Word It Write

  The word It Write system covers the traditional areas of writing and thinking-logic, rhetoric, and grammar. Each area covers classical knowledge, insights from the latest research, and everything of value in between.

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Arguments About The Future

You probably won’t find proof that something will definitely happen. There is nearly always an element of uncertainty with Future Fact, which makes it a misnomer.

If there is power and desire for something to happen, that something will happen

Understanding that someone not only has the power, but also the desire, to do something, can be a profound advantage; you can predict their behaviour. If you do not adjust your approach to suit that predictable behaviour, the consequences can be profound.

On September 30th 1938, Britain’s Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain returned from a meeting with Hitler. Chamberlain claimed that he had ‘secured peace in our time’ by negotiating with the Nazis. Chamberlain and his government knew that the Nazis had developed enough military power to invade countries in Europe. The government also knew that Hitler desired to invade countries. However, they convinced themselves that Hitler would not start another war so soon after the devastation of World War 1. They settled for short-term peace, allowing Hitler more time to prepare for war. If the government had applied the rule of power + desire = will probably happen, the history of Europe could have been very different.

If the antecedents are present, the natural consequences will happen.

This line of argument is again based on using our past experience to predict the future. If there are no clouds in the sky, it probably won’t rain soon. Some antecedents/natural consequences are so predictable that they feel like certainties rather than probabilities. However, to effectively argue, you must remember that antecedents and natural consequences are persuasive, not certainties. The probability of an antecedent leading to a natural consequence varies from feeling like completely certain to feeling like completely uncertain.

Examples

Nearly Certain

Antecedent – Cars driving too fast on icy roads

Natural Consequence – Accident

Antecedent – study hard for a test

Natural Consequence – do well in the test

Antecedent – eating 7000 calories per day

Natural Consequence – gain weight

These arguments can be manipulated for persuasive effect. The cars in the first example could have specialized ice tyres.

Studying hard might not lead to good results for a variety of reasons.

Olympic athletes regularly consume 10,000+ calories per day without gaining weight.

How to Use It

Dr. King uses both Past Fact and Future Fact in his Letter from Birmingham Jail

I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries, our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation – and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

Dr. Martin Luther King (1963) Letter from Birmingham Jail

If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail.

In this line, Dr. King mixes past and future fact to say that if the past fact (overcoming slavery) occurred, which was much more difficult, terrible, and unlikley than their aim (civil rights), their aim is likely to happen.

We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

In the last line, Dr. King used the Future Fact technique of arguing that power and desire will lead to something happen. The desire is shown by the ‘demands’ and the ‘power’ is shown by ‘God’.

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The Elements of Ethos - Intelligence

An audience will judge you on three habits that you show:

1. intelligence ="mental habits"

2. virtue = "moral habits"

3. good will = "emotional habits

However, the understanding of what these habits actually are can differ depending on the audience. How much you can ‘pretend’ to have these habits is difficult to say. Below are the different types of intelligence or “mental habits”.

Linguistic intelligence – ability with language, words, writing, grammar and vocabulary

Logical-Mathematical intelligence – ability with numbers, logic, reasoning, and abstractions

Musical intelligence – ability with sounds, tones, rhythms, pitch, musical keys, and structure of the songs

Spatial intelligence – ability with sense of direction, hand-eye coordination, and visual memory

Bodily-Kinaesthetic intelligence – ability with the body and movement, flexibility, agility, speed, and coordination

Interpersonal intelligence – ability with communication, organizing people, recognizing people’s moods and motivation

Intrapersonal intelligence – ability to be self-aware, exploring emotions, goals, and motivation

Naturalistic intelligence – sensitivity to and understanding of the natural world

Existential intelligence – the ability to explore questions of life, death, and what is beyond death

Your audience will probably trust a certain type of intelligence depending on the subject and context of your piece of writing. Make sure you display the most suitable kind of intelligence to establish ethos with your audience.

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A Brief Introduction to Cause and Effect

A Brief Introduction to Cause and Effect

Deeply embedded in the human psyche is the idea that everything has a cause. One of the main arguments for the existence of god(s) is that the universe must begin with an uncaused cause; everything is caused except the one supreme thing, god(s).

When thinking of a hypothetical cause, the basic principles of cause and effect need to be checked

Multiple Causes

An effect can have more than one cause. The goal of rational thinkers is to find the actual cause or causes of an observed effect, not just the range of possible causes. Your hypothetical cause might be a possible cause, but it might not be the cause.

Adequate Cause

The cause must be able to realistically produce the effect (it is possible for an elephant to sit on someone and kill them, but in Antarctica this is an unrealistic possible cause).

Multiple Adequate Causes

Once you know something or somethings can realistically cause an effect, you need to analyse other possible realistic causes and argue for or against them. Your hypothetical cause might not be the only possible cause.

Conditions Required for Cause

You may have identified a potential cause, but you would need to check that the required conditions for the cause. Opportunity and motivation are important required conditions for human actions, whereas time, temperature etc. are important required conditions for physical processes.

Consistency

You need to establish whether the cause you identified will always produce the same effect or whether it only sometimes produces the effect. If your hypothetical cause only sometimes produces the effect, how can you be sure it produced the effect you have observed?

post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this)

One of the most common mistakes with cause-effect relationships is believing that because something happened before something else, it was the cause of the thing that happened. This is the cause of most superstitions.

A football player puts his right sock on first and scores 3 goals that day. From then on, he always puts his right sock on first, thinking that it is lucky.

There are also more important consequences of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

A child does not do well at school. He grows up and does not have a job. Some would argue that his poor school grades caused his lack of material success in his working life. There is no evidence for this. Just because the school grades came before the unemployment, does not mean the grades are a cause of the effect observed. In this case, the man did not do well at school but was involved in a near-death experience through a car crash when he was 18. The experience motivated him to become a monk and rejected materialism. His grades did not cause the effect observed but a government research team includes the man in statistics on how important school grades are.

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New Ideas

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”

What can we learn from this?

Firstly, if you do not understand counterarguments, you cannot hope to improve your own argument.

Secondly, what if you are wrong? Ignoring a counterargument is the same as closing your eyes, putting your hands over your ears and screaming. If you are content to behave as a child, you should be content to be scorned as a child. Do not ignore the truth for the discomfort it causes.

Thirdly, even if a counterargument makes you angry, you should listen and, if you can, rationally defeat it. If your opponent reverts to the toddler response of ignoring argument, you know your argument is stronger.

And after all that, you might even realise that an argument doesn’t need to be adversarial. You could just have a chat and find useful truths without ego.

So, if you are religious, read God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. If you are not religious, read the holy texts. If you are conservative, read books by progressives. If you are progressive, read books by conservatives. Don’t live in a bubble.

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Three Forms of Antithesis

Opposite or Contrasting Vocabulary

My only love sprung from my only hate

William Shakespeare (1597) Romeo and Juliet

“The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”

Abraham Lincoln (1863) Gettysburg Address

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

President John F Kennedy (1961) Inaugural Address

The examples above show how the contrasting vocabulary vividly points to an idea. Lincoln speaking about men who have fought in a war knows that he could be accused of not understanding what it was like for those who killed and saw death. He ordered troops to die in battle and although he had volunteered to fight in his youth, he had never experienced combat. He also didn’t give the Gettysburg address. A politician named Edward Everett spoke for two hours, using some of the finest rhetoric. He was the main speaker. Lincoln’s speech has become known as the Gettysburg Address because it was so much more effective. He said what needed to be said in very few words and his use of antithesis is an example of that. He didn’t hide from his lack of experience and the strangeness of listening to Everett speak for two hours after thousands had died. He draws direct attention to it by using an antithesis with the very simple, but astonishing ‘we say / they did’. The contrast of these four words is more powerful than any of the two hours of Everett’s speaking. Kennedy did the same thing with ‘many poor’ and ‘few rich’. Antithesis is a powerful tool when used in this way.

Repetition of sound patterns/vocabulary

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

Samuel Johnson (1759) The History of Rasselas

When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy.

Oscar Wilde (1981) The Picture of Dorian Gray

Repetition of vocabulary and particularly of sound can make an antithesis sound flowery. This type of antithesis lacks the plain directness of the other types. Even though Wilde’s example above consists of very basic, every day vocabulary, the repetition of sound and word gives is almost song-like. Wilde’s example here sounds like a nursery rhyme.

The less repetition, the less song-like it will sound. Johnson’s use of this technique about is limited and so the light-hearted feeling is reduced. Unless you want to make your reader or listener to laugh, focus on limited repetition of sounds and words. However, even Johnson’s use sounds flowery so use this form of repetition carefully.

Repetition of Grammatical forms

Unlike short-sighted, egocentric humans, God “sees with equal eye” the fall of a hero and a sparrow, the destruction of an atom or a solar system.

Alexander Pope (1733) An Essay on Man

Society often forgives the criminal: it never forgives the dreamer

Oscar Wilde

Repetition of grammar very obviously isolates the phrase or clause from the rest of the writing. Repetition of grammatical forms makes a piece of writing stand out. It sticks out from the page and in the mind. But it should stick out for a reason.

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Decision Theory – Assigning Utility

“Be careful... any time you find yourself defining the 'winner' as someone other than the agent who is currently smiling from on top of a giant heap of utility.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky, Artificial Intelligence Researcher

When you need to make a life-decision, deciding a number value for possible outcomes helps to clarify the choices.

First, let’s have a look at a patient who needs a heart operation. The frequency statistics from similar operations lead to a table of probable outcomes that look like this.

Full Recovery

No Improvement

Damage

Operation

0.85

0.10

0.05

No Operation

01

0The patient assigned the following utility values to the possible outcomes, including things such as the monetary cost and pain of the operation. (Remember, utility values are subjective; different people will assign different values to different outcomes)

Choose to have the operation

Outcome

Probability of Outcome

Subjective Utility Value

Full Recovery

85%

10

No Improvement

10%

- 2

More Damage

5%

- 10

Choose not to have the operation

Outcome

Probability of Outcome

Subjective Utility Value

No Improvement

100%

0So the expected utility of the heart operation is

The expected utility of not having the heart operation is

If the patient follows the rule of maximising expected value, he should choose to have the operation. When we need to make a difficult decision or analyse decisions others are making, the rule of maximising expected utility can be a helpful method of claifying how we feel about something and reveal how others make their own decisions.

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