Honest Intellectual Debate

This very useful process, which is actually the correct procedure of philosophy, originating with the ancient Greeks in the formalised sense and later improved and refined by Catholic thinkers, remains essentially unchanged and just as useful as it ever was.

Since today most people have no idea of how it works, or how to do it, I though I would provide a little starter pack.

The order of how to properly argue —which does not mean “fight to win” but rather, present your ideas honestly to subject them to equally honest criticism so as to improve them and the theories that follow from them— is thus:

1. State your Axioms — these are concepts, items, or ideas that are stated as being true and valid or correct for the purposes of the argument. Some examples might be: The Sun rises in the East, 2 plus 2 is 4 and so on. Axioms might not necessarily be true or correct, but for the purpose of the argument are accepted by both sides as being so. Which of course, does not mean that they need to be accepted by the other side if there is sufficient evidence to bring them into question. Even then though, it is often intellectually useful to have some “as if” axioms. For example, to disprove the idiotic idea of a flat Earth, you can posit the axiom that the Earth is flat and the sun is a little ball of fire sixty miles up. You would then have to do all the steps outlined below to show how this would work and how it matches with what we observe. The very fact not a single moron that believes in the absurd idea of a flat Earth has been able to do this, tends to prove the point that only idiots believe in the flat Earth “theory”.
2. State your Premises — These are points that you believe or have supporting evidence for being true, but are open to criticism. Or may be true only under certain limited conditions which you are detailing in order to present your hypothesis. For example, while it is true that human beings can and do survive in environments where there is no breathable air (when in the womb and if you ever saw the film the Abyss, there are partial exceptions) your premise accepted for the general theory you want to present might be that “Humans need air to live”. Depending on the theory presented, premises can be few or many, more or less detailed and so on. Generally these are also the points which the counterpart “attacks” or tests for correctness, viability, context and so on.
3. Present your Hypothesis — The argument you make usually takes the form: Given these axioms and premises I posit that… X
4. Present your Theory — This takes the some of: Given Hypothesis X I just presented, we should be able to observe Y, Z and A1 (with or without special conditions that may or may not be required, which can be constraints of the theory, meaning the observations are expected only under specific conditions which should be deducible from the axioms and premises.

That concludes the presentation and formation of a Theory.

It should then be presented to the relevant people interested in so as to stress-test it. That is only part 1 of the testing process. The real test, or part 2 of it, comes when you take the theory and apply it in the real world and note if the expected observations take place. This is the experimental stage.

A good theory predicts specific results/observations and these are repeatable and consistent when performed by others who retain the parameters of the experiment.

This whole process of arguing (putting the theory through it’s intellectual paces, looking for errors in logic, and reasoning) is completely pointless if it is not done honestly. Ego, has no place in this process.

Unfortunately, as we have seen, most humans are utterly incapable of being intellectually honest, and ego runs amok like a giant dragon, devouring all in the land.

This is why YouTube “debates” are nowadays simply the equivalent of watching two hobos fight over a ten dollar bill for the “entertainment” of monkey-level IQ in-duh-viduals. I refer to these things as Internet bum fights (bum as in hobo/homeless drunk/junkie).

My “debate” with Vajay Drier was such an event. And the average cretin that listens to Jay Dyer thought he “won” because he made more monkey noises and bluster. When in fact, he completely lost the argument on all fronts, as the written after report proved. But since people are illiterate today, I will soon post the video with spliced in all the proofs, so that it is clear also for those who do not read.

Honest Intellectual arguing is practically a lost art that informs real science and is the bedrock of real philosophy.

What people call “philosophy’ nowadays is as corrupted and degenerate from it’s true origins and reality as what most people call “Catholicism” is from actual Catholicism.

It is a sad state of affairs, but I hope, with totally unreasonable optimism, that this blog might, in due course, become something of a haven for honest intellectual explorers of ideas.

When I was 26, I wrote The Face on Mars (updated and re-issued in 2014).

In the intervening 27 years since, not a single one of my theories has been proven wrong, and in fact, most of them have only had further supporting evidence come out to demonstrate the likelihood that I am indeed very much correct about the origin, causes and nature of the artefacts, as well as the implications of them.

The same is true to date of Reclaiming The Catholic Church.

This is not so much because I am oh so smart (yes, yes, I am, but that’s not the point!) It is primarily because I learnt how to apply the logical process of arguing correctly as it was originally intended to be applied at a young age.

In fact, you will find that if you do not corrupt their young minds, children naturally use this process to learn about the world around them. the often hilarious little “errors” of deduction they make, are the result of not having enough data or not yet being able to properly conceptualise that data within a given concept.

For example, when my two year old (Piglet) is scarfing down the tenth piece of salami and her mother tells her “…that’s not good for your belly, you should stop now.” her instant reply, with a smile, is:

“Yes, but for my mouth.”

And it’s a perfect argument. Ok, mom, maybe it’s not good for my belly, but it’s just great for my taste buds! The fact that the consequences of binging on what she likes the taste of are more important than the pleasure felt by her mouth, is a step too far with unknown data she knows nothing about.

Sadly, in the modern age, most adults have less capacity to argue honestly than my two or my four year olds.