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Shower Musings
Sep. 12th, 2003 10:28 amThe 'philosophy court' idea from tailsteak.tk's TQ keeps spinning around in my head, but the more I think about it the more I mutate it into something awful.
For instance, I determined empirically to my satisfaction several years ago that arguing was pointless as a means of settling a disagreement -- at best it amuses the people involved, and at worst it amuses *some* of the people involved and infuriates others (this is worse than everyone getting angry since it encourages more of the same), and 'who wins' isn't really even corrolated with who's actually correct.
This isn't to say that discussion in general is worthless, just that if your first thought when someone disagrees with you isn't 'huh, am I wrong?' then discussion is worthless, because it's going to be an argument.
Which led to the decision: if we *were* to have a philosophy court, that is, a court that decides matters which depend on unknowables or on moral interpretations, like 'is abortion murder', by trying to decide whether the defendant's actions were criminal according to her own standards, the first thing we should do is ban logic. Logic is fine when you're trying to fiddle with the technicalities of the law, but a court set up to judge someone's sincerity has no place for logical tricks or for proof or disproof, only for emotional appeals.
In particular, 'proving' that someone's beliefs are inconsistent with each other is bullshit. If I hold that a is true and that b is true as my principles, and by some logic a is inconsistent with b, all that means is that I don't completely understand the universe, and we knew that anyway. It's far worse to change your beliefs for the sake of consistency, and do things that you *know* are wrong, than to live with whatever congnitive dissonance believing contradictory things may or may not inspire in your or in nosey philosophers near you.
In summary:
A lie goes around the world before the truth can get its boots on,
Logic is overrated,
And Socrates can bite me.
For instance, I determined empirically to my satisfaction several years ago that arguing was pointless as a means of settling a disagreement -- at best it amuses the people involved, and at worst it amuses *some* of the people involved and infuriates others (this is worse than everyone getting angry since it encourages more of the same), and 'who wins' isn't really even corrolated with who's actually correct.
This isn't to say that discussion in general is worthless, just that if your first thought when someone disagrees with you isn't 'huh, am I wrong?' then discussion is worthless, because it's going to be an argument.
Which led to the decision: if we *were* to have a philosophy court, that is, a court that decides matters which depend on unknowables or on moral interpretations, like 'is abortion murder', by trying to decide whether the defendant's actions were criminal according to her own standards, the first thing we should do is ban logic. Logic is fine when you're trying to fiddle with the technicalities of the law, but a court set up to judge someone's sincerity has no place for logical tricks or for proof or disproof, only for emotional appeals.
In particular, 'proving' that someone's beliefs are inconsistent with each other is bullshit. If I hold that a is true and that b is true as my principles, and by some logic a is inconsistent with b, all that means is that I don't completely understand the universe, and we knew that anyway. It's far worse to change your beliefs for the sake of consistency, and do things that you *know* are wrong, than to live with whatever congnitive dissonance believing contradictory things may or may not inspire in your or in nosey philosophers near you.
In summary:
A lie goes around the world before the truth can get its boots on,
Logic is overrated,
And Socrates can bite me.
