Dragaera

Hello, I'd like to have an argument (was Re: duh!)

Gomi no Sensei gomi at speakeasy.net
Wed Feb 2 17:25:14 PST 2005

On Wed, 2 Feb 2005, Steve Brust wrote:

> If your experience with arguments is that they end when someone says,
> "Yes, you're right.  I'm convinced," then we are not arguing with the
> same sorts of people.

If you would be so kind as to re-examine the paragraph you are responding
to, you would notice that I did, in fact, allow that many arguments
do not, in fact, end by resolving the ostensible underlying cause -- indeed
that one of the popular low-energy states is resolving that the opposing
interlocutor is someone with whom further discussion is unprofitable.

Yet that is 'resolving something' -- knowledge is gained, understanding
is achieved, the argument serves a purpose _and resolves an ambiguity_.

As I stated earlier.

> The closest I ever remember coming to that is
> once when someone said, "I can't answer your argument, but you haven't
> convinced me."  This astonished me at the time, just because of the
> astonishing level of intellectual honesty it implied (I've been the same
> position frequently without admitting it).

Indeed -- I've been in the position of acknowledging that my position was
incorrect before, and modified or abandoned it entirely thereby. I would
call the level of intellectual honesty 'uncommon,' but not shockingly
rare, personally.

> Indeed?  We resolve contradictions in the real world through our
> thoughts?  Interesting idea.  Here's a real-world contradiction: we live
> in a society in which the means of production are worked socially, but
> the results (ie, profits) are appropriated privately; and in which the
> economy is global, but political government is still determined by
> nation-states.  This produces unending series of economic crises as well
> as wars over markets and control of resources.  Kindly "resolve" that
> with your thoughts.

Petitio principii; five yards, loss of down. The means of production are
worked privately.

"The economy is global, but political government is still determined by
nation-states" is about as contradicting a statement as 'Water is wet,
but stone is hard'. Different objects, different properties. The economic
crises that do occur are generally traceable to interference with the
operation of the market and poorly crafted and enforced property rights.

> Is society a bit too complex?  Then lets turn to nature.  When we speak
> of "life" we refer to a body which assimilates matter into itself and
> then turns that matter *into* itself.  In doing so it will replace all
> of it's atoms with other atoms.  It is, thus, at any time, itself and
> not-itself.  It is itself and something else.  That's what life IS:
> contradiction.  Resolve that with your thoughts.

Life turns 'not-itself' into 'itself'. That's a process central to life, the
transformation. Transformations aren't contradictions. What is there to
resolve there? Fire turns wood to ash, but wood and ash don't contradict
each other.

> If that's too tough, I'll give you one that *exists* in thought, and
> therefore ought to be resolvable that way: A body cannot be in two
> places at once, nor can it be simultaneously "here" and "not-here."  Can
> you explain *movement* in any way that doesn't involve a exactly those
> two phenomena?

Movement doesn't involve bilocation, but rather a change of location -- it
only seems paradoxical if you utterly ignore the calculus. At any given
instant, there is only one location. That location varies smoothly over
time. There is no contradiction whatever.

> This is asking far too much of facts.  Matters that can be settled
> merely by the recitation of facts are, almost by definition,
> trivialities, like axioms in mathematics.

If you genuinely believe that statement, I cannot imagine that there is
much point to extending this discussion. It is not the _recitation_ of
facts but rather the _establishment_ of fact -- the condensation of fact
>from the vapor of nuance, to steal a phrase -- that renders discussion
profitable. If fact-based discussions are trivialities, then why are
discussions of nuclear power generation, drilling in the Alaskan National
Wildlife Reserve, or anthropogenic climate change so acrimonious? The
facts for each are readily available and verifiable. When people discuss
different sides of each of these matters, they are weighting the relative
importance of facts, and attempting to prove or disprove the factual nature
of various assertions.

> And, like axioms, they rarely
> survive contact with the real world (anyone who believes that A actually
> equals A outside of the most far-removed of abstractions is invited to
> consider the matter as applied to any real-world phenomenon).

Facts rarely survive contact with the real world? Facts ARE the real world.

> Our opinions, attitudes, and beliefs (ie, the stuff of argument) come
> not merely from the facts we've met, but from all of our experience.
> The conflict represented in the clash of ideas reflects these
> differences in our history, usually expressed in our method of thought.

All our experience is factual by definition. How could one possibly
have an experience that was not factual, outside of induced false memory
(and even then, the false memory is itself an existing fact)?

> Would you care for one more unresolvable contradiction?

You haven't presented one yet.

> This argument
> we are having is forcing me to examine my attitudes and beliefs as part
> of the process of expressing my opinion in the most precise way I can.
> I am, in fact, learning from this argument, though I do not expect to
> convince you.  This leaves you in the uncomfortable position of being
> unable to convince me of your argument except by admitting that I am
> right.

Not in the least; as I mentioned previously, we are in some ways arriving
at the same room through different doors. Therefore, admitting you are right
is tantamount to reiterating that I am. We are _settling_ a matter; that
matter may well not be what we originally set out to establish, but something
is definitely emerging.

pe