being an "expert" (on argument-mapping)

[gusl]

This Tuesday, for the first time, a random grad student stopped by my office to consult my expertise... namely, on argument mapping.

I was happy to help, and we chatted for almost 10 minutes. He seemed rather satisfied with truthmapping.com. I'm not, of course, given my normativistic tastes for fine-grained, modular arguments.

I'm holding out for Iyad Rahwan's system, although Lucas Dixon makes an interesting comment: "I want to be able to see an argument's historical evolution, and even allow rephrasing of existing points as a valid move."

I find this kind of a fascinating idea, especially since I spent much of Friday refactoring someone else's mathematical proofs. I think ordinary arguments are no different.
big theoretical tangent ahead: I think a picture analogy is useful here: when you're trying to describe a complex image in your head, you find it hard describe it to the layman in terms of low-level primitives, so you might end up using the primitives before you explain them. But I think there are more phenomena of non-modular expression that this doesn't describe. Model-based reasoning might do the trick: people find it hard to imagine things in full generality.

Anyway, if someone makes a MediaWiki plug-in for Iyad's format, Lucas's request would come for free.

Comments

[gaspaheangea.livejournal.com]

In a semi-related thing: I really wish someone would write something like Don Swanson's
arrowsmith, for arXiv.