitable gaps. Its easy to see how if WL becomes popular then gets made mandatory for transparent democracies, fair legal systems and reputable academies among many other areas, it will be easy to keep up to date. But the challenge, as you point out, will be in getting it that far!
Are you sure you’ve got something close to the right kind of format to deal with that? How many such formats have you tried? Why are you thinking of using this one over those?
Not 100% sure what you mean—can you suggest an example of an alternate format to clarify?
Has this resulted in your beliefs actually changing at any point? Has this actually improved the quality of arguments?
As it does not exist i cannot say, but thinking rationally and trying to map and scrutinize ideas like WL will, has changed me massively. When i was first exposed to critical thinking i struggled to update my ‘high level’ ideas to reflect massive changes in my basic beliefs. I was also keen to revisit all my past assumptions and re-examine their foundations. Attempting to solve these issues was what made me first conceive of a tool like WL. So WL is the solution i have come up with to all the problems with critical thinking in today world as i understand them.
You mention changing minds a couple of times - Although this is of course highly desirable, i want to narrow my scope to making ideas available. I am sure this will result in other perks but it wont be my focus yet.
Have you tried testing them with totally random people off of the street versus nerds versus academics?
No, good idea! I am still playing with the ‘rules’, which has been my main procrastination excuse so far but i will need to do this. I have a Github page with a very basic web demo that should be ready soon too.
it needs to be thoroughly tested for effectiveness before it is actually implemented
Absolutely agree and the first experiment is to see what people with relevant areas of expertise think on the idea, so thank you for participating!
P.S I want to address some more of your points but this has taken me awhile to write, so i will leave that for a second comment another day.
Hello!
I am new to this site but judging from HPMOR and some articles I read here, I think I have come to the right place for some help.
I am working on the early stages of a project called WikiLogic which has many aims. Here are some that may interest LW readers specifically:
-Make skills such as logical thinking, argument construction and fallacy recognition accessible to the general public
-Provide a community created database of every argument ever made along with their issues and any existing solutions
-Highlight the dependencies between different fields in academic circles
The project requires knowledge of Bayes networks, linguistics and many more fields that I have little experience of although i am always learning. This is why I am looking for you guys to review the idea and let me know your thoughts. At this stage, unfiltered advise on any aspect of the project is welcome.
The general idea along with a short video can be found on the front page of the main site:
http://www.wikilogicfoundation.org/
Feel free to explore the site and wiki to get a better feel of what I am trying to do. Please forgive poorly written or unfinished parts of the site. It is early days and it seems unproductive to finish before I get feedback that may change its course...
Welcome!
I’ve seen these sorts of argument maps before.
https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Debate_tools http://en.arguman.org/
It seems there is some overlap with your list here
Generally what I’ve noticed about them is that they focus very hard on things like fallacies. One problem here is that some people are simply better debaters even though their ideas may be unsound. Because they can better follow the strict argument structure they ‘win’ debates, but actually remain incorrect.
For example: http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=1437 He uses mostly the same arguments debate after debate and so has a supreme advantage over his opponents. He picks apart the responses, knowing full well all of the problems with typical responses. There isn’t really any discussion going on anymore. It is an exercise in saying things exactly the right way without invoking a list of problem patterns. See: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ik/one_argument_against_an_army/
Now, this should be slightly less of an issue since everyone can see what everyone’s arguments are, and we should expect highly skilled people on both sides of just about every issue. That said the standard for actual solid evidence and arguments becomes rather ridiculous. It is significantly easier to find some niggling problem with your opponents argument than to actually address its core issues.
I suppose I’m trying to describe the effects of the ‘fallacy fallacy.’
Thus a significant portion of manpower is spent on wording and putting the argument precisely exactly right instead of dealing with the underlying facts. You’ll also have to deal with the fact that if a majority of people believe something then the shear amount of manpower they can spend on shoring up their own arguments and poking holes in their opponents will make it difficult for minority views to look like they hold water.
What are we to do with equally credible citations that say opposing things?
‘Every argument ever made’ is a huge goal. Especially with the necessary standards people hold arguments to. Are you sure you’ve got something close to the right kind of format to deal with that? How many such formats have you tried? Why are you thinking of using this one over those? Has this resulted in your beliefs actually changing at any point? Has this actually improved the quality of arguments? Have you tried testing them with totally random people off of the street versus nerds versus academics? Is it actually fun to do it this way?
From what I have seen so far I’ll predict there will be a the lack of manpower, and that you’ll end up with a bunch of arguments marked full of holes in perpetual states of half-completion. Because making solid arguments is hard there will be very few of them. I suspect arguments about which citations are legitimate will become very heavily recursive. Especially so on issues where academia’s ideological slates come into play.
I’ve thought up perhaps four or five similar systems, but none of which I’ve actually gone out and tested for effectiveness at coming to correct conclusions about the world. It is easy to generate a way of organizing information, but it needs to be thoroughly tested for effectiveness before it is actually implemented.
In this case effectiveness would mean
production of solid arguments in important areas
be fun to play
maybe actually change someone’s mind every now and then
low-difficulty of use/simple to navigate
A word tabooing feature would be helpful: http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/ (The entire Map and Territory, How to Actually Change Your Mind, and A Human’s Guide To Words sequences would be things I’d consider vital information for making such a site)
It may be useful for users to see their positions on particular topics change over time. What do they agree with now and before? What changed their mind?
I hope that helped spark some thoughts. Good luck!
Thanks for an excellent, in-depth reply!
Brilliant resource! Thanks for pointing it out.
You bring up a few worries although i think you also realize how i plan to deal with them. (Whether i am successful or not is another matter!)
One part of this project is to make some positive aspects of debating skills easy to pick up by newbies using the site. Charisma and confidence are worthless in a written format and even powerful prose are diluted to simple facts and reasoning in this particular medium.
In my mind, if a niggling issue can break an argument then it was crucial and not merely ‘niggling’. If the argument was employing it but did not rely on it, then losing it wont change its status. Being aware of issues like the ‘fallacy fallacy’ is useful in time-limited oral debates but in this format its ok to attack a bad argument on an otherwise well supported theory. The usual issue is it allows ones bias to come into play and makes the opponent feel the whole argument is weak. But this is easily avoided when the node remains glowing green to signify it is still ‘true’.
Is this so bad? We are used to being frugal with a resource like manpower because its traditionally been limited, but i believe you can overcome that with the world wide reach offered by the internet. People will only concentrate on what they are passionate about which means the most contentious of arguments will also get the most attention to detail. Most people accept gravity so it wont get or need as much attention. In the future if a new prominent school of thought is formed attacking it, then it may require a revisit from those looking to defend it.
I think the opposite is true. In most other formats, such as a forum, the one comment can easily be drowned out. Here there will simply be two different ideas. More people working on one will help of course but they cannot conjure good arguments from nothing. We also have to have faith (the good kind) in people here and assume that they will be willing to remove bad arguments even if they support the overall idea. Furthermore they will be wiling to add and help grow an opposing argument if they can see the valid points for it.
I have lots of design issues noted in the wiki but it needs a bit of a cleanup. I will give a brief answer here instead of linking you to that mess! ;) If two ideas are expressed that contradict each other, a community member should link them with a ‘contradiction’ tag and they both become ‘false’. This draws attention to the issue and promotes further inquiry—another benefit of WL. If its key to an argument and there is no other experiments then it shows what we need to fund to get our answers. If future studies result in continued contradiction we need to go the next level down and argue about the nature of the experiment and why x is better than y. If there is no disagreement about the methodology but still the results contradict, perhaps the phenomenon is not will enough understood yet and we are right to keep them false to prevent its use in backing other statements.
Perhaps im exaggerating slightly… but only slightly! I think a connected knowledge base is important and i dream of a future where coming up with a new idea and adding it to the human knowledge pool is as natural as breathing. But as there are probably an infinite number of arguments to be made and mankind is so very finite, i have recognized my design must handle the inevitable gaps. Its easy to see how if WL becomes popular then gets made mandatory for transparent democracies, fair legal systems and reputable academies among many other areas, it will be easy to keep up to date. But the challenge, as you point out, will be in getting it that far!
Not 100% sure what you mean—can you suggest an example of an alternate format to clarify?
As it does not exist i cannot say, but thinking rationally and trying to map and scrutinize ideas like WL will, has changed me massively. When i was first exposed to critical thinking i struggled to update my ‘high level’ ideas to reflect massive changes in my basic beliefs. I was also keen to revisit all my past assumptions and re-examine their foundations. Attempting to solve these issues was what made me first conceive of a tool like WL. So WL is the solution i have come up with to all the problems with critical thinking in today world as i understand them. You mention changing minds a couple of times - Although this is of course highly desirable, i want to narrow my scope to making ideas available. I am sure this will result in other perks but it wont be my focus yet.
No, good idea! I am still playing with the ‘rules’, which has been my main procrastination excuse so far but i will need to do this. I have a Github page with a very basic web demo that should be ready soon too.
Absolutely agree and the first experiment is to see what people with relevant areas of expertise think on the idea, so thank you for participating!
P.S I want to address some more of your points but this has taken me awhile to write, so i will leave that for a second comment another day.