[Textop] Debate Guide Project

[Larry Sanger]

Hi Matthias,

Let's do talk about this:

> So there is one big question for me. Do we do Textop and DGP
> separatelly or not?
>
> Lets see the pros and cons.

Excellent!

By the way, I've been using "Textop" as the term for all the subprojects;
"Collation Project" (CP) is the name of the one we've been working on on the
wiki.

But bear in mind that we need to make it clear what "separately" means here.
The ways in which I have thought CP and and DGP would be joined, not
separate, are that they would have the same management (at some level), and
ultimately they would make use of the same outline.  (Note that what I mean
by "make use of the same outline" needs explaining, which I'll do in my next
mail.)

> A) Pro:
>
> (i) DGP could use the chunks of Textop and structure it from the
> perspective of different debates.
> (ii) I think that the motivation behind DGP is much bigger
> then behind
> Textop. If I am right, the DGP could be the motivation engine
> of Textop.
> (iii) We do not need to copy, synchronize the text chunks.

I think you are absolutely right about (ii).  The interest and motivation in
DGP is potentially much greater than in CP.

> B) Cons:
> (i) Maybe the structure gets messy.
> (ii) Maybe DGP explodes quickly but Textop will be forgotten.
> i.e. we will
> get a lot of chunks from different books, but none of the
> books will be
> outlined completly.

I think the latter is the biggest problem.  If we must *first* collate all
texts that we use in the DGP, then the DGP will concern only issues that
were written about in public domain works, and the amount of raw material we
would have for constructing debate summaries would be limited.

Think of this: if we write new debate summaries "from scratch," we can then
link from particular arguments to the appropriate places in the CP outline.

> I suggest to make this decision first. If we decide to do the
> projects
> separatelly, I suggest to have different prototype projects as well.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "separately."  We can use the same
wiki, but I think we ought to write original debate summaries.

> Let me clarify one detail in my vision:
>
> >An argument is
> > usually also a
> > thesis, which can be debated.
>
> Lets take an example. A big question.:)
>
> So there could be for example a question node1: "Does God exist?"
>
> thesis node1: "Yes, God exists"
>
> argument node1: "The Universe is fine tuned for living."
>
> Ok, but this argument is itself also a thesis, which can be debated.
>
> So argument node1=thesis node2
>
> and question node2="Is the Universe fine tuned for living?"
>
>
> An argument for thesis node2 could be:
>
> argument node2="Life is probably only possible on carbon base."
>
> But this is a thesis, which can be debated.

This is a good example.  Generally speaking (and this happens all the time
in philosophy and policy debate), premises of arguments are themselves
subject to further debate.  This is largely why I have thought that the DGP
*could* (eventually) use the CP outline, at least after it's well-developed.

But I would like a debate summary to be not too fine-grained.  For example,
a guide to the question, "Does God exist?" should cover the main arguments
for theism, agnosticism, and atheism, as well as for non-monotheistic
notions of God.  It should not contain just one or two arguments and replies
thereto, but more on the order of 20-30 arguments and replies.  Two or three
of these argument-reply pairs might concern the argument you mention,
sometimes called the Argument from Design.  But ultimately there ought to
be, in addition, a debate summary that concerns the merits of just the
Argument from Design (it's not as if philosophers, theologians, and
biologists had not written entire books about it).  I can see *that* leading
to even *more* specialized debates.

So I agree entirely with you about the structure of debate guides.

> And so on. Somewhere at the end there are level nodes. Level nodes
> may be:
>
> - Some kind of fact, which is not debated, it is weel known,
> there is a
> consensus on it.  For example: "Life on Earth is carbon
> based". This is a
> fact, which nobody argues against. We do not need any reference for
> this.
>
> - Some kind of fact, which is not so well known, and needs a
> reference.
> For example: "Certain type of amino acids may be formed in meteors
> spontaneously." Here we may need a reference to a publication.
>
> - Simple and weel known analytical truth, which are not factual, but
> true. For example: "In Euclidean geometry the thesys of Pythagoras is
> true." Usually we do not need a reference for such old mathematical
> theses, only for the not so well known new ones.

Well, we need to discuss what are "nodes" or components of the Debate Guide
that are placed on separate pages, which are organized "hierarchically."
Should the nodes be individual arguments (or even individual statements), or
should they be *collections* of arguments (and, no doubt, other relevant
material)?  I favor the latter, and here is why: the purpose of the Debate
Guide is to allow the user to make up his or her own mind about a question,
and to do so by presenting (in summary form) all of the relevant arguments.
The best way to do that, then, is to craft a summary of the debate not
piecemeal, but as a unitary whole.  This means that we might state the same
argument in several different ways throughout the entire Debate Guide,
because what is essentially the same argument can have a different purpose
(and, for example, a slightly differently-worded conclusion) in different
contexts.

Given this, there is no need to designate special nodes that are not
debated.  Rather, I would say that *if* an argument *is* elaborated at some
more in-depth node, *then* we should link to it.  There is no need to point
out which premises have no support, yet, in the DGP.

> This results in a hierarchical structure of theses.

Yes, except that, in the DGP, I would say that the components that should
exhibit the hierarchical structure, would be *debate summaries*, each being
addressed to a question like "Does God exist?"

That said, I agree 100% that the logical structure of a debate summary lends
itself to the same sort of *outline* (but not the same chunks) as the CP.

> You may prefer to put all this stuff to the first node and do
> no hierarchy.
> That is simpler to read until the structure of the argumentation is
> simple, but it gots messy, when the structure of the argumentation
> gets complicated.
>
> In the case of "Does God exist?" I am sure, we will reach
> quickly a very
> messy argumentation.:) I would prefer to keep it explicitly
> structured.

I agree, but I think the DGP should be rather more coarse-grained than the
CP.  That is, there should be a many-to-one mapping from individual debate
summaries to Outline nodes.

I'm going to explain this in my next mail...

--Larry