Argument by fallacious accusation of binary thinking is one of the more common fallacies out there ... although rarely recognized as one.

When someone says something along the lines of either or, as in ... "You're either with them or you're with us!" (YEWTOYWU!)... are they really making an exact statement? Or are they blustering for effect? If blustering, it's not really a statement that needs to be evaluated, is it? But if they are making an evaluative statement, then it enters the realm of binary thinking. But is that enough to label that person a simpleton? The quick answer is no ... and here is why. Virtually all evaluative complex thought can be broken down and arranged as a set of evaluative simple thoughts, each of which contains a binary outcome.

So YEWTOYWU! can be viewed as an element in the set of evaluative simple thoughts ... which is just the chopped form of evaluative complex thought. Now, here's the fallacy that Chico often commits (probably unintentionally but fallacious nonetheless): Chico identifies the element in the set with the set itself. He equates discussion of any element in the set with discussion of all the elements in the set.

But if Chico's implied equation is valid, then there would be no such thing as rational discourse for one must then discuss everything at every time in every context.

For example, when I indicted Assange on a preponderance of evidence, I didn't indict Assange on all the evidence, just a sufficiency of it (e.g. preponderance). For that, Chico accuses me of being a binary thinker, a simplistic thinker, an impatient black and white thinker bent on delivering thunderbolts from the mount (in my case, a fool's residential hill) ... but what he fails to understand is that I'm acting on preponderance. He suggests that there is something more out there that I haven't yet factored in which may yet negate the preponderance and exonerate Assange. But he doesn't declare what that something is - merely suggests that there is something out there that I couldn't have possibly factored in. And so the story goes ... that because I hadn't factored in this putative here-from-there hence-to-forth unknown quantity (which Chico is confident exists somewhere and is waiting to arrive and dissolve the preponderance) ... then I must be a lazy thinker, a hazy thinker, possibly a crazy thinker ... and most assuredly an amazing thinker!

Amazing thought to amazing conclusions, nay, fantastic conclusions ... incredible conclusions! From the incredible to lost credibility and lost argument. Such are the profits of the argument by fallacious accusation of binary thinking. The argument which attempts equation of the element with the entire set ... by implicit decree ... which then challenges the veracity of the critical thinker.

Well done, Chico. It took me a while to figure out this most clever rhetorical device of yours.

Pax Vulpes Vulpes

Zook, you make it sound like it's a conspiracy on my part. I don't think I'm that clever, or that sociopathic.

Perhaps you could give a simple, concrete example that we could work with. The Wikileaks / Assange case is not simple.

Speaking of a preponderance of evidence, I am reminded of a miscarriage of justice concerning a friend of mine. He was wrongly convicted (IMO) of a crime that he did not commit. The preponderance of evidence strongly suggested that he was guilty, but there was a complicated and hidden back-story that could not be introduced into the trial. Even so, he could have avoided any jail time by simply admitting his guilt, but his integrity would not allow it, so he served 7 months. The point I'm making is that a preponderance of evidence is no guarantee that you have the truth. We've seen that throughout human history. A preponderance of evidence is a pretty good standard that works much of the time, but it is not certain.

Hmmm, O. J. Simpson's trial just popped into mind. In weighing the preponderance of evidence, a guilty man can also be wrongly acquitted.

Finding the truth can be a messy business, fraught with error.

Non sequitur, Chico. Rhetorical devices can be vestiges of old habits. Use the device often enough - with no one challenging your usage - and then it becomes part of your logic system. One doesn't need to be a sociopath to be smitten with rhetorical devices.




It is that simple. You either believe the preponderance and Assange's guilt ... or you don't. Quite binary.

If you don't, then that says something either about the preponderance, or about your standards of truth investigation. And if it says something about the preponderance, you have not demonstrated such in any fashion besides Socratic deconstructivism ... which is okay if one has time to burn and mind to churn. But much of what is transpiring before our eyes does not afford us the luxury of precision or dogmatic dilly dallying. We must make decisions often on small preponderances and not wait for the large ones to make their fat waddles over to where we are studying. Socrates was given a cup to drink because he didn't appreciate the dangers of the sociopathic regime(s) of his time and allocated more luxuries (of time and precision) for himself than the system provided. Because of this, he was hemlocked by the regime which then became even more powerful (e.g. with one of the gifted thinkers out of the way). As it were.

Qui bono by Socrates deconstructivism? Not Socrates. Nor Grecian humanity for the next two millennia.
If he'd been more practical in his time, I think Socrates would have been killed anyways ... and perhaps sooner ... but he would have established molecular truths (about humanity) which would have survived to benefit the Greek civilization of his time, and over time, the larger humanity. As it is, Socrates was killed because he was a mosquito that had gotten through the netting and was beginning to annoy the grapemunchers inside. As it were, the main legacy that survived Socrates were his atomic truths about the human condition ... essences about humanity that are great for intellectual mastigation but which have little practical application.

To wit, humans live and operate at the level of molecular truths, as a rule. It is the rare individual that can live exclusively on atomic truths alone. Sages. Hermits. End-of-the-world- sign holders. Socrates. Perhaps even yours truly. But you, Chico ... I'm not sure you can live on the essence within the essences. Perhaps I am wrong on that. I mean, you need people to thrive. Your website is named United People. Me? I can live with or without them, with only minor displacement in the move between the two.



Don't confuse adversarial jurisprudence (which does not hinge on the evidence as much as in the presentation of it) ... with rational analysis on the available evidence. Your friend served time because he did not satisfy the system, not that he did not satisfy the evidence necessarily, e.g. that could have exonerated him in any court of rational thought. Here, while I grant that preponderance is mainly a legal term, I'm using the general meaning.



In O.J.'s case, the system was satisfied but not the evidence. In Assange's case, the evidence is satisfied but you aren't ... then again, Socratic deconstructivism is never satisfied. Had Socrates solved the atomics of the state, he would've delved into the subatomics. Just the nature of the curiosity cat, as it were, e.g. Socratic deconstructivism.



Indeed. But it need not be if our discerning abilities are working as they should and have not been co-opted by reticent thinking in the duty of the perfect fact(s) <----------- which are virtually unattainable by modest humans in the know let alone us database beggars on the outside.

Pax Mesopotamia

ps: FWIW, Assange's case demonstates the guilt of both the corrupted system and the patsy performer.

Are you sure that you are not guilty of this?

And this?

And this (oversimplified binary thinking)?


Seriously?! This "does not hinge on the evidence as much as in the presentation of it." Where is the reasoning behind this oversimplified logic? You use this device often enough - with no one challenging your usage - that it becomes part of your logic system.

I love your presence here, Zook, flaws and all, but you really should do something about those flaws. I'm trying to help you here, but evidently I'm failing miserably.

NO

I'm guilty of all the flaws available to the human condition in some measure, I'm sure ... including all its rhetorical devices. Still, I'll put my track record of limiting my flaws against the record of anyone else living on the planet just now. If that's arrogance, so be it ... at least no one can accuse me of affected modesty (which is a lesser flaw, true, but a flaw nonetheless).

Indeed, virtually all human communication is littered with affectation to minimize psychological injury to the weaker of the communicants.





Preponderance hosts a set of data, not any single datum. So the understanding of preponderance as an oversimplification is a bit taxing on the intellectual senses. The important conclusion of guilt or innocence (based on preponderance) is a binary result. Minor conclusions add texture to the understanding, but they are subordinate to the important conclusion. I'm amused that you think that the lack of minor conclusions is indicative of oversimplification, Chico.

For example, 9/11/2001 has a major conclusion of Inside Job; and many minor conclusions (e.g. ramifications); and it also has open questions (e.g. details of the operation). But under your model of research, we would be obliged to categorize ourselves as simpletons for stating the major conclusion without the rest of the story, e.g. the details. Etc.



I was talking about the legal system of adversarial jurisprudence. Not sure what you mean by the above, Chico.
It has no anchoring narrative.



YES Surely!

Pax Comedia