BenAlbahari comments on Reasoning isn't about logic (it's about arguing) - Less Wrong

49 Post author: Morendil 14 March 2010 04:42AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 March 2010 05:57:14AM 19 points [-]

Mercier and Sperber argue that, when you look at research that studies people in the appropriate settings, we turn out to be in fact quite good at reasoning when we are in the process of arguing; specifically, we demonstrate skill at producing arguments and at evaluating others' arguments.

I observed some time ago that Roger Penrose seemed to be a much better explainer of physics when he was using it to argue something (even though the conclusion was completely bogus) than people who graciously write textbooks that will be required reading for the students who have to buy it.

If you want good textbooks, make sure the author is trying to persuade the students of something, I'd say. I usually am.

Comment author: BenAlbahari 14 March 2010 03:44:49PM 5 points [-]

If you want good textbooks, make sure the author is trying to persuade the students of something, I'd say. I usually am.

Perhaps the process of writing should be separated from the product of writing (i.e. the textbook). The best of both worlds surely is a textbook that doesn't try to persuade at all (since persuasion is tangential to providing an explanation), but which was written with a process involving a lot of arguing (to help stimulate the best reasoning). My brother and I sometimes had heated arguments when we wrote C# 3.0 in a Nutshell, with numerous "red ink revisions" before finally settling on the NPOVish text the reader sees.

Comment author: orthonormal 16 March 2010 12:07:54AM 8 points [-]

Maybe that explains why Wikipedia is usually much clearer to read (IMO) than professionally produced encyclopedias.

Comment author: BenAlbahari 18 March 2010 03:13:28PM *  5 points [-]

From the Why do humans reason paper:

The group success is due first and foremost to the filtering of a variety of solutions achieved through evaluation. When none of the answers initially proposed is correct, then all of them are likely to be rejected, wholly or partly new hypotheses are likely to be proposed, and again filtered, thus explaining how groups may even do better than any of their individual members.

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