Level 0: “model free” methods. These often work quite well and are cheap to compute.
Level 1: A model, but it’s too simple and therefore wrong. In the general case, assumes some variables - like culture and values - are freely changeable. Add enough free variables and you can explain anything. These appeal to would be authorities, as the temptation of any theorist is to say their theory is real.
Level 2: A model that includes historical data and thus binds certain parameters within fixed ranges. Sufficiently complex models are often just, “well, here’s what happened but we don’t really understand why.” This is deeply unsatisfactory to persons who believe if they could just get everyone to see things their way, they could fix the world.
Level 3 then attempts to play the level 2 game, and says, “oh, you broke my toy model by adding some constraints? Well, the root constraint is that none of us know anything!”
Level 4 is a simply a recommitment to common sense which says, yes, reality exists, and we can kind of intuit it with our senses, so we need to integrate both theories and historical data into a synthesis. We are constrained in what we can know, but not so constrained that we know nothing.
Are the levels contingent, or can they stand alone? Does a particular level have a higher holistic value, as in, are level 04 arguments always the "best," or are level 02s better because they are more "durable?"
"Model free" seems very useful as they work well at low cost, but I guess that really depends on the mean level of the situational elites, right? Restricted to the realm of the theoretical, is it best to build a rhetorical framework using a range of levels, or would it be better to try and stick to a specific level? Marxism *seems* to reside in level 03 almost exclusively. Is that an unavoidable consequence of Marx or Marxist reality, or is it because Marxism is (maybe seems to be) purpose built to capture and control midwits?
I think of arguments as being like maps. What kind of map is the best? The answer is obviously "it depends upon what you're trying to do." A level 0 argument is like a compass that just says, 'go this way.' For a lot of people, that's all they really need. Probably for most people, in most situations, that works, and the challenge is learning how to do that on a regular basis.
If someone comes along and says, "hey, the compass is being interfered with by this power plant over here, so in this one area just around the edges, you need to adjust for the ambient magnetic field", this might very well be true. There are, indeed, plenty of situations where intuition can lead us astray.
I think the reason Marxism rests in level 3 has less to do with Marxism, _specifically_, and more to do with the general kind of theory that lives there, of which Marxism is the most relevant example today. There have been many instances throughout history where people came up with similar ideas, and they boil down to, "if we just had an authority with the right value system, they could change everything and the world could be perfect!"
True story (with names changed to protect the guilty):
Two decades ago in a hippie town a day's drive away, I was hanging out with Korgoth Raleigh, the brash young chair of the local Libertarian Party at a downtown bar which catered to pagan hillbillies. After an overly hoppy local beer or two, Korgoth introduced me to a member of the local Green Party. "This is Tracy Pondscum. She doesn't believe in private property."
Tracy then affirmed that she did not indeed believe in private property.
So I stole her hat.
"THAT'S MINE!!" she cried.
"QED" I replied.
Alas, she did not achieve Enlightenment. But she did clarify her definition of private property.
Also alas, when I tried to semi-enlighten her further, she informed me, "That's your reality. In my feminist reality..."
Further details of that night escape me. The music was loud and the bitter beer was plentiful. This was a more civil time, when a libertarian could harmoniously debate ideas with an eco-Marxist-feminist with no more violence than a temporarily stolen hat. I miss those days. I think I have slid sideways in time.
That's a delightful story! I wish it had a happier ending. "And today that former eco-Marxist is my wife, and she's based af" but such happy romances are mere fiction these days.
A super-genius associate of mine, submitting a comment by email, gave me permission to share the following:
***
I think you're underestimating yourself and you have been interacting sometimes two levels above what you wrote, levels 5 and 6!
Level 5: Impossibility theorems. A level 4 argument states that the general postmodernist arguments are self-defeating. Gödel's incompleteness theorem isn't relevant because it's too general and impractical, but for this particular argument, you can show that there is a specific impossibility theorem that shows that you can't know you're right, and you might be wrong. Examples include Meyerson-Satterthwaite, Arrow, the literature behind Bayes-Nash equilibria and the revelation principle, the no free lunch theorem in search and optimization, etc.
Level 6: Max entropy. Level 5 is not wrong in its arguments, but isn't showing the whole picture. If you assume max entropy, which means the mathematical minimal assumption argument, there is a "best" truth that is also most likely to be true, and assuming anything else is largely a waste of time (unless you can show it's not). This is rich, tailored application of Shannon entropy, the best, most advanced parts of game theory and decision theory (e.g., max ent correlated equilibria https://proceedings.mlr.press/v2/ortiz07a/ortiz07a.pdf ), calculus of variations ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_of_variations ), etc.
I think the limit of level 6 is the pure transformation between anecdote, data, knowledge, and wisdom. Von Neumann was one of the core framers behind what I just outlined as 5 & 6, especially in his collaborations with Claud Shannon.
Im not sure "levels of argument" is the best name. I think you may be describing something else in society. It seems moreso a continuing conversation drilling down to the fundamental rift in our current society which seems to be Truth vs Belief (nature vs nurture, God vs atheistic cosmopolitanism, modernism and metamodernism vs postmodernism and postpostmodernism, etc). Currently we have AI mass controlling people's belief systems and regulating it with dopamine hits (upvotes and likes) and censoring dissentors and for now the "Belief" side is winning until some sort of apocalypse happens that puts an end to this long arc of rebuttals and conversation.
Back in my computer programming days, we used to have a similar framework for how to understand another programmer's source code. Instead of IQ, our system worked on caffeine levels. Our theory was that in order to understand a complex program, one would have to have at least the same level of caffeine flowing through his or her bloodstream as the author of said program. In addition, the more complex the program to be written, the more caffeine that needed to be ingested.
Looking back, those were uncomplicated and sweetly naïve days indeed.
That's so funny. I often do my writing while heavily dosed on caffeine (4 cups of coffee, say). The next day I groggily go back to my work and don't even remember writing it, and have trouble following it. There's real truth to this caffeine theory!
Writing clearly so as to be understood by the maximum number of readers can be difficult for advanced thinkers attempting to communicate complex ideas. Often this takes multiple re-writes. I've found in the course of re-writing, errors in thinking or presentation reveal themselves.
Using simpler language helps in this. Often writers use polysyllabic language because it's pleasurable and/or they wish to impress their peers. If you're writing for the largest audience, it's better to use the simplest words and persuade instead. Memes are the ultimate example of this (my favorite definition of a meme is the smallest amount of information required to communicate a given idea). The best memes are as simple as possible.
Look to Trump for a good example of this. He's criticized and insulted by leftoids for speaking at a fifth-grade level. His enemies apparently never bothered to see what the comprehension level is for the largest group of Americans.
Always remember the crowd is swayed by rhetoric, not logic. But the best rhetoric is founded in logic. There's many other guidelines for effective writing, the study never ends as new information constantly emerges.
Nov 19, 2022·edited Nov 20, 2022Liked by Tree of Woe
One aspect you missed is that arguments tend to trickle down the levels over time. For example several centuries ago your level 0 argument against communism would have been considered a shocking Level 3+ argument not to mention an insult to everyone (avarice is a deadly sin, you're basing the organization of society on a sin!!)
As recently as a century ago the argument hierarchy would look very different:
Level 0: Communism is an affront to people's natural rights/God, king, and country.
Level 1: Actually God commands charity towards the poor. The behavior of the capitalists is an affront to that.
Level 2: Science has shown that belief in God is nothing but a superstition, and Darwin has shown that advancement occurs by weeding out the weak, therefore charity is dysgenic.
Level 3: Bourgeois science exists to justify the bourgeoisie's control of society. Your need to praise God, king, and country is due to your psychiatric complexes and/or false consciousness. The theory of "natural law" has no empirical basis, Law is whatever a judge decides it is.
Isolated Level 4 thinkers: Ludwig von Mises, Carl Jung, Ayn Rand.
"Natural law is, or follows from, an ESS for the use of force: Conduct which violates natural law is conduct such that, if a man were to use individual unorganized violence to prevent such conduct, or, in the absence of orderly society, use individual unorganized violence to punish such conduct, then such violence would not indicate that the person using such violence, (violence in accord with natural law) is a danger to a reasonable man. This definition is equivalent to the definition that comes from the game theory of iterated three or more player non zero sum games, applied to evolutionary theory. The idea of law, of actions being lawful or unlawful, has the emotional significance that it does have, because this ESS for the use of force is part of our nature."
You're right. I hadn't considered the fact that arguments change tier over time. That's fascinating to contemplate. The cognitive complexity of an argument partly depending on our baseline intuitions.
Good suggestions re: level 4 thinkers, I agree with all three you've mentioned. Jim.com, too; he's always a fruitful source of insights!
Nov 20, 2022·edited Nov 20, 2022Liked by Tree of Woe
> You're right. I hadn't considered the fact that arguments change tier over time. That's fascinating to contemplate. The cognitive complexity of an argument partly depending on our baseline intuitions.
Yes, this has fascinating implications, for example, a level 3-style insight would be to attribute this descent of arguments to signaling (people repeating arguments they barely understand in order to sound smart) and countersignaling (people defending arguments made by people of significantly lower IQ than them to signal their confidence that no one would confuse them for low IQ people), and then conclude that this shows that argument is merely signaling. The level 4-style salvage is to note that as they move down the chain, arguments are also filtered and bad arguments, or arguments for policies that have bad consequences, are filtered out.
> Jim.com, too; he's always a fruitful source of insights!
One other thing I noticed is that it is possible for people to be at different levels about different topics. One thing I find frustrating about Jim is that he is a low level 3 thinker on the subject of Religion and Metaphysics. He treats religions as socially useful, and isn't concerned about whether they're true.
BTW, sorry for posting to a old thread, but I just realized that Jim may very well be a WEF shill. Notice, how he's incapable of acknowledging that the WEF exists. (https://blog.reaction.la/?s=WEF)
Nov 17, 2022·edited Nov 17, 2022Liked by Tree of Woe
Fascinating look at the impact of IQ on argument and thinking. However, I was mainly struck by how little these levels impact, in a positive way, our public discourse and culture. I am in the 3rd level and when I was working, I found it helpful to work on a complex project with 3rd and 4th level team mates. However, when it comes to having a rational conversation and listening to the arguments of others about the Current Thing or our culture, I find more rational arguments and thought among 0 and 1 than 3 or 4.
As Orwell famously put it: there are some ideas so stupid only intellectuals believe in them (or something like that).
Now that the Current Thing is purposely retarded yet is professed by high IQ people who use that high IQ to argue for dumb ideas, I think the answer can be found in:
1. Tom Wolfe's theory that all public disagreements are really a battle over status. Most smart people really want to be seen as smart just like most rich people want to be seen as rich. Problem being what you have to publicly advocate is intentionally stupid to serve as a loyalty test. You might be a 150 IQ young professor with a major discovery to your credit but if word gets out that you doubt whether we need to eat bugs and ban fossil fuels so that mother Gaia can win her battle against the Sun God, well forget tenure. But it isn't a stick without a carrot. By arguing for the dumb thing you get to feel that you are superior to all those low IQ people who are not smart enough to understand that it is obvious that a man in a dress is a woman.
2. Smart people don't want to feel that they have to advocate/argue for really dumb ideas so they simply convince themselves that the dumb idea is really smart. It is hard for smart people, who get recognition for their intelligence, to think that they might not have the answer and some lower IQ person who probably watches Fox News was right (see Covid hysteria and the jab.)
3. Karens. The fact that it isn't optional in most organizations of any type to go against the Current Thing and the CT is probably dumb to make it a loyalty test, we now have the powerful Karen in organizations and online. You might be a high IQ engineer who is working on a mission critical project but if a Karen hears you use your high IQ thinking skills to argue in a level 4 way that expresses doubt that St. Floyd ascended to heaven after he died for our sins, off to HR you go. Otherwise there is an unsafe work environment.
I've seen a lot of college professors. A lot of them are not that bright. They may do level three out of rote and mimicry, but most survive by not allowing challenges.
That tracks with my own experience, too, but the chart I found said that they had 140 IQ. Of course, the chart also said that sales managers have an IQ of 80 whiles salesmen have an IQ of 110, so whoever wrote the chart might just be taking the piss on us... or he might really dislike his boss.
In the capital city of the human population on Gabal V, there was a university.
After going on a seemingly interminable binge of sheer, unrestrained solipsism, Doctor Albert W. Quimbal of the philosophy department couldn't decide on what to explain in his next lecture. It was a sticky problem, the worst since he refuted the invalidation of Zeno's paradox which proved that motion didn't exist. It even had the gall to follow him to lunch. And so, in a miracle rivaling the parting of the Red Sea, Professor Quimbal found a seat in the cavernous dome of the main cafeteria while contemplating philosophical problems without bumping into anyone else. His fellow faculty members stared in fascination out the corners of their eyes as he absently salted his milk and sliced his sandwich with knife and fork.
"Why worry about the students anyway?" he mumbled to himself. "They only exist in my mind."
As he lifted his sandwich piece with his fork he noticed the other professors turning away. "And you don't exist either!" he said aloud.
Unfortunately, his paycheck still existed, if only in his mind. He had to explain *some* great philosophical problem. But which one? He turned to his sandwich and picked it up properly. The meat inside was surrounded by two slices of bread. Two! he thought. "There is a twoness in all the universe: male and female, right and left..." Only three trays were knocked out of hands as he skipped away.
----
As has been human tradition for many years, the philosophy class was rather small. A mere 250 students sat in the class while Quimbal gave what he considered to be his best lecture.
"...so you see that there is a twoness inherent in all things. Contrast is the basis of all thought. Can there be right without wrong? Like without dislike? This twoness goes into the physical world also: action and reaction, attraction and repulsion, positive and negative, and so on. In fact this twoness is a necessary law of the universe. There is either two or nothing. Thought is based on relationship. 'One' is beyond theoretical comprehension.
"But we have a problem here. I have already proven that I am the only one who exists, and you exist only in my imagination. That would mean but one being. Thus I cannot exist either because just one thing to constitute the universe is not a thought; there must be a complement. Therefore you do not exist even in my imagination because I do not exist! Now let use see how philosophers throughout history have contemplated this idea. Even though they of course did not really exist..."
The lecture went on. The students were beginning to wish Dr. Quimbal really didn't exist in reality, at least not in their reality. After class one of the more active students shouted, "This is getting ridiculous. I say we protest. There hasn't been a protest on campus in nearly three weeks, and we haven't had a really good riot in over two months!"
"Yeah!" roared a chorus of philosophy students as they scattered to recruit demonstrators outside the philosophy department.
----
Dr. Quimbal settled into his office chair quite pleased with himself. He even considered unlocking his office door so students could come in for help. His complacency was shattered when he looked out the window to see thousands of students marching in his direction shouting: "WE WANT TO EXIST! WE WANT TO EXIST!"
They crashed into his office and carried him around the campus. Fortunately, the university managed to call in the new Runiog [TM] K-76 model galvanized androids to disperse the rioters. Being metallic, they didn't need weapons to do the job. They easily carried away the students one by one. Eventually, they got to Dr. Quimbal.
"Thank you very much," gasped the relieved professor to the android. "Hmmmmm, I wonder if you exist."
"Ho ho!" laughed the android in a metallic voice. He rapped his thorax with his fist making a resounding "bong." "I'm zinc; therefore, I exist."
Nov 17, 2022·edited Nov 18, 2022Liked by Tree of Woe
This is what makes Cultural Marxist/Postmodernist/Relativist Ideology so sneaky one may as well call it Satanic. It is used to appeal to 'Level 0' people because the arguments often have a grain of truth to them- "Racism Exists, some people are treated unfairly because of it." then because of the *emotional* resonance that has been created, this makes the listener vulnerable to the lie- "The United States is still an incredibly racist country & huge changes need to be made."
It is also capable of appealing to the other, lower levels by means of a lot of impressive-sounding language & intellectual jiggery-pokery. It is often still an emotional argument but in these instances, appeals to the Ego & the desire to conform.
Ultimately though, the True Believer of CMPR does not give a tinker's damn about all the terrible things they claim exist & need to be fixed. Those are just some of the tools they use to get what they want. Reason *itself* is a tool they will happily dispose of if a more efficient, pragmatic tool presents itself. Blackmail, say.
The quickest way to find out who is a True Believer is to have someone in one of the 'protected', 'victimhood' classes, disagree with their marching orders. In short order that dissenter will be dropped like a bad habit, usually with a buzzword(term). Woman disagrees with the die-hard Feminists she is with- "Oh you poor dear, you're just a victim of internalized misogyny." Black Man finds it offensive that his skin color is valued over his Character- "Man, stop being such an Uncle Tom, we have a war to win here!"
Have I said what I'm about to say before? Feh. My brain is like oatmeal, I don't remember, but it bears repeating:
Even many long-term professing Christians have this misunderstanding & the secular world certainly does, in fact, this misunderstanding is encouraged, mainly through entertainment media.
See, when the Serpent in the Garden made his pitch to Eve that she would be, 'Like God, knowing Good and Evil', most believe it refers to a basic lack of knowledge, that in our childlike innocence we didn't know Right from Wrong. Many Sci-Fi stories have used this incorrect understanding to say it was a GOOD thing Adam & Eve ate the Fruit of Knowledge, because our 'Childhood' needed to 'End'. (and yes, Mr. A. Clarke's book with those two words uses that misunderstanding, though I suspect he knew better...)
But that's not what the Bible actually says at all. The Hebrew word, 'Know' is one used in a Marital sense, as in, a Husband 'Knowing' his Wife. It literally means, 'To take Possession of'. So what the Serpent actually told Eve is that she would be like God, DECIDING what is Good and what is Evil.
That's the goal, that's the aim. To have enough power to make their own internal wants & desires the equivalent of the immutable moral character & law of God.
I think there's a significant potential for people to understand arguments that are outside their respective level with persistent study and consideration, then be able to apply these arguments persuasively in a wide variety of contexts. To use one of your examples, do you really need a 145+ IQ to be able to read and understand the Hicks book? It seems like you could integrate that work while being at a level 2, then easily apply the arguments therein to routinely crush level 3 arguments. The biggest issue that I see with communication and resolving disagreement over issues isn't IQ, it is prior assumptions and self-awareness of motivations and biases. Two unassuming individuals aware of their own biases who are in rapport and interested in productive dialogue will be able to identify any priors that they don't share and focus the discussion there. I see a lot of argument as stemming from operating on different priors, and when this isn't recognized and the depth and breadth of such fundamental differences begins to be revealed in an argument the "agree to disagree" sentiment is triggered if the focus isn't rapidly shifted to some particular prior that isn't interdependent on too many others such that it is open for discussion and review within the span of a single conversation.
Midwit level discourse (the most predominant in social media) appears to fall into level two. They can formulate level one and sometimes weak level two arguments but mostly parrot level three arguments they’ve heard. And are incapable of understanding or at least overcoming their confirmation bias to understand a level four rebuttal. IQ 110-129
I agree with that completely. The most tragic cases are the ones where they *want* to agree with the higher tier argument but feel defeated by the postmodern level three argument and can't get past it.
This is perhaps an accurate description of online arguments, where each tier is a contrarian response to what the last poster said.
However it only captures half of the tiers of reasoning, because there is also a possible constructive reaction at each tier.
Imagine an intellectually honest frictionless sphere in a vacuum. His tier 1 argument would not be "well actually," but it would be a simple explanatory model of the tier 0 belief.
I actually agree with you. I simply would not describe a construction reaction as an argument - it's more of a dialogue or a discussion. I think we're doing that now, really!
"If you’re a Level Five or Six thinker, be sure to drop some baffling commentary citing scholars I’ve never read to demonstrate that I’m totally wrong or, perhaps, right but for all the wrong reasons."
Way to close the intellectual door behind you! I was about to drop blockquotes from Kessmuda, Tefflani, and Bolgerberger utterly eviscerating your position, but instead I'll just have to go be inscrutable and unapproachable in the tiny lab of my obscure field.
On a more relevant note, to which level of argument are fertile and desirable females most susceptible? Is it a straight up IQ arms race, or are there other dynamics at play? The offspring ground game indicates... ahem... well, either lot's of women are very good at carpentry, baking, and farming, or wooing and seduction are not dialectical forms of argumentation.
I cannot tell if Kessmuda, Tefflani, and Bolgerberger are actual philosophers or thinkers, or you just made them up. I'm refusing to Google it because it's too fun to imagine what they might say based on their names.
Even insinuating that my comment was possibly disingenuous is anti-democratic. Blocked and reported.
I am genuinely interested in your thoughts on wooing/seduction/mate acquisition as argumentation. The modern era is rife with wordsmiths, and I know from personal experience that one can punch way above their weight in the mating dance with a high enough verbal IQ. But this seems to only work in the short term, and in our "one off" culture this translates to pseudo-Alpha status being a thing. In the long term, any relationship that develops seems to collapse rather easily. So one can argue their way into bed, but maybe not into a stable long term relationship. I wonder if this has ramifications in the realm of the political.
There are some geniuses from a dimension far greater than our own who have answered this question in cartoon form so as to be more accessible to the lesser intellects.
Parker and Stone are excellent examples of middling intellectual capacity being considered brilliant profundity due to creative delivery of memes. I assert that if they were actual "geniuses" they would not have suffered from the collective TDS outbreak in 2016-2020.
Definitely. You can also create a stage and get up on it, or steal the stage/spotlight from someone else. I wonder if it is just the number of fellow hominids in the space yielding vocalization primacy for some duration that triggers this phenomenon.
Consider some brilliant scientist giving a talk. All are quiet, focusing more or less on him. Suddenly, a voice is raised from the back. Some member of the mass has an objection or counter. The speaker halts, choosing to be polite. Now this troupe member is the temporary alpha. A similar situation would be a stand up comic getting heckled. If he shuts down the heckler, it enhances his status. If the heckler makes people laugh, the comic is headed towards rough waters. That's temporary alpha dynamics.
Then there are proxy alpha dynamics. This is best described by the way a dumpy, unkempt police officer can command obedience and deference as if he is the rampant phallus of the state embodied. It is also illustrated by gang members acting on the established primacy of their collective, or the reputation of their leader for violence.
How does ToW's Levels of Argument analysis factor into the dynamics of temporary and proxy alphaship? Anyone that has gone to school or lived in a diversity beautified area can attest to volume, both auditory and crowd, can play heavily. In the softened occident, the loudest guy often wins the conflict. My initial sense is that level 00 benefits the most from volume and level 05+ benefits the least. Brevity seems to have universal benefit at every level, with 03+ probably benefiting magnitudes more but being incredibly challenging to achieve. And universality seems like it would be quite the boost, but it must be extremely hard to make a coherent, universal level 04+ argument, if not impossible.
I understand this is a scattershot of comments with little coherence. Just thinking on the screen to return back to at some point. I enjoy your substack, by the way.
One does not need to dominate everyone to achieve alphaship. One need merely prove that you have some followers.
(Likewise, bravoship requires that one demonstrate some status in some group. "Women love a man in uniform.")
BTW, what I wrote is based on actual experience. I am no Cassanova or Austin Powers by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, I am a nerd who is a natural omega or gamma. But when I assumed leadership roles -- even in a low status/low female organization such as the Libertarian Party -- I had women hitting on me or even throwing themselves at me. This was unexpected, albeit pleasant. That was not my original motivation for assuming said leadership positions. I merely wanted to get certain things done and no one else was willing to do them so I took charge.
The inventor of IQ tests, Alfred Binet, would screw this document up and toss it in the bin because, as he attempted to explain to the abmysmally stupid members of the American Association of Psychiatrists, intelligence is not linear, therefore it cannot be measured.
In fact, intelligence is global. It is a microscopic globe as we form in the uterous and, as we are born and interact with our environment, the globe expands accordingly. However, some individuals are pressured to develop more in one or two directions, at the expense of the others. Depending upon just how useful these knowledge areas may prove to be, this results in: an idiot, or an idiot savant, or an academic or scientist. In certain cases, this person may be identified as a genius or prodigy. It rather depends upon what stage of history in which we make our appearance.
The most intelligent person is one who can make the most balanced application of knowledge, because his globe is near-perfectly spherical. Some of us refer to such people as a generalist. I am a generalist, but not a particulalry intelligent generalist because I deliberately chose multi-directional personal development in 1964, so I am a contrived generalist. But I also am good at identifying people with useful knowledge zones, which enables me to siphon their data and adopt these for my own. Occasionally, I am described as a genius but this is eroneous. I once met an actual full-globe genius, a young doctor from England, who so grasped my own comprehensions that he finished off all my sentences for me. I must track him down because, right now, the world desparately needs a genuine genius. As do I.
If this model of Levels-0 to 4 holds, then using the aforementioned SEP entry, we can go to sub-heading #2 (i.e. "Types of Arguments") and find some interesting points of overlap.
Level-0 appears to be the domain of the "Trivial"
(Relevant Usage : https://www.etymonline.com/word/trivial#etymonline_v_17850 ; in particular from the Latin trivium "place where three roads meet" ) and so would be rightfully classified as "Deductive Argument" of the simplest sort: namely, standalone syllogisms (i.e. 'Conclusion-only') & those syllogisms that have as premises 'properly basic beliefs' (Relevant Plantinga piece that defines 'proper basicality': https://www.jstor.org/stable/2215239 )
Level-1 appears to be the those Arguments which span from the Complex-Deductive to the Simple-Inductive.
For the former, that would be syllogisms with premises that can be reasonably challenged (i.e. 'defeaters' brought forward by those of sane mind) as lacking aforementioned 'proper basicality'. The latter would be those Past Instance-Regularities giving rise to Future Instances-General Principles that have fulfilled the move from 'particular to Universal' which Aristotle envisioned when outlining "epagogue". Normatively, there is thus an element of 'rightness/goodness' intrinsic here with regard to said move, such that rational+sane individuals are unable to simplify the 'form' of the argument further with putting in additional premises (or by subtracting already existent premises).
Level-2 appears to span from the Complex-Inductive to the Simple-Abductive.
We have for the former an 'improper' epagogue such that the 'particular to Universal' move can be reasonably challenged a la the 'form' of the argument now being targetable by premise addition and/or deletion. And for the latter we get the observation of relevant facts yielding conclusions drawn as to what necessarily *explain* the occurrence of said facts
Level-3 appears to span from the Complex-Abductive to the Simple-Analogical.
We now have for the former those relevant facts that yield conclusions drawn as to what are merely possible to explain for the occurrence of said facts. And for the latter we begin to see the following schema:
1. S is similar to T in certain (known) respects.
2. S has some further feature Q.
3. Therefore, T also has the feature Q.
In particular, the similarity relation of the S-T pair where S has some Q which is salient and 'appears' in T in a very 'graspable' manner. For "Simple-Analogical" no Q* is needed, since the relation is simply straightforward Reduction.
Level-4 likely spans from the Complex-Analogical to the Simple-*insert higher order format here*.
For the former, we see the familiar schema:
1. S is similar to T in certain (known) respects.
2. S has some further feature Q.
3. Therefore, T also has the feature Q, or some feature Q* similar to Q.
Where we see now that S-T has an S with a Q that does not Reduce. Rather, Supervenience to Q* is needed which then tracks onto T and becomes salient.
As for the Simple *insert higher order format here*..... most likely it resembles the "Trivial" noted at the very beginning in some respect and as we go further up (be it Levels 5, 6 or beyond) that trend/pattern likewise holds as well.
Henceforth let's shorten *insert higher order format here* to "HOF"
A "Guess": If we break down "Analogy" into its PIE roots we get the following:
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Greek legein "to say, tell, speak, declare; to count," originally, in Homer, "to pick out, select, collect, enumerate;" lexis "speech, diction;" logos "word, speech, thought, account;" Latin legere "to gather, choose, pluck; read," lignum "wood, firewood," literally "that which is gathered," legare "to depute, commission, charge," lex "law" (perhaps "collection of rules"); Albanian mb-ledh "to collect, harvest;" Gothic lisan "to collect, harvest," Lithuanian lesti "to pick, eat picking;" Hittite less-zi "to pick, gather." <<
So if the pattern holds, then the Simple-HOF Argumentation would have the following features:
1. Able to 'gather'/collect explanatory vectors more efficiently than the Complex-Analogical.
2. Able to generate derivatives that account for salient notions more efficiently than the Complex-Analogical.
3. Is somehow "Simple" in the sense that lower level argument formulators (and their peers) can identify 'basicality' of a sort that does not need further explanatory clarification.
.... All that Now being said, "Argumentation" will never beat the Lash/Pliers/Gummy Sack/*insert instrument of pain and torture here* with regard to Persuasive force. So whilst the linear account you have sketched above (i.e. from Blue collars to Professors) is certainly accurate with regard to "how things ought to be"... the fact of the matter is that most people are persuaded less by arguments (be they low or high level) and more by Torture, Pain, Consequence, Misery, Culling, etc.
So it is an Open Question (and I firmly am on the side which says "Answer the Question with a NO!") whether "Argument" and "Argumentation" is even Relevant anymore considering how the efficiency and network parsimony of alternate methods of Persuasion (Torture and Cullings being the Tool of choice in the History Books) have a much higher Success Rate overall.
1) I had not read that SEP essay before now. It's both wonderful and frustrating to stumble upon ideas to discover that they map to the big ideas of greater minds. Wonderful in that it's confirmation I have stumbled towards truth, frustrating in that it means they got there first!
2) I've noticed my own writing tends to abduction and analogy, putting most of my work solidly in tier 3 (as you define it) with occasional shifts into tier 4 for particularly complex analogies. I've frequently encountered the problem that 'midwit' intelligence cannot grasp abduction or analogy, so it doesn't surprise me to see it show up as relatively high tier.
3) I believe even Aristotle felt that dialectic by itself couldn't persuade very many people, and some people not at all. I think we're probably worse off than he was in that regard.
Nov 17, 2022·edited Nov 17, 2022Liked by Tree of Woe
The SEP more or less summarizes most of Western Philosophy ever written (if I had to guess, I would say well over 80% of all topics get some treatment in there) so no need to feel too frustrated! It is a Shining Gem that outperforms most human minds simply because of said breadth of scope.
Abduction and Analogy tend to be higher order Argumentation tools precisely because as you correctly note: Those of "midwit" intelligence cannot "grasp" them (and this word is being used by me here in the technical sense of 'to reach/seize' as per the PIE root *ghrebh- . Relevant: https://www.etymonline.com/word/grasp ).
Likely this is because of the additional commitments (Epistemic, Normative, etc) people need to be make, and for this you need the proper tools; be it General Intelligence or similar mental and physical proclivities.
The SEP essay itself does not make any Concrete normative claims with regard to (say) "Analogy being more complex an Epistemic pursuit than Deduction", but in my own reading of said essay, I saw it as implied considering the additional vectors one needs to add on to the formulation to get it going.
Yes, Aristotle had a pessimism regarding 'the masses', which has only been magnified since then. Whether we are 'worse off' than he was... in terms of percentages no doubt 'the people' today are far less receptive; but in terms of *raw numbers*, Argumentation has seen far greater success than perhaps even Aristotle could have predicted.
Level 0: “model free” methods. These often work quite well and are cheap to compute.
Level 1: A model, but it’s too simple and therefore wrong. In the general case, assumes some variables - like culture and values - are freely changeable. Add enough free variables and you can explain anything. These appeal to would be authorities, as the temptation of any theorist is to say their theory is real.
Level 2: A model that includes historical data and thus binds certain parameters within fixed ranges. Sufficiently complex models are often just, “well, here’s what happened but we don’t really understand why.” This is deeply unsatisfactory to persons who believe if they could just get everyone to see things their way, they could fix the world.
Level 3 then attempts to play the level 2 game, and says, “oh, you broke my toy model by adding some constraints? Well, the root constraint is that none of us know anything!”
Level 4 is a simply a recommitment to common sense which says, yes, reality exists, and we can kind of intuit it with our senses, so we need to integrate both theories and historical data into a synthesis. We are constrained in what we can know, but not so constrained that we know nothing.
Yes but my version had a funny meme image
it's funny 'cause it's true
The metamodernist joke
Both sincere and joking. The meme image existing itself is a claim yours is more true
Are the levels contingent, or can they stand alone? Does a particular level have a higher holistic value, as in, are level 04 arguments always the "best," or are level 02s better because they are more "durable?"
"Model free" seems very useful as they work well at low cost, but I guess that really depends on the mean level of the situational elites, right? Restricted to the realm of the theoretical, is it best to build a rhetorical framework using a range of levels, or would it be better to try and stick to a specific level? Marxism *seems* to reside in level 03 almost exclusively. Is that an unavoidable consequence of Marx or Marxist reality, or is it because Marxism is (maybe seems to be) purpose built to capture and control midwits?
I think of arguments as being like maps. What kind of map is the best? The answer is obviously "it depends upon what you're trying to do." A level 0 argument is like a compass that just says, 'go this way.' For a lot of people, that's all they really need. Probably for most people, in most situations, that works, and the challenge is learning how to do that on a regular basis.
If someone comes along and says, "hey, the compass is being interfered with by this power plant over here, so in this one area just around the edges, you need to adjust for the ambient magnetic field", this might very well be true. There are, indeed, plenty of situations where intuition can lead us astray.
I think the reason Marxism rests in level 3 has less to do with Marxism, _specifically_, and more to do with the general kind of theory that lives there, of which Marxism is the most relevant example today. There have been many instances throughout history where people came up with similar ideas, and they boil down to, "if we just had an authority with the right value system, they could change everything and the world could be perfect!"
Perhaps the stories of the Zen masters provide examples of Level 5+.
Professor (Level 3): What we call Reality is just Consensus Fiction.
Zen Master (5+) [smacks professor with a large salmon] That was a pillow.
and then the professor was Enlightened.
Yes. I think Julius Evola would refer to those tiers as "supra-rational" or perhaps akin to the difference between nous and logos in Greek thought.
True story (with names changed to protect the guilty):
Two decades ago in a hippie town a day's drive away, I was hanging out with Korgoth Raleigh, the brash young chair of the local Libertarian Party at a downtown bar which catered to pagan hillbillies. After an overly hoppy local beer or two, Korgoth introduced me to a member of the local Green Party. "This is Tracy Pondscum. She doesn't believe in private property."
Tracy then affirmed that she did not indeed believe in private property.
So I stole her hat.
"THAT'S MINE!!" she cried.
"QED" I replied.
Alas, she did not achieve Enlightenment. But she did clarify her definition of private property.
Also alas, when I tried to semi-enlighten her further, she informed me, "That's your reality. In my feminist reality..."
Further details of that night escape me. The music was loud and the bitter beer was plentiful. This was a more civil time, when a libertarian could harmoniously debate ideas with an eco-Marxist-feminist with no more violence than a temporarily stolen hat. I miss those days. I think I have slid sideways in time.
That's a delightful story! I wish it had a happier ending. "And today that former eco-Marxist is my wife, and she's based af" but such happy romances are mere fiction these days.
A super-genius associate of mine, submitting a comment by email, gave me permission to share the following:
***
I think you're underestimating yourself and you have been interacting sometimes two levels above what you wrote, levels 5 and 6!
Level 5: Impossibility theorems. A level 4 argument states that the general postmodernist arguments are self-defeating. Gödel's incompleteness theorem isn't relevant because it's too general and impractical, but for this particular argument, you can show that there is a specific impossibility theorem that shows that you can't know you're right, and you might be wrong. Examples include Meyerson-Satterthwaite, Arrow, the literature behind Bayes-Nash equilibria and the revelation principle, the no free lunch theorem in search and optimization, etc.
Level 6: Max entropy. Level 5 is not wrong in its arguments, but isn't showing the whole picture. If you assume max entropy, which means the mathematical minimal assumption argument, there is a "best" truth that is also most likely to be true, and assuming anything else is largely a waste of time (unless you can show it's not). This is rich, tailored application of Shannon entropy, the best, most advanced parts of game theory and decision theory (e.g., max ent correlated equilibria https://proceedings.mlr.press/v2/ortiz07a/ortiz07a.pdf ), calculus of variations ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_of_variations ), etc.
I think the limit of level 6 is the pure transformation between anecdote, data, knowledge, and wisdom. Von Neumann was one of the core framers behind what I just outlined as 5 & 6, especially in his collaborations with Claud Shannon.
Von Neumann is pure level 5, Langan and CTMU is level 6, don't ask me how I know...
Im not sure "levels of argument" is the best name. I think you may be describing something else in society. It seems moreso a continuing conversation drilling down to the fundamental rift in our current society which seems to be Truth vs Belief (nature vs nurture, God vs atheistic cosmopolitanism, modernism and metamodernism vs postmodernism and postpostmodernism, etc). Currently we have AI mass controlling people's belief systems and regulating it with dopamine hits (upvotes and likes) and censoring dissentors and for now the "Belief" side is winning until some sort of apocalypse happens that puts an end to this long arc of rebuttals and conversation.
Great article. Thank you.
I think you're right that is the process I am describing. I couldn't come up with a better name, though!
Back in my computer programming days, we used to have a similar framework for how to understand another programmer's source code. Instead of IQ, our system worked on caffeine levels. Our theory was that in order to understand a complex program, one would have to have at least the same level of caffeine flowing through his or her bloodstream as the author of said program. In addition, the more complex the program to be written, the more caffeine that needed to be ingested.
Looking back, those were uncomplicated and sweetly naïve days indeed.
That's so funny. I often do my writing while heavily dosed on caffeine (4 cups of coffee, say). The next day I groggily go back to my work and don't even remember writing it, and have trouble following it. There's real truth to this caffeine theory!
Writing clearly so as to be understood by the maximum number of readers can be difficult for advanced thinkers attempting to communicate complex ideas. Often this takes multiple re-writes. I've found in the course of re-writing, errors in thinking or presentation reveal themselves.
Using simpler language helps in this. Often writers use polysyllabic language because it's pleasurable and/or they wish to impress their peers. If you're writing for the largest audience, it's better to use the simplest words and persuade instead. Memes are the ultimate example of this (my favorite definition of a meme is the smallest amount of information required to communicate a given idea). The best memes are as simple as possible.
Look to Trump for a good example of this. He's criticized and insulted by leftoids for speaking at a fifth-grade level. His enemies apparently never bothered to see what the comprehension level is for the largest group of Americans.
Always remember the crowd is swayed by rhetoric, not logic. But the best rhetoric is founded in logic. There's many other guidelines for effective writing, the study never ends as new information constantly emerges.
One aspect you missed is that arguments tend to trickle down the levels over time. For example several centuries ago your level 0 argument against communism would have been considered a shocking Level 3+ argument not to mention an insult to everyone (avarice is a deadly sin, you're basing the organization of society on a sin!!)
As recently as a century ago the argument hierarchy would look very different:
Level 0: Communism is an affront to people's natural rights/God, king, and country.
Level 1: Actually God commands charity towards the poor. The behavior of the capitalists is an affront to that.
Level 2: Science has shown that belief in God is nothing but a superstition, and Darwin has shown that advancement occurs by weeding out the weak, therefore charity is dysgenic.
Level 3: Bourgeois science exists to justify the bourgeoisie's control of society. Your need to praise God, king, and country is due to your psychiatric complexes and/or false consciousness. The theory of "natural law" has no empirical basis, Law is whatever a judge decides it is.
Isolated Level 4 thinkers: Ludwig von Mises, Carl Jung, Ayn Rand.
Incidentally, a Level 4 thinker has recently formulated an objective grounding of natural laws based on evolutionary game theory (https://web.archive.org/web/20100109011143/http://jim.com/moralfac.htm, https://web.archive.org/web/20100129005359/http://jim.com/rights.html).
"Natural law is, or follows from, an ESS for the use of force: Conduct which violates natural law is conduct such that, if a man were to use individual unorganized violence to prevent such conduct, or, in the absence of orderly society, use individual unorganized violence to punish such conduct, then such violence would not indicate that the person using such violence, (violence in accord with natural law) is a danger to a reasonable man. This definition is equivalent to the definition that comes from the game theory of iterated three or more player non zero sum games, applied to evolutionary theory. The idea of law, of actions being lawful or unlawful, has the emotional significance that it does have, because this ESS for the use of force is part of our nature."
You're right. I hadn't considered the fact that arguments change tier over time. That's fascinating to contemplate. The cognitive complexity of an argument partly depending on our baseline intuitions.
Good suggestions re: level 4 thinkers, I agree with all three you've mentioned. Jim.com, too; he's always a fruitful source of insights!
> You're right. I hadn't considered the fact that arguments change tier over time. That's fascinating to contemplate. The cognitive complexity of an argument partly depending on our baseline intuitions.
Yes, this has fascinating implications, for example, a level 3-style insight would be to attribute this descent of arguments to signaling (people repeating arguments they barely understand in order to sound smart) and countersignaling (people defending arguments made by people of significantly lower IQ than them to signal their confidence that no one would confuse them for low IQ people), and then conclude that this shows that argument is merely signaling. The level 4-style salvage is to note that as they move down the chain, arguments are also filtered and bad arguments, or arguments for policies that have bad consequences, are filtered out.
> Jim.com, too; he's always a fruitful source of insights!
One other thing I noticed is that it is possible for people to be at different levels about different topics. One thing I find frustrating about Jim is that he is a low level 3 thinker on the subject of Religion and Metaphysics. He treats religions as socially useful, and isn't concerned about whether they're true.
On a long enough timeline, the CTMU becomes common sense?
BTW, sorry for posting to a old thread, but I just realized that Jim may very well be a WEF shill. Notice, how he's incapable of acknowledging that the WEF exists. (https://blog.reaction.la/?s=WEF)
Huh. Do you really think so, or are you just poking fun at his strict "shill tests" for entry?
I'm not sure. I'd like to see how he reacts if someone tried a shill test on him.
In any case, he's not the only "Neoreactionary" who has this curious blind spot.
Of topic, but did you know unpaid subscribers can't comment on your "Nerd Among the Ruins" posts?
jim.com is currently for sale, price is $250k.
Wayback machine has pages archived...
Fascinating look at the impact of IQ on argument and thinking. However, I was mainly struck by how little these levels impact, in a positive way, our public discourse and culture. I am in the 3rd level and when I was working, I found it helpful to work on a complex project with 3rd and 4th level team mates. However, when it comes to having a rational conversation and listening to the arguments of others about the Current Thing or our culture, I find more rational arguments and thought among 0 and 1 than 3 or 4.
As Orwell famously put it: there are some ideas so stupid only intellectuals believe in them (or something like that).
Now that the Current Thing is purposely retarded yet is professed by high IQ people who use that high IQ to argue for dumb ideas, I think the answer can be found in:
1. Tom Wolfe's theory that all public disagreements are really a battle over status. Most smart people really want to be seen as smart just like most rich people want to be seen as rich. Problem being what you have to publicly advocate is intentionally stupid to serve as a loyalty test. You might be a 150 IQ young professor with a major discovery to your credit but if word gets out that you doubt whether we need to eat bugs and ban fossil fuels so that mother Gaia can win her battle against the Sun God, well forget tenure. But it isn't a stick without a carrot. By arguing for the dumb thing you get to feel that you are superior to all those low IQ people who are not smart enough to understand that it is obvious that a man in a dress is a woman.
2. Smart people don't want to feel that they have to advocate/argue for really dumb ideas so they simply convince themselves that the dumb idea is really smart. It is hard for smart people, who get recognition for their intelligence, to think that they might not have the answer and some lower IQ person who probably watches Fox News was right (see Covid hysteria and the jab.)
3. Karens. The fact that it isn't optional in most organizations of any type to go against the Current Thing and the CT is probably dumb to make it a loyalty test, we now have the powerful Karen in organizations and online. You might be a high IQ engineer who is working on a mission critical project but if a Karen hears you use your high IQ thinking skills to argue in a level 4 way that expresses doubt that St. Floyd ascended to heaven after he died for our sins, off to HR you go. Otherwise there is an unsafe work environment.
I agree with your assessment entirely, 1, 2, and 3. How to break that stranglehold on discourse? That's the next question I guess.
I've seen a lot of college professors. A lot of them are not that bright. They may do level three out of rote and mimicry, but most survive by not allowing challenges.
That tracks with my own experience, too, but the chart I found said that they had 140 IQ. Of course, the chart also said that sales managers have an IQ of 80 whiles salesmen have an IQ of 110, so whoever wrote the chart might just be taking the piss on us... or he might really dislike his boss.
Another story, this time from the future:
In the capital city of the human population on Gabal V, there was a university.
After going on a seemingly interminable binge of sheer, unrestrained solipsism, Doctor Albert W. Quimbal of the philosophy department couldn't decide on what to explain in his next lecture. It was a sticky problem, the worst since he refuted the invalidation of Zeno's paradox which proved that motion didn't exist. It even had the gall to follow him to lunch. And so, in a miracle rivaling the parting of the Red Sea, Professor Quimbal found a seat in the cavernous dome of the main cafeteria while contemplating philosophical problems without bumping into anyone else. His fellow faculty members stared in fascination out the corners of their eyes as he absently salted his milk and sliced his sandwich with knife and fork.
"Why worry about the students anyway?" he mumbled to himself. "They only exist in my mind."
As he lifted his sandwich piece with his fork he noticed the other professors turning away. "And you don't exist either!" he said aloud.
Unfortunately, his paycheck still existed, if only in his mind. He had to explain *some* great philosophical problem. But which one? He turned to his sandwich and picked it up properly. The meat inside was surrounded by two slices of bread. Two! he thought. "There is a twoness in all the universe: male and female, right and left..." Only three trays were knocked out of hands as he skipped away.
----
As has been human tradition for many years, the philosophy class was rather small. A mere 250 students sat in the class while Quimbal gave what he considered to be his best lecture.
"...so you see that there is a twoness inherent in all things. Contrast is the basis of all thought. Can there be right without wrong? Like without dislike? This twoness goes into the physical world also: action and reaction, attraction and repulsion, positive and negative, and so on. In fact this twoness is a necessary law of the universe. There is either two or nothing. Thought is based on relationship. 'One' is beyond theoretical comprehension.
"But we have a problem here. I have already proven that I am the only one who exists, and you exist only in my imagination. That would mean but one being. Thus I cannot exist either because just one thing to constitute the universe is not a thought; there must be a complement. Therefore you do not exist even in my imagination because I do not exist! Now let use see how philosophers throughout history have contemplated this idea. Even though they of course did not really exist..."
The lecture went on. The students were beginning to wish Dr. Quimbal really didn't exist in reality, at least not in their reality. After class one of the more active students shouted, "This is getting ridiculous. I say we protest. There hasn't been a protest on campus in nearly three weeks, and we haven't had a really good riot in over two months!"
"Yeah!" roared a chorus of philosophy students as they scattered to recruit demonstrators outside the philosophy department.
----
Dr. Quimbal settled into his office chair quite pleased with himself. He even considered unlocking his office door so students could come in for help. His complacency was shattered when he looked out the window to see thousands of students marching in his direction shouting: "WE WANT TO EXIST! WE WANT TO EXIST!"
They crashed into his office and carried him around the campus. Fortunately, the university managed to call in the new Runiog [TM] K-76 model galvanized androids to disperse the rioters. Being metallic, they didn't need weapons to do the job. They easily carried away the students one by one. Eventually, they got to Dr. Quimbal.
"Thank you very much," gasped the relieved professor to the android. "Hmmmmm, I wonder if you exist."
"Ho ho!" laughed the android in a metallic voice. He rapped his thorax with his fist making a resounding "bong." "I'm zinc; therefore, I exist."
This is what makes Cultural Marxist/Postmodernist/Relativist Ideology so sneaky one may as well call it Satanic. It is used to appeal to 'Level 0' people because the arguments often have a grain of truth to them- "Racism Exists, some people are treated unfairly because of it." then because of the *emotional* resonance that has been created, this makes the listener vulnerable to the lie- "The United States is still an incredibly racist country & huge changes need to be made."
It is also capable of appealing to the other, lower levels by means of a lot of impressive-sounding language & intellectual jiggery-pokery. It is often still an emotional argument but in these instances, appeals to the Ego & the desire to conform.
Ultimately though, the True Believer of CMPR does not give a tinker's damn about all the terrible things they claim exist & need to be fixed. Those are just some of the tools they use to get what they want. Reason *itself* is a tool they will happily dispose of if a more efficient, pragmatic tool presents itself. Blackmail, say.
The quickest way to find out who is a True Believer is to have someone in one of the 'protected', 'victimhood' classes, disagree with their marching orders. In short order that dissenter will be dropped like a bad habit, usually with a buzzword(term). Woman disagrees with the die-hard Feminists she is with- "Oh you poor dear, you're just a victim of internalized misogyny." Black Man finds it offensive that his skin color is valued over his Character- "Man, stop being such an Uncle Tom, we have a war to win here!"
Have I said what I'm about to say before? Feh. My brain is like oatmeal, I don't remember, but it bears repeating:
Even many long-term professing Christians have this misunderstanding & the secular world certainly does, in fact, this misunderstanding is encouraged, mainly through entertainment media.
See, when the Serpent in the Garden made his pitch to Eve that she would be, 'Like God, knowing Good and Evil', most believe it refers to a basic lack of knowledge, that in our childlike innocence we didn't know Right from Wrong. Many Sci-Fi stories have used this incorrect understanding to say it was a GOOD thing Adam & Eve ate the Fruit of Knowledge, because our 'Childhood' needed to 'End'. (and yes, Mr. A. Clarke's book with those two words uses that misunderstanding, though I suspect he knew better...)
But that's not what the Bible actually says at all. The Hebrew word, 'Know' is one used in a Marital sense, as in, a Husband 'Knowing' his Wife. It literally means, 'To take Possession of'. So what the Serpent actually told Eve is that she would be like God, DECIDING what is Good and what is Evil.
That's the goal, that's the aim. To have enough power to make their own internal wants & desires the equivalent of the immutable moral character & law of God.
I think there's a significant potential for people to understand arguments that are outside their respective level with persistent study and consideration, then be able to apply these arguments persuasively in a wide variety of contexts. To use one of your examples, do you really need a 145+ IQ to be able to read and understand the Hicks book? It seems like you could integrate that work while being at a level 2, then easily apply the arguments therein to routinely crush level 3 arguments. The biggest issue that I see with communication and resolving disagreement over issues isn't IQ, it is prior assumptions and self-awareness of motivations and biases. Two unassuming individuals aware of their own biases who are in rapport and interested in productive dialogue will be able to identify any priors that they don't share and focus the discussion there. I see a lot of argument as stemming from operating on different priors, and when this isn't recognized and the depth and breadth of such fundamental differences begins to be revealed in an argument the "agree to disagree" sentiment is triggered if the focus isn't rapidly shifted to some particular prior that isn't interdependent on too many others such that it is open for discussion and review within the span of a single conversation.
Great point. I'm persuaded.
Midwit level discourse (the most predominant in social media) appears to fall into level two. They can formulate level one and sometimes weak level two arguments but mostly parrot level three arguments they’ve heard. And are incapable of understanding or at least overcoming their confirmation bias to understand a level four rebuttal. IQ 110-129
I agree with that completely. The most tragic cases are the ones where they *want* to agree with the higher tier argument but feel defeated by the postmodern level three argument and can't get past it.
This is perhaps an accurate description of online arguments, where each tier is a contrarian response to what the last poster said.
However it only captures half of the tiers of reasoning, because there is also a possible constructive reaction at each tier.
Imagine an intellectually honest frictionless sphere in a vacuum. His tier 1 argument would not be "well actually," but it would be a simple explanatory model of the tier 0 belief.
We do see this type of reasoning in reality.
I actually agree with you. I simply would not describe a construction reaction as an argument - it's more of a dialogue or a discussion. I think we're doing that now, really!
"If you’re a Level Five or Six thinker, be sure to drop some baffling commentary citing scholars I’ve never read to demonstrate that I’m totally wrong or, perhaps, right but for all the wrong reasons."
Way to close the intellectual door behind you! I was about to drop blockquotes from Kessmuda, Tefflani, and Bolgerberger utterly eviscerating your position, but instead I'll just have to go be inscrutable and unapproachable in the tiny lab of my obscure field.
On a more relevant note, to which level of argument are fertile and desirable females most susceptible? Is it a straight up IQ arms race, or are there other dynamics at play? The offspring ground game indicates... ahem... well, either lot's of women are very good at carpentry, baking, and farming, or wooing and seduction are not dialectical forms of argumentation.
I believe seduction is rhetorical rather than dialectical!
I cannot tell if Kessmuda, Tefflani, and Bolgerberger are actual philosophers or thinkers, or you just made them up. I'm refusing to Google it because it's too fun to imagine what they might say based on their names.
Even insinuating that my comment was possibly disingenuous is anti-democratic. Blocked and reported.
I am genuinely interested in your thoughts on wooing/seduction/mate acquisition as argumentation. The modern era is rife with wordsmiths, and I know from personal experience that one can punch way above their weight in the mating dance with a high enough verbal IQ. But this seems to only work in the short term, and in our "one off" culture this translates to pseudo-Alpha status being a thing. In the long term, any relationship that develops seems to collapse rather easily. So one can argue their way into bed, but maybe not into a stable long term relationship. I wonder if this has ramifications in the realm of the political.
There are some geniuses from a dimension far greater than our own who have answered this question in cartoon form so as to be more accessible to the lesser intellects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf0Y7csOdhs
Parker and Stone are excellent examples of middling intellectual capacity being considered brilliant profundity due to creative delivery of memes. I assert that if they were actual "geniuses" they would not have suffered from the collective TDS outbreak in 2016-2020.
It is possible, though they seemed a bit less intense in this illness than most others of their profession.
Nevertheless, I think their commentary on attracting a mate remains sound.
If you are on the stage making the argument, you are conferred alpha status, since the Many are physically paying attention to The One.
Chicks dig that.
Works even in a target poor environment.
Definitely. You can also create a stage and get up on it, or steal the stage/spotlight from someone else. I wonder if it is just the number of fellow hominids in the space yielding vocalization primacy for some duration that triggers this phenomenon.
Consider some brilliant scientist giving a talk. All are quiet, focusing more or less on him. Suddenly, a voice is raised from the back. Some member of the mass has an objection or counter. The speaker halts, choosing to be polite. Now this troupe member is the temporary alpha. A similar situation would be a stand up comic getting heckled. If he shuts down the heckler, it enhances his status. If the heckler makes people laugh, the comic is headed towards rough waters. That's temporary alpha dynamics.
Then there are proxy alpha dynamics. This is best described by the way a dumpy, unkempt police officer can command obedience and deference as if he is the rampant phallus of the state embodied. It is also illustrated by gang members acting on the established primacy of their collective, or the reputation of their leader for violence.
How does ToW's Levels of Argument analysis factor into the dynamics of temporary and proxy alphaship? Anyone that has gone to school or lived in a diversity beautified area can attest to volume, both auditory and crowd, can play heavily. In the softened occident, the loudest guy often wins the conflict. My initial sense is that level 00 benefits the most from volume and level 05+ benefits the least. Brevity seems to have universal benefit at every level, with 03+ probably benefiting magnitudes more but being incredibly challenging to achieve. And universality seems like it would be quite the boost, but it must be extremely hard to make a coherent, universal level 04+ argument, if not impossible.
I understand this is a scattershot of comments with little coherence. Just thinking on the screen to return back to at some point. I enjoy your substack, by the way.
One does not need to dominate everyone to achieve alphaship. One need merely prove that you have some followers.
(Likewise, bravoship requires that one demonstrate some status in some group. "Women love a man in uniform.")
BTW, what I wrote is based on actual experience. I am no Cassanova or Austin Powers by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, I am a nerd who is a natural omega or gamma. But when I assumed leadership roles -- even in a low status/low female organization such as the Libertarian Party -- I had women hitting on me or even throwing themselves at me. This was unexpected, albeit pleasant. That was not my original motivation for assuming said leadership positions. I merely wanted to get certain things done and no one else was willing to do them so I took charge.
The inventor of IQ tests, Alfred Binet, would screw this document up and toss it in the bin because, as he attempted to explain to the abmysmally stupid members of the American Association of Psychiatrists, intelligence is not linear, therefore it cannot be measured.
In fact, intelligence is global. It is a microscopic globe as we form in the uterous and, as we are born and interact with our environment, the globe expands accordingly. However, some individuals are pressured to develop more in one or two directions, at the expense of the others. Depending upon just how useful these knowledge areas may prove to be, this results in: an idiot, or an idiot savant, or an academic or scientist. In certain cases, this person may be identified as a genius or prodigy. It rather depends upon what stage of history in which we make our appearance.
The most intelligent person is one who can make the most balanced application of knowledge, because his globe is near-perfectly spherical. Some of us refer to such people as a generalist. I am a generalist, but not a particulalry intelligent generalist because I deliberately chose multi-directional personal development in 1964, so I am a contrived generalist. But I also am good at identifying people with useful knowledge zones, which enables me to siphon their data and adopt these for my own. Occasionally, I am described as a genius but this is eroneous. I once met an actual full-globe genius, a young doctor from England, who so grasped my own comprehensions that he finished off all my sentences for me. I must track him down because, right now, the world desparately needs a genuine genius. As do I.
Interesting Breakdown of "Argument"!
I am reminded of the SEP breakdown of "Argumentation": https://iep.utm.edu/argument/#H3
If this model of Levels-0 to 4 holds, then using the aforementioned SEP entry, we can go to sub-heading #2 (i.e. "Types of Arguments") and find some interesting points of overlap.
Level-0 appears to be the domain of the "Trivial"
(Relevant Usage : https://www.etymonline.com/word/trivial#etymonline_v_17850 ; in particular from the Latin trivium "place where three roads meet" ) and so would be rightfully classified as "Deductive Argument" of the simplest sort: namely, standalone syllogisms (i.e. 'Conclusion-only') & those syllogisms that have as premises 'properly basic beliefs' (Relevant Plantinga piece that defines 'proper basicality': https://www.jstor.org/stable/2215239 )
Level-1 appears to be the those Arguments which span from the Complex-Deductive to the Simple-Inductive.
For the former, that would be syllogisms with premises that can be reasonably challenged (i.e. 'defeaters' brought forward by those of sane mind) as lacking aforementioned 'proper basicality'. The latter would be those Past Instance-Regularities giving rise to Future Instances-General Principles that have fulfilled the move from 'particular to Universal' which Aristotle envisioned when outlining "epagogue". Normatively, there is thus an element of 'rightness/goodness' intrinsic here with regard to said move, such that rational+sane individuals are unable to simplify the 'form' of the argument further with putting in additional premises (or by subtracting already existent premises).
Level-2 appears to span from the Complex-Inductive to the Simple-Abductive.
We have for the former an 'improper' epagogue such that the 'particular to Universal' move can be reasonably challenged a la the 'form' of the argument now being targetable by premise addition and/or deletion. And for the latter we get the observation of relevant facts yielding conclusions drawn as to what necessarily *explain* the occurrence of said facts
Note: this usage is the formal, philosophical usage of "explanation", Relevant: https://www.etymonline.com/word/explain#etymonline_v_29818 In particular, the PIE-root of *pele-/*pelə- meaning "flat; to spread." Also Relevant: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysical-explanation/
Level-3 appears to span from the Complex-Abductive to the Simple-Analogical.
We now have for the former those relevant facts that yield conclusions drawn as to what are merely possible to explain for the occurrence of said facts. And for the latter we begin to see the following schema:
1. S is similar to T in certain (known) respects.
2. S has some further feature Q.
3. Therefore, T also has the feature Q.
In particular, the similarity relation of the S-T pair where S has some Q which is salient and 'appears' in T in a very 'graspable' manner. For "Simple-Analogical" no Q* is needed, since the relation is simply straightforward Reduction.
Level-4 likely spans from the Complex-Analogical to the Simple-*insert higher order format here*.
For the former, we see the familiar schema:
1. S is similar to T in certain (known) respects.
2. S has some further feature Q.
3. Therefore, T also has the feature Q, or some feature Q* similar to Q.
Where we see now that S-T has an S with a Q that does not Reduce. Rather, Supervenience to Q* is needed which then tracks onto T and becomes salient.
As for the Simple *insert higher order format here*..... most likely it resembles the "Trivial" noted at the very beginning in some respect and as we go further up (be it Levels 5, 6 or beyond) that trend/pattern likewise holds as well.
Henceforth let's shorten *insert higher order format here* to "HOF"
A "Guess": If we break down "Analogy" into its PIE roots we get the following:
(Relevant: https://www.etymonline.com/word/analogy#etymonline_v_13393 )
>> *leg- (1)
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to collect, gather," with derivatives meaning "to speak" on the notion of "to gather words, to pick out words."
It forms all or part of: alexia; analects; analogous; analogue; analogy; anthology; apologetic; apologue; apology; catalogue; coil; colleague; collect; college; collegial; Decalogue; delegate; dialect; dialogue; diligence; doxology; dyslexia; eclectic; eclogue; elect; election; epilogue; hapax legomenon; homologous; horology; ideologue; idiolect; intelligence; lectern; lectio difficilior; lection; lector; lecture; leech (n.2) "physician;" legacy; legal; legate; legend; legible; legion; legislator; legitimate; lesson; lexicon; ligneous; ligni-; logarithm; logic; logistic; logo-; logogriph; logopoeia; Logos; -logue; -logy; loyal; monologue; neglect; neologism; philology; privilege; prolegomenon; prologue; relegate; sacrilege; select; syllogism; tautology; trilogy.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Greek legein "to say, tell, speak, declare; to count," originally, in Homer, "to pick out, select, collect, enumerate;" lexis "speech, diction;" logos "word, speech, thought, account;" Latin legere "to gather, choose, pluck; read," lignum "wood, firewood," literally "that which is gathered," legare "to depute, commission, charge," lex "law" (perhaps "collection of rules"); Albanian mb-ledh "to collect, harvest;" Gothic lisan "to collect, harvest," Lithuanian lesti "to pick, eat picking;" Hittite less-zi "to pick, gather." <<
So if the pattern holds, then the Simple-HOF Argumentation would have the following features:
1. Able to 'gather'/collect explanatory vectors more efficiently than the Complex-Analogical.
2. Able to generate derivatives that account for salient notions more efficiently than the Complex-Analogical.
3. Is somehow "Simple" in the sense that lower level argument formulators (and their peers) can identify 'basicality' of a sort that does not need further explanatory clarification.
.... All that Now being said, "Argumentation" will never beat the Lash/Pliers/Gummy Sack/*insert instrument of pain and torture here* with regard to Persuasive force. So whilst the linear account you have sketched above (i.e. from Blue collars to Professors) is certainly accurate with regard to "how things ought to be"... the fact of the matter is that most people are persuaded less by arguments (be they low or high level) and more by Torture, Pain, Consequence, Misery, Culling, etc.
So it is an Open Question (and I firmly am on the side which says "Answer the Question with a NO!") whether "Argument" and "Argumentation" is even Relevant anymore considering how the efficiency and network parsimony of alternate methods of Persuasion (Torture and Cullings being the Tool of choice in the History Books) have a much higher Success Rate overall.
1) I had not read that SEP essay before now. It's both wonderful and frustrating to stumble upon ideas to discover that they map to the big ideas of greater minds. Wonderful in that it's confirmation I have stumbled towards truth, frustrating in that it means they got there first!
2) I've noticed my own writing tends to abduction and analogy, putting most of my work solidly in tier 3 (as you define it) with occasional shifts into tier 4 for particularly complex analogies. I've frequently encountered the problem that 'midwit' intelligence cannot grasp abduction or analogy, so it doesn't surprise me to see it show up as relatively high tier.
3) I believe even Aristotle felt that dialectic by itself couldn't persuade very many people, and some people not at all. I think we're probably worse off than he was in that regard.
The SEP more or less summarizes most of Western Philosophy ever written (if I had to guess, I would say well over 80% of all topics get some treatment in there) so no need to feel too frustrated! It is a Shining Gem that outperforms most human minds simply because of said breadth of scope.
Abduction and Analogy tend to be higher order Argumentation tools precisely because as you correctly note: Those of "midwit" intelligence cannot "grasp" them (and this word is being used by me here in the technical sense of 'to reach/seize' as per the PIE root *ghrebh- . Relevant: https://www.etymonline.com/word/grasp ).
Likely this is because of the additional commitments (Epistemic, Normative, etc) people need to be make, and for this you need the proper tools; be it General Intelligence or similar mental and physical proclivities.
The SEP essay itself does not make any Concrete normative claims with regard to (say) "Analogy being more complex an Epistemic pursuit than Deduction", but in my own reading of said essay, I saw it as implied considering the additional vectors one needs to add on to the formulation to get it going.
Yes, Aristotle had a pessimism regarding 'the masses', which has only been magnified since then. Whether we are 'worse off' than he was... in terms of percentages no doubt 'the people' today are far less receptive; but in terms of *raw numbers*, Argumentation has seen far greater success than perhaps even Aristotle could have predicted.