Is it to hash out the truth through intelligent discourse?

Or is it simply because it makes us feel good when we feel we have 'proven' someone wrong?

In other words - are we more likely to blindly adhere to our ideals and preconceived notions than we are to be truly open-minded and accept 'defeat' when our 'logic' has proven faulty?

Why did you make this post?

Please keep in mind that it is 12:00am which means I am completely inebriated and my post is probably somewhat incoherent.

Though I think it is still somewhat decipherable.

Most likely to give myself a feeling of importance. I can't deny it.

SMP has a lot of interesting questions and a lot of smart people. I help run a restaurant IRL (actually, I mostly code lately) so SMP provides some intellectual stimulation.

Could say its the intellectual stimulation, the thrill of the debate, the joy of learning or teaching ...

but of course in truth its the naked chicks

yes yes obviously.

but what is it that 'stimulates' us? what 'thrill'?

i mean besides the nekid chicks.

is it really learning? or is it out-debating?

I'm sure it's different for different posters but I think people on SMP do change their views over time - at the very least they often refine them, even if not actually abandoning a core position. There are also clearly people who enjoy teaching, which I think should be distinguished from out-debating. I'm certainly grateful when posters like that compose several paragraphs of well-informed argument for or against a position.

For what it's worth, my suspicion would be that most people who post here have thought about things a lot beforehand, so as a group we probably have better thought out reasons and hence more belief-inertia than a random sample.

I definitely agree with this statement. As a sample, SMP is probably the most likely forum to be 'open-minded', and the least likely to be biased toward a given topic.

The reason I made this thread was because I read the ‘Philosophy Of Science’ thread, and couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the responses came across as ‘emotional’, or perhaps a little too passionate. Almost like a politics or religion thread. The thought of grouping ‘science’ in with ‘faith’ seemed to downright offend some people, which couldn’t help but make me wonder if some of the same underlying principals weren’t at play.

I definitely have more to add WRT to this topic, but I am way to drunk and sleepy to continue (or to make much sense for that matter). Perhaps tomorrow.

I guess learning. I don't debate much as people worthy of debating generally agree with me on most topics.

lol, I didn't think SMP posters understood the value of a good rickroll

This could very well make for the next epic bumper sticker.

As an academic you spend some years learning academic thinking. A good academic spends most of those years coming to grasp with the notion that what he knows may change, exceptionally good academics may spend a lot of time challenging accepted views.

When this is attacked and they are called religious people who rely on faith, you aren't really debating science anymore but making a personal attack.

That untrained people use science wrongly isn't a valid criticism of science. It may be a valid criticism against popular science, but that isn't a very interesting standpoint.

The fact that you use the term(s) 'science wrongly' is indicative of basically believing that there are cold, hard scientific facts out there - to be eventually accepted by the bewildered masses.

This is something that any self-respecting 'scientist' should be ashamed of.

Science can and will continue to be used wrongly. If you think saying this is something anyone should be ashamed of, I don't think you fully understand what science is. It is a mental tool, a representation of what we observe. At its deepest level it is no more fact than the letter A or number 2 is a fact. It is however conforming to systems of logic, meaning that what it says is most likely correct - but that is something else completely.

It is however what we got. Discussing essensialism is actually rather un-interesting in science.

Sounds like this 'Science' thing is some exclusive club that I don't yet have the means to belong.

You still speak of it in terms of 'right' and 'wrong' - as if there is a some sort of future-point out there where we will all look back and say 'gee, what a mistake we made thinking like that....'

Oh wait a minute...

I said science can be used wrongly. If you want a quarrel or want to pretend there is stuff into my posts that isn't there then please just go away now.

If you drive your car on the wrong side of the road continously, then you drive it wrongly. If you say 2+2 is 5 then you are using mathematics wrongly.

If you debate it philosophically on the nature if anything can be true or wrong, nobody can really prove you wrong - but if you debate on the accepted systems of thought that lies as the basis of driving, then you are being very wrong.

If you can't grasp this concept, then so be it. But please stop right away to in some way pretend I have ever said there exists irrefutable black and white facts in science.

I repeat - debating essensialism is futile, it can't go anywhere.

“I said science can be used wrongly. If you want a quarrel or want to pretend there is stuff into my posts that isn't there then please just go away now.”

How would I have the objective sense to know if that were true or false according to you? C'mon.

“If you drive your car on the wrong side of the road continously, then you drive it wrongly.”

Even if that leads to death or dismemberment, I still fail to see how that is ‘wrong’. There are many bacteria that feed off of amputated limbs who would disagree with you. Not to mention the millions upon millions of depressed suicidal people who are as we speak 'praying' for death.

If you say 2+2 is 5 then you are using mathematics wrongly.

What is mathematics, and how does it apply to anything useful. What is useful? Some people wish they were never born at all believe it or not, thus concluding that anything and everything ‘existence’ is infact not very useful at all to some.

“If you debate it philosophically on the nature if anything can be true or wrong, nobody can really prove you wrong - but if you debate on the accepted systems of thought that lies as the basis of driving, then you are being very wrong.”

I would never, EVER debate ANYTHING on the accepted systems of thought TYVM.

“If you can't grasp this concept, then so be it. But please stop right away to in some way pretend I have ever said there exists irrefutable black and white facts in science.”

Sorry my mistake

At the moment its to put off as long as possable the moment when I actually have to start working

<Got another poker tracker window open, another quick look at 2+2 ...>

It is however what we got. Discussing 'science' is actually rather un-interesting in essentialism

Accepted systems of thought that lie as the basis of driving is rather rudimentary and basic.

Great, then we can start the debate without using an accepted method of thought. This of course includes every such case, not just science. So you can't really think, talk or write.

You start.

I post on SMP because there are a lot of smart people here who will destroy any poor arguments that I put forward. It lets me see where my thinking has gone wrong and where my ideas need clarification, refinement, and/or shifting. I've changed my mind on a few things, but nothing radically different from where I've started out. But I have gotten way better at making cohesive arguments and recognizing weak arguments.

I also hate it when I don't understand why someone holds a different viewpoint than I do. I guess that's a little bit of the psychologist in me. So I try to either change their mind or figure out where they are coming from.

Why debate anything? Sounds pretty trivial and useless to me, no? What could possibly be accomplished?

Haha I love philosophy/science.

Such a joke in the real world run by emotion and ego.

Your ideas and arguments - though albeit in slightly different form and prose -are pretty fundamental in most scientific philosophy, I don't know how much laughs I would get from indirectly calling what I think a joke.