Instigator / Pro
13
1402
rating
44
debates
40.91%
won
Topic
#730

Can we know anything to be 100% True?

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
6
Better sources
4
6
Better legibility
3
3
Better conduct
3
3

After 3 votes and with 5 points ahead, the winner is...

PsychometricBrain
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
18
1574
rating
10
debates
80.0%
won
Description

Round 1: Opening Statements, No Rebuttals.
Round 2: Rebuttals of Round 1 Statements
Round 3: Rebuttals of Round 2 Statements.
Round 4: Interrogation. Questions Only about any part of the topic.
Round 5: Answering Round 4 Questions and then closing statements.

Con must accept this format in order to debate this topic.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

My congratulations to both sides for a well-contested, well-pondered, well-written debate.

Epistemology gets so abstract so quickly that this voter leans hard on good examples to better understand principles. I wanted three good examples of indisputable truths and Pro only gave us one entirely unsuitable example in the first round:

B+C=A
man + unmarried = bachelor

Of course, divorcees and widowers are unmarried but not bachelors. This single example is so awkwardly, manifestly so often not true that it weakens Pro's authority going forward and Con's case by responding to it.

This voter far preferred Con's reframing "Pro will try to provide at least one example of knowledge that is impossible to doubt as it necessarily can not be false. I, on the other hand, am going to disprove any such examples and will win unless at least one example stands by the end of the debate." Pro agrees and I'm glad because these are rules I can parse with my feeble little brain.

Con offered one solid example of the imperfection of human reason. The first syllogism of Con's conclusion seems adequate, the second syllogism is both weaker and redundant. Not all human knowledge is based on reason (experience is often knowledge without reason, intuition is definitionally knowledge without reason, know-how vs. know-to, etc) and Pro's P3 also curiously separates knowledge from belief... isn't all knowledge a subset of belief? Is there really something we might know to be true that we don't also conditionally believe to be true? Isn't the distortion of belief the primary cause for the human fallibility on which Con's case depends?

Pro improves his prospects by upgrading his tautological example to 2+2=4. A marked improvement. Con falls back on Descartes- is 2+2=4 verifiably true beyond human perception? No, all human knowledge is filtered through human perceptions and subject to human distortion.

Pro's questions were pretty philosophical and didn't offer much that might shake Con's conclusion.

Con's questions aptly elicited examples of human fallibility- misunderstanding the joke of 51, Pro's 100% certainty of god's non-existence vs the human majority's faith in god. I frown on Con's citation of Pro's arguments from other debates- I don't think it harmed any argument here but we should refrain from dangerous precedents.

Going by Con's frame (one indubitable example), 2+2=4 was Pro's best shot. But even 2+2=4 is not provable beyond the range of fallible human sense, which Con has aptly demonstrated.

Arguments to Con but both debaters should take satisfaction in the quality of argument here.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

My reading of this resolution boils down to tautology.

IE: that you can define things or use mathematic proofs to make a logically true statement. I don’t see much of a difference between the two points.

Con rebuttal was ok - in that it very much rules out knowing anything about the universe or outside our own experiences for true - by arguing that humans reasoning is inherently faulty - but it completely misses the logically tautological.

Pros rebuttal here points out the issue with cons human reasoning argument - that it’s very specific to the individuals. That one human could make faulty logic but doesn’t mean others are wrong - but it doesn’t introduce a very interesting question:

How do you know that your view of a price of knowledge being 100% is true or not - if we know we have faulty reasoning?

I feel pro actually misses this point in his rebuttal.

In cons second round. He hits this home harder - how do we know our certainty isn’t due to mental disorder or faulty logic (like scizophrenia)?

Redundantly - he attempts to question the nature of statements of existence: we may know a fact is true - but given that truth is predicated on existence, if that is not certain, the inherent truth is not certain either. I don’t think this was a particularly strong case. It seems too specific - ie i don’t know how it applies to a wider set of examples.

Pro continues by pointing out the logical issue with the king of France examples, and explains why tautologies don’t suffer from this same issue.

There’s more back and forward on this part as the debate progresses, but imo is really overshadowed by the two real issues that spill out.

The questions, I read : but don’t seem particularly useful or elaborative.

So: basically, the entire argument boils down to whether we can be certain of what is in our own brains. I believe con introduced an amazing doubt - which I was not expecting him to - about whether what we, personally perceive is True or not. I agree that a tautology may not be truly tautology, I could just be mentally ill and think it is. No matter how unlikely, the chance is not 0% - so this point goes to con.

I could have covered most of the arguments in more depth, but for this point - it uniquely undermines every logical point pro raised: if I cannot be 100% certain that I am not insane and everything is an illusion of my own irrationality, repeatable though it may be - I cannot be certain of anything.

As a result: arguments to con. All other points tied.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

You guys write so much that it’s so hard to vote on it, haha, but here I go

Arguments

I found nothing wrong with either of the opening statements, so I am focusing on each of the rebuttals and rejoinders. I am ignoring the interrogation questions because they didn’t really pertain to the debate and I have a life I need to get back to.

Ok, so Pro hinged a lot of his arguments on tautologies, mathematics, and things that are objectively true. His main one was that a bachelor is unmarried. Con’s main rebuttals to this was that we cannot always know everything to be 100% because human reasoning is flawed, and also that reality itself could be flawed. The former was completely rebutted when Pro said “Ahh, but you said SOMETIMES we're mistaken. This implies that sometimes we're not. I only have to know one thing to break into the rest of reality.” He only needed to prove at least 1 thing to be 100% true, so he invalidated the flawed knowledge argument with this statement.

The latter rebuttal from Con would have proved sufficient if the argument depended on reality being reliable. However, this position was never established by either side. Because everyone of that, Pro was able to fall back on simply the definitions and terms “man” and “unmarried” being true, and “bachelor” being logically equivalent to “unmarried.”

The only other contention was that we can’t know mathematics to be 100% true. However, Pro’s main truth (that a bachelor is an unmarried man) did not rely on mathematics at all, but rather just logical equivalency.

The rest of the debate descended into a lot of unnecessary rambling about the exact same subjects.

I’m awarding arguments to Pro because he did a spectacular job of defending his points.

Sources

I’m giving Con sources because he was able to show real world examples of the concepts he was explaining, such as the king of France is bald one and the survey that showed human reasoning is flawed. They really helped to further his points and show how we’ve done some of the things that he mentioned in real life.

Good job to both debaters. :)

*Tied In All Other Categories*