Defining Our Terms

I posted this on my Second Life Feed.  It was relevant to a discussion we were having at the time.




I'm using Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster for this.

Argument:  a reason given in a rebuttal, discourse intended to persuade, a coherent series of statements leading from a premise to a conclusion, a summary, and attempt to persuade someone of something, by giving reasons or evidence for accepting a particular conclusion

Assertion:  the act of asserting, declaring, affirming, stating or declaring something positively and often forcefully or aggressively, demonstrating something's existence; a proposition that is repeatedly restated regardless of contradiction, a statement made with assurance, confidence or force, to postulate


Contention:  a point advanced or maintained in a debate or argument, the act of striving or vying in contest or rivalry or against difficulties, the act of maintaining or asserting

Debate:  a contention by words or arguments, the formal dicussion of a motion, a regulated discussion of a proposition between matched sides, a method of interactive and respresentational argument, a contest in which people discuss and decide on differences within a framework defining how they will interact

Premise:  a proposition antecedently supposed or proved as a basis of argument or inference, something assumed or taken for granted, matters previously stated and accepted, a statement that an argument claims will induce or justify a conclusion, an assumption that something is true

Proposition:  something offered for consideration or acceptance, a proposal, the point to be discussed or maintained in argument usually stated in sentence form near the outset, a problem to be demonstrated or performed, an expression of something that can be believed, doubted or denied, a point of debate



Rebuttal:  the act of driving or beating back, contradicting or opposing, exposing the falsity of something, making or furnishing an answer or counter proof, a form of ecidence that is presented to contradict or nullify other evidence that has been presented by an adverse party, statements designed to refute or negate specific arguments put forward by opponents, disconfirmation, disproof, confutation, refutation, an objection to an objection is known as a rebuttal

Refuting:  to prove wrong by argument or evidence, show to be false or erroneous


Evidence:  something that furnishes or demonstrates proof, testimony, the currency by which one fulfills the burden of proof

Proof:  the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact, the process or instance of establishing the validity of a stement especially by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning, something that induces certainty or establishes validity, sufficient evidence or argument for the truth of a proposition



Objection: a reason or argument presented in opposition, a feeling or expression of disapproval, a motion to disallow, an expostulation or refutation, a reason arguing against a premise, a challenge, protest, complaint or demurral.  An objection ot an objection is known as a rebuttal.

Observation:  the act of seeing, recognizing or noticing a fact or occurrence, a record or description so obtained, a judgment or inference based on what one has noticed, awareness, cognizance

Opposition:  an act or condition of being hostile, contrary in action or condition, setting opposite or over against, defiance, resistance, counterbalance, contrast, resistance


Coherent:  logically or aesthetically ordered or integrated, consistent, having clarity or intelligibility, holding together, apprehensible by the intellect, capable of being understood and comprehended


Rational:  having reason or understanding, agreeable to reason, reasonable, intelligent, thinking

Reason:  a statement offered in explanation or justification, a rational ground or motive, logical defense, the power of comprehending, inferring or thinking in rational ways, sane and intelligent, the capacity to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts



Causation:  the act or agency which produces an effect; the establishment of liability, the belief that events occur in predictable ways and that one event leads to another, a relationship that describes and analyzes cause and effect; cause, reason,

Conclusion:  a reasoned judgment, inference, the necessary consequence of two or more propositions taken as premises, a final decision and/or summation, determination, deduction, induction, inference, the reaching of a logically necessary and sound end decision by reasoning based on evidence, a statement made when an idea or thought is settled

Correlation:  a relationship existing between phenomena or things not expected on the basis of chance alone, a measure of relationship between two values


Affirm:  to state positively, to assert as valid, true or confirmed, to express dedication to, to uphold a judgment, to declare one's support for, uphold or defend, claim, allege, assert, aver, avouch, contend, purport,



https://my.secondlife.com/leehere.absent
http://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary


ETA:

Resolution:  a formal expression of opinion or intention made, a resolve or determination,. a statement which is debated.  In policy debate, a resolution or topic is a normative statement which the affirmative team affirms and the negative team negates. At the college level, a number of topics are proposed and interested parties write 'topic papers' discussing the pros and cons of that individual topic. Each school then gets one vote on the topic. The single topic area voted on then has a number of proposed topic wordings, one is chosen, and it is debated by affiliated students nationally for the entire season. The high school policy debate topic is selected annually under the auspices of the National Federation of State High School Association's Speech, Debate, and Theater Association. The topic process calls for two rounds of voting, the first narrowing down five initial choices to two, and the second selecting the final resolution. In each round, each state has a vote, the National Forensic League has a vote, and the National Catholic Forensic League has a vote. Each state's activities association has its own process for determining the state's vote.

Mean:  offensive, nasty, hostile, selfish, unaccommodating, hurtful, cruel, malicious, small-minded, ignoble, petty, stingy, inferior in quality and character, low in status rank or dignity, contemptible, despicable, vile, base.


Sockpuppet:  A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception, a false identity assumed by a member of an internet community who spoke to, or about himself while pretending to be another person, misleading online identities, such as those created to praise, defend or support a third party or organization.  A significant difference between the use of a pseudonym and the creation of a sockpuppet is that the sockpuppet poses as an independent third-party unaffiliated with the puppeteer, a person whose actions are controlled by another; a minion, an extra online identity created by a member of a discussion forum, etc, to agree with opinions submitted under his or her usual online name

Alt:  an alternate account, an alternate character, often referred to in slang as alt, alt char, or less commonly multi, is a character in addition to one's "primary" or "Main" player character.  Typically, alternate characters are used less frequently than the "primary" characters, but sometimes players may use them just as often. They should be distinguished from completely unused (dormant) characters, which may even get deleted for lack of activity. Alternate characters can be used to try out the different abilities of different player races, or character classes. Also, one frequent use is to play characters of opposite gender. Frequently, people use alternate characters to "re-live" the game experience; high-level characters may end up running low on things to do, but deleting the character and starting completely over is often undesirable. Often, people create another character to see what new features have been added since they last were on a low level character.  Sometimes in-game business owners will use an alt for pleasure, friendship and fun and their main for business or vice versa.  Some people use an alt for sex.  Some people use an alt for uninterrupted building time.