Agree to Disagree
The taming of the shrewd: how do we rationally agree to disagree?
In this podcast, Nick, Peter, Chris, and Fraser discuss the finer details of polite polemics, courteous clashes, and respectful repartees. Whether a code of conduct or dangerous hand-washing, they delve into the fundamentals of agreeing to disagree: from group identity and global significance to cultural pressure and mutual benefit.
A few things we mentioned in this podcast:
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGrure, for Aleph. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Lear, Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph and this week we're discussing agreeing to disagree. This is a subject close
Speaker B:to my heart. Yeah, so this is something you hear people talk about a lot but not analysed I think in the sort of depth that I require. What is agreeing to disagree? It's a bit of a throwaway phrase, yeah go on. Yeah, so I think just to set what I'm going to propose what I think we're talking about and either we can use that as a foundation or we can kind of pick at it a bit but when we disagree on something it means that our beliefs are different. The probabilities that we assign to claims are different and that's what disagreeing is, right. Now when we're having an argument what we're trying, what I'm trying to do is get you to shift your beliefs over to where mine are. No we're not. You're trying to do the same. You're trying to do the same in your direction, right. I'm trying to align you with my beliefs and you're trying to align me with your beliefs about whatever it is we're discussing. Now when we agree to disagree I think I want to say that this is not some sort of agreement over a claim, right. We're not, we haven't found a hypothesis that we agree on. What we're doing is we are actually agreeing to a code of conduct, right. So it's a very different thing, so the agreement about agreeing to disagree, that agree bit is doing a very different thing to what the disagree bit is doing. They're about different domains, right. So we agree to a code of conduct which is essentially saying look this is not worth, the costs of arguing is not worth whatever benefits we think we're going to get out of this. We are sort of, both of us are saying we're not going to concede that we're wrong or that the other person's right. We are just basically agreeing to a draw and we're going to stop the argument now without having made progress and we're fine with that. And so it's basically I think agreeing to disagree is that, it's agreeing to a code of conduct in a discussion about some claims that you do disagree on, right. That's it, so I'm just going to put that down. And a sort of vernacular
Speaker C:interpretation is that it's a polite dismissal of further debate. The cost involved in, you know, falling out with each other or using more time is too much because you realise that there's an impasse or you cannot make progress. It's like, okay let's talk about something else. I mean I'm
Speaker A:on a serious point, I'm very interested in this because as you know if nothing else I'm a person of great introspection and self-awareness and I do have a real problem agreeing to disagree. I find it very difficult to do and actually many times on this podcast, but at various times in my life, even just this week, I get myself into hot water a little bit when I should just leave it. But I can't stop, I can't stop. I need help. Who can help me? Chris is looking at me, maybe he can help me. Where do we go? What's next? Nicely set up, is it you Chris? Okay, help me please. Yeah I can help you, I can help you. So I've got here, I've done a bit of analysis. Brilliant. I'm going to help you with your decision making. Superb. So how about that? Yeah. So you're in a situation Fraser, picture yourself in a situation where you have an opinion, someone else has a different opinion, you're disagreeing. Okay, I've got a little flow chart here. Great. Which you can follow to decide whether to agree to disagree. Yeah, nice, go for it. Let me think, yeah I'm thinking of something that happened this week, go for it. Okay, so first of all, is the disagreement fundamentally a performance? What does that mean? Well, most disagreements on the internet are performances, because you're disagreeing, you're not disagreeing for the sake of a discussion with one other person, you're disagreeing for the sake of a whole load of other people who are watching from the side. It's quite performative. Yeah. So in this case, no. It's not, it's not performance, because if it is a performance you can do whatever your audience wants you to do, because you're doing it for the audience, not for the other person. So that's my, so as long as it's not performance, then I've got a follow-up question. Do you want somebody to change their view? Yes. You do? Okay, because if you don't want anyone to change their view, it's a bit shorter. So if you do, you do want someone to change their view. Is the person whose view you want to change you? No. No, okay, that in some ways isn't surprising.
Speaker B:There is a box for yes, but nobody ever reaches it. Yeah, sadly, I sort of think, feel like, like this is, this is only going to work on, on people who are being really weird. But anyway, carry on. What,
Speaker A:the flow chart? Well, I'll get to that. Will you settle, so here's the big question, will you settle for a mutual acceptance that yours and the other person's opinions are equally valid in some way? Absolutely not. Then, then what you've got there is you've got, you've got a situation where you consider them to be a heretic. So you're, yeah, so you, now you cannot agree to disagree with a heretic. Right, yeah. So you've, you've established heresy. And what you have to do there is you have to excommunicate them. Okay. So excommunication is the, is the, is the solution. Yeah. Because you can't, obviously you can't be in communion with that person. They can't be your friend and so on. And so, you know, once you've excommunicated everybody in the world, I think then you're fine. Your, your life is, your life is complete and you're happy. But until then, you've got to put up with a few people. So, and I'll just, and I think like the ultimate refusal to agree to disagree is, is, is, is, is declaring people heretics. I think that's, that's what's going on. Because you won't budge, they won't budge. They're clearly wrong, obviously. Probably they should be burned. I'm down to that so far. I think it's the only reasonable response, I think. Yeah, yeah. Or exiled, then burned. Yeah. You look like you're about to continue, Chris, but before you do, if, and if you are. I think we've, I think we've gone through the flowchart pretty well. Yeah, I didn't expect it to end with burning someone, but it, it works. This is all logically set out, so they've got any problem with it. Well, it's all documented and thought through. But I think a key thing there is validity of opinion, right? And I think that's one of the issues that, because they're in certain positions, like let's say me, God forbid, me and Nick were having an argument about economics. I would possibly, reluctantly, let him have his, you know, head with that. I'd let him give me his leeway because he probably knows more about economics than I do. And so in that kind of situation, I'm happy, probably, to give way. But in some areas and situations, I, yeah, I think that's a lot, what a lot of this can be.
Speaker B:Well, I think, no, there is a big difference. You, you, you sort of conceding that I'm more likely to be right, actually is, is, is us converging our beliefs. What you're, what, we've gone from a situation where you dogmatically assert that if supply goes down, price goes down. And, and, but you can see that I'm more likely maybe to be right about this. So you say, okay, well, there's some probability that I'm right. And you go, and that's actually just agreeing. What this, what we're talking about here is when you don't change your belief at all. You don't assign it. You don't think I'm sort of righter than you thought at the beginning. You, you now, we just, we just disagree. You think price goes up, goes down. And I think it goes up when supply falls. And, but we decide to stop, press pause. That's what we're talking about. So don't confuse it with sort of coming to agreement. That's not, we are still poles apart. So sorry, to recap, are you saying that we should assume that all parties,
Speaker A:if we end up at this sort of impasse, that we should assume that all parties have the same
Speaker B:information or similarly qualified or, or not? I do want to talk about like rational, whether it's possible to rationally agree to disagree, but no, I think I just want to make you aware that agreeing to disagree does not involve convergence on a mutually acceptable set of views. That's, that's just agreement. Yeah. What this is, is you are not doing that. You still have different beliefs, but somehow or other you're able to, but it might take the argument to get to the realising
Speaker A:you're at that point. Maybe. So crucially agreeing to disagree is a peaceful outcome. Yeah. You're, you're allowing the, you're allowing the person who's, who's, who's clearly in the wrong and obviously foolish to, to coexist peacefully with you. That's, that's, and, but, and there are some, there are some reasons why you might not want that. Yeah. Because, but it's like, I think that that's the, that's the key. I had quite a long conversation, maybe we'll get to this later. I had quite a long conversation with a computer about what, what things we should agree to disagree about. What, you and the computer? Me and the computer. Yeah. What was the, what was the main
Speaker B:point of contention between you and the computer? Well, I, okay. I'm not surprised. Do we want to
Speaker A:go there? I have to say I'm not surprised by the introduction of this. Okay. So I asked the computer, you know, you know, should we, should, when should we, shouldn't we agree to disagree? And the computer, which was called Claude said, well, you know, on the whole it's, you should agree to disagree unless the other person holds a belief, which is outrageous. And I said, well, what about, or more or less, I mean, I'm, I'm summarizing and I accepted because the point Claude made was if you agree to disagree over something outrageous, then you're tacitly suggesting that you think that their belief is, is, is at least, is somehow valid, even if it's wrong. It's kind of, it's okay to hold it. So I asked Claude, I said to Claude, well, what about, I said, oh, I thought, I think that, that vaccination is a Chinese plot. And Claude was like, I'm not, I can't agree to disagree with you on that one. Not having that. Vaccination is not a Chinese plot and his will be evidence, whatever. I was like, okay, fine. I said, what about the Maradona's hand of God goal? I said, I think that's a completely legitimate goal. And Claude went nuts. He's like, no way. No, that was not a legitimate goal. It was like, it was demonstrably not. And Maradona admitted it wasn't. And, and, and, you know, I can't, he said, I can't agree to disagree with you on that one. It's like, there's, there's evidence. And he said also, at the time it was, it was demonstrated to not be a real goal. Yeah. And the issue is too important. And I said, well, actually the goal stood, you know, it was, it was allowed in the match. And Claude went all humble on me. He was like, oh, I'm really sorry. Yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah. Sometimes I'm a bit wrong, but, but still, I don't want to, I still, I don't want people to have the opinion that that's a real goal because he did handball it. So he got a bit conflicted. So before we come to Peter, what is your conclusion from this conversation with Claude? What am I concluding? Well, my conclusion on all of this, because I've done all this analysis with flow charts, my conclusion on all of this is it's nonsense and, and that we should just groove on these things and, and agree to disagree if we feel like it, but mainly just disagree if it's fun. And then, but, but on the whole, my conclusion is you should not worry too much about whether you're validating somebody else's opinion. Claude seems to think that he was validating my opinion by agreeing to disagree. I was like, no, I don't, I don't agree with him on
Speaker B:that. Bit of a people pleaser. Well, that's very much the point though, isn't it? Like you're not, you're agreeing not to, that this has no bearing on the validity of the argument. I think that's what you're agreeing to, that the cessation of the argument, you are both agreeing to accept that, that doesn't have a bearing on who's right. That's my opinion. No, I think, but I think that's an
Speaker C:analysis of what we're doing. That's a reasonable opinion, but I think that the, the, the, the naive, the naive interpretation might be that, oh, well, they, they've stopped arguing with me. Therefore to some level agree. I think a lot of people would see that as a validation of their belief.
Speaker A:Well, I, this is, well, wait, I don't feel any further forward in my, in my spiritual quest. I, if nothing else, as you know, I'm a truth seeker and I cannot let it go. We'll come back
Speaker B:to that later. Nick, what do you got? Just, I think, I think it's helpful to distinguish agreeing to disagree from not agreeing to disagree, right? Which is, what does that look like? Well, let's say that I want to agree to disagree, but you don't. Well, then it is just simply true that we don't agree to disagree, right? And what that looks like is, can you, well, can you have an argument where one person isn't taking part? No. It's, you know, if I'm not agreeing to disagree, what I'm saying is that I have won the argument, or at least that my belief should prevail, um, as a result of you withdrawing. If you're saying let's agree to disagree and I say no, what I'm really saying is that your withdrawal from the argument is evidence for my claim. And, and I, it's a bit like you can't have a, you can't have a one-sided ceasefire, right? Both sides have to agree to the ceasefire. If, if, if one side says, I'll tell you what, let's have a ceasefire. And the other side says, no, actually I'm winning here. Then that's that. That is, you have failed to agree to disagree. And, um, you know, and, and actually it's true. It's a sign of weakness to want to have a ceasefire when the other side doesn't, you know? So, so I, so I think it's, it is fair to treat, um, one side's willingness to agree to disagree and the other side's unwillingness to do so as evidence against, prima facie evidence against the person who wants to agree to disagree. Um, but of course, you know, there are such things as vexatious arguers, people who will keep arguing regardless of whether it's, uh, whether there's any grounds to stand on at all. Um, you know, uh, I, I, I, but, but I think, you know, I, it is possible, I think it's possible to say, well, I'm not trying to, I'm not, I'm going to stop trying to prove you wrong, but I'm not accepting that you're correct. Um, anyway, that's it really. I suppose it's, I just wanted to say that, you know, that, that failure to agree to disagree will, it comes down to, um, come, you know, is rightly, I think, interpreted as a, potentially a source of weakness for the person who's trying, who's, who's, you know, suing for
Speaker A:peace. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, just say rather distressingly too many times in my life have I heard the phrase uttered to me, should we just agree to disagree? Um, and maybe I should take a lesson from that and, you know, um, and what's the difference between being, you know, sticking to your guns and being, you know, uh, stalwart and just being a petty twat. Um, um, yeah. So look,
Speaker C:one of you two, we need you. But it is really annoying when people just got some weird wacky belief though, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. There you are. There's a flat earther.
Speaker A:Right. Off you go. Uh, oh, let's agree to disagree. This is the, somebody is wrong on the internet problem, isn't it? I've got some more analysis though. You look like you're,
Speaker B:I've got a graph. I've got a chart. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. I love the flow chart. And now we've got this one. I think he's being a bit, uh, ambitious calling it a chart for the, for listeners benefit. It's three lines and what looks like a stain on a piece of lined paper. What I can say is I look at that and I'm impressed by it. Chris, don't listen to these two.
Speaker A:Okay. Cause there's a key part of the flow chart, which we didn't reach, which is if you, um, if, if you don't, if you don't particularly expect anybody to change their views, if you know that, if you know that the, that the discussion has reached the point where you, you and the other person are gonna, gonna carry on disagreeing, then how do you decide whether it's, whether you should go down the, um, the kind of declaring them a heretic path or the, um, or the kind of living, um, in harmony path. Difficult decision as I'm sure, as I'm sure we can all relate. Yeah, absolutely. So then, so I think you can, you can, you can put the, um, disagreement on, on, on a few axes. Yep. So this is my analysis. So one of them, some global significance, there's a global significance axis. Gotcha. There's a, um, scope for movement axis. Now some things are kind of binary, there's no scope for movement, but sometimes you can kind of make, you can make a little bit of a movement one way or another, and then you might get to a point where you're a bit closer together and then agree to disagree after that or disagree on a, on a lesser thing. And then there's a group identity axis. This one I think is very important, uh, because, um. Is that the line in the middle or is it no? No, no, that's, that's that one there. But I thought. I mean, for the, for the listeners, I'm pointing to one of the lines nearest the stain on the piece of paper. Is it a stain? Yeah. I thought it was a, I thought it was a marker of some sort. No, it's a red, it's a red stain. Okay. Um, sorry, just say, cause I thought, are we onto three axes at the moment? Yeah, yeah. Three. Cause normally it's only two. So I thought, let's go for three. Okay. Three axes. Okay. Yeah. I don't know how that works in terms of.
Speaker B:No, no, you've got an X and a Y and then the other one's kind of. Oh, just add them up. We basically, I think you should add them all up and that tells you what, whether you should agree to disagree.
Speaker A:So I, yeah. And that's, well, yes, that's right. Yeah, there we go. Yeah. You kind of see how far away you are from the origin. Yeah. And then if you're really far from the origin, then if it's like really globally significant. Um, and binary. Yeah. I've forgotten what the third axis was. One's about scope for movement and one's about, um, group identity. Yes. The group identity. I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to give away that the ending here, but which is that this is all nonsense because in the end, um, in the end there could be any number of axes, but, but, but I think we do sort of, we do, we, there's something like this and this is, this was shown by my discussions with Claude, which was, he was like, well, no, some things are beyond the pale. And, and, um, and, and he particularly, yeah, when I, particularly if I suggest that climate change is, is, um, overblown, you're like, no, no, I'm not having that. You won't, you won't, you won't let it go. But that's because it's globally significant. Um, and, um, and I think it's also because it's a high group identity thing. It's big, big on group identity. Yeah. I think, well, sorry, Nick, what do you mean by this group identity thing? Well, you, you, I think that you might, you might screw this. I think that people, um, have lots of opinions, which align, uh, which correlate with one another based on group identity. Yeah. So for instance, if you meet somebody who, um, has let you, you, if you know what political party somebody votes for, you can often predict their opinions fairly accurately on a set of, um, things like attitudes to, um, feminism or attitudes to, um, basically progressive attitudes versus conservative attitudes are very commonly lumped into, into big, um, groups. If you, if you're progressive, you have a whole set of opinions and it's hard for a non-progressive opinion on one topic, uh, they, they, they, they seem to come together. And so when, and I mean, you can see this in, in, in religion, quite a lot, religious people have a whole load of opinions that they hold together, but they argue like crazy about certain little, little individual bits, but where the group, where the group identity is concerned, they're, they're, they all stay together.
Speaker B:So I think it feels to me like you're trying to capture futility there. Like if something is stuck because it's part of your group identity, um, then it just is, there's no point. Like it's just, it's much, much harder to get them to move, you know? So I feel like that you're capturing scope, practical scope for movement there. Um, but I just, I think what this touched on particularly Claude's outrage, um, uh, believing, uh, this, you know, incorrect things about climate change is that it's possible for someone else holding a belief to harm me, right? So, so actually often, no, right? What colour, you know, your door should be, or, you know, uh, to some extent where the transubstantiation is true, doesn't really affect me that kind, that much. Uh, but if someone has a belief, for example, that really we should adopt Sharia law, um, that's potentially harmful, right? That could have an effect on me. And I think you could say the same for, you know, people who might get into power, for example, if someone might get into political power and, and they have beliefs that are wrong, uh, and they're going to implement decisions that are based on those wrong beliefs, then someone else supporting them vocally is going to potentially harm me. They might vote for this guy. So, so, you know, and beliefs can be harmful, right? That's what I'm saying. Okay. So choose your battles, let's say, for example, Peter, what do you got?
Speaker A:Anything close to this?
Speaker C:Yes. I think that leads nicely into the paradox of tolerance. Um, so, uh, basically, but the, ask the question, should tolerant, uh, should intolerant views be tolerated if their very tolerance leads to the extinction of tolerance itself? So this is along the lines of if you, um, if, if I believe something, if I believe that we shouldn't be tolerant, I believe that we shouldn't tolerate, um, particular views or we shouldn't, we shouldn't deviate from a particular mindset, um, then that's, that, that's being intolerant of anything outside of that belief. That's, that's, um, potentially dangerous because it stunts, uh, development of knowledge, but it is also, um, it's paradoxical because I'm being, um, intolerant of intolerance, no, being tolerant of intolerance.
Speaker B:Yeah, it almost feels like there's two levels of tolerance. One is, one is, you know, um, the, uh, sort of the behavior. One is the institution kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, it feels quite connected actually. Yeah. The, the, um, uh, that you, you, you should allow people to express intolerant views, but, uh, to a point you shouldn't let them remove the institution of tolerance that allows them to do that. Like even if they want, that's what they're arguing for is the removal of tolerance. You should tolerate that belief, but not tolerate them trying to do that. I think, you know, which feels, again, it comes down to that thing of like beliefs are about claims, arguments are about claims, but, um, agreeing to disagree is about a code of conduct. And, you know, that actually, they are quite different things. I was going to, so I just wanted to, uh, just on this, on this kind of idea of conduct and kind of behavior, um, I suppose it's worth saying that there is that agreeableness is one of the five, big five personality traits. Um, and it's, it's the thing that kind of pulls together compassion and empathy and trust and altruism and cooperativeness. Uh, you know, you, you know, agreeable people, you know what they're like. Um, and, uh, there are whole cultures which are more, which put more or less emphasis on agreeableness. So like really, I suppose, famously, you know, East Asian cultures generally have a lot of, a lot of their communication is about a conflict avoidance. You know, you say it's, it's a bit difficult instead of saying no, or perhaps it would be better if we did this instead of criticizing someone directly. Um, you know, Middle East, South Asia, it's kind of very difficult for people to say no to requests, even if they can't fulfill them. Um, and so, you know, people don't make direct requests either. So the whole thing is designed to avoid that kind of thing. Whereas in, in, in the UK, I think generally, but particularly in the US and Israel and Russia, uh, you know, they're really at the other extreme of, of, of just say what you're thinking. Let's just direct communication and, and, you know, they don't really care about conflict that much. So, and I think, um, you would, I suppose, expect there to be, uh, more disagreements and less agreement to disagree, uh, in those kinds of cultures. But, um, so yeah, so I, I would, that's my, I think that's my experience. Like you would think, um, that high conflict culture. So yes, I would say that you get more overt discussion, um, in, let's say the US, uh, and also less, less willingness to compromise, you know, in those discussions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That sounds right. Yeah. Um, look, I wanted to ask Chris something. Yeah. He's a keen chess player. Yeah. So, and I, it occurs to me that agreeing to disagree is something like agreeing to a draw in a game of chess. And do, what makes people do that? Why, why don't they keep trying to win? What makes them say, right, I'll tell you what, let's have a draw.
Speaker A:Um, there are some, there are some, um, there are some reasons which I think aren't perhaps relevant to this conversation for offering a draw and accepting a draw. Like your team will win if you take a draw or you'll win the tournament. If you, if you give a draw, so those, those are not perhaps not what Nick's talking about, but the normal, normally draws are offered and taken in positions which are super boring. So you just want to go home. Yeah. They just know it's going to be a draw because it's like, it's just a boring position. There's nothing going on. They, they know that they could play on and they could just repeat moves or whatever. It's just dull. Um, so that, and they've got plenty of time on the clock, so there's no harm or the other, the other slightly rarer case, but still kind of interesting one is where somebody's like really low on time, but, um, but it's got a really complicated position and the other person might think, might think they got a complicated position, but possibly a winning position. And the other person has got loads of time, um, and might win by just having more time, but they might not. So there's like a, there's like a sort of, um, a complicated equilibrium where both of them, where they neither want to take the risk. They, they, they both got a different type of risk and they can just negate it by. Yeah, that's interesting. So what can we learn from this? What do you think? I've no idea. I don't know how this relates to, I don't know how it relates to a group.
Speaker B:I think that's directly, directly. I mean, it feels to me like, well, it's particularly the first category of going, is this worth, is this worth carrying on?
Speaker C:That feels like they're sort of politely at a dinner party agreeing to disagree so you can advance the conversation, you can move the conversation to something else.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly. Um, like it, sometimes it isn't worth the effort. Yeah. Yeah. Although, but if one person offers a draw and the other person doesn't accept what, what, what then, like if one person just says, I really want to go home, would they eventually have to accept that they've lost, that they have to resign instead? No, they just play on. Right. But it feels like there's a mutually beneficial thing, which is agreeing to a draw. And I feel like it can be mutually beneficial to agree to disagree.
Speaker C:But I suspect, analogous to the validation of the, the belief is that, that, that on a metagame level, that tells you something about what your opponent thinks of their position. Yeah. So if they're offering a draw, they think they're in a, they, they, they, as you say, there might be in a complicated position, but they think they've got a chance of winning if they offer a draw.
Speaker B:Yeah. And I think there's also, Chris, I hadn't even thought about this, but you might get agreement to disagree when both sides know that they're on a, they've got a stupid position. And that's the, the, the sort of situation, I guess, when you've got, when both people think there's quite a high risk of losing. So let's just call it a draw. Actually, that's an interesting category that I hadn't considered was like two sides. You know, if you think, look, both of us don't know what we're talking about. We're both all shitting here. Shall we just agree to disagree so that neither of us end up being wrong? Well, yeah.
Speaker A:And that's analogous to something that you're familiar with, poker, where it goes down to the last two and they go, let's just split the, the kitty, the, what's it called? The, the, the thing in the middle.
Speaker B:Yeah. That doesn't happen. Does it? It does. You can't agree to split the pot. Can you not? Yeah, because the cards speak. One person, the rules of poker are such that one person must end up winning. But isn't it the case, like in casino games of poker? Sometimes you will have the same hand. It'll turn out you've got the same hand. Yeah. Oh, you mean the competition? Yes. They will agree to a, yeah, you can, so you get the whole thing, like you could go, right, I'll tell you what, let's just split the pot. And then what you're essentially agreeing to is saying, well, we can play the game, but whatever happens, I'll pay you the, the winner will pay the loser a certain amount of money. Right. But in the context of a specific hand of poker, it's not possible for there to be a draw. Okay. But no, so yeah.
Speaker A:Look, we need to round things off. How do we round this off? Can I, can I give a couple of examples that I think are interesting of some things which people just can't, some things that you would never expect people to agree to disagree on, and some things which is surprising that they just do. So this is, so just a good example, obviously, to start off with, the dress. You know the dress?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:You do know the dress.
Speaker B:Don't talk about the dress. Oh, that one. I do know it. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker A:I do know what you're talking about. Yeah. Well, what you know about the dress is that no one's ever going to just accept that, I mean, obviously, half the people in the world are just plain wrong, and there's nothing else to it. So we're all going to, we're never going to agree to disagree on that one, because you're just wrong if you, I can't even remember which one's wrong now, but definitely one of them's wrong.
Speaker B:Sadly, black and blue turned out to be right.
Speaker A:Yeah, some of, one of them turned out to be like what it is in real life. But the fact is that the fact, I saw the other thing and I'm right. So that's the end of it.
Speaker B:I'm with you, Chris.
Speaker A:Yeah. So we're a team and, you know, we're going to take on. Now we've got a group. Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's one way. But the thing about that is it's fun to argue about, because it's completely, it doesn't, it has zero global significance. But there are some things like, which I think are interesting, like everyone, everyone's okay these days, I think, with, people in general are okay with selective breeding of things like crops. But if you start talking about selective breeding of people, that's eugenics and nobody's cool with that. Like, it's like, it's just, it's not okay. And it's, so if you said, if someone said to you, oh, bit of selective breeding of humans is sensible. And yet we do it all the time, because you select your mate. Yeah. They're in the Nazi camp and that's, and that's it. They're heretics. It's pretty clear. And that's kind of an interesting one, isn't it? Like, we know, we know what the rules are on that. And we know what would happen if we, if we, if we went into the wrong camp. But there's, but there's another thing which, where we just get on with people all the time, I think, which is eating. So we eat together with people all the time. And people have religious or quasi-religious reasons for eating differently from other people. And everyone effectively just agrees to disagree. So you can eat with a, with a vegan who might be outraged by the, what you're doing to the planet by eating cow. Or you can eat with someone who, who, who only eats kosher or halal or something. And, well, my experience is, and what I observe is, nobody ever, it's never a thing.
Speaker B:Well, it is, but I do feel sorry for vegetarians and vegans because they're constantly having to defend themselves.
Speaker A:Against the raging attack from Nick Hare.
Speaker B:Well, no, against raging attacks from meat eaters who feel personally attacked by the fact that there's a vegetarian. Okay. It does happen. People definitely do turn that into an argument to have.
Speaker A:Okay. I think that's one where people pretty much coexist. But maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, no, I think I'll back Chris up on this one. Yeah.
Speaker C:I've got a question. Okay. And it's a large one, so I want to leave it hanging. Is this the, is this the, oh, okay. Oh, okay, go on. It's not the, go on. So, so the way we, the way that we generally, and academia particularly sort of advances knowledge is based on a sort of rationalist model, which an underlying assumption is that if you and I both have exactly the same information, and we are rational thinkers, then we will form the same belief and there will be no disagreement. A disagreement really comes down, boils down to a misalignment in information. So that, but that's, it does works to an extent. But what, so the academic institutions and debates cannot, cannot meet eye to eye with people with particular outside views. So you can't, you can't have a academic conference where, with both climate change deniers and climatologists in the same room. It just doesn't work because of the limitation of the sort of epistemological methods that we've got. So is there a, is there a way, can we patch our methods to be able to talk on a, on a sort of, on a level with anybody about anything and, and solve disagreements, advance knowledge to the satisfaction of all? Is that, is that even possible?
Speaker B:That was the dream, that was the dream of the internet, wasn't it? Yeah, I think Peter's alluding to the Allman Agreement Theorem there, which is exactly that. It's like, actually, the reason that we disagree is, it's just, we've had different experiences. We've got different data. Well, we'll share that data and then we'll all just converge on, on the truth. It's a bloody tragedy. Yes, indeed. Apparently people don't work that way.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, no. If only everyone would just get on, you know? Yeah. So Fraser, can I, can I just say, I've been waiting for Nick to mention the Allman Agreement Theorem, which is, and he hasn't said the word, but it's, but it's hanging in the background, which is Bayes. He's, he's going to say that everyone should be a Bayesian thinker and then you should.
Speaker B:Well, but that's how to, that's how to agree. And I, obviously that's how to agree and that's what we should be doing. But given that we're not going to do that, this is about what we do when we disagree. I think that's the difference.
Speaker A:Also, it's obvious nonsense. Yeah. Um, you, you, you are operating a different level to me. I'm going to withdraw tactfully from this. I've no idea what you're talking about. Um, disappointed. I feel no further forward. Yeah, I don't. I know you want us to finish. Um, um, I feel no further forward. Um, okay. We need to wrap things up. Um, just before we do, tell me a time when you couldn't disagree. Sorry, you couldn't agree to disagree. I've got a very quick one. Go for it. Every chat with Nick ever.
Speaker B:You wouldn't let it lie. Uh, I, uh, I had a game of consequences, uh, when I was 10 and I had written this one, which was, uh, about Mae West. Yeah. Right. Um, and James Clark the next day related this story as though he'd written the stuff that I'd written. And, um, and I was like, why are you bullshitting? Like I wrote that. And, uh, and his argument was, well, how come I wrote it then? And, uh, I, I'm still enraged by it.
Speaker A:Quite right. Still enraged.
Speaker B:I'm afraid I can't, I could never agree to disagree on that. I'm just not giving ground ever. I wrote that. Yeah. Anyway.
Speaker A:You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it doesn't matter what that leads to. The other tragedies of significant global consequences. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Chris, you're pretty agreeable. I'm actually, oh, I please said that, uh, Fraser. Yeah. I really like your, um, beard. You're looking great today. And, um, because obviously whether or not you agree with somebody about opinions is, um, is highly correlated with whether or not you like them. Weird, weird, but apparently true for lots of people. It's not really true for me. Was that, so you're saying that people you argue with you don't like? I just, there are people for whom when they disagree with someone, they go off them. Right. Um, anyway, the disagreement that I have is, um, within my family, there's a disagreement about whether or not a nail biting is okay. Ah. Do we agree to disagree? I think we just have to put up with it. The argument just rages and yeah. Out of interest, where do you fall on this? I think you're a not okay guy. I, I, um.
Speaker B:I think he's a biter. Okay.
Speaker A:I bite my nails only very occasionally. Wishy-washy in the middle.
Speaker B:Yeah. No, I bite mine to keep them short. I mean, it's rather than trimming them. What's the problem with that? Okay.
Speaker A:I have too many times to relate. Yeah. I can't, I just can't. There's no point in going into it. No, that's fine. Yeah. All right. So, okay. We'll stop there. Thank you as always for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Peter Coghill, Nick Hare, Chris Lear and Claude the Computer. Until next time, goodbye.
