I am interested in the potential of automated reasoning and how this is done in groups. Since LessWrong has done such a good job of promoting and demonstrating feasible rationality, I am asking for insight as to how this could work with 'dialogue' or reasoned debate. I have a general concept in mind about how GitHub could be used and wondered if anyone could share their thoughts on how they see 'version control' been used to help people make better decisions and come to a concensus easier.
If templates could work well for certain topics, replicating and extending functionality would be easier and could become a standard operational perspective when discussing issues and solving problems. I realize I need a unique and novel angle to exploit and initially I want to explore the extent to which programming elements can be used to extend the functionality of adding and approving elements of the discussion. This would also include the evolution of the templates and naturally the topics they can handle for improving scope.
The problem I have, other than demonstrating the specific benefits of choosing GitHub as the mechanism to evolve 'reasoned debate', is that a certain methodology's effectiveness and proven worth to reach consensus would have to be shown for each type of argumentation topic. I am not assuming this would be hard to do and would count towards an initial MVP of the project.
Any feedback or alternative perspectives worth considering and/or potential implementation issues would be highly appreciated. :)
Here's an article (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-the-law-with-a-github-pull-request/?comments=1) on how Washington DC is using GitHub to update and maintain its laws. The suggestion from the article is that citizens would be able to make changes and take a more active involvement in the creation of laws. I'm not necessarily suggesting the possibility because there's a number of strong reasons why this might not be a good idea (if you read the comments).
Could something be applied to collective reasoning?
The templates in this sense could be used as the format to reach consensus (like a law?). Let's say a group is discussing a political topic and all parties involved have mutually agreed to a number of objectives of the dialogue. Including mutual respect for differing opinions and the need to upheld rigor and principles to maximize the chances of all agreeing and having the optimal outcome. In this sense, prior to the discussion, there would be formats to follow to reach an agreement. So, depending on the topic and which appropriate template is chosen the chances of success are 'almost' guaranteed because the underlining logic is agreed upon and already proven.
Therefore, the question could be, is there a format of taking differing opinions (inputs) at certain stages of an argument, which if the evidence and results (output) are agreed upon can solve the initial topics question and then be applied to any number of topics (if in a certain format).
In this sense, you would be 'coding' or adding to the original document your position and reasoning of certain subsets of the overarching logic of the argument. These would be agreed upon prior to when the template is chosen. Meaning you could complete a number of reasoning practices before the different parties are actually engaged in the mental activities of evaluating judgment and critique etc (arguing).