Social Media Debates

You do not need any social prompting to realize miscellaneous logical truths such as how if the universe was to exist forever, everything inside it would not necessarily also exist forever, or how just because there is a God would not mean the deity is personally invested in humanity.  You do not need to debate anyone to initially realize that the existence of one's thoughts and emotions cannot be illusions even if one's sensory perceptions do not pertain to any external objects, for something cannot be perceived without at least the perception objectively existing and being knowable with absolute certainty.  More importantly, you do not need anyone's assistance to realize that logical necessities of any other type, such as that it is impossible for nothing to be true because then this would be true (this is not about any scientific, moral, or theological fact, but pure logic), are inherently true.

Many people still do not come to see the fact that logical truths, as intrinsically necessary truths, do not depend on anything else, and yet everything else depends on them.  As such, one can know them independent of all conversation, research, or sensory experience, for they are true regardless of such things and can be known in themselves.  Each person is already relying on them both metaphysically and epistemologically.  It is only a matter of whether someone has recognized this or not--and the vast majority do not.  For the masses who might think of debates as necessary prompting for any philosophical reflection, rather than for initially thinking of certain scientific or historical ideas that are neither self-evident axioms nor something that follows logically from what is inherently true, social media can be a popular set of platforms.

Any deluions of people in social media debates, to clarify, are not present because of the nature of social media, which has no special qualities that make people believe or act in a given way unless they decide to, but because the nature of irrationalistic people.  Superficial, irrelevant, non sequitur arguments are always easier for non-rationalists to think of or cling to because assumptions do not neessarily require effort to make, but avoiding them might be psychologically strenuous for a non-rationalist at first if they do become a rationalist after all.  Although no one has to use it this way, social media makes it easy for incomplete philosophical stances, hearsay misconceptions, and a host of assumptions to reach mainstream appeal.

Of course, it is reason and introspection and other such things one must look to instead of any form of debate or media in order to discover objective and demonstrable truth.  If one wants to know logical axioms or necessary truths about reason itself or anything else, look to reason.  If one wants to focus on their own mental states or discover something about them as an individual soul, one must look to introspection and reason, for the laws of logic govern all, without making assumptions about one's own direct beliefs, personality traits, desires, and perceptions.  To learn what a religious text says, read the text without assumptions and identify what does and does not logically follow from the claims, rather than looking to hearsay, consensus, or traditions mentioned on social media that allegedly represent the religion.  Social media debates are not often about true logical necessity, but about cultural "hot button" issues through emotionalistic frameworks, expressions of subjective preference without rationalistic analysis of them, or whatever scientific fad is currently a widely-accepted paradigm.

Non-rationalists, being slaves to assumptions and particularly self-serving or convenient ones, also might, for instance, believe that someone who does not immediately reply to them must be quaking in their boots and full of intellectual cowardice.  As if a truly rational person could not stop conversing with them out of frustration, or as if there are not planned or spontaneous things alike that occupy time in a person's life outside of social media debates!  They might altenatively or additionally think that posting links prove something rather than reason itself, or that citing scientific, historical, or other hearsay (which is all that sources can ever offer) is philosophically valid as justification for belief in some supposed condition of the distant past.  They also might try to use this to in someone over emotionally regarding morality.  Posting a link describing the horrors of a natural disaster does not prove a moral obligation to aid the survivors, though it might still be used in attempts to pressure people into fallacious basis for belief and action.  War is not evil just because it can be destructive, no matter what any news article or opinion piece says, as this is only true if morality objectively exists and the obligations are such that war is immoral.  Perhaps misrepresenting their opponents and seeking social approval or emotional manipulation instead of something more than linguistic fluency, mere passion, or subjective persuasion, such people are far from reason indeed.

A rationalist will of course probably not wind up convincing someone of the truth through logical proof on social media or elsewhere.  For non-rationalists, only invalid epistemological means tend to be sought out, though they either require mere faith to sustain belief (in the sense of assumptions, not commitment to fallible but probablistic evidence) or are obviously erroneous to begin with, such as using scientism or moral subjectivism as starting points for expanded philosophical beliefs.  Again, using social media does not make a person irrational.  It just makes it easy for irrational people to ignore the truth while interacting with others or make themselves feel intelligent for believing fallacies or contradictions.  One can still engage in social media debates if one wishes.  To do so does not require that one believe anything false or slander an opponent!  There will simply be no point other than celebrating the truth on one's own as one tries, likely in vain, to help the many irrationalists of the online world.