= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
primemountain comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (1742)
First an admission: I did not read all the comments, there are too many for me, just the top 150 or so, so someone might have mentioned this before, if so never mind. This is for Yvain , an example of the worst argument I ever faced: The logic is as follows, since the sky is blue you are stupid. That is the end of the argument, since you SEE, you are stupid thus your argument is stupid. So what can you do then, except walk out? What can you do when one side is not only unreasonable, but irrational ?
The reason Yvain's proposed argument is arguably much worse is that the argument you propose is a clear, visible fallacy with spectacular failure modes and many people will indeed simply walk away or mark the person making the argument as crazy, while Yvain's argument, in the situations where it is the worst argument, is not only wrong and erroneous logic but also still manages to convince uninformed people that it is valid, and so they will accept its conclusion as true, while at the same time tricking opponents into debating the wrong points and formulating the wrong counter-arguments.
Yvain's WAitW is much more destructive, pervasive, memetically powerful, tricky to counter when there are large audiences and high stakes, and also much easier to do accidentally even when you know that it's a mistake - while pretty much anyone versed in the basic rules of causality and logic will understand and easily avoid the kind of arguments you've given an example of. Sure, some variants of what you describe, like "You heathens don't believe in God so any argument you make is invalid, only devouts of my religion can speak Truth!" can be pretty bad too, and this has been demonstrated, but it doesn't require as much mastery of logic to avoid committing.
As for what you can do, well... you could try to make them reasonable or rational, either through helping them achieve their existing goal of becoming more so, or through convincing them that they want to, or through other forms of manipulation... or you could always just do one of a plethora of other things you could do, like walking out, or learning physics, or killing them, or getting other people which this person considers as their Holy Authority to persuade them that they are wrong, etc. etc.
And there's always the sharpened bones of hufflepuffs.
Thank you for the clarification on why those are WAitW.
Arguments can't function unless both sides agree on things, such as what rules of logic work and what rules don't. Generally, people will admit they were wrong if they see a prediction fail obviously and spectacularly. But, if someone doesn't want to admit that logic exists or you just disagree with someone as to what logic is, there's really nothing to be done but to walk away.
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
That's not necessarily true. If we disagree on what logic is, I can work out the rules of what you consider logic and decide whether, using those rules, I come to a different conclusion than you do (in which case I can try to convince you of that different conclusion using your rules), or I can attempt to convince you that you're wrong via illogical means (like telling you a convincing story, or using question-begging language, or etc.). I can also do the latter if you reject logic altogether.
Truth, thanks.