Edit: This is a continuation of my earlier comment quoting from Elliot’s article on Paths Forward here.
Often, discussions are more complicated than back-and-forth. There might be a group of people. Someone might answer their own question. But the basic structure of a discussion is that issues are brought up and people try to answer them.
If any issues with your ideas don’t get answers, that’s blocking paths forward you could have had. Every issue is an opportunity to potentially learn something. Trying to answer issues is how you can improve your mind. There might be an important point there. Ignoring it is irrational.
Paths forward are important because they allow for issues with your ideas to be pointed out and met with discussion. If you have no paths forward for your ideas, then you have no opportunities to improve your mind.
Being right and being rational are different things. Try to be right, but don’t expect to always be right. But being rational is something you should always do. Rationality is about changing your mind if you’re wrong, being open to discussion, and keeping a good path forward.
My guess would be that many people think being rational means having a lot of arguments supporting your idea. This definition would let you consider certain beliefs rational while keeping your mind closed to potential issues. It reminds me of the claim that lies have to be conscious and intentional. That definition of lying allows you to misrepresent information to others while claiming to be honest.
The context and history of the issue should be available. The limits or known flaws of the answer should be explained. Other answers to the issue should be considered and their flaws pointed out. (Any of this can be done by a reference if it’s explained somewhere else. Repetition isn’t needed.)
All of this keeps discussions clear and organized. This becomes especially important on difficult topics where progress is achieved using hundreds of steps.
I haven’t made any discussion trees before. That being said, I think using a tree sounds like a great way to keep a discussion clear and organized.
For you to have a path forward, you need your own answers. You don’t have to write them yourself, but you have to treat them as your own answers which you’re fully responsible for. If a mistake is found, you were mistaken. If someone has a question about an answer, he’s questioning you, and it’s your responsibility to see that the question is answered.
If you didn’t write an answer and want to use it, you need to endorse it. You need to answer any issues with it. If you aren’t taking responsibility for an answer, then it isn’t actually a path forward for you.
I have run into an issue with this before. Specifically with Elliot’s essay “Liberalism: Reason, Peace and Property”.
I would consider this an essay that I would endorse. I would be prepared to answer any issues that someone brought up about the ideas in the essay. Except that if I had written the article myself, then I wouldn’t have used the Ayn Rand style (not sure if that’s the right term) of using he/him and man/men. I would have used people instead of men, person instead of man, etc. Not that it really bothers me, but it’s been brought up by people who I’ve shared the essay with in the past. I don’t think the Ayn Rand style (again, not sure if that’s the best term) adds much value and is potentially an unnecessary distraction.
Ideally, there would be a more gender neutral version of the essay I could link to on Elliot’s site. A less desirable alternative could be rewriting the essay with more gender neutral language myself and hosting it online. This would include a disclaimer with a link to the original essay and the criteria I used to modify it. This option seems a lot like plagiarizing (even with the disclaimer) and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Also, the disclaimer might just add the same unnecessary distraction I’m trying to avoid in the first place. The final option is just referring people to the existing version of the essay. The downside here is that if I refer people to this essay a lot, then I could spend a lot of time discussing gender neutral language instead of liberalism.