Many hold strong beliefs and opinions, however not many know the roots of their belief. If a person agrees to explore it, both of you will learn something new and fascinating. The problem is finding someone who wants to think and ask the questions. This goes for both. Many want to “convince” someone, but how much do you truly know about the thing you’re trying to prove?
This also comes back to the “why?” game so many kids play. Parents get annoyed by it, but are they really annoyed at the game or their lack of knowledge depth? Play the game, find out how deep you lake of knowledge goes
Be very careful @dominicHillson, you are close to realising that the dumbest 95% of people defaulted to their views and rationalise their surrounding beliefs. The important part is that at no point have they or will they verify their beliefs. They are literally copying others and aren’t aware of it. If you press them most of the time they will get progressively more “uncivil”. There is a reason fascists genocide their enemies and don’t care about honesty or correct language. Power is how you go against nature, and if you are wrong, the only way to “win”.
If you guys want to rebuild your beliefs so they are actually true, you have to start with figuring out what truth is. I know philosophy is a scary and worthless sounding thing, but its literally the attempts to understand things through reason(literally having reasons for believing) and refining those views.
Epistemology is the philosophy of truth and knowledge. Some examples of epistemological thinking are
- Are the people around me a reliable way to determine truth? ex. In a Hindu region, the average person will vouch for Hinduism, in an Arabic region, Islam etc etc. Can mutually exclusive things in different regions become simultaneously true just because people around them believe it?
- Are experts a reliable way to determine truth? ex. Blood letting was a common profession, as was astrology.
- Are family members a reliable way to determine truth? ex. one family believes one thing, another believes the opposite.
- Are the most popular people a reliable way to determine truth? ex. Hitler could be argued as a popular person in his area and time, so also could any random influencer.
- Are the most powerful people reliable sources of truth?
You can clearly see a path this takes, so let me give a silly story.
The most popular politician during a debate says “You all trust me and my skill! That’s why I’m popular. The answer to the great question is three!”. Then, the expert mathemagician takes the spotlight to answer the question of one plus one. “Clearly an expert knows the answer and not some silly politician! After great calculations, the answer, is four!”. The crowd thinks, clearly the answer must be either three or four, maybe the uncertain could compromise to three and a half. If only there was some way to reliably come to a true conclusion.
To me personally, truth is the most internally consistent configuration of information that I have, cleaned up using cognitive dissonance as my guide!
This process is generally referred to as The Socratic Method. As you said, the devil is in first convincing both parties within a debate that they should be searching for shared understanding through the process of attacking and defending ideas, not attacking and defending each other.
This also comes back to the “why?” game so many kids play. Parents get annoyed by it, but are they really annoyed at the game or their lack of knowledge depth?
I used to think this as well, until I had a three-year-old. One day she yelled under the bathroom door, “WHY ARE YOU POOPING??” I’ve realized that young kids may ask “why” more often to annoy and test social boundaries instead of actually trying to learn something. When she does ask “why” in order to learn, it’s fun explaining and teaching her. But it’s not as often as I thought it would be.
Ah, I see :D I guess it is important not to miss those actual sparks of curiousity though
Well, why were you pooping?
💀
Why?
Why what? I wont answer unless you ask properly!
I think that style is the counter for kids asking “why?” just to piss you off or push boundaries. It’ll take too much effort to spam and will force real questions.
deleted by creator
It doesn’t, but at least it makes both think and hopefully improve the quality of the arguments. And with internet at our finger tips, it doesn’t take much to double check a couple things :)
See also Double Cruxing
That was an interesting read - thanks for posting
Hmmm, but why?
Why do you ask?
Why wouldn’t they ?
Because if we did that all the time and everywhere, we would become smarter as a whole human race and maybe gain enough knowledge to stop slaughtering each other ❤️
deleted by creator
Problem here is the answer contains multiple explanations. When asking “why?” it needs to be more specific otherwise you get your problem.
I think the key is to remember you are trying to discuss opinions/convictions not facts.
When B says something like “C is a nazi”, A correctly asks why B believes C is a nazi, not why C is a literal nazi. So when you go down one level, A’s next question should be something like “why do you think these are nazi tactics?” and “why are nazi tactics bad?” It really requires both sides to be intellectually honest and curious about someone’s actual beliefs, otherwise the technique doesn’t work. I also think limiting yourself to just “why” isn’t always helpful. Sometimes you need to ask for clarification or the entire conversation becomes a farce.
Remember the goal is to learn something about the other persons views, not to set each other up with rhetorical questions.