Debate Now Logical Debate Forum?

[Grumblenuts]

Do attend to the first rule in a debate : There must be a shared FIRST PRINCIPLE.
You cannot hold a debate between someone who believes the external world is a dream and anyone else.
Or someone who says 'logic does not apply'

You contradict yourself right from the start. That's two "FIRST PRINCIPLE{S}" already. There are no first principles. Debate requires mutually agreed upon oversight and procedural rules. Getting you and I, for example, to agree upon just that much would be far more difficult than pulling teeth. It only gets worse from there. The entire notion is ridiculous on its face.

A lot of debating on here (esp by atheists and the very liberal) violate the first rule.
THey are the blind man sincerely saying to the sighted : I know beyond doubt that you can't see

You're clearly nuttier than I am, but say our "shared FIRST PRINCIPLE" was "Logic obviously applies and trumps anything requiring supernatural belief." Go..

Never mind. You've lost already.

 

[jwoodie]

No .
The premiss must have the same literal understanding for both .
But its meaning does not need to be shared -- for that is the purpose of a discussion --- to examine areas of difference in terms of interpretation .

And Logic does not always apply .
Many believe that Logic is for the brain but not necessarily for the mind which has its own emotional and intuitive networks .
And though they are equally valid it is usually almost impossible to reconcile conclusions when the two parties are on different levels of spiritual enlightenment .
imho .

What a load of CRAP. This thread is about a LOGICAL DEBATE FORUM, not your personal emotions.

 

[Rumpole]

Is it possible to have a Logical Debate Forum on USMB? This would require a succinct proposition, followed by relevant facts and logical conclusions drawn therefrom. Irrelevancies and logical fallacies would be identified and removed by majority vote. Is this possible?

Having been a participant on numerous debate forums going back to the days of Usenet, I can say with a modicum of experience that very few folks on the internet debate forums are skilled in the fine art of logic. For this reason, those who are tend to avoid such places.

Besides, logic should never be subjected to democratic vote. A board such as this should have moderators schooled in logic and debate. However, logic is just one aspect, it's more about the fine art of debate, serious debate. Debate devoid of snark, self-serving comments, posturing (the really bad one), patronizing, cheap shots, irrelevant facts, assorted non arguments, false equivalencies, and the list of logical fallacies goes on (The Carl Sagan Baloney Detection Kit should be on everyone's laptop). Very few really grasp these concepts, that has been my experience.

 

[Rumpole]

Seeming logical is an oxymoron. If A=B and B=C, then A=C. Get it?

God is love.
Love is blind.
Ray Charles is blind.
Therefore, Ray Charles is God.

The moral of this story is be careful with your 'logic'.

The flaw in the syllogism is known as the fallacy of the undistributed middle. This fallacy occurs when the middle term in a categorical syllogism isn't distributed in at least one of the premises, meaning it doesn't apply to all possible cases of the category it references. Here's how the syllogism breaks down:

1. God is love. (Major premise)
2. Love is blind. (Minor premise)
3. Ray Charles is blind. (Minor premise)
4. Therefore, Ray Charles is God. (Conclusion)

The middle term here is "blind." In the syllogism:

• The major premise links God to love.
• The second premise links love to being blind.
• The third premise links Ray Charles to being blind.

However, just because both love and Ray Charles share the property of being blind, it does not logically follow that Ray Charles and love (or God) are the same or equivalent. The argument assumes that all instances of blindness are equivalent and interchangeable, which is not valid—there are many things that can be blind (metaphorically or literally), and they are not necessarily the same or interchangeable. This logical error results in a conclusion that is not supported by the premises.

But, in point of fact, the so-called syllogism is just a logic nerd's joke, one I found on a bathroom wall in a jazz club, some 40 years ago. But, I thought it would be fun to deconstruct it, as a logic exercise.

 

[Libby von H]

That might be difficult to do.

Actual debate consists of advancing an argument regardless of one’s personal opinion – a conservative would aggressively and in good faith argue in support of an assault weapon ban; a liberal would aggressively and in good faith argue in support of banning abortion.

This confuses ends and means. And doesn't account for the many many many times people support the right thing for the wrong reason.

You can only serve one master.And that implies FIRST PRINCIPLES. Are all men created equal, do we have unalienable rights, does governemtn exist to defend those rights....these are First Principles and they precede liberal/conservative and all else OR WE TRULY CAN"T SPEAK together

A small mistake in the beginning is a big one in the end

Take minimum wage...You can agree that everyone should have a living wage and diverge on whether mw helps toward that
but if you don't agree that all should have a living wage there can be no debate about HOW

 

[BackAgain]

Most of our posting liberals couldn’t distinguish between annoyance of modus tollens and modus ponens.

I barely remember some of those construct.

Folks can be logica,l all the same. But a lot of the arguments here are not formal arguments. They are just disagreements and catcalling. (We all do it, occasionally.)

This thread idea is a non starter.