Debates of this kind are an exercise in effectively employing rhetoric, not reason. Let them debate college students that we weren’t expecting to actually think rationally anyway.
Proficiencies at rhetoric and reason are not mutually exclusive.
Nor are smoking and marathon running. Mutual exclusivity is not a claim I would make. I wouldn’t even predict a negative correlation. Just a trend towards negative causality.
If a brain is constantly rewarded for employing whatever lines of argument it thinks it can get away with then it will become more proficient at doing just that.
Rhetoric skills are like a knife: If you have a knife, you can use it to kill people or you can use it to prevent people from being killed, but possessing it will not kill you, with admitted rare exceptions.
Rhetoric skills are like a knife: If you have a knife, you can use it to kill people or you can use it to prevent people from being killed, but possessing it will not kill you, with admitted rare exceptions.
The analogy is not a useful one. In this context it is the killing that is desirable while the use of the knife is the problem. I would prefer people didn’t believe stupid things. All else being equal I would prefer to not rely on the exploitation of cognitive biases and weaknesses in reasoning in order to do so. There are cases where this is useful.
When I suggested ‘let them debate college students that we weren’t expecting to actually think rationally anyway’ I mean just that. Most people, even most scientifically minded people, I expect to arrive at accurate conclusions through the social pressure of the institutions we have in place rather than actual rational thinking. With those people by all means throw them out to play word games with crackpots if it benefits whatever cause is valued. But for myself I know that the better I become at arguing with rhetorical tricks the more likely I am to stick to false conclusions.
Proper rhetoric is useful to prove points that are rational or irrational. if i write liek dis no matter how smart my point is u wont care no matters how rational u think u r the presentation of facts and stuff will matter. u dont listen to people who cant show da fact to u rite, u ignore em.
Rhetoric is not about getting people to believe stupid things; it’s about knowing how to persuade people to believe what you want them to believe. If what you believe is well-supported by evidence, your rhetorical approach will probably be quite rational. If what you want them to believe is contradicted by evidence, your rhetorical approach will probably need to be anti-rational or else simply dishonest. Persuading people can either advance rationality or inhibit it.
As an obvious example, you can persuade people to think rationally, and you can persuade people that they should eschew rational thinking. Rhetorical skills are the tool you use, not the outcome.
All else being equal I would prefer to not rely on the exploitation of cognitive biases and weaknesses in reasoning in order to do so.
You don’t sound like someone well-versed in what rhetoric is about. It has been closely linked with reason from the beginning—indeed, it is from rhetoric that the discipline of logic first sprang, since reason is so vital to rhetoric.
You don’t sound like someone well-versed in what rhetoric is about.
The personal comment is neither necessary nor accurate.
Do not assume that I reject rhetoric and debate in general merely because I have deployed soldiers against them in a battle for one particular territory. It is clear that I am comfortable engaging in this debate. I am also employing far more from the body of rhetorical techniques than the strict subset of cold logic.
It may be that I disagree with you on just which category of debating situations and contexts are useful vs a recipe for bad epistemic hygene. But my assertion that arguments where the implicit reward structure is too far divorced from accuracy are a recipe for bad habits of thought is hardly controversial.
I wouldn’t even predict a negative correlation. Just a trend towards negative causality.
Surely causality is correlation? I expect rhetoric and reason to be positively correlated, largely through intelligence. Do you expect that, holding intelligence constant, there is a negative correlation?
Absolutely not. But I must admit that this is the first time I’ve seen the error go in this direction!
Consider the below (with the obvious translation to causal/correlation jargon):
A = y*noise - x*B + C
B = z*noise + C
I expect rhetoric and reason to be positively correlated, largely through intelligence
That seems to be a safe assumption.
Do you expect that, holding intelligence constant, there is a negative correlation?
Not particularly. An expectation on that relationship isn’t implied by my reasoning and here and there are too many other likely important variables at play for me to trust anything I came up with. I take it as implied, by the way, that such things as as education and personality type were to be held constant. By virtue of describing education as crystallised intelligence or otherwise. If those aren’t controlled for obviously the correlation would be positive.
It is possible to have a negative influence on something while also being positively correlated with it. For example, tax-paid-this-financial-year is positively correlated with net worth despite being a negative contribution. (At least, it is sure to be once we control for legal expenses!)
The equations just point roughly to how (with the right x) a set could be produced where B tends to have a negative causal influence on A despite being positively correlated. I’m not sure how useful they are in understanding the flaw in the statement “surely causality is correlation”. But then, I also would have thought “um… no?” to be more than sufficient. The only interpretation I can make of that claim that doesn’t seem completely ridiculous is if he means ‘an overriding dominant causal influence will guarantee correlation’. Even then, it’s not what he said and it doesn’t remotely fit the context.
The original sense would be that intelligence makes one good at rhetoric and logic, but practising rhetoric then makes one worse at logic. My personal experience (weakly) confirms this.
Debates of this kind are an exercise in effectively employing rhetoric, not reason. Let them debate college students that we weren’t expecting to actually think rationally anyway.
Proficiencies at rhetoric and reason are not mutually exclusive. And despite the common lawyers’ saying, reason does matter in a public debate.
Nor are smoking and marathon running. Mutual exclusivity is not a claim I would make. I wouldn’t even predict a negative correlation. Just a trend towards negative causality.
If a brain is constantly rewarded for employing whatever lines of argument it thinks it can get away with then it will become more proficient at doing just that.
Rhetoric skills are like a knife: If you have a knife, you can use it to kill people or you can use it to prevent people from being killed, but possessing it will not kill you, with admitted rare exceptions.
But if you’ve spent your life convincing people to embrace nonviolence, you throw the knife away to save your reputation.
The analogy is not a useful one. In this context it is the killing that is desirable while the use of the knife is the problem. I would prefer people didn’t believe stupid things. All else being equal I would prefer to not rely on the exploitation of cognitive biases and weaknesses in reasoning in order to do so. There are cases where this is useful.
When I suggested ‘let them debate college students that we weren’t expecting to actually think rationally anyway’ I mean just that. Most people, even most scientifically minded people, I expect to arrive at accurate conclusions through the social pressure of the institutions we have in place rather than actual rational thinking. With those people by all means throw them out to play word games with crackpots if it benefits whatever cause is valued. But for myself I know that the better I become at arguing with rhetorical tricks the more likely I am to stick to false conclusions.
Proper rhetoric is useful to prove points that are rational or irrational. if i write liek dis no matter how smart my point is u wont care no matters how rational u think u r the presentation of facts and stuff will matter. u dont listen to people who cant show da fact to u rite, u ignore em.
Rhetoric is not about getting people to believe stupid things; it’s about knowing how to persuade people to believe what you want them to believe. If what you believe is well-supported by evidence, your rhetorical approach will probably be quite rational. If what you want them to believe is contradicted by evidence, your rhetorical approach will probably need to be anti-rational or else simply dishonest. Persuading people can either advance rationality or inhibit it.
As an obvious example, you can persuade people to think rationally, and you can persuade people that they should eschew rational thinking. Rhetorical skills are the tool you use, not the outcome.
You don’t sound like someone well-versed in what rhetoric is about. It has been closely linked with reason from the beginning—indeed, it is from rhetoric that the discipline of logic first sprang, since reason is so vital to rhetoric.
On the other hand, we have this.
Rhetoric is indeed a knife, not necessarily on the side of truth in the wrong hands.
The personal comment is neither necessary nor accurate.
Do not assume that I reject rhetoric and debate in general merely because I have deployed soldiers against them in a battle for one particular territory. It is clear that I am comfortable engaging in this debate. I am also employing far more from the body of rhetorical techniques than the strict subset of cold logic.
It may be that I disagree with you on just which category of debating situations and contexts are useful vs a recipe for bad epistemic hygene. But my assertion that arguments where the implicit reward structure is too far divorced from accuracy are a recipe for bad habits of thought is hardly controversial.
Surely causality is correlation?
I expect rhetoric and reason to be positively correlated, largely through intelligence. Do you expect that, holding intelligence constant, there is a negative correlation?
Absolutely not. But I must admit that this is the first time I’ve seen the error go in this direction!
Consider the below (with the obvious translation to causal/correlation jargon):
That seems to be a safe assumption.
Not particularly. An expectation on that relationship isn’t implied by my reasoning and here and there are too many other likely important variables at play for me to trust anything I came up with. I take it as implied, by the way, that such things as as education and personality type were to be held constant. By virtue of describing education as crystallised intelligence or otherwise. If those aren’t controlled for obviously the correlation would be positive.
Could you explain this, please? I don’t think many people understand.
It is possible to have a negative influence on something while also being positively correlated with it. For example, tax-paid-this-financial-year is positively correlated with net worth despite being a negative contribution. (At least, it is sure to be once we control for legal expenses!)
The equations just point roughly to how (with the right x) a set could be produced where B tends to have a negative causal influence on A despite being positively correlated. I’m not sure how useful they are in understanding the flaw in the statement “surely causality is correlation”. But then, I also would have thought “um… no?” to be more than sufficient. The only interpretation I can make of that claim that doesn’t seem completely ridiculous is if he means ‘an overriding dominant causal influence will guarantee correlation’. Even then, it’s not what he said and it doesn’t remotely fit the context.
Ahhh, excellent, thankyou.
The original sense would be that intelligence makes one good at rhetoric and logic, but practising rhetoric then makes one worse at logic. My personal experience (weakly) confirms this.