"If A and B agree on three things, and it logically follows that those three things MUST lead to a fourth thing, it is irrational for A and B to disagree on the fourth thing.
The only way logic can explain the above is to state that those three things do NOT necessarily lead to a foregone conclusion. "
This reminded me of many discussions I've had with religious and political folk. They will start out with a broad statement, and then ask "Don't you agree?" and it will be easy to say yes. This will go on for a little while, until finally they make another statement and expect you to agree. The pattern has been set, and you end up saying yes, even if you DON'T agree. And then you feel manipulated and angry. And you can't take it back, because now happy religio/political person thinks you're in their camp.
"Don't you agree?" is a hated phrase in my household, which meets with instant revulsion and derision.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
I hate it even more when salesmen try that on me. When I feel that pattern being used on me, I always am noncommittal just out of peevishness. They could ask if I am alive, and I won't anser in the affirmitave. "I might be."
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
A telemarketer just called me 15 minutes ago and told me I had been selected to apply for a platinum Mastercard. I told him I wasn't interested and he asked me if that was because I had another credit card. I just said, "maybe" and ended the conversation.
On second thought, this really doesn't have much to do with what you posted. Maybe something sorta like what mr_porteiro_head said though?
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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The Yes pattern is a very common and powerful sales tool.
Get the client to say yes, and agree with you, and they often keep on agreeing until they put thier money right in your hands.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
This is why I particularly hate its use in religious, moral, and political conversations. Why are you trying to sell me your idea? Wouldn't you rather have a TRUE conversion rather than one I was tricked into?
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
So they ask you a bunch of questions that you say yes to, and then slip in something contraversial once you get used to saying yes? If this is going on, I think it's not a very effective means of arguing. After all, once you realize what you just said, you won't be convinced!
Are you sure you're not confusing this trick with the more valid idea of using small, more obvious premises to reach a bigger, broader conclusion in small steps? In contrast, that is one of the most effective ways of getting a point across when the other person won't consider the conclusion directly. In that case, if you agree with all the premises and a conclusion follows from them, you should probably believe the conclusion.
So, "Don't you agree?" can be used in good or bad ways.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Actually that is EXACTLY what I am talking about. Just because I can accept the "smaller" premises, it does not mean that I come to the same "broader" conclusion.
The conversation I remember most clearly where this took place was about Original Sin. I can agree with many, many premises about the nature of humankind, but it does not lead me to draw the conclusion people are born in Sin.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
"A and B could agree on the first 3 things for different reasons and to different degrees."
Logically, that doesn't matter.
If Conditions 1, 2, and 3 MUST lead to Conclusion X, and A and B both believe that Conditions 1, 2, and 3 are true, then it is irrational for A and B to disagree on Conclusion X.
The problem, as I've pointed out, is that Conditions 1, 2, and 3 do NOT necessarily lead to Conclusion X, which is where people who do the classic "Don't you agree" attempt to mislead you.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Well then, we can agree hydrogen (H) is pretty harmless, yes? I mean its even in water. And of course carbon (C) is harmless, yes? Heck ya eat burnt toast to calm the stomach. And nitrogen (N) is safe, yes? Most of what we breath is nitrogen.
So obviously, ingesting hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is perfectly harmless, yes? Nope, hydrogen cyanide is extremely poisonous!
posted
I think this is what that Pascal's wager, gas conservation, and war justification thread was about. Well, parts overlap.
But what this thread title caused me to think of is certain speech patterns commonly ascribed to women. It's not an actual tag question, but it resembles one. It's also one of those thread titles that I'm going to forget the actual meaning of, and wind up checking multiple times.
You do realize that HCN not being harmful does not follow from H, C, and N not being harmful (which is not absolutely true for any of them, actually), and so Tom's statement doesn't apply?
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
How about this: Na is an explosive. Cl is a poisonous gas. To build a bomb to deliver this poisonous gas we just combine the two creating what must be the very deadly combination NaCl (Table Salt)
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Though have used gay and straight analogies as a memory device while tutoring to explain chemical reactions and terms at times, people who don't know chemistry shouldn't go the other direction.
(You would be surprised how many people don't make the connection between similar roots when they are trying to learn the difference between homogeneous and heterogeneous, or for hydrophobic and hydrophillic.)
Hydrgen: an explosive...think Hindenburg
Carbon: carbon dust is what got all those coal miner's lungs in trouble
Nitrogen: yeah in air it wont kill you but that is because oxygen is present too. If you were in a nitrogen only environment you suffocate.
Posts: 11265 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Actually that is EXACTLY what I am talking about. Just because I can accept the "smaller" premises, it does not mean that I come to the same "broader" conclusion.
I thought it might be - in which case I will defend it, because I use that method all the time.
If you accept all the premises and the conclusion follows from the premises and you don't accept the conclusion then you SHOULD accept the conclusion. If you don't, you're just being inconsistent, with is unfair in a discussion. That is essentially saying that logical arguments are irrelevant - you will believe whatever you wish regardless with what the argument shows. How can any discussion progress if one person has that attitude?
If you accept all the premises and wish to deny the conclusion, then all you've got to say is that the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises - and often it doesn't because there are other premises needed and left unmentioned. And often on the spot people don't notice which premises are missing in the argument, even though they intuitively realize something is wrong. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying you can't see what's wrong with an argument yet you intutively think something must be wrong - so long as you don't then just reject the argument completely without any more thought.
In some sense, the "don't you agree?" method of taking small steps towards a big conclusion is the most logical of all methods of discussion. Long diatribes tend to use a lot of emotional tactics and other confounding factors, whereas slow methodical questioning is clear. It is trouble if you are doing it on the spot though - it's better written down so you can look back at it and see if some big mistake was made or if you were tricked in some way along the line, invalidating the conclusion.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
sigh... wish my older postings weren't deleted The Hindenberg didn't explode, it caught on fire. Most of the Hindenberg's passengers survived; which wouldn't have been the case if the Hindenberg had exploded. And most of the serious casualties were of those people who leapt to their deaths rather than riding the zepplin to the ground. Hydrogen wasn't even the primary fuel of the fire. The skin of the Hindenberg was cloth covered in powdered aluminum sealed with dope (similar to model airplane glue) which is explosively combustible. And, excluding the hydrogen contained within, the internal gas bags themselves provided more fuel. Etc.
Because hydrogen is extremely light, it mixes/disperses and rises through the atmosphere very very quickly; usually too quickly for ignition to occur. So while one could make hydrogen explode -- eg by filling a container with hydrogen and oxygen, then increasing the temperature to above the Farenheit454 which ignites paper -- under even somewhat normal circumstances, one would have to break a tank of compressed hydrogen within a fairly low air-circulation room before an explosion would occur. A slow leak in a normally ventilated room would be extremely unlikely to cause a fire; let alone explode. Outdoors, one would have to place eg a lit match close enough to the hydrogen leak so that the leak-created breeze would flutter a flag before the hydrogen would begin to burn.
Holding the percentage of oxygen under 4%, deep sea divers can use a hydrogen&oxygen(Hydrox)mixture as their air supply; ie the deep divers' tissue becomes saturated with hydrogen. A nearly equal mix of hydrogen&helium combined with oxygen (Hydreliox) allows even deeper dives than helium&oxygen(Heliox) or Hydrox alone. At sufficient depth, Hydrox causes a hallucinatory hydrogen narcosis, and Heliox causes memory&concentration loss, numbness&shakes, and a "sleep" paralysis.
Among other things, activated charcoal is used to counteract poisoning. And blaming coalminers lung on carbon alone is highly misleading when coal is composed of many toxic chemicals and materials.
As for nitrogen, one can suffocate under a pure hydrogen atmosphere also, as well as by being buried under diamonds (carbon), and darn near everything else you can mention. Heck, living in one atmosphere of pure oxygen will damage the lung's alveoli. And without those alveoli, one suffocates. Nonetheless, nitrogen is quite safe at or somewhat-near normal atmospheric concentrations and pressures.
So I was only very lightly kidding to illustrate a point. Combining parts often produces an end product quite different from what one might have expected from casual examination of the parts. Eg one can safely ingest/inhale quite a bit of H (hydrogen), C (carbon), or N (nitrogen) while ~50milligrams/~0.00175ounce of the synthesis/compound HCN (hydrogen cyanide) would be lethal. Similarly, one can compound together ideas/concepts that are individually true or good under-most-circumstances to come up with a synthesis/conclusion that is totally false or even downright evil.
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