Exercises

  • trying to help someone to use sophisms on purpose in order to trick him or her
  • detect sophisms during IRC conversations
  • know your own "sophisms arsenal"

Sophisms (non-official ones)

  • it's Art.
    • not having to justify any decision or opinion because the final product or the process leading to it would rely on a nearly mystical view of creativity, e.g. muses
  • fairness before realism
    • analyzing a situation based on what it should morally and ethically be then on the coherence of that model
      • vs. first being realistic then and only then checking if it is morally and ethically acceptable or not
    • what is the point of being right about something that is wrong?
  • reverted causality
    • especially common with long-term processes demanding efforts
      • "Why do you do sport X, you are already fit!" while the person stays fit precisely because he or she is regularly practicing physical activities.
      • "Why do you eat so healthy, you are so thin!" while the person masters his or her weight precisely because he or she eats properly.
      • "Why do you read so much, you are already so smart!" while the person is knowledgeable precisely because he or she is investing a lot of time studying.
  • ad Galileo (original "creation" ;)
    • When someone is being ridiculed for a lack of solid argumentation (including peer review or references) they describe themselves as the new Galileo, original and thus persecuted.
    • see rule 35 of John Baez's Crackpot index, 1998
    • started the http://www.agi-wiki.org/Main/AGICrackpots equivalent as an homage
  • the unknown unknown against "intellectual bully"
    • understanding understanding is still an active topic of research
      • hermeneutics
      • epistemology
        • Popper's demarcation problem
      • meta-skeptic
  • recurrent blackhole of meta-conversation
    • discussing the method of conversation rather than the initial problematic
    • common after pointing out sophisms used
  • being "good at argumentation"
    • aka "You could be a politician." or meta-sophism
    • one could just politely ask to point out what part of the argumentation was illogical or incomplete

Official sophism

Views

Arguments to defend (cognitive) territory

More often than not arguing is about territory, even if it is about cognitive territory (i.e. a theory or an idea). Consequently what is being debated is not necesseraly the point but the ability to demonstrate to other that on can defend his own territory.

Inspiration : Garlic argument during Big Brother (UK) 10x28

Going further

References