Arguing on NoFap = A Waste of Time?

I think it's good for this site to have topics to 'debate' about... it makes it a more appealing place to be, although there is a fine line between debating and arguing.
As long as it doesn't descend into personal abuse, then I guess it's OK.

 

Only if you're arguing with a feminist

 

I actually think this is one of the better sites when it comes to discussions.

I am doing philosophy and before that I was a lawyer, so I am use to having 'arguments' with someone for the fun of it. Then perhaps even switching sides when I have made all the points I can make.

It becomes harder to do that when it comes to things I feel very strongly about. The best I can do then is sew a seed of doubt in the other person's mind by asking a question, and then leaving it at that.

Indeed, there is an ancient Greek school of philosophy which taught that it was impossible to have a firm opinion about anything, so the best thing we could do was to learn both sides of the argument really well and then pause (epoche) before reaching a conclusion. That pause was suppose to be the moment of happiness.

 

@surfingPoet. Thank you for the links. I find the Gnostic stuff really fascinating as well, even thought I am not a believer.

 

To me, both of these statements are true:

About 95% of online discussions are useless (as you describe above) and either a waste of time or worse.
I love online discussions and I have learned immensely through them.

If someone posts an opposing view and I still disagree, there's usually still some sort of take-away for me. I think, reading a lot of other person's opinions is a great way to develop a differentiated point of view.

As Dake1963 points out, this is one of the better websites to have discussions. I haven't encountered any troll in my discussions yet and generally everyone is very constructive.

Also, take into account that when two persons are arguing online, a couple of other people are reading without leaving any comment. I am that guy very often and - like listening to a podcast - it's a great way to learn about arguments, opinions and everything.

 

What is being lost today is the art of conversation. This is only possible when there is a general sense of humor held toward all opinions... an enlightened skepticism of sorts.... where ideas are akin to conceptual art. The kind of urbane culture required for this is rapidly disappearing.

It is a sign of insecurity when people are dogmatic with their opinions. The 'debate' is quickly polarized, which only leads to further entrenchment of views. If instead there were a genuine discussion, or a dialogue, there is the possibility of a fruitfulness which might lead to a third position... a synthesis. But of course synthesis requires an element of imagination. An analytical frame of mind is pure intellect.

But the real fruitfulness in genuine discussion is the role it plays in distracting ourselves from the sordid realities of life, which is most essential for the recovering addict. All art is a distraction and a development.

----------------------

Don Quixote

His dogmas came ready made to hand,
Superfluous it was to make a stand,
When through a thousand thoughts he would roam,
And on the sinking sun, remember home.

Woefully the earth was deemed to move;
Was it a compensation to prove
That mind were some Archimedean lever,
In vertiginous decentered fever.

And what if of late this plank be broke
Since the time such fantasists spoke,
With incoherence found from left to right,
From enlightenment to deepest night.

In keeping with the geometric theme,
I’ll follow the circle and see what seems
More proportioned and just to my sense –
To peer again into woods more dense.

 

I wonder why people wrote all that...

 

I just say my opinion and move on, sometimes I'll do a little back-and-fourth with someone but never more than a few posts.

 

Really? I'm not turned on when I'm angry.

 

So one would then draw distinctions between ideas, opinions and belief.

Now first obviously we all have a set of beliefs and convictions, and then we seek to justify them.... knowledge being justified true belief.

There is here a distancing from our belief, and reasons we might give for that belief, which is normal, natural and healthy.

The problem arises when our reasons/ ideas do not rest on our beliefs, but when our beliefs instead rest on our reason. This is otherwise known as Rationalism, and is the reason why Reason in the end self-destructs. Reason is thought to be like a war machine, a battering ram of logic. Lost is the rhetoric and the arts of persuasion.

 

You have a good point here. If the mind is over-wrought, it will look for a release of some sort. And for the addict, we know where that leads. I think the key is moderation; the mind needs some tension/ distraction lest it be bored, but not too much lest it be overly tense. It needs to find that 'goldilocks zone'.

One should be looking for a moderate pleasure in a discussion/ dialogue, which is leagues away from both the heated debate of a fanatic at one end, and the stupor of the entertained moron at the other.

 

The reference to 'justified true belief' is going back to Greek philosophy. In this context, when one is philosophically sophisticated, you realize you know nothing with any certitude... and yet you have your beliefs. From this starting point one can quite civilly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of various 'positions', and usually in terms of coherency. Philosophy here is an art and a humanity. It has not yet taken on the pretensions of a science, and logic remains subservient to aesthetics.

Fast forward to today, and our minds/ beliefs have been ravaged by an initial purge of doubt. From ground zero, we try to construct our beliefs, which are now more ideological in nature [or we don't]. There tends to be a vehemence here as we are now uncomfortable with uncertainty; we are cut adrift from a 'cultural matrix', or an orthodoxy, where belief was once orientated by more pragmatic, provisional, aesthetic or cultural concerns.

We also have a right to believe whatever we want, or the right to not even think. But it is in reality an illusion that we can think what we like, for there's always an orthodoxy at play. At the basement level, our orthodoxy is that the natural is the real, and all human thoughts, philosophy, art, religion and the like is itself an illusory phantasmogoria to be swept aside by the progress of science. This is why many are so dismissive and intolerant of opposing perspectives; they appear nonsensical.... because they lack critical thought... which creates a healthy, humane, and humorous disposition to our 'positions'. It's about distancing reason from belief.

I hope that was simple enough and made sense.