I see a flaw in your reasoning, due no doubt to your computer-like binary mind. The fact that a person is not logical does not mean that he/she is insane. A very emotional woman for example could do and say illogical things without resorting to murder. Similarly, an insane man, let's say, could kill you in cold blood and give a perfectly logical reason for his crime. Some arguments can be based on factors that cannot be described as «right» or «wrong». Someone may say: "I think The Matrix is the best film ever" or «I love Michael Jackson». If you don't agree and proceed to tell the person why, an argument ensues. You said that you don't want to win arguments, but your action says otherwise, i.e. you will not stop arguing until the other person either agrees with you (sometimes out of fatigue) or leaves the room. In the case of arguments based on difference of taste (The Matrix, Michael Jacson), there cannot be a resolution based on logic, so why start the argument at all? I guess my points are as follows: 1) Things are not always black/white therefore right/wrong; 2)There are many, many ways of doing things and most people think their way is the right way, so I say: live and let live; 3)Nobody likes to be criticized and most of the arguments I've seen you start is because of your readiness to criticize people gratuitously, i.e. when your safety or welfare were not in jeopardy.

The fact that a person is not logical does not mean that he/she is insane.

Actually, I claim that if the person is not logical, then yes, (s)he is insane. Or rather than "insane", I'd use the term "inhuman". I cannot comprehend how their mind works at all, because when I try to think about what they might be thinking, my thoughts are based in logic, which their mind supposedly doesn't follow. At best, I can form a model of their mind by making minimal assumptions about how it works. That is to say, I will assume that their mind chooses an action to perform with uniform randomness. Uniform randomness is usually the probabilistic distribution used with zero information is known about a given problem.

Given the above model of an "illogical" brain, let me clarify what I mean by "not logical" in laymen's terms. A person who is completely logical will always perform the actions that best serve his/her interest. A person who is 50% logical will half of the time perform the action that best serves his/her interest, and the other half of the time will act randomly. A person who is "not logical" will always act randomly. Note that, by the laws of statistics, this non-logical person may occasionally "get lucky" and end up randomly performing the action which coincidentally also is the action that best servers his/her purpose, and thus may, upon witnessing that sole action, may appear to be logical, but given enough inspection, it will soon become evident that the actions of that person are completely random and thus the person is completely illogical.

A very emotional woman for example could do and say illogical things without resorting to murder.

Let's say that that women was completely illogical. Murder is only one of an virtually infite set of actions that she could perform. Another random action she migth commit is to torture rather than kill. And yet another is to just sob in a corner.

In practice, though, I think very few people fall into the "zero logic" category. This emotiona woman might be 30%, 50% or even 80% logical, acting in her own best interest most of the time. Most emotional women realize that there are serious drawbacks to murder, and that stops them from doing it. Note that the thought process "If I commit muder AND I get caught, THEN I will be punished. I do not want to be punished. Therefore I should not murder, or I should not get caught." This thought process assumes that her mind is functioning in a logical manner. If it isn't, then I have no idea what thought processes are going on in there, and therefore I cannot assume that she will not murder (or even that she will not avoid getting caught after comitting murder).

When I'm in the presence of logical people, I can conclude that I am safe if I know that the people around me will not benefit more from my death than they will suffer from being punished by killing me AND if I know that they cannot avoid getting caught from punishing me. That's being a bit overly simplistic, though. Rather, each person suffers a different degree from punishment (maybe some people don't care if they go to prison for life, for example, so the punishment from comitting murder isn't a big deal for them), so I have to make guesses at how much the punishment pains them. I do this by looking at how often people avoid murder, to get a sort of "average" of how much pain the punishment for murder causes, and then assume a normal distribution around this average. Then, I have to try to determine what each person thinks their risk of getting caught is. If a person thinks he will not get caught (regardless of the reality of whether or not he will get caught), then it doesn't matter how bad the punishment is, he won't worry about getting punished, because he never expects to get caught in the first place. Other people might think they have a 20% chance of getting caught, or a 80% chance of getting caught, and so on.

Now a logical person who multiply the chance of getting caught by the pain received of getting caught to get an "expect value" from which they can weigh against the benefits they gain from killing me. Less logical people might fudge this number up a bit (introducing a "cloud" of randomness around every number).

Anyway, I usually don't have to worry too much because most of the people I know have NOTHING to gain from killing me, so therefore as long as the expected value of the punishment is non-zero, then the drawbacks outweight the benefits and they won't kill me. For most people, the drawbacks are not only non-zero, but are actually pretty large! The media would have us believe that the vast majority of murderers get caught and most people believe the media in this respect, and most people don't like the idea of spending a life sentence in jail, so for most people the expected value is large. That's why I can piss people off, adding emotion into the equation and thus blurring the numbers, but still be relatively confident they won't kill me. All of this based on the assumption that most people act in their own best interested.

Similarly, an insane man, let's say, could kill you in cold blood and give a perfectly logical reason for his crime.

Yes, as mentioned above, a zero-logic person acts randomly, and thus one of the random action they could commit would be the sequence of first killing me and then second to give a perfectly logical reason.

Some arguments can be based on factors that cannot be described as «right» or «wrong». Someone may say: "I think The Matrix is the best film ever" or «I love Michael Jackson». If you don't agree and proceed to tell the person why, an argument ensues.

These factors can be described as "right" or "wrong". I prefer the terms "true" and "false", so I'll use those instead of "right" and "wrong". If someone says "I think The Matrix is the best film ever", then this is either true or false. That is to say, either the person really does think that The Matrix is the best film ever, or that person is lying and the person doesn't really think that The Matrix is the best film ever. Unless I'm a mind reader, I can't tell whether the statement is true or false for sure, but I can make sometimes determine that probabilities highly favour true versus false, for example. Let's say the person says "I think The Matrix is the best film ever", but they have a history of hating science fiction, hating Keanu Reaves, and he has also made the statement "I think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the best film ever". The fact that the person use "the best film" as opposed to "a best film" implies that there are no ties here. Both statements cannot be true at the same time. And given the person's history of hating scifi and Keanu, I can determine with very high probability that the statement the person made is false.

As for the statement "The Matrix is the best film ever" (as opposed to "I think The Matrix is the best film ever"), this is a bit trickier in that the sentence is missing some information. I might respond "Best using what metric?" If by best, they mean "lasting the most minutes", I can prove their claim false by providing a counter example (e.g. Titanic). If by best, they mean "brings me the most enjoyment", then I'd that falls into the case discussed above where I either have to be a mind-reader or otherwise guess at what brings this person enjoyment to ascertain whether the statement is likely to be true or not. If by best, they mean "if everyone in the world were to rank every movie on a scale from one to ten, the Matrix would achieve the highest average score", then this cannot be proved unless we actually ask everyone in the world to rank every movie. However, once again, we might be able to determine that the answer is very likely true or very likely false (or we might determine that the it's 50-50 probability either way). If after sitting in a theatre showing of the Matrix, we witness people walking out in the middle of the movie or booing or demanding refunds etc., then we might be skeptical that The Matrix would indeed get the highest average rating with a survey of the whole world. Of course, it could be the people in the theatre with us was a stastical anomaly and not representative of the whole world, but we work with what data we're given, right? We just make sure to state what uncertainties are involved.

You said that you don't want to win arguments, but your action says otherwise, i.e. you will not stop arguing until the other person either agrees with you (sometimes out of fatigue) or leaves the room.

This statement is factually false. It has occured at least once in the history of time that I have realized that I was wrong, and said so, thus ending the argument. Even if I modify your statement to be "Most of the time, you will not stop arguing until the other person etc.", it is still false. The statement becomes true when you modify the statment to be "Most of the time when arguing with Leafy Person, Neb will not stop arguing until Leafy person agrees (sometimes out of fatigue) or leaves the room."

If you want to see more counter examples to your claim, search the newsgroups for postings I've made over the last few months. (hint: go to http://groups.google.com/ and look for postings made by one "Oliver Wong" with e-mail address "owong@castortech.com"). You'll find that yes, sometimes the argument ends because the other person agrees with me. Other times it'll end because we'll realize we're arguing about too different things. Other times it'll end because I'll end up agreeing with the other person.

Incidentally, it really annoys me when someone "agrees with me out of fatigue" or "leaves the room". If we're arguing, then one of us is wrong or has misunderstood something. By leaving the room or otherwise "giving up", you show that you are not interested in learning. Basically, by giving up, you've wasted all the energy I've invested into trying to mutually teach us both something. If you were wrong, and you realize it, then you've learned something new. If I was wrong, and I realize it, then I've learned something new. In theory, (logically conducted) arguments should always result in someone learning something, and thus improves the overall intelligence of the world. When the argument ends prematurely, that's a lesson not learned, and wasted time for both parties.

1) Things are not always black/white therefore right/wrong;

While I agree that there exists statements which are neither true nor false ("Dance!" for example is an imperative statement that is neither true nor false), these are not the type of statements that arguments can be about. Declarative statements "If you don't dance, I will beat you up." can be true or false, and this is the type of statements for which we can argue about the truth values.

2) There are many, many ways of doing things and most people think their way is the right way, so I say: live and let live

I assume that a person I meet is at least somewhat logical (so far this assumption has shown to be true). Given that they are logical, then there must be a reason why they think their way of doing something is the right way. If my way (which I also think is the right way) is different from theirs, then there's 3 situations that are possible. First, our situations differ so that what is best for me is not best for them. Second, my way is better than their way for both of us. Third, their way is better than my way for both of us. If the 3rd case is true, then I would very much like to know about it, so that I may improve my ways. If the 2nd case is true, and assuming again that the person is logical, then they should very much appreciated being informed about it, so that they can improve their ways. If the 1st case is true, then it benefits us both to know about it, so that when our situations change (i.e. my situation becomes like his, or his situation like mine), we know how to adapt our strategies accordingly. In all cases, we should get into a discussion about the merits and drawbacks about our individual ways so that we may determine which of the above 3 cases our different ways falls into. Some people call this an "argument" and "dislike" it and want to avoid it. Not me.

3) Nobody likes to be criticized and most of the arguments I've seen you start is because of your readiness to criticize people gratuitously.

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I recently read a web page entitled "How to Ask Questions the Smart Way" which offers advice on posting a technical question to a forum in which "hackers" reside. I think it appropriate addressed your point labeled "3)".

Much of what looks like rudeness in hacker circles is not intended to give offence. Rather, it's the product of the direct, cut-through-the-bullshit communications style that is natural to people who are more concerned about solving problems than making others feel warm and fuzzy.

Don't whine that all criticism should have been conveyed via private mail: That's not how it works. Nor is it useful to insist you've been personally insulted when someone comments that one of your claims was wrong, or that his views differ. Those are loser attitudes.

Remember: When that hacker tells you that you've screwed up, and (no matter how gruffly) tells you not to do it again, he's acting out of concern for (1) you and (2) his community. It would be much easier for him to ignore you and filter you out of his life. If you can't manage to be grateful, at least have a little dignity, don't whine, and don't expect to be treated like a fragile doll just because you're a newcomer with a theatrically hypersensitive soul and delusions of entitlement.

For example, if point out to a friend of mine that her strategy for bidding for items on eBays is extremely dangerous and illogical, the message I'm trying to convey is not "You are stupid" but rather "I am concerned for you (financial) safety, and these actions seem to pose a risk to it, so I recommend you stop performing these actions."

Sometimes I'll meet people whom I think are really stupid and who are not my friends. I will not say to them "Hey, you're really stupid, so I bet you don't know a good strategy for bidding for items on eBay. Here, let me teach you." I don't say this because I couldn't give a fuck how much that guy spends on eBay. The benefits of teaching him bidding techniques (i.e. zero benefits) do not outweight the drawbacks of teaching him (i.e. takes time and energy), so I don't do it.

A short response. I know, more than most, how it is to argue with people who don't resort to logic and knowledge as I (and other learned people) do.

Arguing with illogical people is not only painful but a complete waste of time, as they disappointingly usually don't even realise they're being illogical in the first place.