This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://curi.us/2584-philosophy-is-important-but-underserved
A lot of the effort is basically about history of philosophy
I think a reason there isn’t much truth-seeking philosophy debate is that people don’t think you can reach universal objective truths in philosophy. But that doesn’t explain other fields. Perhaps people believe the same relativism for every humanity field and think the hard sciences are about self-explanatory evidence and not very much debate?
In the past, I had no trouble getting some long disorganized debates that failed to stay on topic, keep track of everything that was said, and reach clear conclusions.
Do you find disorganized debates a waste of time now?
I think many people don’t want discussions that result in clear conclusions because then they can lose. I think most people don’t like to risk losing.
What about people who are confident in their opinions?
In general, most intellectuals seem to think of debates as something that happen in voice, preferably in person, as a one-day event, rather than something that’s best done in text over a period of many days (having some voice debates with a time limit like two hours is fine but I don’t think those should be primary).
The advantages of asynchronous text debate seems obvious to me once I heard the arguments for it.
I brought up the issue that there’s a lack of good debate in the world with a friend of mine. He said there was lots and pointed to examples of podcasts. I said why asynchronous text debates are superior and as far as I can remember he didn’t challenge it. I don’t think it became a part of his world view though.
Do intellectuals prefer voice debates because of historical reasons? I know intellectuals used to write letters to each other, but I don’t know whether they were debates or just sharing interesting ideas. Like what did Burke and Godwin do?
Does everyone assume there already is long asynchronous, rigorous and organized debates within academia?
So, why are you the only person I know to have brought this issue up? Don’t other people see the advantage of this type of debate and see there’s a lack of it?
People who are confidently dismissive (e.g. “debating you is pointless because I know I’m right”) seem scared of losing IMO and are often hiding their weakness and insecurity with their bluster.
Who?
Back around 1800, William Godwin said (from memory) that people want IRL voice debates on stage so they can appeal to the emotions of the audience, and that they’d use text if they were serious truth seekers.
What I do/advocate doesn’t align with current career incentives, grant funding, office politics or election politics. There isn’t a large, already-existing demand for it from the public or from employers. I guess the world doesn’t have enough independent-, open- and active-minded people who aren’t condescending towards people who disagree with them? I don’t know. People are also shy, busy, struggling with their own problems, and many other things. And people tend to follow life paths authorized and laid out for them by society. People tend to want to get along with others and find a place in society.
Another issue is that there are large disincentives to offending people. If you criticize people or their ideas, especially in ways they find important and therefore threatening, they may hate you, sue you, troll you, sabotage your career, etc. It can be bad for your social networking. And if you were to best 100 people in debates, they might form an alliance to blame you and say it was just rhetorical tricks or some other sort of cheating or say that you actually lost all those debates and simply declared yourself the winner arbitrarily.
You could also ask why I’m the person to have figured out the math aspects of Multi-Factor Decision Making Math when the math knowledge used in that article isn’t especially advanced – it’s not using some fancy math that only a handful of people know. You could ask a lot of things about why stuff wasn’t discovered sooner. I think the big answer is that society just isn’t as advanced, wise and smart as it claims to be. iPhones are impressive but they’re a positive outlier, not representative of how good at thinking we are. We’re still largely the same sort of people who executed Socrates, didn’t reward Mendel for his genetic inheritance discoveries during his lifetime, horribly mistreated the doctor who figured out handwashing, etc. Rand talked about this too:
AS:
“John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains—and he withdrew his fire—until the day when men withdraw their vultures.”
FH:
“Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.
“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.
“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.
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Just a friend. I edited it in now.
Did Godwin find someone to send truth-seeking letters with?
Not really. He did find an intellectual worth marrying, but then she died giving birth to their first child :(
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https://www.reddit.com/r/PhilosophyofScience/comments/11ba4dq/section_of_my_book_review_of_the_beginning_of with my bold:
No matter how much I try, I don’t think I’ll ever understand why this book [The Beginning of Infinity] is so popular. There must be some sociological explanation, maybe connected to the influence of Popperian ideas outside of philosophy of science.
It is written in the “here is the secret code to everything, everyone else are confused fools” manner in the guru-sphere, which allows people to just shut their minds off and just parrot whatever Deutsch says uncritically. That’s how you get people like u/fudge_mokey repeating, almost verbatim, everything Deutsch says, without ever having to bother learning the way the philosophy of science has developed in the 80 years since Popper’s LgSc. It also doesn’t help that the kind of problems Popper was wrestling with are not at all what anyone is currently working on, so for example, you see Deutsch fans complaining about things like “foundationalism” which as it was understood in Popper’s time, bears little to no relevance to current views. Basically the people these rabid Deutsch fans oppose, simply don’t exist.
This is, among other things, agreement with me that the “the kind of problems Popper was wrestling with” are underserved today.
There’s lengthy bickering in the comment section, including this open hostility to the concept of debating disagreements (the quote marks don’t indicate an actual quote):
“debate me bro”
my guy, log off and read a book
That’s a careless, funny thing to say to someone who did read some books which you think were the wrong books that were actually dangerously misleading and you think turned him into an idiot who shouldn’t be debated.