Do you enjoy debates? How is a debate different than a discussion?...I enjoyed debating more when I was younger. These days I don't want to go "rounds" with anyone. But I do enjoy respectful and open-ended discussions at times...when I have time for them. It seems like debates are all about so-called "winners" or "losers" where discussions are about sharing information and opinions back and forth ....without taking the outcome so personally. How do you feel about it? Thanks....

It depends on what the debate is about and whether the person can actually debate without getting angry or insulting when things aren't going their way.

hi, yes me too feel the same way.. debate is running towards the winning post while discussion tries to seek out an optimum way towards the solution

It sounds as if you are confusing debating with arguing. In true debates, the parties remain civil and must back up their claims.

In arguments, people just argue, and it is usually based on opinion, not empirical evidence or even logic.

I love debates but there are some who simply "make up" facts (common on the internet) which results in something far different than a debate. "Why the twin towers fell" is a good example of the above.

"Will Mankind expand into space" makes for a better type of topic since it allows opinions to be expressed and leads to a better exchange of ideas. The list of possible topics is, of course, infinite.

i prefer arguing.
debates are just to share both sides of an issue.
not really trying to prove who's right or wrong.
no opinions.
it's all facts.
arguing allows you to say whatever the hell you want to prove you're right and they're wrong.

You're wrong.

no.
you're wrong.

Debates, yes. Arguments and bickering, no. A debate starts with an objective statement (viz. "Resolved: Don't Ask, Don't Tell should be repealed"). Then, both sides make opening statements and take turns making points and counterpoints until the end (determined by the moderator). This is true debate. Sadly, it is mostly a lost art. :(

Actually, you're wrong on this one, b. Sorry! Try harder next time.

nooo.
i was on a debate team.
i'm right.

You were on a debate team and still got it wrong? You must not have been paying attention.

prove me wrong.

I really cannot understand why people, or how people can retain any satisfaction from needlessly arguing with people. Don't they have a little voice in their heads that prompt them to stop and smell the roses when the other person makes a valid point? I find that I seek to find the valour in every statement I hear without judgement, and then passjudgement on it.. Some people just go about nit picking little things in your argument that are somewhat"arguable" and as a result you end up wasting your time discussing pointless facts with them.

As long as people back up their thinking with evidence then I can enjoy them to an extent.

But if party one says I'm right and here's the proof and party two simply tells them they are wrong and their proof is meaningless, then No.

All this does is make party two look like an idiot and party one waste their time.

A debate is considered both, a reasoned (or formal) argument, and a formal discussion. In both cases, I think, it’s important to stress either the word ‘reasoned’ or ‘formal’ in conjunction with argument or discussion for the following reasons.

The words ‘formal and reasoning’ set the tone. This will not be a fight rather, it will be an attempt to prove that one of the opposing viewpoints has better ‘facts’ or better ‘reasoning’ in support of their view.

People can certainly have a discussion simply to get to know each other without debating or arguing any particular point. But if a friend tells you they want to ‘do something’ and you REALLY think this could be harmful – it would be a good idea to UNDERSTAND the difference between an argument and a ‘formal argument’ or a discussion and ‘reasoned discussion’.

As for me, I like written conversations that edge into formal debate or reasoned discussion. If I’m wrong about something, I want to know why and in a more formal setting, I will be given the facts to correct my thinking OR I can invalidate those facts with my own facts, or reasoning, and help to teach someone else.

My opinion is worth little, if I can’t give valid reasoning for holding the opinion or provide information more formaly, as in a debate, to support that opinion.

de•bate (dē bāt′, di-)
intransitive verb debated -•bat′ed, debating -•bat′•ing

1. to discuss opposing reasons; argue
2. to take part in a formal discussion or a contest in which opposing sides of a question are argued
3. to deliberate (with oneself or in one's own mind)
4. OBSOLETE to fight or quarrel

Origin: ME debaten < OFr debatre, to fight, contend, debate: see de- & batter

transitive verb
1. to dispute about, esp. in a meeting or legislature
2. to argue (a question) or argue with (a person) formally
3. to consider reasons for and against; deliberate on noun

1. discussion or consideration of opposing reasons; argument about or deliberation on a question
2. a formal contest of skill in reasoned argument, with two teams taking opposite sides of a specified question
3. the art or study of formal debate

Origin: ME & OFr debat < the v.
Related Forms:

• debater de•bat′er noun

REFERENCE:
Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

I enjoy both.

Both debates and discussions, as per the definition of the OP, have their proper places in my life.

I discuss when a positive outcome is NEEDED, for whatever motivating circumstance. I discuss with my uncle how he can transfer money to me, how we should arrange my next visit to his town, how our great-grand-sibling Tino won the heart of Zita, the Queen of Hungary in 1898, and how Tino was subsequently beheaded. Twice.

But we argue whether life was created or just happened. We argue about the Virgin Birth and the Immaculate Conception. We argue about the validity of the Bible, of both Testaments.

We discuss our personal insights, we discuss our newly found knowledge of people. He tells me tricks about the human physiology and diseases, I tell him how to use his combination remote. He writes me cheques, I fix things around his house, and inside too.

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I debate when I feel compelled to (this is reason numero uno), when I feel I can impress someone (numero due) or when I can get money or somethign of value out of it (numero dritte). An example of No. 3: I argued very successfully with the manager of a Mountain Equipment Coop store, and I won the debate with purely philosophical and not at all practical arguments, which got him to exchange a piece of crap for a much better product, and not charge me for the difference in price.

I discuss when I have more respect for my vis-a-vis than to call him or her on his or her bluffs or lies, when I am hungry and we are still before dinner to which I have been invited to. I discuss when people are pleasantly mellow, and would like to drink, relax, or have sex, but right now they are in a daze from the endooctrine-high from the food or from the exercise.

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I fully agree with the op: discuss when the goal is either to be in a pleasant, relaxing environment and the topics are facts, and argue when establishing of dominance is at stake, and deciding whose opinion can be forced to be accepted by the other is the thing that decides the winner and the loser.

You're right.

When you say that in a discussion the elements are all facts, you employ the "common agreement" definition of facts. (There are two useful things to define what a fact is, this is one of them.)

You can't argue about facts that both sides accept. You can argue about facts that one side believes, the other don't and therefore the fact loses its fact-status and becomes opinion.

People use the word "fact" inappropriately, or maybe the language and the culture is inappropriate to handle this concept. In the physcial world in which physical proofs are required to show a fact, there is only one fact, expressed by the desCartian "cogito ergo sum". All else is improvable in the sensed, or interpreted, physical world.

There is the world of logic, and there are true statements, necessarily true statements, but that does not actually relate to the physical world. When logic relates to the physical world, the assumptions in the logic, or premisses, are accepted as true, whereas they are statements about the physical world, in which only facts are truly true, of which there is only one (cogito ergo sum). This is why Einstein was correct in saying, "As far as math reflects reality, it's not accurate, and as far as a mathematically expressed theory is accurate, it does not reflect reality" or something similar to the same effect.

Someone else said this:
The Physics of Knowledge:
1. Facts are solidified opinions.
2. Facts weaken under extreme heat and pressure.
3. Truth is elastic.

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The third point, when applied to science and to religion, shows how the biggest differences between scientific findings and dogmatic weltanschauungs present. Both science and faith shapes its body of knowledge by discarding old, useless stuff, and acquiring new, useful stuff, but they do it in different ways. Both only do it when in a point or in another either one has been proven wrong, ineluctably wrong. Science ought to do it readily and happily and willingly, and though it does embrace change, it doesn't do it as readily and happily as it would if human ego, of the scientists, were not impeding it. In religious dogma, old knowledge of objectives of belief is discarded much more reluctantly. Look at Galileo, for instance: the Church gave an official statement of accepting his teachings and admitting its own wrongdoing when it decreed his teachings as heresy, after only many centuries of the circumnavigation of the globe, after only many years of the first photos of earth from space have been published, after only a decade or two after man sent one of his to the earth's moon to see how it feels to jump up-and-down on it and to make more pictures, and to show the russkies who the REAL space cowboy is.

When I was younger I felt compelled to jump in and voice my opinions about everything...I don't do this very often anymore...I do more listening and I respect other people's right to their individual beliefs...I don't have to step in and challenge them or try to convert them around to my "way of thinking." Why? Why bother? Obviously they are happy and content with their existing beliefs...This is how I handle things with acquaintances anyway...It's interesting to do more listening. I learn a lot. It gives me an opportunity to see more "sides" to things...It's different when I become closer to people. I want to be honest about "who I am" without "stepping on anyone's toes." We can have caring and respectful and responsible discussions versus "do or die" and "cut-throat debates" that can easily destroy a friendship.

My patience is not what it used to be.

I really used to love a good debate.

It is stimulating to the mind and a person can learn so much from listening to differing views.

But I get so tired of repeating the same thing and disproving the same things over and over again.