Couple of short but interesting articles touching on theory of knowledge that struck a cord with me after having just read through some of the recent threads here:
Perils of pop philosophy
http://www.juliansanchez.com/2009/06/01/perils-of-pop-philosophy/
and
Climate Change and Argumentative Fallacies
http://www.juliansanchez.com/2009/04/06/climate-change-and-argumentative-fallacies/
which was interesting for the idea of the 'one way hash arguement'
Perils of pop philosophy
http://www.juliansanchez.com/2009/06/01/perils-of-pop-philosophy/
and
Climate Change and Argumentative Fallacies
http://www.juliansanchez.com/2009/04/06/climate-change-and-argumentative-fallacies/
which was interesting for the idea of the 'one way hash arguement'
Come to think of it, there’s a certain class of rhetoric I’m going to call the “one way hash” argument. Most modern cryptographic systems in wide use are based on a certain mathematical asymmetry: You can multiply a couple of large prime numbers much (much, much, much, much) more quickly than you can factor the product back into primes. A one-way hash is a kind of “fingerprint” for messages based on the same mathematical idea: It’s really easy to run the algorithm in one direction, but much harder and more time consuming to undo. Certain bad arguments work the same way—skim online debates between biologists and earnest ID afficionados armed with talking points if you want a few examples: The talking point on one side is just complex enough that it’s both intelligible—even somewhat intuitive—to the layman and sounds as though it might qualify as some kind of insight. The rebuttal, by contrast, may require explaining a whole series of preliminary concepts before it’s really possible to explain why the talking point is wrong. So the setup is “snappy, intuitively appealing argument without obvious problems” vs. “rebuttal I probably don’t have time to read, let alone analyze closely.”
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2008
- Messages
- 668