Arguments
are useless, in general, so we "The
Judges" do not recommend you using them.
However, there seems to be one minor
exception to the rule.. this exception is
called formal arguments, and is probably one
of the best way to describe and illustrate
efficiently what you want to say... So, what
are these formal arguments?
To
answer this question, I will quote the words
of one of my former professors: "Formal
arguments, are arguments that are expected to
be received by a function" - John
Kiourktsoglou Spring '99 ...This phrase,
encapsulates indeed the essence of formal
arguments... In order for an argument to be
formal, someone has to be waiting for it to
arrive (in our case, the judges)... It is
sort of like the "Built it and they
will come" mentality; according to
which, we should declare, briefly/vaguely
state something that sounds like an
argument.. The formal argument will then just
come by itself (and you will have an argument
without having to do all the thinking and
planning -- which is bad 'cause it wears out
your brain cells). Be it due to the
psychology of the adjudicator who expects to
hear this vaguely mentioned formal argument
and probably makes it up by
himself/herself/itself, without even
noticing... or be it due to
the fact that you mention (accidentally) some
things that are relevant to it later on in
your speech (which would cause the judge to
perceive it as an argument in whole).. or
even be it due to some supernatural power /
global wide conspiracy that causes it to
appear as a concrete argument in the minds of
judges... Formal arguments work perfectly!
Now,
you might notice that I have used and
emphasized the word "or"... that is
because it is actually an "or" and
not an "xor" which would be an
"exclusive or"... what does this
mean? It means that all three of these
together, could be the reason why these
arguments actually work.. and indeed as we
will see later on, the formal arguments'
operability is fundamentally based in these
three principles.
Ok..
let me put it this way, there exists a
principle called "the alleged
expectation principle" which says
that if people's minds are too engrossed in
trying to hear a specific individual saying
something, then "they hear what they
want to hear"... and they make up
(in their own minds) the other person saying
that specific thing... Thus comes the
application of formal arguments in terms of
tricking judges... When a debater vaguely
mentions something which could be an
argument, the subconscious of a judge
immediately falls into a loop of listening
more carefully, and the judge thinks
"..will he say that argument?" and
"..he is so close.. say it!" ..so
the judge obviously has an argument in mind
(while the debater doesn't.. he just vaguely
touches,mentions whatever thing, slogan or
assertion comes into his mind) ..After a
while, and as the debater continues talking,
the judge is initiating the second stage... in
"The conflict" stage, the
judges subconscious comes into a (transparent
to him) vis-a-vis conflict with his
conscious.. and starts insulating
suggestions.. There are obviously lots of
things that the debater has mentioned (and
accepting that the set of all sets exists,
which is fundamentally accepted by set
theorists an philosophers) the judge's
subconscious will always find a link between
these things and the argument he had in mind,
so to speak. From that point on, the judge
moves on to the "acceptance"
stage, where he accepts this as a fact.. and
notes down the formal argument as the
argument he had in mind... This is great,
'cause the debater doesn't have to work at
all, he lets the judge do all the work for
him... the debater "just waits"
..and the formal argument "comes"
per se, as it were. QED
