I think saying “there is nothing I’m going to be able to do to convince you” is an attempt to shut down discussion. It’s actually kind of a dangerous mindset: if you don’t think there’s any argument that can convince an intelligent person who disagrees with you, it fundamentally means that you didn’t reach your current position via argumentation. You are implicitly conceding that your belief is not based on rational argument—for, if it were, you could spell out that argument.
It’s OK to not want to participate in every debate. It’s not OK to butt in just to tell people to stop debating, while explicitly rejecting all calls to provide arguments yourself.
If you don’t think there’s any argument that can convince an intelligent person who disagrees with you, it fundamentally means that you didn’t reach your current position via argumentation. You are implicitly conceding that your belief is not based on rational argument—for, if it were, you could spell out that argument.
The world is not made of arguments. Most of the things you know, you were not “argued” into knowing. You looked around at your environment and made inferences. Reality exists distinctly from the words that we say to each other and use to try to update each others’ world-models.
It doesn’t mean that.
You’re right that I just don’t want to participate further in the debate and am probably being a dick.
I think saying “there is nothing I’m going to be able to do to convince you” is an attempt to shut down discussion. It’s actually kind of a dangerous mindset: if you don’t think there’s any argument that can convince an intelligent person who disagrees with you, it fundamentally means that you didn’t reach your current position via argumentation. You are implicitly conceding that your belief is not based on rational argument—for, if it were, you could spell out that argument.
It’s OK to not want to participate in every debate. It’s not OK to butt in just to tell people to stop debating, while explicitly rejecting all calls to provide arguments yourself.
The world is not made of arguments. Most of the things you know, you were not “argued” into knowing. You looked around at your environment and made inferences. Reality exists distinctly from the words that we say to each other and use to try to update each others’ world-models.
It doesn’t mean that.
You’re right that I just don’t want to participate further in the debate and am probably being a dick.