yazadjal.com

Note:
You should probably skip this. The interesting stuff, like a fisking of the Resident Idiot is below.

I think I will make a series of posts on Common Errors in Reasoning. Once I am done, I will have a handy bunch of URLs I can point people to when they make the same error for the 125th time. My opponents can do the same to me.
I am not talking of logical fallacies; the errors involved here are more complicated ones. You will realize what I am talking of when I get to the first one. Which I will do… right now. Here is the first one.

What does “understanding” mean?

Take this statement:

“By acceding to the WTO, the government has surrendered India’s sovereignty”

If I ask someone to explain that statement, I expect an answer which goes:

“By acceding to the WTO, the government has effectively ceded it’s policy-making powers and the law-making powers of the legislature to the Organization”

I’ll press further only to find that what accession to WTO actually does is:

to severely constrain economic policy-making and law-making powers of our government bodies.

I’ll ask for still more details, and it will turn out that what it actually does is:

restrict the government’s ability to set tariffs, ban imports, etc. in return for similar commitments from other countries.

Notice what has happened? We’ve moved down the abstraction ladder. From a highly abstract concept like “sovereignty” we’ve moved to less abstract stuff like “law-making powers” and then on to more specific stuff like “ability to set tariffs”.

As we move down this ladder, we have more details of the situation. As we move up the ladder, we lose the specifics, but the concepts have a wider applicability. “National Sovereignty” encompasses a much wider range of stuff than just the ability to set tariffs.

So here is Ravi’s Law of Understanding

You cannot be said to “understand” a high-level concept unless you are able to explain it in terms of lower-level concepts.

That way, if you get into an argument with someone over whether acceding to the WTO is tantamount to losing your sovereignty, you can have a sensible debate by getting into specifics.

In this case you will find that
a) Your claim of loss of sovereignty is exaggerated. All treaties constrain the future behaviour of your government in some way. If India signs a No-War treaty with Pakistan, it means that the government cannot declare war on Pakistan. National Defence is an essential part of sovereignty. But signing a no-war pact is not a surrender of sovereignty.
b) You are forced to think in specific terms what would constitute loss of sovereignty.
c) You are forced to focus on the real issue, which, in this case is whether acceding to the WTO was a good economic decision or not, i.e a policy disagreement.

This then is my understanding of understanding, i.e. “to understand” is to be able to move up and down the abstraction ladder with ease. I find that most examples of good and clear writing are those who do not stay at one level of abstraction.

Also, don’t argue with me over this definition of “understanding”. The definition is recursive. I have explained my understanding of understanding by using my understanding of understanding. So if you wish to argue with me, you have to get into the specifics of understanding understanding, i.e. to disagree with me you have to agree with me first.