We are social animals who cooperate to a degree far higher than other social animals like lions, monkeys or elephants. Such cooperation among ourselves is brought about by reaching consensus or a common way of action on almost everything. For arriving at such consensus which is a necessary prerequisite for cooperation, discussions and debates and arguments are absolutely necessary. Such debates go on day in and day out in board rooms, in courts, in parliaments and assemblies, at homes and construction sites and in all other aspects and facets of life. With discussions, debates and the resulting consensus, no cooperation is possible which in turn means no human progress is possible without such constant engagements in debates and discussions. Needless to say that such discussions and debates have been going on since man began to live in societies and groups. Debates and discussions have become even more imperative in our democratic and globalized modern world. In addition to debates in the society we also arrive at our own personal decision by discussing things in our own head and such discussions within ourselves and this is called self-talk which is often carried on within ourselves in our own mother tongue or in the language we are most comfortable with. Thus in everyday matters involving people of our own lan guage we suse our mother-tongue. However in matters involving computers and high level technology we tend to use the language of education - in our case English - for such self-talk. According to Transactional analysis each of us three personal components - Parent, Adult and Child. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis) Our self-talk is between these three components within ourselves just as a decicion within a society or community or family is arrived at after discussions between the memebers of the particular social group. Needless to say that the laws of discussions and debates treated in this article with regard to individuals within a society also apply to self-talk, the constant chattering which goes on within ourselves between the Parent, Adult and Child transactional components within ourselves. Although debates and discussions as well as self-talk are of paramount significance in all aspects of life, the rules and codes for conducting such debates remain quite ambiguous and obscure, especially the rules for day-to-day informal discussions. This article is an attempt at driving home some of the more important aspects of conducting such day to day discussions and at alerting the reader of some of the pitfalls and fallacies which invariably come into the picture during such informal discussions and debates. DEFINITION: Take any encyclopedia. If you look up anything, the first thing in the concerned article is a succinct or short description mostly in one sentence of the thing you look up. Thus if you look up the term 'Gravity" in Wikipedia, it starts with Gravity or gravitation is a natural phenomenon by which all things with energy are brought toward (or gravitate toward) one another, including stars, planets, galaxies and even light and sub-atomic particles." This is called the definition of gravity. If two or more people are debating on 'gravity' the most essential thing is that they arrive at a common nderstanding or definition of what gravity is. Without such a common and exact definition of the subject under discussion, all discussions and debates amount to mere gibberish or futile exercise of the vocal chords. Voltaire said "Before you enter into a discourse with me first define your terms" This is perhaps the most fundamental law of debates. However it is a law which is more discarded than observed as we rush into heated debates without defining the subject under discussion. Thus we get into debates over terms like truth, spirituality, vital force, cosmic energy, culture etc which have no exact definitions. God is such a word which does not have an exact definitions. Hundreds of thousands of gods have been worshipped by man from the beginning of time and most of those gods are now extinct or unknown. What is more the different religions have different gods with different and often opposing attributes. So there is no point in rushing into a debate on the existence of god without defining which of the hundreds of thousands of gods are involved. Spirituality is another world which means different things to different people. Thus the Aghoris of Benares consume human flesh from the burnt bodies from the funeral pyres along the banks of the Ganges in the spiritual belief that such ritual cannibalism will liberate them from the endless circles of birth and rebirth. Similarly the holy communion in churches is a symbolic cannibalism. Cannibalism is the most abominable and despicable thing one can think of. But for Aghoris and Catholics ritual/symbolic cannibalism has highly spiritual implications or dimensions. So there is no point in debating on spiritualism in a group consisting of Aghoris and Catholics and vegetarian Brahmins as there cannot be a common definition between these groups as regards spirituality vis-a-vis ritual and/or symbolic cannibalism. The largest number of formal debates and discussions take place in our courts. In such debates an enactment or law by the law making authorities of the land make for the guidelines. Thus in the case of Motor Vehicles there is the Motor Vehicles Act which forms the guidelines for all discussions and debates in courts reg motor vehicles. This Act starts with the definition of the important terms used in the Act. The definitions of the keywords used in the The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 of the central government can be found on https://indiankanoon.org/doc/785258/. Acording to this page a Motor Vehicle is defined as (Quote) ""motor vehicle" or "vehicle" means any mechanically propelled vehicle adapted for use upon roads whether the power of propulsion is transmitted thereto from an external or internal source and includes a chassis to which a body has not been attached and a trailer; but does not include a vehicle running upon fixed rails or a vehicle of a special type adapted for use only in a factory or in any other enclosed premises or a vehicle having less than four wheels fitted with engine capacity of not exceeding 4[twenty-five cubic centimetres]; 1[twenty-five cubic centimetres];" (Unquote) Obviously electricity-propelled motorcycles and cars do not come in the ambit of the Motor Vehicles Act wince they are not mechanically propelled. Also according to the definition of Vehicle in the act, a train does not come under the Motor Vehicles Act though they are mechanically propelled, because trains run on rails which excludes them from the term 'Motor Vehicles' under the motor vehicles act. But outside the ambit of this act trains are obviously motor vehicles. EVIDENCE: Evidence is something presented in support of some assertion or as proof for a statement. There are strong evidences and week evidences. Scientific evidence leave no room for speculations whereas non-scientific evidences may often belong to the weak category. Thus there are strong evidences as proof to Newton's Laws of motion. Such laws or statements contain very few variables with simple inter-relationships. On the other hand weather and economic forecasts involve too many variables of too many complexities and so provide only weak evidences. In such cases as weather forecasting where evidence is difficult to come by, we resort to evidences based on statistical models which are not as reliable as in the case of evidences available in the case of Newton's laws. Conclusions are drawn from evidences by reasoning or logic which come in two forms - deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning: Deductive reasoning is a logical process in which a conclusion is based on the concordance of multiple premises that are generally assumed to be true. Deductive reasoning is sometimes referred to as top-down logic whereby we come to specific conclusions from general facts. The most famous example of deductive reasoning is the chain of statements below: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. Inductive reasoning on the other hand is reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion. It is also known as down-top reasoning whereby generalized conclusions are arrived at from general facts. Below is a piece of inductive reasoning: Every swan we have seen is white. Therefore, all swans are white. (Or more precisely, "We expect that all swans to be white") The conclusions drawn from deductive reasoning leave no room for error. In contrast the conclusions drawn from inductive reasoning may leave considerable room for error. Thus all swans were thought to be white as a result of the inductive reasoning stated above until they discovered black swans in Australia. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan) Hitchens's razor is an epistemological razor asserting that the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, the claim is unfounded and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it. It is named, echoing Occam's razor, for the journalist and writer Christopher Hitchens, who, in a 2003 Slate article, formulated it thus: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. -- "All new ideas good or bad, great or small start with a one-man minority" - anonymous
Regards
Xavier William www.keralites.net 
Posted by: Xavier William <varekatx@gmail.com>
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