This is a short article, aiming for enlightening the mindset on thinking of an outsider solution, when things becomes more shady or seems to go to a dead end.
First, I want to start of mentioning the ‘If p then q’.
The ‘If p then q’ is a mathematical statement, where ‘p’ and ‘q’ are also statements.
Statement is known as a sentence, which can only be true or false, nothing else.
Water boils at 100C, is a statement ‘TRUE ‘statement.
Water boils at 90C, is also a statement but a false one.
How are you? isn’t a statement.
Any sentence that could only be true or false is a statement!
Going back to ‘If p then q’ statement, In Math for the whole statement to be true, there are two possibilities:
- First, if the first statement ‘p’ is true then the corresponding statement ‘q’ need to be true for the whole statement to be correct.
- If ‘p’ was false then the corresponding statement ‘q’ condition does not make a difference, whether it’s true statement or a false statement, the entire statement will always be true.
Now let’s leave it like that and we will go back at it, in the end….
So how to convince an irrational person?
A true form of convincing or negotiating should be built on facts, common sense and solid arguments, Supposable you are at the end where you have the facts and everything is bright clear to you or for the rest, but the opposite person just can’t get with it, what should you do?!
A leading for a reach to solution, start off with the reference point, a point where all the sides agree on, and afterwards everyone start pouring their bucket of thoughts, so it can go into branches and at the end connecting the dots for the final judgement, solution or an agreement.
The reference point is the point where whenever the sides of the arguments have any conflicts they can go back to it and create or built any new assumptions, now I am not writing here to explain about typical negotiating or convincing methods, here all I want is to mention, what should you do, if there were no reference point.
This is not going to be too long, so remember the sentence ‘’ Beat them with their own logic’’
Shall we consider this fictional example:
An irrational person with an empty bottle of water sitting down with his rational friend.
The rational one says: let’s go out!
His friend respond: yes, let’s do that but let us finish this bottle of water first!! ‘it’s empty’
The rational one spends 30 minutes convincing, that it is empty with no result.
At the end the rational friend takes the bottle of water and pretends to drink it until he says, okay now I finished it, let’s go.
So when you decide to enter an argument with a person that does not share with you the reference point and there’s no sense to build on it, you have to go to their reference point and build on it, either show them a contradiction with their own logic or just go with it and find a cross path which they agree on.
Going back to ‘If p then q’, if p statement was false, then q false or true, the entire statement is true, because if you give me a false statement and I agree with you, then there’s no way I can argue about the rationality of the outcome.
If a person says 1 is bigger than 2, and you agree with them, if they continue to say that 3 is bigger than 4 or even 4 is bigger than 3, then it does not make a difference, since you agreed on a false principle or reference point.
In order to win an argument with a person, (let’s not assume right now about the rationality), let’s just assume that you both believe in two different concepts and only one is true, in this case its yours.
In order to convince them with your concept, you have to go to their concept or reference point and find that soft spot, which all the logic there will collapse.
Write as you Breathe 