Why clear definitions are key to intelligent discussions | Donald Hoffman

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The best way to have an intelligent conversation with others is to ensure everyone understands the terms being used. They need to be clearly defined. If this isn't done, people may get into false arguments over nonsense — they may be talking about very, very different things. Dogmatism is often the enemy of knowledge because it often prevents us from opening ourselves up to the possibility that we may be wrong — it's this humility that allows us to consider different people's perspectives, some of which may be more accurate than our own. Besides the ability to helpful discussions with others, being precise about our ideas and having well-defined terms allows us to also find out precisely where we are wrong. It's a quick and incisive way to learn.

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DONALD HOFFMAN

Donald Hoffman is professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine. His writing has appeared in Scientific American and Edge, and his work has been featured in the Atlantic, Wired, and Quanta. He resides in Irvine, California.

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TRANSCRIPT:

DONALD HOFFMAN: In science and in personal life, we are often making claims. We're claiming either that a scientific theory is true. Let's say evolution by natural selection. Organisms evolve and are shaped by natural selection. Or we're making spiritual claims, you know, god exists. God loves you. Or we're making claims, you know, about politics about Republicans or Democrats and their motives and so forth.

And whenever we're making claims in any area of science, politics, religion, or personal life, if we really want to have an intelligent, and informative, and helpful discussion, we need to make sure that we're using terms in a well-defined way that other people understand and share the definitions. At least, they understand our definitions.

If I'm using the word god, and someone from another religion has a very, very different notion of god, we could be arguing at odds and be unhappy with each other, and not realize that we're talking about very, very different things. And so in science and in mathematics, it's standard to try to define, as clearly as you can, upfront what you're talking about.

Now in some cases you can't. Right? And where you cannot define exactly what you're talking about, you should highlight that and say, we're going to do research to try to find out the right definition.

So for example, the word gene in evolutionary biology. That word was a useful term. But the biologists Francis Crick and James Watson could not define with mathematical precision what a gene was. It was an intuitive notion. It was very, very helpful in genetics but without a real precise definition.

And it's turned out, as we've gone on with molecular biology, our notion of the gene has been refined and refined and refined. So that's perfectly fine. So what we need to do is give provisional definitions or if we can't say precisely to say the kinds of phenomena we're trying to explain. But I would say that it's really important to be as clear as possible about what you're talking about, to define your terms.

Especially, I would say, in spiritual discourse, right? It's very easy to use terms like love, god, togetherness, or whatever it might be and to assume everybody else knows what you mean by love, or by altruism, or by god, or by Brahman, or whatever. And many cases, a lot of arguments and a lot of unnecessary heated discussion could be avoided by just understanding and sharing clearly what our ideas are.

Another thing I would say about this is dogmatism is always the enemy of knowledge. Being dogmatic closes you to the possibility of being wrong. Being non-dogmatic, admitting right upfront that I'm probably wrong, that I could be wrong or that I'm probably wrong, is the most helpful thing that you could possibly do to open yourself up to learning. And that's in all aspects of life-- in science, and spirituality, in a relationship with other people. Even in our relationships, don't assume that I know everything about my partner that I've been with for so many years. To be open that I could be wrong about my understanding of their world.

I think that dogmatism is the biggest problem that we have in our personal lives in our discourse with others. Letting go of dogmatism being clear about our current ideas, being as precise as we can about our current ideas, not because we're insisting that we're right, but we'...

[SymmetricalDocking]

Assuming that other people want to use clear definitions instead of whichever one maximizes their cognitive dissonance is the least accurate way to talk on the internet.

[Capgungoesbang]

I think about this all the time, it’s the root of so many of our problems.

[RavenAmetr]

When I'm trying to define the terms in a conversation, they say that I'm diverting the topic

[acohen]

I very much enjoyed listening to this video, and found it informative and food for thought !!! At least for me.

[blue_tetris]

Every argument tends to slide towards semantics, eventually.

[dannylorean]

I always begin an intelligent conversation by letting everyone in the room know, that I’m wrong. Promptly, everyone leaves the room and I’m now alone, but now everything I know, becomes right. Win. Win.

[cmw]

Language is a low bandwidth communication channel between separate models of the world running inside different brains/networks. Getting the 'handshake' right to synchronise on the same wavelength is often assumed or forgotten about, resulting in garbled information or in you realising that you use incompatible protocols. Sometimes you just can't speak with people, even in what appears to be the same language. One persons definition will never be quite the same internally as another so it's a balance of how long you spend clarifying definitions before it is sufficiently similar to created shared understanding. How you do that without diverting from the subject is the tricky part.

[importantname]

your reality of meaning is different to my definition of reality. Some just like argueing without any intent of changing their own bias.

[dallassegno]

So I had a 20 minute conversation with my woman about the word domineering to figure out if I am. It took a while. But at the end we learned I can be domineering as well as she can. But we needed to figure it out before we used the term. Try it.

[srikanthtupurani]

It is sometimes very difficult to explain our ideas to others. This happens in subjects like mathematics, physics.

[TheExgymnast]

That fact that this video needs to exist is sad.

[karnage]

Presence of awareness within while living is the Source of All Truth

[spijkerpoes]

Dogma's have been an evolutionary success in a relatively stable world.
Nowadays however stuff is so dynamic we need to rethink our thoughts. That's difficult. Like not eating too much sugar and fat. Its against our 'programming'.

[tonyridler]

"Necessity is the mother of" inventory! The "you break it, you've bought it" policy, has evolved, from what we cannot shred, we cannot own💗

[NeoShinryu]

Can we get dark mode in big think background too?

[jacobhuff]

These reminds me about how the right and left talks about socialism, one side focuses on the economics while the other focuses on social programs.

[AhhVeeDaa]

Donald Hoffman on the back of this video I'd love to hear your thoughts on Brexit

[CarstenGermer]

+1, I was taught this principles in school.

[thstroyur]

Sure, dogma is often a bad thing in the sciences, but it is not necessarily universally so; a dogma, IMO, is basically a set of axioms - when those axioms are provisory, we tend to call them a paradigm instead - but, no matter what you call them, you can't avoid axioms, _and_ circular reasoning, _and_ infinite regression - so pick your poison, kids
On the topic of effective communication, I'd point that it's not necessary to always use clear definitions, either - specially when talking about highly abstract concepts; plus, we tend to simply disregard nonsense as inferior discourse, but there's actually a wealth of insights that can be derived from a temporary suspension of logic; as strange as it may sound, nonsense is still part of the rational spectrum of our intellection

[prettysure]

Jordan peterson: well it depends on what u mean by clear...