Belief System Debate

Introduction

The method outlined below has the potential to revolutionise intellectual debate. It will bring new focus to current hot topics such as globalisation, and breath new life into debates that had turned stale such as over religion and philosophy. It could serve to democratise debates by giving the ordinary man on the street the tools to make a contribution. For instance, on any given topic, competitions could be run to come up with the belief system that is the most coherent explanation of the facts. Anyone armed with a brain, the Visual Concept software and internet access would be able to enter. Finally, it could provide a way for people to easily construct their entire belief system through a web-based mindmap that enables them to select consistent belief systems on different subjects. The slanging matches we see today between politicians on TV and academics in journals seem positively prehistoric in comparison and may soon die out...



Overall Objective

The Overall Objective of the Belief System Debate method is to improve the efficiency of intellectual debate, whether face-to-face or in writing. Efficiency is defined in terms of:

• Probability of believing the truth: intellectual debate should increase the probability of people believing the truth on any given topic as a result of participating in or observing the debate.

• Cost: debates cost time and money, which should be set against the benefit.

Intermediate Objectives

The Intermediate Objectives of the method for achieving the Overall Objective, are to provide three things that are generally lacking in current intellectual debates:

• Clear communication of each viewpoint: Much time is wasted in debates because neither side fully appreciates the position of the other. This is not just due to a failure to listen, but also to each side basing their arguments on assumptions that they do not communicate and may even themselves not be consciously aware of. Clear communication can therefore be ensured in two ways. Firstly, each side should be required to set out clearly their viewpoint in its entirety, including any implicit assumptions that are being made. Secondly, each side should be required to put itself in the shoes of the other, in order to ensure that it really gets to know the other’s position.

• Use of an agreed truth test: Many debates fail to make progress because there is no explicitly agreed way of assessing the strength of the viewpoints put forward. It is left to each participant and observer to make their own subjective judgements. This is like having a race in which each athlete is allowed to decide where their own finishing line is. The result is that people only race against themselves and all declare themselves the winner! Pursuing truth is the objective that all sides can agree to, and so agreeing on an objective test for the truth should be the appropriate finishing line. Reaching such agreement is easier said than done however, since different belief systems prefer different tests for the truth. Atheists for instance, prefer the scientific method, while theists see it as too limited in its scope. A solution needs to be found for this problem.

• Separation of truth from value: sometimes, the underlying difference between the two sides of a debate is one of values. For instance, differences between political ideologies can be partly explained by different views of what a good society and a good life consists of, as well as differences over the means to get there. Differences in values are much harder to resolve (see Value System Analysis for more information), and so in order to make more progress, the debate over matters of truth should be separated from debate over values. For instance, the debate between political ideologies would be improved if discussion about ends and means was separated, with debate about means only conducted amongst those who held common views of the ends.

Preconditions

There are two simple preconditions for the method to be efficient:

• Choose your debating partner carefully: you have to make sure that if the truth of the subject you want to debate depends on the subject of another debate, both you and the person you are debating with have the same viewpoint on that other debate. For instance, let's take the debate about when a foetus becomes a person, whch underlies the abortion debate. The view one takes of this depends upon your view of human nature, which depends upon your position on the debate over whether the supernatural exists e.g. theists say a person is fundamentally a spirit/soul, and that therefore a foetus becomes a person at conception because that is when God inserts the spirit/soul. The atheist will deny this. The theist and the atheist will therefore get nowhere if they try to discuss when a foetus becomes a person. It only makes sense for theists to discuss amongst themselves, and atheists to discuss amongst themselves. If theists want to persuade atheists that it is wrong to abort after conception, then they have to first win the first debate over whether the supernatural exists. Forming government policy on abortion in the presence of two such opposing groups, is therefore a matter of pure politics not intellectual debate. Finding the right partner could be facilitated by the internet (see 'Belief System Debate via the internet' below).

• Drafting of Belief Maps: both sides should draft Belief Maps of their belief systems on the relevant subject beforehand.

Method

The Belief System Debate method consists of the following stages:

1. 1. Establish the facts: Each side agrees on the facts that need to be explained (which define the subject of the debate), and the facts that they want to use to provide support for their viewpoint. If there is disagreement over whether something is a fact or not, it would be re-worded such that both sides can agree to it. For instance, the Christian may suggest that “People have spiritual experiences” is a fact to be explained, but the atheist would disagree with this. It could therefore be reformulated to “People claim to have spiritual experiences”. This stage can be done by each side looking at the Belief Map of the other to check that it agrees with the facts.
2. 2. Adjusting Belief Maps: Each side adjusts its Belief Map in order to provide the most coherent explanation of the facts to be explained that were agreed in Stage 1, only using the facts for support that were agreed in Stage 1. Areas of remaining incoherence identified by the authors are highlighted in red: red lines to show inconsistencies between between beliefs, and red frames to belief boxes show that are not justified through logically valid arguments.
3. 3. Coherence Analysis: Each side analyses the Belief Map of the other side in order to see whether there are more areas of incoherence than those already indicated. As each side is working through the opponent's belief system, they can identify those beliefs which they have screened for coherence and found satisfactory by adding a green frame to them. Since the rules of logic are clear, it will be possible for both sides to agree on those instances where they have been broken. A final version of the Belief Maps is then agreed, including the areas of incoherence in red.
4. 4. Coherence Measurement: The coherence of each system in explaining the facts is then measured in terms of its Coherence Quotient (CQ, for details see Truth - how to find it). The CQs are then compared. If one system has a higher CQ than the other, it is declared the winner of the first round of the debate and as having the highest probability of being true. The losing side may then request a re-match in which both start again from Stage 1 and the losing side makes changes to its Belief Map in order to increase its CQ. If both systems have the same CQ, then the debate provides a case study for further development of the truth test (for some the options to explore, see Coherent Explanation of the Facts)

One round of this process could take from between a few hours to a few months to complete, depending upon the complexity of the belief systems involved.

With two sides, A and B, if A is afraid to lose and makes unreasonable demands on the wording of the facts, B is free to pull out of the debate and can cite the reasons for the record. A neutral observer would be able to identify if the wording required by A was unreasonable, and so there would be a loss of face for A.

In theory the method could be used for debates between more than two sides, but this might bring at least two potential problems:

• More time-consuming: Stages 1 and 3 would take much longer, particularly since securing a three-way agreement is more complex than securing a two-way agreement.

• Deal-making: with three parties A, B and C, if side A is afraid of coming last in the debate it may be rational for them to join forces with side B to force side C to come last and allow B to win. This could be done by A and B insisting on certain wording for the facts to be explained and facts for support, which they know will make things difficult for C. Although C could pull out citing unreasonable behaviour and a neutral observer could corroborate this, the strength in numbers of A and B together claiming that C was unreasonable could avoid a loss of face for them and hence still make the deal-making rational. If the neutral observer was turned into a facilitator with powers to punish deal-making e.g. banning A and B from using that debating forum again, then this problem could be solved.

How it achieves the Intermediate Objectives

All of the Intermediate Objectives are fully met:

• Clear communication of each viewpoint: the use of Belief Maps ensures clear communication of each viewpoint, while the Coherence Analysis stage ensures that each side really understands the beliefs of the other side by making them analyse them in detail.

• Use of an agreed truth test: the main truth test is the coherent explanation of facts. It is expected that all sides on any debate will be able to agree to this test for three reasons. Firstly, it assesses any belief system on its own terms. Each belief system is free to adopt its own preferred truth sub-test, provided that it is justified in a way that is coherent with the facts. For instance, the atheist is free to rely on the scientific method to justify its beliefs, while the Christian is free to use the Bible to justify its beliefs, providing that both methods are themselves justified in a coherent way. There can potentially even be incoherencies in a belief system provided they are coherently explained. For instance, Daoists argue that the Dao or Way cannot be coherently described using a coherent argument that reality is too complex for words to describe. Secondly, the truth tests rely on a pragmatic operational definition of truth as the accurate prediction of sense experiences that involves no controversial assumptions about the nature of reality and is simply based upon the uncontroversial assumption that our main interest in truth is in order to help us cope with reality. Thirdly, the test may be objectively applied using the quantitative CQ measure. Therefore, the only reason why someone would not agree to the test is if they are afraid of the results. This puts them in a difficult position, since to not enter into the debate would be tantamount to declaring their lack of confidence in the coherence of their system.

• Separation of truth from value: this is acheived because the Belief Maps being debated do not include any values whatsoever. Values are analysed separately in Value Maps following the Value System Search method.

How it achieves the Overall Objective

This may be analysed in terms of the two aspects to efficiency:

• Probability of believing the truth: Psychology finds that when confronted by evidence that goes against one’s beliefs, the first response is to deny the validity of evidence, the second is to change peripheral beliefs to accommodate the evidence, and only the third is to change central beliefs. If a belief system is more likely to be true the more coherent it is at explaining the relevant facts, the probability of people believing the truth is therefore increased by the method in two ways. Firstly, the winning side will gain adherents and hence more people will believe the belief system with the highest probability of being true on the given issue. Given the above psychological findings, these new adherents are likely to largely come from the ranks of neutral observers, rather than the losing side. Because Stage 1 cannot include those beliefs which adherents consider to be ‘facts’ where the other sides disagrees, the belief systems being analysed will be weaker versions of those that each side actually holds to. For instance, Christians who believe they have had actual spiritual experiences of God may feel that a version of their faith based on the fact that “People claim to have spiritual experiences” does not carry the same force. So adherents to the losing side may feel justified in denying the validity of the evidence. Secondly, during the first and any subsequent rounds of the debate, both sides will have cause to revise their belief systems to increase their coherence and hence probability of being true. This may not just be through altering beliefs, but also through researching new ‘facts’ that can provide support. Thus, even if no one changes sides, the debate will have been beneficial. Debates as currently conducted are unlikely to be so productive: neutral observers have insufficient information to judge which side is most likely to be true and so either cannot choose or may make the wrong choice; neither side of the debate has the incentive to improve the coherence of their system because the debates do not directly touch on this; and even they did want to improve the coherence, they would not know their own belief system well enough to be able to know the key areas of incoherence!

• Costs: The initial costs of the debate may be higher than traditional methods since it is likely to be quite time intensive, but it is expected that the much higher productivity will more than compensate for this.

Belief System Debate via the Internet

Conducting Belief System Debates via the internet would allow debates to be conducted between anyone in the world with internet access. There would be a central website to facilitate the debates, which would give a mindmap showing how the different debates are connected. For instance, the first debate might be over whether the supernatural exists, from which different branches would emerge for the different options e.g. atheism and the different religions. The branch for atheism would divide into all the sciences and humanities, which have a secular basis to them e.g. within environmental science there would be a debate about climate change. The branches for the different religions would then have various intersections for the different doctrinal debates within each religion that have created different denominations. These debates might take different verses of the religion's holy book as the facts to be explained, with doctrinal positions assessed in terms of how coherently they can explain the relevant verses. There would also be debates about what each religion's perspective should be on the sciences and humanities, given that religions will have a different view of human nature than atheists. Such a structure would ensure that debate only takes place between people who share similar enough views for it not get side-tracked onto another issue (see the section on Preconditions above).

Let's say you think that your belief system on a particular subject is the best around. To enter into a debate with it you would look on the mindmap to see if there has already been a debate on that subject. If there hasn't, you would notify the facilitator who would set up a new intersection. On that intersection you would post your Belief Map and its CQ score, and anyone else would be free to challenge you on the same (or similar) facts to be explained. If someone challenges you, you would either communicate via email attaching the Belief Maps, or the Belief Maps could be run on-line to allow people to observe the debate taking place. The Belief Maps of both of you would be displayed on the website, ranked according to their CQ scores.

In order to launch the site, some debates could be sponsored by companies, with high cash prizes for the winner. Once it becomes well-known, simply having your Belief Map posted as the best on a particular subject is likely to be sufficient reward in itself. Winners may well gain media coverage, such as if there is an underdog story of someone self-taught with little formal education, beating university professors. Winning at Belief System Debate would then become cool, and children would have an incentive to study hard at school in the hope that one day, they too could be a champion... And all the while, the CQs of the belief systems are rising, as the mental capacity of humanity is finally being fully harnessed to bring us closer to the truth and so help us all to cope better with reality.

Once a good number of debates have been posted, if you visit the site with an open mind you could use it to develop your belief system. You would start at the debate about the supernatural at look at the winning Belief Map, let's say it is atheism. If you thought you could do better you would debate with the person or group who had posted it. If not, you would accept it as most probably true, and work your way through the debates in science and the humanities in the same way, gradually building up your worldview. You could then sign up to an email service that alerts you if one of the Belief Maps you had chosen has been beaten. In this way, you can ensure that your beliefs evolve over time and you can keep your surfboard on the edge of the wave of human progress with very little effort. After a number of years with the atheist Belief Map remaining undefeated, imagine that a new discovery is made that tips the debate about the supernatural decisively against atheism and in favour of a particular religion. The email announcing the change covers the globe in a few seconds like a tsunami. Will you try to ride the tsunami and nimbly change your whole worldview, or will you be flattened?