Opinions can be wrong..?

[ngilop]

So.. I was somehow dragged into an argument about opinions and well, it lfet my brain hurting.

The argument was about opinions and that opinions can be wrong, to which I passionately disagreed with.

My examples used in the argument was telling me that I am wrong because my favorite colors are black and red (or red and black, I say then in either order), that my friends favorite cartoon growing up being Tranformers, or my sister liking cotton to tie-dye over synthetic is not inherently wrong.

The during the discussion the examples everybody else ( and I mean literally, I was the only one on my side) were not opinion, they were opinions presented as facts, to which I kept trying to explain "that's not an opinion, that just stating an incorrect fact."



So, I guess I just needed a place to vent and then to posit if indeed people cannot tell the difference between a fact, an opinion, and an opinion presented as a fact.

Or if I am truly wrong and somehow opinions can be wrong?

[The Fury]

An opinion that you arrived at through misinformation is probably wrong.

[Telonius]

Opinions can't be wrong, but people can incorrectly classify positions as opinions rather than facts (or facts rather than opinions). Opinions are subjective judgments; things that can't be proven one way or the other. Facts are things that can be proven either true or false.

If I say, "Red is a better color than black," that's subjective; an opinion. I can't prove it, and nobody else can disprove it.

If I say, "Red is my favorite color," that's a fact. You can determine whether or not that statement is true by asking me, or running some wacky experiment to see if I favor red things over other colors. If somebody else says, "Telonius' favorite color is blue," I can say, "No, that's not correct, my favorite color is red."

[enderlord99]

The proper term for the exact shade of the (clear, daytime) sky is a matter of opinion (as to whether it is, for example: blue, bluish-cyan, turquoise, azure, light-blue, robin's-egg, or the aptly-named "sky-blue") but if you think it's red... you're wrong.

[snowblizz]

So, I guess I just needed a place to vent and then to posit if indeed people cannot tell the difference between a fact, an opinion, and an opinion presented as a fact.
Oh people are massively unable to separate opinion, fact and opinion masquerading as fact. If we weren't most politicians would be out of business.


Or if I am truly wrong and somehow opinions can be wrong?

That's a philosophical question really. It deals with the objective vs subjective. I don't think there is a correct (or well a single) answer.

Because most examples I could think of would be grossly forum inappropriate I won't give any. But imagine when you say "opinions can't be wrong" I counter with an opinion so abhorrent you know I'm the only one who'll hold it. Subjectively I won't be wrong but arguably objectively I could be, in any sense were "objectively" is meaningful.


An opinion that you arrived at through misinformation is probably wrong.

Oooo... I like this one.

[Tvtyrant]

Opinions are value judgements, values are based on (insert jargon for shared world views here, take your pick of Ontologies, Intersections, etc.) The systemic framework used to make that judgement is innately flawed, so all opinions being based on bad axioms are probably wrong.

The good news is that the person judging the judgement is also basing their opinion on flawed or wrong axioms, so while they can say the other person is wrong they can't actually say what is right. This is an area the Pragmatist school delved pretty deep into, culminating in Hannah Arendt.

A great example of this is Mean Girls, where the Plastics base their opinions on a set of axioms:
1. Personal status is the most important good.
2. Physical attractiveness, money and celebrity are the defining traits of personal status.
3. Style shows off physical attractiveness and money together.
4. People who are not stylish have low status.

So the Plastics attack people regularly to raise their own status and lower others', because being on top is most important. The lines of attack are on style, attractiveness and celebrity (also money which ties into those) while they ignore things like intelligence, kindness and personability as not being status raising to them.

[JNAProductions]

Opinions cannot be wrong, but they can be based on wrong information.

If I have the opinion "40k is the best wargame because its rules are super tight and it's a really well-balanced game!" then the opinion part (40k is the best wargame) is fine. That's not wrong, and cannot be wrong, because it's just my opinion. But the facts it's based on (rules are super tight, it's very well-balanced) are woefully inaccurate, and likely show that my opinion is based on quite limited exposure to wargames in general.

[Tvtyrant]

Opinions cannot be wrong, but they can be based on wrong information.

If I have the opinion "40k is the best wargame because its rules are super tight and it's a really well-balanced game!" then the opinion part (40k is the best wargame) is fine. That's not wrong, and cannot be wrong, because it's just my opinion. But the facts it's based on (rules are super tight, it's very well-balanced) are woefully inaccurate, and likely show that my opinion is based on quite limited exposure to wargames in general.

Reminds me of a debate partner I had in high school who got in an argument with the rest of the debate club about whether you can argue opinions or not. He argued you can only argue opinions, because facts are either true or not. At the time I disagreed, I largely agree now.

[Aotrs Commander]

Considering humanity collectively continue to display bigotry and/or factionalism, I would say that is it absolutely possible for opinions, along with beliefs, to be wrong.

[Vahnavoi]

Anybody and everybody arguing that "opinions can't be wrong" is wrong. They're using bad semantics.

Open any dictionary and look at what common definitions of "opinion" actually are. (https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Opinion) You will rapidly find that there is only one real context where different opinions are put on the same level: the saying "it's a matter of opinion".

So what does that mean? Look at the first definition given: "opinion is a conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof". So when and where no opinion can be said to be wrong... it's just because none of the opposing opinions have any more substance.

The idea that opinions are unassailable in this way comes from conflating it with a different saying and concept: that some things are "a matter of taste". So what does that mean? Supposedly, some concepts are so deeply tangled with individual's subjective experience that the individual is best and only authority on them. Whether that's true in any meaningful sense is up for debate. In any case, it should be self-evident that most things people call "opinions" or even their "tastes" do not pass this test. They are simply beliefs and conclusions that haven't been substsantiated... and often an honest attempt at substantiating them will prove them right or wrong, or at least closer to right or wrong than other beliefs and conclusions, sometimes with the unsurprising consequence that the person changes their mind.

Any and every time you find yourself trying to pigeonhole a general, inexact term such as "opinion" to mean only things which are somehow immune to considerations of right and wrong... you'd be better off searching the same dictionary for another, more specific word. For example, if you're trying to make a point about ought-is-problem or value staments... talk about the ought-is-problem and value statements. Not opinions.

[sihnfahl]

But the facts it's based on (rules are super tight, it's very well-balanced) are woefully inaccurate, and likely show that my opinion is based on quite limited exposure to wargames in general.

IMO, that's still an opinion. It's your opinion that the rules are super-tight and well-balanced. Or not.

A fact would just be stating a rule. Your analysis of the rule and its impact on the game are your opinion. It may be a shared opinion across the playerbase that your opinion of the rule is correct or not, but that does not turn it into a fact or make it right / wrong.


Anybody and everybody arguing that "opinions can't be wrong" is wrong. They're using bad semantics.
IMO, the semantic is also 'opinions cannot be right'. They just are. It's a value judgment of the speaker. The listener may agree or disagree with said value judgment, but that does not make the opinion 'right' or 'wrong' the way accurately stating or misstating a fact is.

[Vahnavoi]

Again: if you want to talk about value statements, use the term "value statement" (etc.). In common use, "opinion" is neither synonym to nor limited to value statements. Acting as if it is, is wrong. :smalltongue:

[Lord Raziere]

If I say a chocolate doughnut is the best doughnut, that is my opinion.

If I say doughnuts do not exist, I am just wrong because they clearly observably do exist.

If I go on to quibble over the definition of a doughnut so to as debate whether anything is really a doughnut to try and support a view that doughnuts don't exist, I am just being needlessly obtuse and people would be fully in their rights to stop listening, move on with their lives and not give me the time of day because I'm clearly wasting theirs.

[Aedilred]

The idea that opinions are unassailable in this way comes from conflating it with a different saying and concept: that some things are "a matter of taste". So what does that mean? Supposedly, some concepts are so deeply tangled with individual's subjective experience that the individual is best and only authority on them. Whether that's true in any meaningful sense is up for debate. In any case, it should be self-evident that most things people call "opinions" or even their "tastes" do not pass this test. They are simply beliefs and conclusions that haven't been substsantiated... and often an honest attempt at substantiating them will prove them right or wrong, or at least closer to right or wrong than other beliefs and conclusions, sometimes with the unsurprising consequence that the person changes their mind.
I agree with pretty much all of this post but I want to introduce another rogue saying to the mix. "Everyone is entitled to their opinion". This is valid, but this is further extrapolated to mean "everyone and their opinions are equal" and thereafter to "all opinions are equal" and therefore "no opinions are wrong".

Now, it is possible that because of the nature of objective truth, it is not possible for an opinion to be completely right or completely wrong. But that doesn't mean they all occupy the same spot on the graph. And when it's possible for some to be more or less right than others, the question of what constitutes "wrongness" is itself, to an extent, a matter of opinion.

[137beth]

If I say a chocolate doughnut is the best doughnut, that is my opinion.

If I say doughnuts do not exist, I am just wrong because they clearly observably do exist.

If I go on to quibble over the definition of a doughnut so to as debate whether anything is really a doughnut to try and support a view that doughnuts don't exist, I am just being needlessly obtuse and people would be fully in their rights to stop listening, move on with their lives and not give me the time of day because I'm clearly wasting theirs.

Well, you only think that because your post is a doughnut!

[Rynjin]

Considering humanity collectively continue to display bigotry and/or factionalism, I would say that is it absolutely possible for opinions, along with beliefs, to be wrong.

Pretty much the point I came to make.

[Vahnavoi]

I agree with pretty much all of this post but I want to introduce another rogue saying to the mix. "Everyone is entitled to their opinion". This is valid, but this is further extrapolated to mean "everyone and their opinions are equal" and thereafter to "all opinions are equal" and therefore "no opinions are wrong".

"Everyone is entitled to their opinion" has always struck me as one of those sayings that has been taken wildly out of context and misinterpreted, and I've wondered where it came from. A cursory search suggests it comes from Daniel Patrick Moynihan and was originally part of a longer quote:

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

You could inteprete this as "everyone has right to hold whatever value statements, but does not have right to hold whatever factual statements". But you could also more straightforwardly interprete it as:

"Everyone has the right to say whatever, they don't have right to decide what they say is true."

You really have to torture the meaning quite a bit to get "all opinions are equal", nevermind "no opinions are wrong", in either case. Both of those can only be true from perspective of complete value nihilism, and create self-contradiction from any other perspective. This is obvious enough that the first few things Google actually gave me were a long essay on how you're NOT entitled to your opinion, and Wikipedia's article on logical fallacies.

[NichG]

If someone can lie about their opinion, then it is possible for an opinion to be false. More subtly, I think it's quite possible for someone to be incoherent about their own opinions - that is, that if you solicited their opinion in different contexts, they would report different things, so that you can't always trust even earnestly reported opinions completely.

I'm going to leave off the values interpretation of 'wrong' since I think it's not the one intended by the initial question.

[veti]

Opinion is not the same thing as preference, nor the same as value judgement. People form opinions based partly on their values, but also based on a whole raft of other factors, most of which they're probably not even aware of.

"My favourite colour is red" - that's not an opinion, it's a preference. "Red is a good colour for signs because it's conspicuous" - that would be an opinion, which may or may not be supported by, or at least consistent with, evidence. It also implies "the most important attribute of a sign is conspicuousness", which is a value judgement (and probably not one that would stand up to careful thought, but we rarely do that).

You can describe an opinion as subjectively wrong if you disagree with the values on which it is based. That's a fairly easy call to make, but it leaves you in the position where "wrong" simply means "I disagree".

But to call an opinion objectively wrong, you will have to go a lot further. You could do it by showing that it's based on false premises, or that it requires holding contradictory values. In general, that's near impossible to do because people seldom explain the reasons behind their opinion, and even when they do, they nearly always leave out some key points - either because they never think of them, or they do but then suppress them because they realise there's a contradiction (cognitive dissonance).

[Vahnavoi]

Yes, substantiating wishy-washy opinions can be difficult. That doesn't mean they can't be right or wrong. It is the exact homology of mathematical proofs. There are heaps of non-trivial problems where finding the right solution, or set of solutions, is notoriously hard... but we can still confidently say there are right and wrong solutions.

[NichG]

For matters of opinion though, proving opinions true or false has different consequences than proving statements of fact true or false. If the opinion is 'I think you should paint your sign red' and you can prove that the speaker really believes that you should paint it blue, that doesn't mean that painting it red is automatically a bad idea (or a good one). Similarly, incoherent opinions may still be quite useful to hold, and coherent ones might be quite harmful to hold.

So you have to consider not just whether an opinion can be shown to be incoherent, but also whether showing that actually matters to the discussion at hand.

Arguments or opinions which are projected on the basis of some substantiation are different things, if we're being careful about terminology here. 'You should paint your sign red because it will bring more business' is a claim to fact, or at least prediction, and has a grounding which establishes its utility and how that utility is impacted by falsification.

[Vahnavoi]

For matters of opinion though, proving opinions true or false has different consequences than proving statements of fact true or false.

No, not really. The seemingness of this being the case is a result of your example, and all similar cases, consisting of two statements we can evaluate independently: "I think" and "you should".

So it appears the consequences are different, because we only evaluated "I think" but not "you should".

But in actual discussion, we are often not concerned with that "I think" part. Again: in common use, an opinion is a belief or conclusion held confidently without substantive proof or positive knowledge. When talking about whether opinions are right or wrong, we usually are concerned with those beliefs and conclusion, not just whether you truly hold them! Hence, characterizing rightness or wrongness of "matters of opinion" as merely being about whether people are lying about what conclusions and beliefs truly are, is wrong.

Infact, almost every time someone prefaces their opinion with "I think" or similar, you can ignore that part as redundant. Such clarifications are typically only useful when a person is talking about opinions of other people in addition to theirs.

[NichG]

No, not really. The seemingness of this being the case is a result of your example, and all similar cases, consisting of two statements we can evaluate independently: "I think" and "you should".

So it appears the consequences are different, because we only evaluated "I think" but not "you should".

But in actual discussion, we are often not concerned with that "I think" part. Again: in common use, an opinion is a belief or conclusion held confidently without substantive proof or positive knowledge. When talking about whether opinions are right or wrong, we usually are concerned with those beliefs and conclusion, not just whether you truly hold them! Hence, characterizing rightness or wrongness of "matters of opinion" as merely being about whether people are lying about what conclusions and beliefs truly are, is wrong.

Infact, almost every time someone prefaces their opinion with "I think" or similar, you can ignore that part as redundant. Such clarifications are typically only useful when a person is talking about opinions of other people in addition to theirs.

At least in terms of the conversation in this thread so far, it has been asked to consider things which are assertions of fact masked as opinions as being different from an 'actual' opinion. One possible conclusion I suppose is 'there is no such thing as an opinion'.

But I would say that there are statements where the 'I think' is actually the important bit to understand why it's being said, and the implicit call for it to be substantiated is missing the point of the communication. Often those are things which mask value statements or statements of preference, or ways in which those things are combined into something more nuanced. So if you approach a conversation of that type and say 'aha, I will attack the factual basis of these opinions and therefore persuade the other person of my point of view!' it's likely to fail or just result in frustration.

If someone says e.g. 'I think people who play high-op styles are terrible players' and you say 'well, look, here's an example of one player who happens to be a good player and plays a high-op style - therefore, your opinion is false' then it's not going to be convincing because it's ignoring why they said that. It may well be that as a formal statement 'People who play high-op styles are necessarily terrible players' is false, but perhaps there is one particular high-op player in that person's community that they hate to deal with, or that person has a context which makes it harder for them to run a successful game at high-op standards, or just that the person dislikes high-op play. So treating the entire statement as if it were living and dying only on the part of it which might be factually addressable is a failure of communication.

Edit: Here's another example that might escape the 'matter of preference' and 'matter of fact' categories: "I think that it's easier to work in polar coordinates than Cartesian coordinates."

If you focus on whether, say, the majority of proofs are longer in one representation than another, you're likely to miss that the statement is informing you about the speaker's own personal skill levels and levels of comfort rather than being some statement about the nature of mathematics as a whole. E.g. by trying to reduce it purely to an objective truth, you remove contextualization that is important to parsing its meaning. Having a race with that person where you use Cartesians to great effect and complete a problem faster than them might falsify the objective part of that statement, but it's a non-sequitur to the reason the statement was uttered.

[truemane]

Like most arguments of this type, most of this comes down to how you define your terms.

Opinions on subjective matters can't be wrong. Opinions on objective matters can be wrong. But at that points, you'd have to have an argument about whether or not you even can have an opinion about something objective.

Favourite Colour? Purely subjective. No possibility of anyone being wrong.

Most correct answer to 2 + 2? Outside of high-level mathematics, that has only one correct answer and infinite incorrect answers with no gradient between them.

The argument then is whether or not 'opinion' is even the word you use to describe what you think about an objective fact.

And then, once you've established that, it comes down to deciding what's objective fact and what's not. Which can often be more difficult than it seems.

[Vahnavoi]

@NichG: Bluntly, both your examples are awful, and in a situation where someone asked me a similar question, I would not search for any meaning in "I think" preface and would just skip to asking for clarification.

The inability of people to clearly communicate what their opinions are in a way that would make it easy for me to prove them right or wrong, has little to nothing to do with whether their opinions are, or can be, right or wrong.

[jayem]

Like most arguments of this type, most of this comes down to how you define your terms.

Opinions on subjective matters can't be wrong. Opinions on objective matters can be wrong. But at that points, you'd have to have an argument about whether or not you even can have an opinion about something objective.

Favourite Colour? Purely subjective. No possibility of anyone being wrong.

Most correct answer to 2 + 2? Outside of high-level mathematics, that has only one correct answer and infinite incorrect answers with no gradient between them.

The argument then is whether or not 'opinion' is even the word you use to describe what you think about an objective fact.

And then, once you've established that, it comes down to deciding what's objective fact and what's not. Which can often be more difficult than it seems.

There's never going to be a clear line between purely subjective and fact.
My favourite colour is "Red, like the midday sky", I'm free to specify my favourite colour, but something is clearly wrong somewhere. [In addition as pointed out, if I say my favourite colour is pink, a look round my house would lead to reasonable doubt on that statement, further experimentation would support that doubt, even if I believed I was being genuinely truthful in my pinkophilic claim]

Even 2+2*2, there's a clear answer as to what we should put down, but at the end of the day we can argue that we prefer the other options (so long as we accept that it's not going to change), but there is also a limited range of options. "We should do things so 2+2*2 should equal 8" is arguably a valid opinion, but less so than the favourite colour example. "We should do things so 2+2*2=7" is definitely a few notches less valid.

I suppose going back to the colour, you have "my favourite colour...", "in my opinion we should paint the room blue...",

Actually the more I think about it, in my opinion, if you actually have an "opinion", it's a claim that also takes you beyond the pure subjective.
If saying "in my opinion 2+2=4" is dubious, but equally so is "In my opinion, my favourite colour is Green".

Opinion really belongs in that murkey world between subjective and objective.

[Razade]

There's never going to be a clear line between purely subjective and fact.

How's that, do you figure?


My favourite colour is "Red, like the midday sky", I'm free to specify my favourite colour, but something is clearly wrong somewhere.

You can also choose to add u's to perfectly good words. :smalltongue:

This isn't, and people have rightly pointed out, the same as your next example. It's a clear, demonstrable, equivocation fallacy.


Even 2+2*2, there's a clear answer as to what we should put down, but at the end of the day we can argue that we prefer the other options (so long as we accept that it's not going to change), but there is also a limited range of options. "We should do things so 2+2*2 should equal 8" is arguably a valid opinion, but less so than the favourite colour example. "We should do things so 2+2*2=7" is definitely a few notches less valid.

Math isn't an opinion. The equation, regardless of the symbols we use to express it, is demonstrable in reality and is not a subjective matter even when 2+2*2 = something else because Math isn't one thing, and using different equations and expressions of math might produce other answers. They're still not opinions, they're both simply comporting to reality based on what equations you're using. You can demonstrate it in the physical world, there's no discussion on if saying 2+2*2 is 7 is subjectively right or wrong. It's objectively wrong using standard math.

If you don't believe me, get eight pencils and do the equation without using the numbers. You're never going to get 7.


I suppose going back to the colour, you have "my favourite colour...", "in my opinion we should paint the room blue...",

But maybe painting the room a certain color is wrong? Maybe the room gets a ton of sunlight and a dark shade of paint will absorb heat and keep the room hot. That's not even a thing I'm making up, choosing the proper shades of color for your rooms is fairly important depending on all sorts of factors. What if the color shows dust easily or other scuffs and marks? It may be your opinion but it can still be demonstrated to be a bad opinion.


Actually the more I think about it, in my opinion, if you actually have an "opinion", it's a claim that also takes you beyond the pure subjective.
If saying "in my opinion 2+2=4" is dubious, but equally so is "In my opinion, my favourite colour is Green".

No. [I]No.

Not all claims are equal. Claims must have evidence aportioned to them depending on the claim itself. Saying "my favorite color is green" is a rather mundane, almost banal claim, that we can just simply take your word for it. Aside from you equivocating that math is somehow just opinion (it isn't), it would require more evidence to falsify. If you said there was a teapot on Venus I'd need more evidence than you having a favorite color. I don't need evidence of what your favorite color is. It's not something you'd like about and if you did actually lie about it that tells me more about than anything else.


Opinion really belongs in that murkey world between subjective and objective.

Objective and Subjective are not two sides of a coin. They're not mutually exclusive. You can have objective facts in a subjective system and you can have subjective facts in an objective system.

[jayem]

Objective and Subjective are not two sides of a coin. They're not mutually exclusive. You can have objective facts in a subjective system and you can have subjective facts in an objective system.
That goes part of the way, but I think it doesn't go far enough. Although I'm not sure how.



Math isn't an opinion. The equation, regardless of the symbols we use to express it, is demonstrable in reality and is not a subjective matter even when 2+2*2 = something else because Math isn't one thing, and using different equations and expressions of math might produce other answers. They're still not opinions, they're both simply comporting to reality based on what equations you're using. You can demonstrate it in the physical world, there's no discussion on if saying 2+2*2 is 7 is subjectively right or wrong. It's objectively wrong using standard math.
If you don't believe me, get eight pencils and do the equation without using the numbers. You're never going to get 7.

That's a long way to skim right past the point, picking up almost every step and then miss it. Although I think it's a good example of the subjective in objective and vice versa.

Bodmas (^/*+- is not math, Bodmas is the language we use about math, and there is (at least at our level), no fundamental mathematical reason why it's better than Bomdas (^*/+- and in fact is clearly up to debate, as I suspect you think of Pedmas.
Treating it LtR also has strong precedent (in which case 2+2*2=8). It is true that Bodmas is (almost certainly) the right one to use, but only because we've standardised our opinion.
Bodmsa, Pemdsa, Boasmd (in which 2*2+2=8), Boasdm are 'clearly' unconventional ones, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with me sticking up my flag for any of them, in one sense it's a valid but unpopular opinion, but realistically I ought to also accept that the boat has sailed, my opinion is also wrong.

Whatever the f I use to get 2+2*2=7, on the other hand, is in a whole different category. I'm not going to say there's no way to justify it, but I sure as hell can't work out what it is. I think I can go as far as to say it's not an order of operations issue.



But maybe painting the room a certain color is wrong? Maybe the room gets a ton of sunlight and a dark shade of paint will absorb heat and keep the room hot. That's not even a thing I'm making up, choosing the proper shades of color for your rooms is fairly important depending on all sorts of factors. What if the color shows dust easily or other scuffs and marks? It may be your opinion but it can still be demonstrated to be a bad opinion.

Exactly, in this case we're in pure agreement. We rapidly shift from subjective to objective statements.



No. No.

Not all claims are equal. Claims must have evidence aportioned to them depending on the claim itself. Saying "my favorite color is green" is a rather mundane, almost banal claim, that we can just simply take your word for it. Aside from you equivocating that math is somehow just opinion (it isn't), it would require more evidence to falsify. If you said there was a teapot on Venus I'd need more evidence than you having a favorite color. I don't need evidence of what your favorite color is. It's not something you'd like about and if you did actually lie about it that tells me more about than anything else.

No No No
Truemane postulates that we don't say "In my opinion" about (agreed) factual claims. But (I assert) we don't about purely subjective claims either.

It's not that your taking it as truth. It's that barring weird circumstances I don't get to have an opinion on my favourite colour, it's a subjective thing.
If I'm lying about "my favourite colour is green", I'm also lying about "In my opinion my favourite colour is green" (barring weird curcumstances)

It's once we leave that pure subjective, that they start to become opinions.

Or in other words it's precisely both because the existence of a teapot on Venus (or for you my kitchen) is an objective but unverified fact that we get to have meaningful opinions on it.
For me to have an opinion of whether there is a teapot in my kitchen is odd (I know there isn't)
For you to have an opinion on teapots in my kitchen is quite fine. your opinion that I diud ius nout uunreusunubul, but happened to be wrong (for normal definitions of teapot)
Similarly (if I were to have) an opinion supporting teapots on Venus, it would be a genuine opinion, but almost certainly a wrong one and a little unreasonable
While Siegel didn't really have 'opinions' on teapots on Krypton, until at least after he started sharing his vision with Shuster and putting things on paper (making Krypton partially objective).

____
[ETA]


Opinion
1a : a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter
b : approval, esteem
2a : belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge
b: a generally held view
3a : a formal expression of judgment or advice by an expert
b : the formal expression (as by a judge, court, or referee) of the legal reasons and principles upon which a legal decision is based

and


Your opinion about something is what you think or believe about it.

None of which, in my opinion, really apply to "My favourite thing is...", until you go Meta.
My favourite colour isn't a belief or impression.
"I believe my favourite colour is red" is a valid sentence but works precisely because it's expressing doubt about your own self-introspection (that is to say, you say that because you think it is possible, but unlikely that your favourite colour is not in fact red). The opinion element isn't really tied up with the 'favourite' aspect.
The statement "Red is the best colour" could be an opinion (it isn't positive knowledge), and "It is my opinion, Red is the best colour" is so very very close to "My favourite colour is Red".
ETA2
Going the other way. An opinion that has elements of positive knowledge running alongside, isn't going to be an opinion for very long. A (potentially) wrong opinion is going to have ugly clashes (those who support it likely to think it as a 'positive fact', those who oppose it to think of it as nonsense). Preferences and acknowledged (currently) un-provable opinions will be recognised as valid by both sides.

[Razade]

That goes part of the way, but I think it doesn't go far enough. Although I'm not sure how.


That's a long way to skim right past the point, picking up almost every step and then miss it. Although I think it's a good example of the subjective in objective and vice versa.

Bodmas (^/*+- is not math, Bodmas is the language we use about math, and there is (at least at our level), no fundamental mathematical reason why it's better than Bomdas (^*/+- and in fact is clearly up to debate, as I suspect you think of Pedmas.
Treating it LtR also has strong precedent (in which case 2+2*2=8). It is true that Bodmas is (almost certainly) the right one to use, but only because we've standardised our opinion.
Bodmsa, Pemdsa, Boasmd (in which 2*2+2=8), Boasdm are 'clearly' unconventional ones, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with me sticking up my flag for any of them, in one sense it's a valid but unpopular opinion, but realistically I ought to also accept that the boat has sailed, my opinion is also wrong.

Whatever the f I use to get 2+2*2=7, on the other hand, is in a whole different category. I'm not going to say there's no way to justify it, but I sure as hell can't work out what it is. I think I can go as far as to say it's not an order of operations issue.


Exactly, in this case we're in pure agreement. We rapidly shift from subjective to objective statements.


No No No
Truemane postulates that we don't say "In my opinion" about (agreed) factual claims. But (I assert) we don't about purely subjective claims either.

It's not that your taking it as truth. It's that barring weird circumstances I don't get to have an opinion on my favourite colour, it's a subjective thing.
If I'm lying about "my favourite colour is green", I'm also lying about "In my opinion my favourite colour is green" (barring weird curcumstances)

It's once we leave that pure subjective, that they start to become opinions.

Or in other words it's precisely both because the existence of a teapot on Venus (or for you my kitchen) is an objective but unverified fact that we get to have meaningful opinions on it.
For me to have an opinion of whether there is a teapot in my kitchen is odd (I know there isn't)
For you to have an opinion on teapots in my kitchen is quite fine. your opinion that I diud ius nout uunreusunubul, but happened to be wrong (for normal definitions of teapot)
Similarly (if I were to have) an opinion supporting teapots on Venus, it would be a genuine opinion, but almost certainly a wrong one and a little unreasonable
While Siegel didn't really have 'opinions' on teapots on Krypton, until at least after he started sharing his vision with Shuster and putting things on paper (making Krypton partially objective).

I... People have already gone on about pedantry and about word use but this conversation between the both of us is why it's really really dang important that we define our terms and try and use them in a way we both understand. Because it seems here you're using Opinion to qualify a lot of things. Beliefs being one of the big ones and they're not the same thing. The idiosyncrasies in the verbiage here is particularly obtuse (just threw that in to be even more pedantic), and it honestly feels at this point that really going after anything you're saying here is just going to put me in a spot where I'm going to keep on pointing where you're equivocating (your attempt to say the claim that you have a teapot in your kitchen is the same as a teapot on Mars for example) between what's an opinion, what's an interpretation on axioms (which aren't the same thing), what's a knowledge claim (also not the same thing) and what's a belief (could be the same thing). Only for you to then claim I'm talking past you, which you've already done. I'm not trying to do but you're using one, singular, term interchangeably to cover like fifteen different things here and conflating that one usage into a dozen different things and...tripping over tautologies. Your edit is only more of this.

The sentence "My favorite color is red" is also valid. Saying what your favorite color is doesn't require absolute certainty. It's also short on of saying "I believe" or "my opinion" because you don't have to append either of those qualifies out loud. People understand that's what you mean when you make the statement "My favorite X is Y". They already know you're saying your opinion, they already know by conversational ques that you're expressing a feeling, not objective fact. Your example is one of those tautologies that I previously mentioned. You're using different, but similar, words to say the exact same thing and then trying to claim that they're different but "close". But that's not how people use those terms. They're synonymous and you're trying to argue that they're not. Which they demonstrably are.

Because at the very least, saying "my favorite color" fits (and Dictionaries are not incidently authority on words and I wouldn't ever go to a dictionary definition to definitvely try to prove anything except common usge) the following of the linked definition.

1a: Your favorite color is a view on a particular matter. It's your view on the matter of what is aesthetically pleasing to you.
2a: Your opinion on your favorite color is more than an impression but it's not positive knowledge.
b: People have favorite colors and they differ.

[Xyril]

My favourite colour is "Red, like the midday sky", I'm free to specify my favourite colour, but something is clearly wrong somewhere.


Remember that sentences and sentence fragments can express more than a single idea. Sometimes they can encompass two or more ideas, often interdependent but sometimes entirely independent.

Your short bit expresses multiple explicit and implicit ideas, each of which can be fairly simply classified as factual or opinion-based.

Your favorite color is one you consider red. [Opinion about which color you like the best.]

Your favorite color is one you consider red. [Factual assertion about which color you have decided you like best.

Your favorite color is one "like the midday sun." [Opinion about which color you like best.]

Your favorite color is one "like the midday sun." [Factual assertion about which color you have decided you like best.]

Also, due to the ambiguity of the English language in this case, you're also making one or the other of the following implied statements--it would be perfectly reasonable for the listener to believe you mean "like" in either sense, just like it's perfectly reasonable for you to have chosen the phrasing you did without realizing the potential ambiguity.

The color of the midday sun is the same color as a particular shade of red. [Factual assertion.]

The color of the midday sun is "like" (has some meaningful number of similarities to) a particular shade of red. [Largely on the opinion side, since I would argue that the truth of this statement is entirely predicated on what counts as enough similarities.]

The English language (and probably most human languages) give you a tremendous capacity to pack a lot of information into a short statement--even more so once you take into account shared cultural knowledge and context. And for the most part, that's a great thing: Think of how much time we'd have to spend talking if instead of saying what you said, you had to explicitly and individually state all the crap I said--and probably something that I missed? The trade-off is, sometimes, the loss of a bit of precision and the introduction of ambiguity, but in most situations, this loss has no meaningful impact.


But let's unpack this a little more. Imagine I write a standard form essay: I take a position, break that main thesis down into supporting arguments, and support each of those arguments with factual evidence. My thesis, "dogs are the best pets," is entirely opinion. Ultimately, there is no objective framework to prove me right or wrong, because there isn't even an objective way to determine the "correct" universal metric by which to evaluate how "good" a pet is.

Now, in order to convince people that my opinion is a worthwhile one, I can bring in evidence. Some of it will be objective facts, (i.e., "Dogs generally live an average of X years), some will be subjective interpretation (i.e., "This lifespan makes for a good pet because it is long enough to form a real bond but not so long that you usually have to worry about the pet substantially outliving you.") And as a matter of judging the effectiveness of the essay, if my objective facts are objectively wrong, and I claim that those facts informed my opinion, that should definitely affect how persuasive you find my opinion.

However, the presence of objective facts in the same arbitrary grouping of speech as my opinion doesn't make my opinion statement quasi-factual, nor does sharing the page with my subjective opinion make those individual factual assertions any less objective. This is true whether you're talking about an essay, a book, or a single complicated sentence.


Edit:

It suddenly occurs to me that people are overlooking an important ambiguity in the title that matters a pretty great deal. Peelee's post made me realize this, though he isn't the only one guilty of this thinking.

The "wrong" in this title can mean two different things. From context, I believe that OP means it in the sense of right vs. wrong meaning "true" vs. "not true." Only factual assertions can be "wrong" in this sense.

However, there is also right vs. wrong in the moral sense, with "right" meaning something like "prosocial" or "morally acceptable" or "justifiable." "Wrong" on the other hand would mean "morally objectionable" or "socially harmful" or however you reckon morality. In this sense, only opinions can be "wrong." A statement of objective fact is morally useful--now, you can have an opinion on whether sharing that objective fact at a specific time, in a specific manner, or at all is a morally correct thing to do based on the expected outcome of doing so, but a fact itself is morally agnostic.

[el minster]

Opinions are value judgements, values are based on (insert jargon for shared world views here, take your pick of Ontologies, Intersections, etc.) The systemic framework used to make that judgement is innately flawed, so all opinions being based on bad axioms are probably wrong.

The good news is that the person judging the judgement is also basing their opinion on flawed or wrong axioms, so while they can say the other person is wrong they can't actually say what is right. This is an area the Pragmatist school delved pretty deep into, culminating in Hannah Arendt.

A great example of this is Mean Girls, where the Plastics base their opinions on a set of axioms:
1. Personal status is the most important good.
2. Physical attractiveness, money and celebrity are the defining traits of personal status.
3. Style shows off physical attractiveness and money together.
4. People who are not stylish have low status.

So the Plastics attack people regularly to raise their own status and lower others', because being on top is most important. The lines of attack are on style, attractiveness and celebrity (also money which ties into those) while they ignore things like intelligence, kindness and personability as not being status raising to them.

Axiom four is superfluous. Also the thing about these people is if you don't care about what you care about their insults aren't insulting.

[Cheesegear]

Or if I am truly wrong and somehow opinions can be wrong?

1. Informed opinions, and uninformed opinions, are very real things.

You present a belief, or thought.
"I believe that the Earth is flat." is an opinion. I think, I believe, etc.
"The Earth is flat." is not an opinion.

Speaking to the former, you might ask "Why do you believe that the Earth is flat?"
That is, how did you arrive at your belief? What evidence or theories do you have, that support it?

Is your opinion informed, or uninformed?
If your opinion is uninformed, it can absolutely be a 'wrong opinion'.

"We all have the same information. How did you get that out of this? You're literally not making sense."

Where it gets complicated is;

2. A lot - if not most - people use the words 'feelings' and 'opinions' interchangeably, and thus, incorrectly:
Feelings, are Objective (to the person)
Opinions are Subjective (to the person).

a)
Feeling; I didn't like Terminator: Dark Fate.
Opinion; I think Terminator: Dark Fate is a bad movie.

Nobody can say that "Umm, akshully, you're wrong. You did like Terminator: Dark Fate."
Whether or not I like Terminator: Dark Fate, is objective. It can be right, and it can be wrong. You have no way of knowing that I didn't, or actually did. Nobody can say that the person isn't feeling what they're feeling.

Opinions however, can be changed, which, in turn, can create feelings.

I will tell you why I think Terminator; Dark Fate is a bad movie, this is my opinion:
Let's talk about objective things; Story, Music, Characters, Script, Effects, Acting, Directing, etc. Based on other things I've seen and how I know movies get made (i.e; Informing my opinion).
You, might say, that actually those things were done really well. Based on other things you've seen and how you know movies get made (i.e; Informing your opinion).

We can talk all day whether or not Terminator; Dark Fate is a good, or bad movie, based on things we can see and hear. You can argue against opinions.
But you can't tell me, whether or not I liked it. You can't argue against feelings.

For example; There are objectively bad movies, that people very much enjoy. There are objectively good movies, that people can't stand.
Almost like objective quality doesn't determine subjective feelings (although it most often does, because if something is good, why wouldn't you like it?).

Things brings us finally, to something egregious:

"I don't like superhero stories where superheroes don't punch people. Therefore, superhero stories where superheroes don't punch people, are bad."

You are not separating your feelings from your opinions, making them one and the same.
This 'opinion', 'can't be wrong', because it is also a 'feeling', and feelings can't be wrong.

[jayem]

why it's really really dang important that we define our terms and try and use them in a way we both understand.


Fully agreed about the need for definitions (that's why I turned to the dictionary). I disagree that I'm tripping over tautologies, rather it's my opinion it's the fact that you see them as tautologies that's causing you to think of it as tripping up rather than look at the differences.

Or again on the 15 definitions
I'm using "Opinion" (mostly) consistently, "Favourite" consistently, "Opinion on Favourite", "Favourite opinion" consistently, etc..
(There's probably enough failures to spoil things)

However I do not use "Opinion" in the same way as "Favourite". If you've filled in the tautology so it reads "Opinion" in the same way as "Opinion", of course that sentence looks like a self contradictory definition.

I'm sure there's a similar effect the other way, but I'm not sure what it is.

I'm not sure how we get past that. If you define the terms I'm going to see a whole pile of undefined concepts and a really overloaded term. If I define the terms your going to see a whole pile of contradictory terms or repetition of definitions.




The sentence "My favorite color is red" is also valid. Saying what your favorite color is doesn't require absolute certainty. It's also short on of saying "I believe" or "my opinion" because you don't have to append either of those qualifies out loud. People understand that's what you mean when you make the statement "My favorite X is Y". They already know you're saying your opinion, they already know by conversational ques that you're expressing a feeling, not objective fact.



Surely it's because they acknowledge that you know your preference better than they do. It may not require absolute certainty, but it is something that I believe you are better informed about than me. I'm fully prepared to (provisionally) accept that your knowledge of your favourite colour is pretty close to absolute. The scene in monty python where the knight gets his favourite colour wrong is meant to be funny.
If 'favourite' were just a special case of 'opinion' you'd expect there to be some statement that has opinion do that work directly, sort of like "In my opinion, colour is red", which I can't see. They aren't unrelated concepts, but they aren't the same.
(Related to that you slip from "Your favourite colour", to "your opinion of your favourite colour" in step 2, which you can't do in a proof about them being the same)

Cheesegear puts it better. (Although some of the thread is about the fact that we can say "you went to see Dark Fate seventeen times, and spent a fortune on collectables, something doesn't add up here")



your attempt to say the claim that you have a teapot in your kitchen is the same as a teapot on Mars for example

There was no such comment about claims, they were about opinions. Furthermore you were replying to a paragraph focusing on the differences!
My (alleged) OPINION on the presence of teapots in your kitchen and mars are different OPINIONS. They are both OPINIONS.
5 and 7 are not the same number, they are both numbers. By saying 5 is a number and 7 is a different number I make no claim that 5 is the same as 7. Neither am I changing the definition of number.
Precisely because they are different opinions, it is a reasonable comment to observe that one of them is based on different information than the other.. In fact in the part you are making, I state that I have so much knowledge about my kitchen that I can't really call it an opinion (I guess a claim is a good word for what it now is).

In a minor irony, although my post was about the teapot in mars being DIFFERENT from teapot in house, and your objection being that my post was about them being the SAME. My opinion was probably based on flawed reasoning. If I'm crediting my being able to look round my kitchen as providing sufficient knowledge, I probably ought to take into account my knowledge of how teapots are made and the implications of this. The difference is arguably not as pronounced as I thought it was.




Remember that sentences and sentence fragments can express more than a single idea. Sometimes they can encompass two or more ideas, often interdependent but sometimes entirely independent.

Your short bit expresses multiple explicit and implicit ideas, each of which can be fairly simply classified as factual or opinion-based.

That's a good way of putting it. The significance is that my (faked) misunderstanding of colour is evident in the falseness of one of the factual elements. And that (for the fictional version of me presented) you should treat my statement about my preference with some caution.

[Razade]

I'm not sure how we get past that. If you define the terms I'm going to see a whole pile of undefined concepts and a really overloaded term. If I define the terms your going to see a whole pile of contradictory terms or repetition of definitions.

Can't really. The least of which is because you did exactly what I was worried you were going to do, switching words around to try a gotcha re: opinions aren't claims (even though they are) and also try to imply I messed up on making a formal logical proof when even with the least amount of charity it was clear I wasn't doing that.



If 'favourite' were just a special case of 'opinion' you'd expect there to be some statement that has opinion do that work directly, sort of like "In my opinion, colour is red", which I can't see. They aren't unrelated concepts, but they aren't the same.

This is where I think the real issue is. You're trying to say that saying something is your favorite isn't an opinion and I think the push back you're getting is that that's how most people use favorite. That's just common, English, venacular and that's demonstrable. You're trying to use the word favorite to be something else, and that's fine, but you need to like...make that way more clear. Because that's the root of the tautology (and I wasn't talking logical tautology btw. It's weird that you expect me to fit formal logic but you're not even approaching it yourself).

When most people use "favorite" they're stating an opinion. When I say "my favorite ice cream is mint", that's just my opinion. A low order opinion at that, because it's inconsequential. I don't need to provide evidence for it and people are going to generally take my word on it at face value. If I said 'in my opinion, mint is the best ice cream" people know by context clues that I'm saying "my favorite ice cream is mint" because that's how language works. As Xyril rightly pointed out. It may lead to ambiguities or gray areas or create misunderstandings, but that's just how language works. We short hand because we're lazy.


Cheesegear puts it better. (Although some of the thread is about the fact that we can say "you went to see Dark Fate seventeen times, and spent a fortune on collectables, something doesn't add up here")

Then I'll reply to them.



1. Informed opinions, and uninformed opinions, are very real things.

Since you're saying what Jayem seems to be trying to say better, I'll give this a look. See if we disagree.


You present a belief, or thought.
"I believe that the Earth is flat." is an opinion. I think, I believe, etc.
"The Earth is flat." is not an opinion.

Speaking to the former, you might ask "Why do you believe that the Earth is flat?"
That is, how did you arrive at your belief? What evidence or theories do you have, that support it?

With you so far.


Is your opinion informed, or uninformed?
If your opinion is uninformed, it can absolutely be a 'wrong opinion'.

Nothing here either.


2. A lot - if not most - people use the words 'feelings' and 'opinions' interchangeably, and thus, incorrectly:
Feelings, are Objective (to the person)
Opinions are Subjective (to the person).

Oi! First bit of disagreement. Feelings can be either objective or subjective to the individual. At the risk of being cheeky, and because I'm writing this point by point, I suspect you're also one of those people misusing the word feeling. Not interchangeably with opinion but with another term. I predict it's going to be preference. White texting it because it's a prediction.

Feelings are derived from internal and external stimuli that you have to process. You can be fed the wrong stimuli and thus have a wrong feeling. I worry that you're also using feeling to mean something different here. A feeling is an emotional state or a reaction to something and emotional states are absolutely subjective. You're objectively feeling them, but again you're feeling an emotional state due to stimuli that your body may not actually be responding to correctly. Look at things like Mood Liability or Borderline Personality Disorder. Those are mental illnesses where stimuli produce improper emotional responses. They're objectively feeling those things but it's because the body is reacting in a subjective way. Everyone's body chemistry does this to a greater or lesser extent. But I don't think you're actually using Feelings in that sense.

Let's look at your example, it might clear things up.


a)
Feeling; I didn't like Terminator: Dark Fate.
Opinion; I think Terminator: Dark Fate is a bad movie.

Nobody can say that "Umm, akshully, you're wrong. You did like Terminator: Dark Fate."
Whether or not I like Terminator: Dark Fate, is objective. It can be right, and it can be wrong. You have no way of knowing that I didn't, or actually did. Nobody can say that the person isn't feeling what they're feeling.

Yeah see, the first thing there isn't a feeling. Not by any definition or usage that I know. It's a preference, which I called. In this case what's refereed to as Negative Preference which are generally called Aversions or as you got close to using, a dislike. Preferences are split into three categories. Positive, Negative and Indifference.

You're misusing the word feeling (which as explained about has everything to do with emotional states) while telling people that they're actually using it wrong. You're using it wrong too :smalltongue:. You didn't like Terminator: Dark Fate for preferential reasons. Your preferences can't be wrong and they are influenced by your feelings but they're not the same thing and not solely motivated by your feelings. Those are internal due to bias and all manner of other things (that are both objective like brain chemistry and biology and subjective).


Opinions however, can be changed, which, in turn, can create feelings.

Preferences and feelings can change too. Feelings can change independent of opinions changing.


You can't argue against feelings.

You keep saying feelings, but then you describe preferences. Knowing that, and you may disagree so I look forward to you correcting me if I've made a mistake, we agree. You cannot argue preferences.

[jayem]

In any case, we can possibly avoid the issues for a second. Lets first focus on the sentence "In my opinion your favourite colour is red". Was I right, was I wrong? Was it meaningless to ask right and wrongfulness of it? Is my opinion of your favourite colour not actually an opinion? If it's not a valid sentence, why not.


__And now trying to compare positions, etc...



Can't really. The least of which is because you did exactly what I was worried you were going to do, switching words around to try a gotcha re: opinions aren't claims (even though they are)

I thought it was you that switched the words!, let's have a look [spoiler, both of us were involved]

J: Actually the more I think about it, in my opinion, if you actually have an "opinion", it's a claim that also takes you beyond the pure subjective.
R: Not all claims are equal. Claims must have evidence aportioned to them depending on the claim itself. ...
...
...
.... teapot on Venus I'd need more evidence than you having a favorite color. I don't need evidence of what your favorite color is.
J: For me to have an opinion of whether there is a teapot in my kitchen is odd (I know there isn't)
... For you to have an opinion on teapots in my kitchen is quite fine.
... Similarly (if I were to have) an opinion supporting teapots on Venus, it would be a genuine opinion, but almost certainly a wrong one and a little unreasonable
R: your attempt to say the claim that you have a teapot in your kitchen is the same as a teapot on Mars for example
J: There was no such comment about claims, they were about opinions. Furthermore you were replying to a paragraph focusing on the differences!

Ah... I begin to see how the terms were switched.


and also try to imply I messed up on making a formal logical proof when even with the least amount of charity it was clear I wasn't doing that.

Ok, definitely fair it's clearly not a proof... None the less if you want to show that [your favourite colour] is an opinion
2a: [Your opinion on your favorite color] is more than an impression but it's not positive knowledge.
doesn't show
[your favorite color] is more than an impression but it's not positive knowledge.

Without taking for granted that the "Your opinion" in "Your opinion on your favorite color" is redundant as equivalent to "Your (favourite and I repeat) favorite color" (sorry, I can't even write it in a double opinion without nesting the first) rather than redundant because your opinion is self evidently as well-founded as it could be.


What would happen if I said instead "In my opinion your favourite colour is Red because [lame reason=Red alliterates with Razor]".
If it were the case that that we were contracting it because 'favourite' already was an opinion, then presumably it would still be an acceptable for me to contract it.
I'd contend that the difference is that you know your favourite.

In any case lets focus on the sentence "In my opinion your favourite...". Was I right, was I wrong? Was it meaningless to ask right and wrongfulness of it? Is my opinion of your favourite colour not actually an opinion? If it's not a valid sentence, why not.

Again consider "In my opinion I'm _age_", again I can (and should) contract it because I know my age, not because my age is an opinion.





This is where I think the real issue is. You're trying to say that saying something is your favorite isn't an opinion and I think the push back you're getting is that that's how most people use favorite. That's just common, English, venacular and that's demonstrable. You're trying to use the word favorite to be something else, and that's fine, but you need to like...make that way more clear. Because that's the root of the tautology (and I wasn't talking logical tautology btw. It's weird that you expect me to fit formal logic but you're not even approaching it yourself).

I'm not getting that much pushback, I think it's pretty much evenly divided*.

I'm also pretty sure conceptually we actually agree more on favourite (in my opinion, synonymous with preference). It's opinion that seems to be causing the clash. It's just that when you want to use your definition of "opinion" as the definition of favourite (before we've worked out opinion) that it looks worse.

Also I fully accept that there is a close relation. If something is your favourite you probably have guessable opinions about it, if you've made your opinions about something clear we can use this to guess your favourite, etc...

Oh and happy that your talking linguistic tautologies. But that linguistic difference reflects how you read and I read. If I write 'favourite' and 'opinion' and you hear 'favourite' and 'favourite' you're missing precisely why I wrote the two. If the sentence is about the difference it comes over as a contradiction.

Similarly the other way, when you write that there's an implicit "in my opinion" in favourite, I'm literally hearing you claim that you don't know what your favourite actually is, rather than whatever you mean.
[substituting the definitions from webster, possibly imperfectly to try and show how it's parsed]
"in my opinion my favourite colour is red" -> "in my opinion the colour I like best is red" -> "I have a belief that is less certain than knowledge that the colour I like best is red"
Whereas preference and favourite, I'd be really happy to treat as being tautologous.

*I might double check favorite, but I think we agree on favourite

[Razade]

I thought it was you that switched the words!, let's have a look [spoiler, both of us were involved]

J: Actually the more I think about it, in my opinion, if you actually have an "opinion", it's a claim that also takes you beyond the pure subjective.
R: Not all claims are equal. Claims must have evidence aportioned to them depending on the claim itself. ...
...
...
.... teapot on Venus I'd need more evidence than you having a favorite color. I don't need evidence of what your favorite color is.
J: For me to have an opinion of whether there is a teapot in my kitchen is odd (I know there isn't)
... For you to have an opinion on teapots in my kitchen is quite fine.
... Similarly (if I were to have) an opinion supporting teapots on Venus, it would be a genuine opinion, but almost certainly a wrong one and a little unreasonable
R: your attempt to say the claim that you have a teapot in your kitchen is the same as a teapot on Mars for example
J: There was no such comment about claims, they were about opinions. Furthermore you were replying to a paragraph focusing on the differences!

Ah... I begin to see how the terms were switched.

Right. You brought up claims and I was using the teapot as an analogy to demonstrate that you were equivocating between your favorite color and mathematics because one needs no real evidence at all (favorite color and kitchen teapot) and the other requires a fair bit of evidence. The switch in the analogy may be on my end, in that we have the evidence for math. We don't have the evidence for a Venetian Teapot.

But the switch is entirely on your end. Because you stated, at the start, that there's no difference between the claim that it's your opinion (and here's the problem because math isn't an opinion and this is where the equivocation is) on 2+2 =4 and your favorite color are equal. When they're not. If that's not what you meant, then that's fair and absolutely take the time to clarify. But it's absolutely, without a doubt, plain as text what you said.



Actually the more I think about it, in my opinion, if you actually have an "opinion", it's a claim that also takes you beyond the pure subjective.
If saying "in my opinion 2+2=4" is dubious, but equally so is "In my opinion, my favourite colour is Green".



Ok, definitely fair it's clearly not a proof... None the less if you want to show that [your favourite colour] is an opinion

I actually had to go back and see if I'd even said that it was. Not until my very last post. I pointed out before that under the definition provided by another poster, when you said it didn't fit, that it fit at least two of the four provided usages. Which is, despite you telling me how I have to demonstrate it, all I actually have to do to demonstrate it. Does the usage of the word align with a label we call opinion. Yes, it does. That's how it's used colloquially.



What would happen if I said instead "In my opinion your favourite colour is Red because [lame reason=Red alliterates with Razor]".
If it were the case that that we were contracting it because 'favourite' already was an opinion, then presumably it would still be an acceptable for me to contract it.
I'd contend that the difference is that you know your favourite.

I also know my opinion. The sentence "In my opinion your opinion is red is the best color because red alliterates with razor". They're equivalent statements, just with different words because that's how language works. Stating "my favorite is" and "the best color is" are both opinions and generally taken to mean the same thing when used in casual conversation. That's literally been my line from the very start of this. That's why I said when you tried to say they were different that they were in fact a tautology. Again, because you've tried to do this before, not a logical tautology.



In any case lets focus on the sentence "In my opinion your favourite...". Was I right, was I wrong? Was it meaningless to ask right and wrongfulness of it? Is my opinion of your favourite colour not actually an opinion? If it's not a valid sentence, why not.

You aren't wrong that it's your opinion but your opinion can be predicated on wrong information and thus be wrong. Those aren't the same things and that's where the real trip up in this entire conversation lies. Opinions can change, they change based on (as I said to Cheesegear) external and internal stimuli. Opinions are formed by the brain which receives information. That information can be muddled either by incorrect stimulus response or cognative bias or a slew of other problems. Humans are not perfect thinkers, we form wrong opinions all the time and we change opinions often.

You can hold the opinion that my favorite color is red, but it might actually be green. It is green, by the by, I don't prefer red. You change your opinion when I go "No Jayem, my favorite color is not red" or "no, my opinion is that green is better than red" or, to use the same wording, "no, my opinion is that green is the best color". All three of those things tell you the same information. You can then change your opinion or, in fact, be wrong.

They're all different however from a preference. If you say "I don't like green, I like red", that's not the same as saying red is the best color or that it's your favorite color. One is a preference, the other an opinion. Your preferences can't be wrong. The difference is small but important and it's where Cheesegear switched words. Saying "I like, I dislike" is saying how we feel (Cheesegear then went on to say that it is a feel-ing, which it's not. It's an expression of preferences which is different than an emotional state) while saying "Red is the best" is telling us what you think. Humans are empathetic beings and we blend our preferences with our thoughts all the time without realizing it.

But a preference, a colloquial feeling, isn't a rational response. Opinions are (generally) rational.


[/b]
Again consider "In my opinion I'm _age_", again I can (and should) contract it because I know my age, not because my age is an opinion.

Right except here we go again with equivocation. Your age and your favorite color are not in the same field. You don't contract the sentence because stating your age isn't an opinion, we can measure it. Usually by cutting a leg off and checking the rings. Or birth records for the squeamish. You can't do that with your favorite color, which is why you can switch "my favorite is" with "in my opinion x color is".



I'm also pretty sure conceptually we actually agree more on favourite (in my opinion, synonymous with preference). It's opinion that seems to be causing the clash. It's just that when you want to use your definition of "opinion" as the definition of favourite (before we've worked out opinion) that it looks worse.

Chalk it up to how sloppy language is. I actually don't think favorite is a preference though I absolutely understand that people use it that way and I think in a colloquial sense that's fine. If I were going to express a strong or even exclusionary preference I'd say something like...love or something along that line. Saying something is my favorite goes beyond simple preference, as mentioned above. When I say I love something or hate something, I'm telling you something about how I feel about the object or thought in question. When I say it's my favorite, I'm telling you that I think it's the best/use whatever word here to mean a top order and that's an opinion which can be scrutinized based on my own actions.

You used the example of pointing out someone's favorite not aligning with their actions, and I pushed back on it. Not because I disagreed but because it was too broad a way to defeat the opinion. It's a good start, I agree, to go from pointing out that a person's actions aren't aligning with their statements. But if, for example, we go to a sandwich shop every day for lunch and you know in the past I've said my favorite (or the best/any of the other terms we've used here) sandwich is a chip butty but you never see me order it at this place, and you conclude that I'm misrepresenting my opinion then you could be wrong. I may just not like how this one place does it. This is the "maybe I'm wearing red for work but every other time I wear brown". If we go to 20 chipshops and I never order a chip butty then you're probably right to conclude that I actually don't think what I said.

And that's where the difference is actually really easy to see. We don't generally act out against our preferences. We very often act out of line of our opinions and that's how you can see which is which.


Also I fully accept that there is a close relation. If something is your favourite you probably have guessable opinions about it, if you've made your opinions about something clear we can use this to guess your favourite, etc...

Right, which is why they're synonyms. :smalltongue:


Oh and happy that your talking linguistic tautologies. But that linguistic difference reflects how you read and I read. If I write 'favourite' and 'opinion' and you hear 'favourite' and 'favourite' you're missing precisely why I wrote the two. If the sentence is about the difference it comes over as a contradiction.

I mean, I never brought up logistics until you did. Right, which is why they're synonyms. They're words that can, but don't always, mean the same thing and it's why language is sloppy and why giving precise usages of your words is important. Otherwise you get misunderstandings.


Similarly the other way, when you write that there's an implicit "in my opinion" in favourite, I'm literally hearing you claim that you don't know what your favourite actually is, rather than whatever you mean.

Right but that's you reading into something that isn't there, and you ought to have taken a moment to clarify instead of assume.


[substituting the definitions from webster, possibly imperfectly to try and show how it's parsed]
"in my opinion my favourite colour is red" -> "in my opinion the colour I like best is red" -> "I have a belief that is less certain than knowledge that the colour I like best is red"
Whereas preference and favourite, I'd be really happy to treat as being tautologous.

*I might double check favorite, but I think we agree on favourite

I don't think we do, but I went into that at length and I think I made my demonstration rather clear on why.

[jayem]

You aren't wrong that it's your opinion but your opinion can be predicated on wrong information and thus be wrong.

Huzzah, for the purposes of this thread we are officially in agreement on the important issue!



But the switch is entirely on your end. Because you stated, at the start, that there's no difference between the claim that it's your opinion (and here's the problem because math isn't an opinion and this is where the equivocation is) on 2+2 =4 and your favorite color are equal. When they're not. If that's not what you meant, then that's fair and absolutely take the time to clarify. But it's absolutely, without a doubt, plain as text what you said.

Oh and that's easy too :) I can fill in the missing sentence, and possibly reorder. As I said you skimmed so close to picking up the same things and then things went horribly wrong.


[As the previous post before implied] Saying "in my opinion 2+2=4" is dubious, [because it is too objective, and well known, you know it's true]
However the more I think about [at the opposite side of the spectrum], in my opinion, if you actually have an "opinion", it's a claim that also takes you beyond the pure subjective.
[As an example you don't say] "In my opinion, my favourite colour is Green" [if it's your favourite colour, it is your favourite colour]

I'm not sure it's actually the subjectivity that is the issue.

There was also a separate thought, about how even when there was room for different opinions some were much wronger than others that picked up the same example.

It's too late to look at the middle bits. My first use of claim was so minor I wasn't even aware of it, but it was definitely there.




I also know my opinion. The sentence "In my opinion your opinion is red is the best color because red alliterates with razor". They're equivalent statements, just with different words because that's how language works. Stating "my favorite is" and "the best color is" are both opinions and generally taken to mean the same thing when used in casual conversation. That's literally been my line from the very start of this. That's why I said when you tried to say they were different that they were in fact a tautology. Again, because you've tried to do this before, not a logical tautology.
...
I don't prefer red.

The important thing was I wrapping the external opinion, and you had the inner one. This:
a) Actually took us back to the thread topic. We have something that the two of us agree is an opinion, that turned out to be wrong. (ok it was so artificial it was more of a random guess, but I could have used other opinions)
b) I think makes the nesting clear



Right, which is why they're synonyms. :smalltongue:

I mean, I never brought up logistics until you did. Right, which is why they're synonyms. They're words that can, but don't always, mean the same thing and it's why language is sloppy and why giving precise usages of your words is important. Otherwise you get misunderstandings.

Can we also agree that "My opinion of your nationality" isn't the same as "My favourite of your nationality".

If we're treating opinion alone as being synonymous than I'd expect us to be able to do the above substitution and that doesn't make sense [and as I think of favourite as being something you can't (except in such complicated cases that worrying about them let in loopholes) say is wrong, this would have implications to the OP]
If we're treating favourite as synonymous with a special type of opinion such, I.E. something like "My favourite" is synonymous with the "My opinion of the best", that's something I'm much more relaxed about.
Whether a 'favourite has to be an 'opinion' or not doesn't affect the thread, so long as we've got our opinion that (is not a favourite) and has a clear right/wrong, and so we can agree on our answer the OP without having to build on something we may disagree on.



I actually don't think favorite is a preference though I absolutely understand that people use it that way and I think in a colloquial sense that's fine. If I were going to express a strong or even exclusionary preference I'd say something like...love or something along that line.



I don't think we do, but I went into that at length and I think I made my demonstration rather clear on why.

Ok, this is back to the language disagreement, I'm definitely nearer camp Cheesegear. Favourite/Preference/Feeling align more closely with each other than Opinion.
Regardless we've got the important thing sorted.




Right except here we go again with equivocation. Your age and your favorite color are not in the same field. You don't contract the sentence because stating your age isn't an opinion, we can measure it. Usually by cutting a leg off and checking the rings. Or birth records for the squeamish. You can't do that with your favorite color, which is why you can switch "my favorite is" with "in my opinion x color is".

I'd have thought that was exactly why we did contract the sentence. They're both things I'm in the best position to say.
I'm not in the habit of saying "I think I'm British", I would say "I think your American (posting time and lack of U's)".
The "my opinion of your opinion" shows that it is perfectly possible to nest opinions. From these two things it seems reasonable to assume that "My opinion of my opinion" is an example of this and that something similar could be sade of "My opinion of my favourite".

And as such any relationship between "My favourite colour" and "In my opinion the best colour" has to be argued on it's own merits. I'd probably favour them being highly correlated or mutually causal rather than fundementally directly synonymous.
Two reasons: in the first post you gave a perfect example of a case when the favourite is not the best. More generally I'm not sure that I ever actually think my favourite colour is the 'best', it's definitely the 'best at making me individually respond the way I do to favourite things', but that's different claim.

[Razade]

Can we also agree that "My opinion of your nationality" isn't the same as "My favourite of your nationality".

Sure but this is the "generally" coming in. Sometimes it's not used the same way and that's just because language is sloppy.


If we're treating opinion alone as being synonymous than I'd expect us to be able to do the above substitution and that doesn't make sense [and as I think of favourite as being something you can't (except in such complicated cases that worrying about them let in loopholes) say is wrong, this would have implications to the OP]

Right but this is acknowledged. Sometimes synonymous words don't substitute. You've presented one such occurrence.


If we're treating favourite as synonymous with a special type of opinion such, I.E. something like "My favourite" is synonymous with the "My opinion of the best", that's something I'm much more relaxed about.

We're treating it like we treat all synonyms which is to say, using them when they apply and not using them when they don't. That's not a special type, that's also just how speech works and we generally learn about this through following other people's language patterns as kids.


Whether a 'favourite has to be an 'opinion' or not doesn't affect the thread, so long as we've got our opinion that (is not a favourite) and has a clear right/wrong, and so we can agree on our answer the OP without having to build on something we may disagree on.

Well no because there's nuance and the answer to the OP's question is that some opinions can be right or wrong while others can't and they have to be evaluated on a case by case basis.


Ok, this is back to the language disagreement, I'm definitely nearer camp Cheesegear. Favourite/Preference/Feeling align more closely with each other than Opinion.
Regardless we've got the important thing sorted.

Ok but then you (and Cheesegear) have to admit that you're using the world Feeling in a way that isn't the same as the general use of the term because you both just are. While you're at that, you should probably ask yourself why and see if you can't come up with something else. Especially if you're going to hold people (and this is more Cheesegear) to not using the terms "wrong". If you're going to swap words around and then expect logical proofs, and this is more you, then you better have your ducks in a row otherwise you're going to get called out like you have.


I'd have thought that was exactly why we did contract the sentence. They're both things I'm in the best position to say.
I'm not in the habit of saying "I think I'm British", I would say "I think your American (posting time and lack of U's)".

These aren't the same either. I'm either American or not and you're either British or not and you can demonstrate them. You also changed "my opinion" to "I think" which..I think you did because I brought up an opinion tells us what you're thinking. But that doesn't mean think=opinion are 1:1 either.


The "my opinion of your opinion" shows that it is perfectly possible to nest opinions. From these two things it seems reasonable to assume that "My opinion of my opinion" is an example of this and that something similar could be sade of "My opinion of my favourite".

Except you miss a beat here. You know your thoughts, you don't know mine and that missing knowledge is why you can nest the first and not nest the second. Just because you can do the one doesn't mean you can do it elsewhere.


And as such any relationship between "My favourite colour" and "In my opinion the best colour" has to be argued on it's own merits. I'd probably favour them being highly correlated or mutually causal rather than fundementally directly synonymous.
Two reasons: in the first post you gave a perfect example of a case when the favourite is not the best. More generally I'm not sure that I ever actually think my favourite colour is the 'best', it's definitely the 'best at making me individually respond the way I do to favourite things', but that's different claim.

It depends on the situation but I've already hedged that particular area enough to the point that me repeating "there are cases outside the norm"/general is not specific isn't doing anyone any good.

[jayem]

Well no because there's nuance and the answer to the OP's question is that some opinions can be right or wrong while others can't and they have to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

That is an even fuller answer.
His position was that given any opinion, it can't be right or wrong. To do that you'd either need to exclude lots of things I think would be opinions (and we've now confirmed at least one of them is an opinion), or that those opinions can't be right or wrong (again we've confirmed that said opinion doesn't come in that category)

Had the OP asked about favourites, subjective opinions, I wouldn't be so sure. Hence I clearly don't actually treat them as being synonymous.



Right but this is acknowledged. Sometimes synonymous words don't substitute. You've presented one such occurrence.

Well you've got 2nd favourite, least favourite etc... (which I'd accept as being special cases of favourite, but at some point it's looking more like "likes")
Our opinions about our governments, colleagues, motivations, others motivations
Most interesting book, most passionate book, longest book I've read.
Any thing unknown about an object.

For every 'favourite' (X out of Y), I think just asking the question 'so why do you think, X is the best out of Y', will reveal at least one non-favourite opinion. (I leave open the possibility that that one of those opinions could be you don't actually think X is the best)

For every persons favourite, someone has probably considered "what is their favourite" (with the intention of selling, giving, being, critiscising) it.
For a large number of opinions you hold, you've presumably considered and rejected it's opposite. For others you've changed your mind.



Ok but then you (and Cheesegear) have to admit that you're using the world Feeling in a way that isn't the same as the general use of the term because you both just are. While you're at that, you should probably ask yourself why and see if you can't come up with something else. Especially if you're going to hold people (and this is more Cheesegear) to not using the terms "wrong". If you're going to swap words around and then expect logical proofs, and this is more you, then you better have your ducks in a row otherwise you're going to get called out like you have.

Have I used feeling in any swapping words situation? Feeling has other meanings, and definitely wouldn't be my favourite word to use in such an argument. We've used it when we've listed things we would consider more synonymous.
And it's a minority that explicitly includes Cambridge [url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/feeling#cald4-1-3], Merriam Webster (4a : often unreasoned opinion or belief). As you say that doesn't prove it's the best use, and I'm not holding you to it, and you can call for clarification when we build on it.
But at that point it's a minority that's sufficiently large for me to be happy to not feel like some sort of freak for using it in that way (as well as meanings 1-3 in their context).




These aren't the same either. I'm either American or not and you're either British or not and you can demonstrate them. You also changed "my opinion" to "I think" which..I think you did because I brought up an opinion tells us what you're thinking. But that doesn't mean think=opinion are 1:1 either.

I can demonstrate one of them. I could get request the info to demonstrate (or as far as I know to prove my opinion was wrong) the other.
It wasn't targeted as a deliberate response, if there were any motivation it would have been to highlight the absurdity of me qualifying my statement.

[Fiery Diamond]

Chalk it up to how sloppy language is. I actually don't think favorite is a preference though I absolutely understand that people use it that way and I think in a colloquial sense that's fine. If I were going to express a strong or even exclusionary preference I'd say something like...love or something along that line. Saying something is my favorite goes beyond simple preference, as mentioned above. When I say I love something or hate something, I'm telling you something about how I feel about the object or thought in question. When I say it's my favorite, I'm telling you that I think it's the best/use whatever word here to mean a top order and that's an opinion which can be scrutinized based on my own actions.

This is literally the exact opposite of how I use favorite, preference, and love/hate. Favorite is simply strong preference for, whereas if I love something then I think that it should be considered to be good, even by others - it's a value judgement born of my feelings ("I love it, therefore it is good" with the second half just going unsaid), not just a preference. In fact, I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here, as I've never seen favorite used the way you are using it.

"Blue is my favorite color" and "I think blue is the best color" are NOT functionally identical to me, and I don't think you're in the majority for saying they are. "Blue is my favorite color" is akin to "I find blue more aesthetically pleasing than I do any other color," saying NOTHING about the actual value of blue. "I think blue is the best color," however, is a value statement akin to what you claim to mean by favorite, which, as I've said, I've never heard anyone use favorite that way before.

As for what counts as opinion... preferences are more closely related to feelings than they are to opinions. Opinions are beliefs (as, for example, of values) or suppositions of fact without proof positive. For example: It is my opinion that your interpretation of "favorite" is not the most commonly held one. I arrived at this opinion through examining my personal experience and this thread. However, I do not have solid statistical data conclusively proving that I am correct. Therefore, it is an opinion.

Also: if you actually use favorite in the way you say you do... wow. Do you actually have a favorite color in that sense? Because that's... I would question the sanity of anyone claiming to have a favorite color in that sense. Anyone who actually thinks there is a best color... that's kind of insane. Unless I have misunderstood you and you think "X is the best Y" means different things based on context? Because in my usage, "X is the best Y" doesn't mean "I prefer it the most" it means "I think that others should also value X most highly of Y." That is, it's an opinion, not a preference.

[Razade]

Have I used feeling in any swapping words situation? Feeling has other meanings, and definitely wouldn't be my favourite word to use in such an argument. We've used it when we've listed things we would consider more synonymous.
And it's a minority that explicitly includes Cambridge [url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/feeling#cald4-1-3], Merriam Webster (4a : often unreasoned opinion or belief). As you say that doesn't prove it's the best use, and I'm not holding you to it, and you can call for clarification when we build on it.
But at that point it's a minority that's sufficiently large for me to be happy to not feel like some sort of freak for using it in that way (as well as meanings 1-3 in their context).

Not as such no, I very clearly specified that that was on Cheesegear but you also said you more or less agreed with them....so yeah.

Also notice that (at least for Mirriam) that definition is number 4 on the list. I bet you if I looked the way I was using it was much higher on the list, because those listings are based on common usage. Weird that you didn't include that while trying to be pithy. I wonder why *Checks*

OH HEY. Number 2. Surprised it's not higher but I totally get the first usage being the most common.




Also: if you actually use favorite in the way you say you do... wow. Do you actually have a favorite color in that sense? Because that's... I would question the sanity of anyone claiming to have a favorite color in that sense. Anyone who actually thinks there is a best color... that's kind of insane. Unless I have misunderstood you and you think "X is the best Y" means different things based on context? Because in my usage, "X is the best Y" doesn't mean "I prefer it the most" it means "I think that others should also value X most highly of Y." That is, it's an opinion, not a preference.

Wow, good to know that you just throw everyone into a bin as "insane" if they deviate from your usage of terms. That's...really gross, actually!! You clearly did misunderstand though because I made it really clear that context is important in my back and forth with Jayem. I do my best to be pretty precise with my wording and hedge my bets, I throw in a lot of generally and in most cases to make sure that it's really really clear that I don't mean things in an absolute way.

But that, to me, is a really strange way of using "the best". Because I'd never personally presume to ever tell someone what they should value based on my own personal experiences. I think you might be off base on just how common people use it my way, if that's how you use it. When someone tells me fruit loops is the best cereal I take it to mean that's their opinion and generally that seems to be the right assumption. I almost never take it to mean they think I should also feel that way. I do sometimes but when I do, I respond in kind like this. Because it's just like, your opinion dude.

[Xyril]

Wow, good to know that you just throw everyone into a bin as "insane" if they deviate from your usage of terms. That's...really gross, actually!!


We're supposed to presume good faith, but this strikes me as very disingenuous. You're obviously a reasonably intelligent person, and you acknowledge the inherent ambiguity of language and the importance of context. For example:



You clearly did misunderstand though because I made it really clear that context is important in my back and forth with Jayem. I do my best to be pretty precise with my wording and hedge my bets, I throw in a lot of generally and in most cases to make sure that it's really really clear that I don't mean things in an absolute way.

So I'm going to assume that you made a mistake, and that you didn't deliberately ignore some obvious, important context as a pretext for some righteous indignation and to call somebody "gross."

Personally, I agree with your position much more than Fiery Diamond's when it comes to how most people delineate terms like "favorite," "opinion," and "best." Personally, I'd be very surprised if somebody has never encountered the use of "Blue is the best color" to mean "Blue is my preferred color," or "Blue is the color that is most aesthetically pleasing to me." And if Fiery Diamond had argued "anyone who uses the word 'best' to mean anything other than my own idiosyncratic way is insane," I would probably be right the righteous indignation train.

That said, context matters--like you say. At least from my first reading of his post, it seemed clear and unambiguous that he wasn't criticizing people who "deviate from [his] usage of terms," as you assert. The allegedly "gross" comment was clearly directed to people who believe that there can be a [value judgment] "best" color.

And honestly, I don't entirely agree with him on that point. I agree that the idea of one color being morally "the best" is crazy. I think that the idea of of one color being "the best" in a morally-agnostic, but somehow objective, universal metric has no basis in logic, but I wouldn't go as far to call the idea insane, simply because it has a quasi-basis in sound reasoning. Some colors are better suited for certain roles than others--by a given metric or for a given function, there can absolutely be a "best" color. On that basis, it's not insane to think that you might look at a bunch of these metrics on a meta-level and come up with some sort of overall ranking--even if such an idea doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.


Because I'd never personally presume to ever tell someone what they should value based on my own personal experiences.

"Never" seems a bit strong. Well, if you're parsing this as a statement of absolute fact, then the absolute raises some issues. As an aspirational statement, it's one I think folks can get behind.

[jayem]

Weird that you didn't include [other definitions] while trying to be pithy. I wonder why *Checks*

I don't think I was that covert about there being other uses.
The reason was because the other uses were irrelevant. I didn't care what else I used the word for, or what you instead used the word for, just that other people used the word the same way I sometimes do.

The multiple uses is one reason I wouldn't want to make heavy use of the word 'feelings'. You consider all the problems the OP, you and I and everyone else has had, where we were at least (trying to be) individually consistent. Imagine what it would be like where we also have six significantly different usages*.
The other is that feelings(4) is defined on all those dictionaries in-terms of opinions, so while that gives me some company feeling(4) the way I did about the relationship, it doesn't really give anything to build on.
___

*MWebster has three definitions of opinion, but my opinion they are very tied together.


____


The argument was about opinions and that opinions can be wrong,


Responding now to the OP, while as is clear I think that the other peoples examples are opinions*, and they are opinions that can be wrong* (and thus am at least some disagreement).

I do think it true that there are opinions that can't be wrong.
And definitely true that there are preferences that can't be factually 'false'. Possibly true that there are no preferences that are themselves are incorrect**
And that your examples were examples of opinions or preferences that fall in that category.

If your friends had started out by saying "Opinions have to be true/false" and then everything followed exactly the same, I would by 90% on your side (99.99% if they'd said "Preferences...")

*There is a handicap that if they know they are wrong, they aren't their opinion. The easier it is to show that it is wrong, the more it will look self evidently wrong (and hence a bit artificial). While if they can show it's genuine, and not self evidently wrong, then you can believe it's not wrong.


**
What does it even mean to say Red/Brown is false, it's a colour, colours don't do veracity.
However:
It could be that for some arcane reason, hypnosis?, you were somehow fundamentally wrong about what you think your favourite colour is. (quite how that would work is an exercise to the reader).
My favourite cartoon is The Late Show, would also have issues.

[Razade]

We're supposed to presume good faith, but this strikes me as very disingenuous. You're obviously a reasonably intelligent person, and you acknowledge the inherent ambiguity of language and the importance of context. For example:



So I'm going to assume that you made a mistake, and that you didn't deliberately ignore some obvious, important context as a pretext for some righteous indignation and to call somebody "gross."

I didn't call them gross, I called the sentiment gross. I totally get that they're using it in a colloquial sense. It's why I used quotations around insane. I do think it's gross to use insane in that context, in the same way I'd think it was gross if someone used the word gay to describe something they think is gross or as often is the case, stupid or unnecessary. Of course I don't think Diamond was actually calling them mentally ill. I'm not even indignant, just frustrated that people are still using it for what is close to a pejorative slang. Which I also don't think Diamond was going for which is why I didn't just ignore it and report it.


Personally, I agree with your position much more than Fiery Diamond's when it comes to how most people delineate terms like "favorite," "opinion," and "best." Personally, I'd be very surprised if somebody has never encountered the use of "Blue is the best color" to mean "Blue is my preferred color," or "Blue is the color that is most aesthetically pleasing to me." And if Fiery Diamond had argued "anyone who uses the word 'best' to mean anything other than my own idiosyncratic way is insane," I would probably be right the righteous indignation train.

That said, context matters--like you say. At least from my first reading of his post, it seemed clear and unambiguous that he wasn't criticizing people who "deviate from [his] usage of terms," as you assert. The allegedly "gross" comment was clearly directed to people who believe that there can be a [value judgment] "best" color.

I think they got very close. Close enough for even a little indignation.



"Never" seems a bit strong. Well, if you're parsing this as a statement of absolute fact, then the absolute raises some issues. As an aspirational statement, it's one I think folks can get behind.

Considering I've flat out said I don't believe in absolutes in this very thread, I think it's fair to assume the latter. :smalltongue:

[veti]

Saying that something is "the best" is, inherently, an incomplete claim. "Blue is the best colour" means nothing at all, unless it can be applied to something - best for what?

Without any other context or clues, it might be reasonable to assume the answer is "pleasing the person making the claim", and so it's simply a statement of preference, no more or less loaded than "my favourite colour is blue".

But in reality, there is always context. Even if I create a brand new Twitter account, post "Blue is the best colour" without any clue as to what I'm talking about, anyone who reads it is going to make their own assumptions. I might be talking about the background of Twitter, or a line on a graph, or my new face mask. Anyone who thinks about the statement will see it in the context of whatever they are currently preoccupied with, and their reaction will be based on that.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Of course opinions can be wrong. I've been curating the MitD thread for ages. It is filled wall-to-wall with opinions: on what is and isn't a clue, what abilities fulfil those clues, what MitD is, and so on. Inevitably, most of those opinions will turn out to be wrong. Heck, I'll count myself lucky if any turn out to be right.

Grey Wolf

[Johel]

So.. I was somehow dragged into an argument about opinions and well, it lfet my brain hurting.

The argument was about opinions and that opinions can be wrong, to which I passionately disagreed with.

My examples used in the argument was telling me that I am wrong because my favorite colors are black and red (or red and black, I say then in either order), that my friends favorite cartoon growing up being Tranformers, or my sister liking cotton to tie-dye over synthetic is not inherently wrong.

The during the discussion the examples everybody else ( and I mean literally, I was the only one on my side) were not opinion, they were opinions presented as facts, to which I kept trying to explain "that's not an opinion, that just stating an incorrect fact."



So, I guess I just needed a place to vent and then to posit if indeed people cannot tell the difference between a fact, an opinion, and an opinion presented as a fact.

Or if I am truly wrong and somehow opinions can be wrong?

There is always an optimal answer for any given question and so an optimal choice for any given problem.
This means that while you can find a solution through different ways, there's always one that is objectively better.
The whole issue is "what are the criteria to define what is best ?"

The distinction you can make between "opinions" and "facts" here is a difference on these criterias :
Asking for opinions is asking about subjective preference ("what do you like better")
Asking for facts is asking about actual objective truth ("what are things")

Of course, it might be your opinion that something is while, in objective truth, it isn't.

If your opinion is that the grass is red, we have objective ways to verify this and prove you wrong.
It is an opinion presented as fact.

If your opinion is that sweet popcorn tastes better than salted popcorn, we can conduct a poll among people to know what is the majority answer.
But that's really, in the end, just an opinion, since there's no real objective truth, as it's purely a matter of preference.

We might dig further to know WHY you prefer sweet over salty for popcorn.
You might have actual arguments which don't boil down to "I like it better".
And for this, we can examine objective truth... and so find facts.

So yes, opinions can be wrong when they are routed in incorrect facts.
But if they are really just preferences... they can hardly be wrong, as the criteria for right or wrong would be "what do you like best ?".

[Xyril]

Of course opinions can be wrong. I've been curating the MitD thread for ages. It is filled wall-to-wall with opinions: on what is and isn't a clue, what abilities fulfil those clues, what MitD is, and so on. Inevitably, most of those opinions will turn out to be wrong. Heck, I'll count myself lucky if any turn out to be right.

Grey Wolf

I think the whole "second opinion" terminology has occluded a key distinction--analysis, predictions, factual assertions of things not proven incontrovertibly, they're not "opinion" in the strictest sense. They're factual assertions. And like you say, they can be wrong.

People like to call them "opinion" to acknowledge the fact that analysis has subjective elements and that reaching the wrong conclusion doesn't always imply that your reasoning was flawed or invalid. Individuals might have different information about the situation at hand and different education and training with which to understand that information. In terms of making accurate and useful predictions--particular in science--some models and methods are provably better than others, and despite the fact that we acknowledge that human knowledge might never reach the level of perfection, theoretically there could be a perfect (or at least best) model out there.

Things get wonkier when you involve human behavior--particularly humans who could interact with your predictions. Rich could theoretically decide to troll everyone in that thread and reveal that the MitD is actually three Minbari under a trench coat, using dragon orbs to enact all of its demonstrated abilities. At which point literally everyone would be factually wrong about their prediction.

However, being factually wrong or right doesn't definitively tell you how reasonable they were in making that prediction. If the strips leave clues that conspicuously coincide with the most prominent traits listed in the Monster Manual, it's pretty reasonable to say that this is the monster. If someone else points to a history of deliberate subversions and fake outs by the author and claims that the "obvious" choices would never be picked, that could also be compelling analysis. And if someone claims that Rich will spin a wheel of monsters, and that they predicted his choice because they spun their wheel of monsters, which is connected to Rich's through quantum entanglement... then you should probably ask some more questions before getting too invested in their claims.





I didn't call them gross, I called the sentiment gross.


That's a fine hair to split, but sure.


I think they got very close. Close enough for even a little indignation.




I totally get that they're using it in a colloquial sense. It's why I used quotations around insane.


Ah, so you're against people using "insane," "crazy," etc. to describe any action that they find... I guess irrational, self-destructed, contrary to social norms, (sorry, I honestly can't think of any single perfect synonym that can capture all of the nuances intrinsic to the terms that offend you.) That's fair, but I don't think you did a great job communicating that point. In fact, your response to me was the first time you went into any depth at all about using those terms being inherently offensive to the mentally ill.

My actual objection, which you might have overlooked, was to this (emphasis added)

Wow, good to know that you just throw everyone into a bin as "insane" if they deviate from your usage of terms. That's...really gross, actually!!

Like I said previously, you're incorrectly characterizing his post. The "crazy" thing isn't that other people use words to mean slightly different things than he personally does, it's the the idea that any one color can be intrinsically superior (beyond the context of personal preference.)



I do think it's gross to use insane in that context, in the same way I'd think it was gross if someone used the word gay to describe something they think is gross or as often is the case, stupid or unnecessary.


And again, that might be a reasonable position to take, if the context you described were an accurate reflection of what was actually said. I actually agree with you that maybe it's not great to--as you incorrectly assert--to call people insane simply because they've internalized slightly different meanings for words that you have. Or because they disagree with you in general.

However, I find it hard to get indignant about this particular use. For some things, I think it's perfectly rational to believe a best example exists. A car, for example. You have metrics that you can use to compare cars, and you can theoretically have one that's equal or superior to another one by every conceivable metric. Once you get into trade-offs, you can aggregate metrics into a single, unified value that should hopefully have some general value for comparing cars. At that point, you get into preference-ish territory, but there's still an inherent logic in picking an overall meta-metric that matters to you, and using that to determine the best cars for what you think the quintessential function of a car is. (Even if that function is "look cool, regardless of functionality.)

However, for something like color, or race, I find it much harder to get indignant about asserting that it's inherently irrational to believe that one is the overall [value judgment] "best." Yes, maybe you have a point that it's more politically correct and sensitive to use a more neutral term like "irrational" instead of "insane" or "crazy," and if you had devoted substantial text to emphasizing that point rather than breaking down all the ways you thought that someone else's definitions for "opinion" didn't match those of "normal people," then that point would have come across better.

That does raise another interesting issue: Aren't you now telling people how they should be using and valuing terms based on your own personal experiences? In terms of slurs and pejorative uses, I think society is generally on the right track in terms of values, even if individually we don't always live up to those values. We recognize that some terms are offensive when we see the history of use in an intentionally offensive way. We acknowledge that even when there isn't malicious intent, the use of a term might offend some people, and that when those people take offense, then our lack of malicious intent doesn't somehow invalidate their offense. And I think it's good that some people, when governing their own words and actions, are considerate enough to try to predict what might be offensive and to give it a wide berth.

However, I'm much more ambivalent about the trend of taking offense on behalf of others. I don't suffer from mental illness, so I don't claim to speak from that experience, and if someone wants to point me to some body who could legitimately claim to speak on behalf of folks with mental illness asserting that "crazy" is effectively the n-word, then I have no reason to question their claims and experiences. All I can say is that the folks I know well who openly struggle with mental illness don't take the position that you do. They've never claimed that they find the use of "crazy" or "insane" in every context to be inherently insulting or demeaning. Many have expressed that they really don't like it when someone lumps the whole panoply of diverse mental illnesses under the same "crazy" umbrella, or call them "insane" as a way to dismiss the opinion or to attack the credibility of someone just because they suffer from depression or bipolar disorder. However, I don't think I've ever noticed anyone taking offense or conspicuously avoiding the use of the term in more neutral contexts. (Also, one of these guys is a college drinking buddy who talked people into streaking with him eight times before finals, so I'm pretty sure the phrase "this is crazy!" has been uttered in front of him countless times.)

It seems that at worst, something like "crazy" could be compared to a word like "thug": Offensive for its use (or overuse in certain contexts) and arguably a dog whistle in others. However, the defining characteristic of a dog whistle is that it has a long history of neutral, inoffensive usage to hide behind. As a good citizen, it's probably a good idea to familiarize yourself with the problematic contexts so you can avoid inadvertent offense, but I think most people already do that. (At least, for me and most people I know, it seems universally accepted that calling someone with mental illness "crazy" pretty much makes you a huge jerk, if not worse.) However, jerks co-opting a term doesn't seem like enough justification to go around trying to eradicate all prior uses from our vernacular.



Considering I've flat out said I don't believe in absolutes in this very thread, I think it's fair to assume the latter. :smalltongue:

True, but considering that I was pointing out where I thought that maybe your last post wasn't entirely in keeping with some of the statements admonishments you were making elsewhere in this thread, I thought it best to raise the point anyway.

[Razade]

That's a fine hair to split, but sure.


I don't think it's too fine a one, it's important. I'm not calling them gross, I'm calling the usage of a term like "insane" to sweep people up into a category (I realize that's not exactly what they were trying to do but I don't think it's squinting when one might conclude it is) gross. There's a slew of words that I can't even bring up on these forums due to a change in the sensitivity people have, that's changed them to slurs of a sort. That's not me decrying PC culture, I'm just saying if we've relegated those words, and I think you know at least one or two off the top of your head, than insane ought to be on there. Mental health issues have a hard enough time being taken seriously even in this day in age.



Ah, so you're against people using "insane," "crazy," etc. to describe any action that they find... I guess irrational, self-destructed, contrary to social norms, (sorry, I honestly can't think of any single perfect synonym that can capture all of the nuances intrinsic to the terms that offend you.) That's fair, but I don't think you did a great job communicating that point. In fact, your response to me was the first time you went into any depth at all about using those terms being inherently offensive to the mentally ill.

I'm not so much against, because who the hell am I to tell you what you can say...I don't want that job..., as pointing out it's not particularly a good look. Crazy has been used in a lot of different contexts so that one doesn't particularly bother me, irrational is a fine one to use and I certainly think that's what Diamond was going for more on the point I contended. Insane just has a good deal of hefty baggage with it, often as a brute dismissal in a context that crazy or irrational just doesn't. As someone with mental health issues, I am certainly more cognizant of it as a pejorative having heard it to render any thoughts I might have on a subject moot simply by merit that my brain chemistry is out of wack. Which I don't think Diamond was going for.



My actual objection, which you might have overlooked, was to this (emphasis added)


Like I said previously, you're incorrectly characterizing his post. The "crazy" thing isn't that other people use words to mean slightly different things than he personally does, it's the the idea that any one color can be intrinsically superior (beyond the context of personal preference.)

*Snip*

I didn't miss it, rather I think there was a mix of both. You've certainly argued the point well that I might have not been taking it in the best of faith but I'm still convinced there was a mix of both what I was contending and what I missed bringing up and you've rightly pointed out.


True, but considering that I was pointing out where I thought that maybe your last post wasn't entirely in keeping with some of the statements admonishments you were making elsewhere in this thread, I thought it best to raise the point anyway.

It's fair, I won't skip an opportunity to press the point that absolute anything isn't anything I ever argue even if I don't qualify it in every statement. If for no other reason than to make sure that people will know what I don't that it's implied.

[Bartmanhomer]

That's the problem when people can't accept the difference of opinions. For example when I post a negative movie review about the Avengers: Infinity War everybody was making a big deal about my negative review. All I was doing is to express my honest opinion of the movie. I mean seriously they can't force me to change my opinion to like something that I hate just to make everybody happy.

[snowblizz]

That's the problem when people can't accept the difference of opinions. For example when I post a negative movie review about the Avengers: Infinity War everybody was making a big deal about my negative review. All I was doing is to express my honest opinion of the movie. I mean seriously they can't force me to change my opinion to like something that I hate just to make everybody happy.

Well their opinion is that they can.


Opinions are funny that way. You are watching what is called tribalism and sunk cost fallacy combining in a very funny way*. That is the idea that if you don't like what they did and express it, then that is an attack on everything they stand for. Since they put effort into liking A:IW trying to change their liking is an attack on their core beliefs. It's all very silly, but the TL:DR is if you don't like exactly what they do you are attacking their personal values.


*well that's my opinion, it is the best way I can describe it really

[Bartmanhomer]

Well their opinion is that they can.


Opinions are funny that way. You are watching what is called tribalism and sunk cost fallacy combining in a very funny way*. That is the idea that if you don't like what they did and express it, then that is an attack on everything they stand for. Since they put effort into liking A:IW trying to change their liking is an attack on their core beliefs. It's all very silly, but the TL:DR is if you don't like exactly what they do you are attacking their personal values.


*well that's my opinion, it is the best way I can describe it really
I know right. It's ridiculous. If people can't accept my opinion, then too bad.

[Tvtyrant]

I know right. It's ridiculous. If people can't accept my opinion, then too bad.

But that is their opinion as well. If you publicly express an opinion other people get to publicly respond, that is how opinions work.

[Bartmanhomer]

But that is their opinion as well. If you publicly express an opinion other people get to publicly respond, that is how opinions work.

I understand that. But if people want me to change my opinion on a certain topic then I'm not going to change my opinion to align their opinion on that topic. People are entitled to express their opinion, so do I. They don't have to agree with me on my opinion and I don't have to agree on their opinion. So the feeling is mutual. :annoyed:

[Mystic Muse]

That's the problem when people can't accept the difference of opinions. For example when I post a negative movie review about the Avengers: Infinity War everybody was making a big deal about my negative review. All I was doing is to express my honest opinion of the movie. I mean seriously they can't force me to change my opinion to like something that I hate just to make everybody happy.

You've brought this example up a few times now. I went back to look at it. People weren't making a big deal about your negative review being negative because of it being negative. People were saying you weren't honestly engaging the film on its own terms.

Nobody minded that you didn't like it. Heck, nobody gave Magic Hat grief for not liking the entire MCU. They reacted poorly because you did not engage the film on its own terms, and some of what you said such as "The Heroes didn't make an effort to stop Thanos" was blatantly not true, because the heroes made multiple efforts to stop Thanos, they just failed.

This goes back to what I've said about constructive criticism versus not. The heroes were never going to win in part 1 of a 2 part movie. That's not how narrative structures work.

No one's saying you have to agree with them, they were just trying to help make your movie reviews better and more objective. There's a pretty wide gulf between "I didn't like this movie" And "This movie was actively bad." Both are objective statements, but the first is based on subjective criteria, and the second has to be based on objective criteria.

[Bartmanhomer]

You've brought this example up a few times now. I went back to look at it. People weren't making a big deal about your negative review being negative because of it being negative. People were saying you weren't honestly engaging the film on its own terms.

Nobody minded that you didn't like it. Heck, nobody gave Magic Hat grief for not liking the entire MCU. They reacted poorly because you did not engage the film on its own terms, and some of what you said such as "The Heroes didn't make an effort to stop Thanos" was blatantly not true, because the heroes made multiple efforts to stop Thanos, they just failed.

This goes back to what I've said about constructive criticism versus not. The heroes were never going to win in part 1 of a 2 part movie. That's not how narrative structures work.

No one's saying you have to agree with them, they were just trying to help make your movie reviews better and more objective. There's a pretty wide gulf between "I didn't like this movie" And "This movie was actively bad." Both are objective statements, but the first is based on subjective criteria, and the second has to be based on objective criteria.

Ok, maybe your right about that. I still didn't like the movie either way.

[Mystic Muse]

Ok, maybe your right about that. I still didn't like the movie either way.

And that is perfectly fine, and I am not trying to change your opinion on that. Just know people were not saying you not liking the movie was wrong. They were just trying to help your review.

[Bartmanhomer]

And that is perfectly fine, and I am not trying to change your opinion on that. Just know people were not saying you not liking the movie was wrong. They were just trying to help your review.

Ok since we got that clear maybe this is a better example. A few years ago I made a Facebook post about my dislike of Judge Judy. The reason why I dislike her because she verbally abused her guest on her show. It was a very reasonable and valid opinion. Anyway, a Facebook friend of mine got upset about me because of what I said about her and I told him "I have a right to express my opinion whatever you agree with me or not and I have a right to speak my mind on that." And he said that "I have the right to block you." and he blocked me on Facebook permanently over a TV show.

[veti]

Whether you like or don't like something - is not really a question that can be debated. If you don't like it, you don't like it. Fine, whatever. Others may disagree, and that's also fine.

But there is another kind of "opinion", the kind that appears to be something more than just a matter of personal preference. If you say that something is "good" or "bad", let alone "best" or "worst", then you have to be prepared to defend your opinion. Explain your criteria, and how you arrived at that conclusion. Then others can understand your reasoning, and form their own judgments as to whether your judgment is valid.

Which is why professional reviewers write a great deal more than "I hated this movie because it didn't end happily". They'll write about how the movie sets up expectations, then fails to fulfil them. How it forgets about its own loose ends. See here (http://www.scifiwright.com/2014/02/the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-tolkien/), for example.

[snowblizz]

But that is their opinion as well. If you publicly express an opinion other people get to publicly respond, that is how opinions work.


I understand that. But if people want me to change my opinion on a certain topic then I'm not going to change my opinion to align their opinion on that topic. People are entitled to express their opinion, so do I. They don't have to agree with me on my opinion and I don't have to agree on their opinion. So the feeling is mutual. :annoyed:
Well I can't specifically speak of this situation, it may not apply here. But I can emphatizse with the idea that it feels like other people cannot let me have my opinion. The internet has always been like this IMO. I sometimes get this overwhelming urge to try and "correct" people online. It's super futile but still.

If we are going to be honest now I checked down a couple replies, it can't be discounted that people are against a negative review just because it's a negative review and then just picks something in it to try and dismiss it outright. For argument's sake let's say you watch A:IW and do indeed think it sucks because the heroes didn't win. Well, one way to look at it is: I went to the movie and didn't realise I was ending up in a "To Be Continued..." I hate those sprung on me in tv shows as a kid and I would probably not appreciate it now. I may not realise at the time I wrote the review that this was what bothered me. The only thing I could tell is I saw it, heroes lsot and I thought it was bad. That doesn't mean I was wrong however. Or that pointing out there is a supposed logical flaw, from the perspective of someon reaidng ti without my experience, means the other person is right. We had different frames of references.


Whether you like or don't like something - is not really a question that can be debated. If you don't like it, you don't like it. Fine, whatever. Others may disagree, and that's also fine.

Err... yes it can? Why you like or dislike something is kinda fundamental. It's why pressing the sadface emoji on a feedback form pops a "can you please tell us what was wrong" prompt, whreas the positive emojis usually won't. Not all likes or dislikes are easy to dig out, but usually it's worth digging a little deeper than the surface. There exists huge industries based on the idea to that figuring out why you like or dislike things matters.

The difference between a debate and the thing Bartmanhomer is sorta describing is that in the former people don't take it as a personal insult that you didn't think the same way and berates you on every point of disagreement. It really should be about paring down to understand the others viewpoint, but mostly it turns into trying to change it.

I don't like Reservoir Dogs, but I like the Sharknado movies. I bet most you will want click the spoiler tags for the explanation. Instead of just shrugging and and going "meh likes and dislikes matters not".

It is a funny thing, I can on the face of it appreciate that Reservoir Dogs has good acting, good directing, good writing. I should enjoy this.
On the other hand I can tell Sharknado has terrible acting, sucky effects, mediocre directing and mediocre at best writing. Yet, I enjoy it more than the former.
The thing Sharknado has is love of making film, it knows what it is and doesn't try to be more than it can. It knows it is flawed and can't live up to standards it would like so it just is what it is. And I can appreciate that. You can feel it all throughtout, "we loved making movies but this was the best we could do, but it was a blast doing it". And for the record as they make more of the franchise this charms wears off for me. The second one I cna still feel the wonder, "omg! we got to make a seocnd one!?! how did that happen". After that they are eaten up by the souless chasm that's Hollywood and people trying to muscle in on a surprise hit.
I couldn't for a long time put my finger on why I don't liek Reservoir Dogs, until in a the chat of a game I said I didn't like it, and someone said yeah it's the violence scene in it. And I realised they were absolutely correct. That long tortuous, literally, thing in it just makes it badwrong for me. I would never have though of it myself because e.g. Kill Bill vol 1&2's gratituous violence does not bother me at all. I think Kill Bill feels too over the top silly, whereas Reservoir Dogs comes over as "real".
I can apreciate that on most, probably all, metrics a film is evaluated Reservoir Dogs is a far far better film than Sharknado. And the scene in Reservoir Dogs I can objectively say is vey powerful, emotional, imapctful, it gets to me clearly. But it also means I can't enjoy any of it.

And as another example (and yes it's another Tarantino because I want to cut down variables) I never could enjoy Inglorious Basterds either, my specific gripe here (I think) is that it's so wildly a-historical I can't get past that, and it ruins it all.

[Razade]

I dislike pistachio ice cream Snowblizz. Change my mind. What debate are you going to have over that?

[Xyril]

I dislike pistachio ice cream Snowblizz. Change my mind. What debate are you going to have over that?

Have you only had Ice Penguin brand pistachio ice cream? They just stick nuts into a generic ice cream recipe and expect it to work, but they fail to realize that the pistachios react with the other ingredients in an unexpected way that many people don't like. And Frost Troll brand ice cream uses artificial pistachio flavor that uses a chemical related to the one that only certain people can taste, causing them to hate many vegetables.

Have you tried White Walker's version? A lot of people who hate the more popular brands love that one, maybe you will too.

I mean, that's all hypothetical, but you seem to be missing the point of debate. Yeah, maybe changing someone's mind is a possible end goal, but if that's the only reason you debate then you're going to be disappointed 99% of the time, and missing out on a lot of what life has to offer. Sometimes, just getting a change to understand more about why someone feels the way they do or to reexamine your own positions from someone else's perspective is in itself a worthwhile goal.

On a more concrete note, I thought that I hated lobster ice cream for years. The debate that changed my mind was basically, "Wait, was Ben and Jerry's the only one you've ever tried?" Understandable, since not too many people make lobster ice cream, even fewer make it well, and usually whenever I've been somewhere that offered lobster ice cream, it was usually the fun sort of place that offered a lot of other novel food options that would be more fun to waste money and calories on than another version of something I strongly disliked before. I thought I disliked lobster ice cream, but when it came down to it, I disliked Ben and Jerry's lobster ice cream, and generalized from there. From a cost-benefit standpoint, there was never any reason to go out and challenge that generalization, until someone I trusted told me that she also hate the Ben and Jerry's version and offered me a taste of one she claimed was amazing.

Why we like things can be a lot more complicated than it looks on the surface. While it might not always be worthwhile to debate the question, often it is--particularly when you get into such complex things as movies, as this thread is discussing.

More importantly, when you hold yourself out as a reviewer--whether amateur or professional--you're implicitly telling people that your opinion is somehow relevant to their opinion or actions. If that's the case, the hows and whys of your opinion immediately become more worthy of debate. Assuming that Razade's Thread of Ice Cream Flavor Reviews isn't just an exercise in self-expression for its own sake, you're presumably trying to give folks with similar tastes an idea of ice cream flavors that they might like. If that's your goal in publishing your opinions (or more importantly, if that's their goal in reading them), then doesn't it make sense for them to try to understand more about why you like the things you do, so they can decide whether your tastes and theirs match enough to put stock in your reviews? If you hate nuts and they don't, then that's a sign that your opinion on rocky road might not be useful to them.

I don't presume to understand Bartmanhomer. Some say he's trolling, but my first instinct is that he's genuinely trying to connect with people and perhaps struggling with the task. Or maybe he just wants to be a bit of an influencer when it comes to movies. Either way, "debating his opinion" kind of becomes the point. With respect to the review aspect, I've already made my point. With respect to the connection aspect... I mean, well, come on, right? I suppose you can have a conversation where you both say you like or dislike something, but that seems like a really superficial interaction if you never discuss what you disliked or liked about it, and why those aspects are important to you.

[Razade]

Have you only had Ice Penguin brand pistachio ice cream? They just stick nuts into a generic ice cream recipe and expect it to work, but they fail to realize that the pistachios react with the other ingredients in an unexpected way that many people don't like. And Frost Troll brand ice cream uses artificial pistachio flavor that uses a chemical related to the one that only certain people can taste, causing them to hate many vegetables.

Have you tried White Walker's version? A lot of people who hate the more popular brands love that one, maybe you will too.

I don't need to have tried all the types of pestachio ice cream to know I don't like it. I don't like pistachios. There's no debate here.


I mean, that's all hypothetical, but you seem to be missing the point of debate. Yeah, maybe changing someone's mind is a possible end goal, but if that's the only reason you debate then you're going to be disappointed 99% of the time, and missing out on a lot of what life has to offer. Sometimes, just getting a change to understand more about why someone feels the way they do or to reexamine your own positions from someone else's perspective is in itself a worthwhile goal.

I don't think I am.


On a more concrete note, I thought that I hated lobster ice cream for years. The debate that changed my mind was basically, "Wait, was Ben and Jerry's the only one you've ever tried?" Understandable, since not too many people make lobster ice cream, even fewer make it well, and usually whenever I've been somewhere that offered lobster ice cream, it was usually the fun sort of place that offered a lot of other novel food options that would be more fun to waste money and calories on than another version of something I strongly disliked before. I thought I disliked lobster ice cream, but when it came down to it, I disliked Ben and Jerry's lobster ice cream, and generalized from there. From a cost-benefit standpoint, there was never any reason to go out and challenge that generalization, until someone I trusted told me that she also hate the Ben and Jerry's version and offered me a taste of one she claimed was amazing.

Why we like things can be a lot more complicated than it looks on the surface. While it might not always be worthwhile to debate the question, often it is--particularly when you get into such complex things as movies, as this thread is discussing.

More importantly, when you hold yourself out as a reviewer--whether amateur or professional--you're implicitly telling people that your opinion is somehow relevant to their opinion or actions. If that's the case, the hows and whys of your opinion immediately become more worthy of debate. Assuming that Razade's Thread of Ice Cream Flavor Reviews isn't just an exercise in self-expression for its own sake, you're presumably trying to give folks with similar tastes an idea of ice cream flavors that they might like. If that's your goal in publishing your opinions (or more importantly, if that's their goal in reading them), then doesn't it make sense for them to try to understand more about why you like the things you do, so they can decide whether your tastes and theirs match enough to put stock in your reviews? If you hate nuts and they don't, then that's a sign that your opinion on rocky road might not be useful to them.

I don't presume to understand Bartmanhomer. Some say he's trolling, but my first instinct is that he's genuinely trying to connect with people and perhaps struggling with the task. Or maybe he just wants to be a bit of an influencer when it comes to movies. Either way, "debating his opinion" kind of becomes the point. With respect to the review aspect, I've already made my point. With respect to the connection aspect... I mean, well, come on, right? I suppose you can have a conversation where you both say you like or dislike something, but that seems like a really superficial interaction if you never discuss what you disliked or liked about it, and why those aspects are important to you.

1. Ben and Jerry's does not, and has never, made a Lobster flavored ice cream. You might be thinking of Ben and Bill's out of Bar Harbor.

2. As I've already laid out, there's an order of beliefs and knowledge claims. Preferences can't be debated, generally. People like what they like for tons of complex reasons and a lot of the times people resist "well you just haven't tried the right X, Y or Z" because they've got those preferences.

3. I was merely responding to the back and forth between Veti and Snowblizz. I think I've made my personal thoughts on this well enough known that I'm not somehow unaware of what debate's for or how these sorts of conversations go.

4. A critical review of a movie is not the same as disliking chocolate or peas. It is a more complex medium, I don't think I have to explain this to you or why its equivocation to relate the two in anything but the most passing of senses.

[Bartmanhomer]

Well I can't specifically speak of this situation, it may not apply here. But I can emphatizse with the idea that it feels like other people cannot let me have my opinion. The internet has always been like this IMO. I sometimes get this overwhelming urge to try and "correct" people online. It's super futile but still.

If we are going to be honest now I checked down a couple replies, it can't be discounted that people are against a negative review just because it's a negative review and then just picks something in it to try and dismiss it outright. For argument's sake let's say you watch A:IW and do indeed think it sucks because the heroes didn't win. Well, one way to look at it is: I went to the movie and didn't realise I was ending up in a "To Be Continued..." I hate those sprung on me in tv shows as a kid and I would probably not appreciate it now. I may not realise at the time I wrote the review that this was what bothered me. The only thing I could tell is I saw it, heroes lsot and I thought it was bad. That doesn't mean I was wrong however. Or that pointing out there is a supposed logical flaw, from the perspective of someon reaidng ti without my experience, means the other person is right. We had different frames of references.



Err... yes it can? Why you like or dislike something is kinda fundamental. It's why pressing the sadface emoji on a feedback form pops a "can you please tell us what was wrong" prompt, whreas the positive emojis usually won't. Not all likes or dislikes are easy to dig out, but usually it's worth digging a little deeper than the surface. There exists huge industries based on the idea to that figuring out why you like or dislike things matters.

The difference between a debate and the thing Bartmanhomer is sorta describing is that in the former people don't take it as a personal insult that you didn't think the same way and berates you on every point of disagreement. It really should be about paring down to understand the others viewpoint, but mostly it turns into trying to change it.

I don't like Reservoir Dogs, but I like the Sharknado movies. I bet most you will want click the spoiler tags for the explanation. Instead of just shrugging and and going "meh likes and dislikes matters not".

It is a funny thing, I can on the face of it appreciate that Reservoir Dogs has good acting, good directing, good writing. I should enjoy this.
On the other hand I can tell Sharknado has terrible acting, sucky effects, mediocre directing and mediocre at best writing. Yet, I enjoy it more than the former.
The thing Sharknado has is love of making film, it knows what it is and doesn't try to be more than it can. It knows it is flawed and can't live up to standards it would like so it just is what it is. And I can appreciate that. You can feel it all throughtout, "we loved making movies but this was the best we could do, but it was a blast doing it". And for the record as they make more of the franchise this charms wears off for me. The second one I cna still feel the wonder, "omg! we got to make a seocnd one!?! how did that happen". After that they are eaten up by the souless chasm that's Hollywood and people trying to muscle in on a surprise hit.
I couldn't for a long time put my finger on why I don't liek Reservoir Dogs, until in a the chat of a game I said I didn't like it, and someone said yeah it's the violence scene in it. And I realised they were absolutely correct. That long tortuous, literally, thing in it just makes it badwrong for me. I would never have though of it myself because e.g. Kill Bill vol 1&2's gratituous violence does not bother me at all. I think Kill Bill feels too over the top silly, whereas Reservoir Dogs comes over as "real".
I can apreciate that on most, probably all, metrics a film is evaluated Reservoir Dogs is a far far better film than Sharknado. And the scene in Reservoir Dogs I can objectively say is vey powerful, emotional, imapctful, it gets to me clearly. But it also means I can't enjoy any of it.

And as another example (and yes it's another Tarantino because I want to cut down variables) I never could enjoy Inglorious Basterds either, my specific gripe here (I think) is that it's so wildly a-historical I can't get past that, and it ruins it all.


Again that was just my honest opinion on the movie. Like how else can I explain it? If other people want to get upset at me for speaking my mind on the movie then why even have a constructive discussion at all then? If I want to like something then I speak my mind on it. If I want to dislike something then I also speak my mind on that.

[Peelee]

Again that was just my honest opinion on the movie. Like how else can I explain it? If other people want to get upset at me for speaking my mind on the movie then why even have a constructive discussion at all then? If I want to like something then I speak my mind on it. If I want to dislike something then I also speak my mind on that.

Nobody was getting upset at you for speaking your mind. People were trying to tell you that your reviews were simplified and lacking substance. When you say you like movies, you say it is because they had action and comedy and romance. You determine whether a movie gets five stars by saying whether or not it is "Oscar-worthy". These are incredibly nebulous, meaningless metrics. People were trying to get you to engage with the deeper aspects of the film, to focus on why something happened rather than what happened.

If you have seen the movie In Bruges, then there's a YouTube review on it called "The Aburd Worth of Redemption" that I recommend you watch (and which I will not link for reasons that are obvious to anyone familiar with In Bruges). The narrator goes over every single plot point, he dissects the entire movie, and talks about why these characters did what they did, what it meant, and how it made him feel. It's easily one of my favorite movies, and even that review of it is a wholly enjoyable, fantastic watch as he breaks down the themes of the movie and how every shot, every set design, focuses on those themes.

He doesn't just say "it had action and comedy, it was Oscar-worthy, I give it five stars".

That is what people were trying to help you with in your Avengers review. In all your reviews. I've tried time and again to help you flesh things out and look deeper into the movies. I'll keep trying, if you want constructive criticism on your reviews. But it's not a one-way street and you can't view people giving you such criticism as "people getting upset at you speaking your mind." That's just blocking out what they're trying to tell you.

[Bartmanhomer]

Nobody was getting upset at you for speaking your mind. People were trying to tell you that your reviews were simplified and lacking substance. When you say you like movies, you say it is because they had action and comedy and romance. You determine whether a movie gets five stars by saying whether or not it is "Oscar-worthy". These are incredibly nebulous, meaningless metrics. People were trying to get you to engage with the deeper aspects of the film, to focus on why something happened rather than what happened.

If you have seen the movie In Bruges, then there's a YouTube review on it called "The Absurd Worth of Redemption" that I recommend you watch (and which I will not link for reasons that are obvious to anyone familiar with In Bruges). The narrator goes over every single plot point, he dissects the entire movie and talks about why these characters did what they did, what it meant, and how it made him feel. It's easily one of my favorite movies, and even that review of it is a wholly enjoyable, fantastic watch as he breaks down the themes of the movie and how every shot, every set design, focuses on those themes.

He doesn't just say "it had action and comedy, it was Oscar-worthy, I give it five stars".

That is what people were trying to help you within your Avengers review. In all your reviews. I've tried time and again to help you flesh things out and look deeper into the movies. I'll keep trying if you want constructive criticism on your reviews. But it's not a one-way street and you can't view people giving you such criticism as "people getting upset at you speaking your mind." That's just blocking out what they're trying to tell you.

Oh ok. I must have misunderstood that part. My apologies.

[Lemmy]

I suppose it comes down o how you define the word "opinion"...

If it's just a preference, then it can't be wrong (or correct), although it might be considered repulsive(or admirable) by others.

If it's a belief, then it may very be wrong, because people are more than capable of believing in factually incorrect information.

[Xyril]

1. Ben and Jerry's does not, and has never, made a Lobster flavored ice cream. You might be thinking of Ben and Bill's out of Bar Harbor.



Hrm, that's new information to me, but you're probably right, thanks. I did try it on a trip to Bar Harbor when I was ten or so, but I always thought it was a flagship Ben and Jerry's.



2. As I've already laid out, there's an order of beliefs and knowledge claims. Preferences can't be debated, generally. People like what they like for tons of complex reasons and a lot of the times people resist "well you just haven't tried the right X, Y or Z" because they've got those preferences.


A lot of times people resist being told objectively true assertions backed by verifiable evidence when it's inconsistent with their worldview. People resist being asked to provide evidence for their factual claims and resist being asked to clarify their reasoning in reaching a conclusion. For that matter, a lot of times people resist having others disagreeing with them when they start a debate or discussion on a complex medium such a movies. Resistance has no bearing on whether a topic can be debated, or is worth discussing.



4. A critical review of a movie is not the same as disliking chocolate or peas. It is a more complex medium, I don't think I have to explain this to you or why its equivocation to relate the two in anything but the most passing of senses.

Just making sure, you mean "it's" right? (That seems like the most likely meaning in context, but substituting the possessive would give a statement that, despite being a sentence fragment, wouldn't be entirely nonsensical either.) It is not equivocation at all. The difference is one of degree, and not one of kind, and even the difference of degree (of complexity) is debatable. There's more than one form of chocolate. Like wine, good chocolate can have substantial complexities. Also like wine, not everyone appreciates all of these complexities--even those who do certainly don't always agree on what notes are "good." Also like wine, and like movies, there's an interesting mix of the objective and the subjective that goes into the analysis. I don't know as much about wine-making or chocolate-making, but as I understand it, there are certain metrics of technical quality or achievement that--all else being equal--make a chocolate or a wine or a movie "better" to pretty much everyone. At the same time, other qualities--dryness or sweetness, for example--rest much more in the preference category.

More people appreciate the complexities of movies, perhaps because it's a more accessible medium. A great vintage is intrinsically limited in quantity, and greater demand leads to scarcity, but a great movie is infinitely accessible. However, the fact that more people appreciate the complexity of movies doesn't mean that complexity doesn't exist in wine or chocolate. In fact, there are a decent number of people who don't in fact perceive or appreciate the complexity of movies. The commercial success of many movies would imply that when it comes to spending money, a non-negligible segment of the audience doesn't apply anything more complex than the Michael Bay metric: More explosions = better.

Also, weren't you the guy who just said "people like what they like for a variety of complex reasons"? It's almost as if you agree my point, but for whatever reason don't recognize it when it comes from someone else. As I've previously stated, I don't think it's particularly tactful to go around interrogating people about their preferences and then trying to change their mind, because people have a right to keep their variety of complex reasons private if they so choose to. However, I don't believe that preferences are, as a general rule, beyond debate or discussion precisely because there is often a variety of complex reasons behind them. Again, whether you choose to debate or discuss those preferences is a matter of tact, but tact has no bearing on the inherent debatability of a topic. If I ask you whether you like chocolate, or The Avengers, or if you mention that you dislike them while declining an invitation, it might be rude for me to press you to explain why if you have no interest in doing so. However, that doesn't make either topic less complex or--abstractly--worth discussion. Likewise, if you publish a daily blog about what foods or movies you like or dislike, or literally invite people to debate you, then most people would agree that you're inviting debate and that it would be disingenuous to cry foul when people respond. However, the fact that debate no longer violates etiquette doesn't change the inherent complexity of the topics.

"What's the best baseball team?" is probably a quintessential complex, debatable question: There are dozens of objective metrics that have varying levels of utility, and countless subjective arguments over which one might be the most valid. However, if some superfan decked out in Sox gear sets up a table with a sign that says "The Red Sox are the best team ever. Prove me wrong." I can pretty much guarantee you that there isn't going to be a particularly interesting, productive, or enjoyable debate coming out of that. That doesn't make the question any less intrinsically debatable.

[Aedilred]

Err... yes it can? Why you like or dislike something is kinda fundamental. It's why pressing the sadface emoji on a feedback form pops a "can you please tell us what was wrong" prompt, whreas the positive emojis usually won't. Not all likes or dislikes are easy to dig out, but usually it's worth digging a little deeper than the surface. There exists huge industries based on the idea to that figuring out why you like or dislike things matters.

Yes, but you're talking about why you like or dislike something, which is a different matter to what veti said, which was whether you like or dislike something.

[snowblizz]

Yes, but you're talking about why you like or dislike something, which is a different matter to what veti said, which was whether you like or dislike something.

Well, that's your *opinion*.:smallbiggrin:
Really, the way I see it functionall the difference whether and why you like somethign is functionally the same. If you claim to like something I would argue it can be debated why you like something and that will also provide an answer to the question whether you like it or not. That is to say, if you claim to like something but can't actually give any reason as to why that may be, then I would question whether you infact actually hold an opinion on it at all. Because without a reason your like will be as etheral as the idea of ether. You are just as likely to have changed that like the next time I ask.

This is why we tell kids to actually taste the broccoli first. And why kids *should* counter with that it smells awful, and since taste and smell are the same thing except for the few basic tastes, locigally speaking the smell tells us all we want to know about how broccoli might taste thank you very much. Ball is in your court now parents!:smallwink:

Sometimes you just think you dislike or like something, looking at the why is the way to get at whether you really do or not. It's also one of the ways you can change someone's likes or dislikes. It turns out they didn't really have a reason for it in the first place.


I don't buy the inmutability of reasons, opinions, likes or anything really. Except in one way, and that is by insisting it cannot be debated.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

This is why we tell kids to actually taste the broccoli first. And why kids *should* counter with that it smells awful, and since taste and smell are the same thing except for the few basic tastes, locigally speaking the smell tells us all we want to know about how broccoli might taste thank you very much. Ball is in your court now parents!:smallwink:

(At that point, remind them that coffee/popcorn smell amazing and taste terrible/doesn't taste of anything, proving that taste and smell are not correlated)

GW

[Tvtyrant]

(At that point, remind them that coffee/popcorn smell amazing and taste terrible/doesn't taste of anything, proving that taste and smell are not correlated)

GW

*Eats a mountain of air popped corn a day and drinks a gallon of coffee.*

Er, yes. Tastes terrible. But then I also like Broccoli so maybe I am the weirdo.

[Razade]

(At that point, remind them that coffee/popcorn smell amazing and taste terrible/doesn't taste of anything, proving that taste and smell are not correlated)

GW

Joke aside, they actually are. Our brains can tell the difference between smell receptors that are triggered on the outside of our mouth and the ones that are triggered inside the mouth. People who suffer from anosmia/hyposima lose a portion of their sense of taste as well.

[Willie the Duck]

*Eats a mountain of air popped corn a day and drinks a gallon of coffee.*

Er, yes. Tastes terrible. But then I also like Broccoli so maybe I am the weirdo.

:smalltongue:The three, combined, would make an excellent cleanse diet. :smallbiggrin:

[Tvtyrant]

:smalltongue:The three, combined, would make an excellent cleanse diet. :smallbiggrin:

:O So that is why I spend so much time in the bathroom!

[author]

An argument can be made that the answer is yes, if said opinion is built on misinformation. The statement is more of a comment on the individual's perceived lack of knowledge rather than their feelings about a certain topic, intentional or not.