So, anyone else know of any similar things to do, to get back to optimizing for being smart instead of for seeming smart?
Arugments are usually understood to be about conflict. Agruments are attacks on beliefs, defend cherished values or otherwise have connations of anger and war. This is grossly in error. Arguments are better seen as a session of debugging. You start in with the assumption that something must be wrong somewhere in your chain and either you prove it right, you correct some small error, or your belief crashes and needs to be replaced. Not only does this metaphore impy more productive arguments, they also fit the classical understanding as all arguments suffer from a halting problem.
What you described might as well be construed as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectics , may it not? But yes, I agree, dialectics is my prefered method of reaching new insights. I tend to prepare my argument in advance so that it’s worthy of the my and the other debatant’s time by having a possible direction to move in. If anything should be encountered along the way, then every nook and cranny will be explored during the back-and-forth argument.
Arugments are usually understood to be about conflict. Agruments are attacks on beliefs, defend cherished values or otherwise have connations of anger and war. This is grossly in error. Arguments are better seen as a session of debugging. You start in with the assumption that something must be wrong somewhere in your chain and either you prove it right, you correct some small error, or your belief crashes and needs to be replaced. Not only does this metaphore impy more productive arguments, they also fit the classical understanding as all arguments suffer from a halting problem.
What you described might as well be construed as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectics , may it not? But yes, I agree, dialectics is my prefered method of reaching new insights. I tend to prepare my argument in advance so that it’s worthy of the my and the other debatant’s time by having a possible direction to move in. If anything should be encountered along the way, then every nook and cranny will be explored during the back-and-forth argument.