Changing your mind: Footnote 1
Sep. 23rd, 2010 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackChanging your mind about completely factual or completely non-factual things is also potentially interesting, but I think different. If it's purely a matter of personal taste, I think the main impediment to changing your mind, if any, is habit, and accidentally self-identifying based on your preference. If you like tea, and one day feel like trying coffee, and everyone says "you can't do that! you're a tea drinker!" then you may feel impeded. Or if you think "I really SHOULD try X" you may be put off. But in general, the main advice is simply to try it if you want to.
Changing your mind about purely factual things is mainly a case of caring to be correct, noticing that something CAN be checked and bothering to check. With exactly one friend do we have a sufficiently relaxed relationship on matters of fact that one of us can contact the other person later to say "I checked and actually I/you was right" and the other person is nothing but sincerely grateful to know. The main thing is to recognise that it is something that CAN be checked.
Obviously (A) don't mistake a factual point for a more complicated one. Is this something which needs lots of studies to know, and might even then be controversial? Or is it something where a quick check of the evidence ought to convince everyone?
Also just make sure to (B) if the main argument is about something else, don't get distracted if someone gives an unhelpful example, but you think something else would have been fine. If your aim is to actually talk about something, make clear the difference between "actually, that example happens to be false, but I understand what you're saying" and "your supporting evidence is wrong, and I think it irretrievably sinks your overall point". Obviously if your aim is to make the other speaker look like an idiot and win rhetorical points, then deliberately conflate these, and rebut some incidental comment, and look like you've demolished her whole platform. And obviously, if the mistaken point is so egregious or important it needs to be corrected immediately, or if you mistakenly think so, or if you have lamentably short an attention span you can't remember the beginning of the sentence, or if you're a fucking jerk who likes stirring shit for the sake of it, or some combination of the above, you should jump in and derail the conversation with the side-point.
Changing your mind about purely factual things is mainly a case of caring to be correct, noticing that something CAN be checked and bothering to check. With exactly one friend do we have a sufficiently relaxed relationship on matters of fact that one of us can contact the other person later to say "I checked and actually I/you was right" and the other person is nothing but sincerely grateful to know. The main thing is to recognise that it is something that CAN be checked.
Obviously (A) don't mistake a factual point for a more complicated one. Is this something which needs lots of studies to know, and might even then be controversial? Or is it something where a quick check of the evidence ought to convince everyone?
Also just make sure to (B) if the main argument is about something else, don't get distracted if someone gives an unhelpful example, but you think something else would have been fine. If your aim is to actually talk about something, make clear the difference between "actually, that example happens to be false, but I understand what you're saying" and "your supporting evidence is wrong, and I think it irretrievably sinks your overall point". Obviously if your aim is to make the other speaker look like an idiot and win rhetorical points, then deliberately conflate these, and rebut some incidental comment, and look like you've demolished her whole platform. And obviously, if the mistaken point is so egregious or important it needs to be corrected immediately, or if you mistakenly think so, or if you have lamentably short an attention span you can't remember the beginning of the sentence, or if you're a fucking jerk who likes stirring shit for the sake of it, or some combination of the above, you should jump in and derail the conversation with the side-point.