Depends what you mean. If, as the commentators appear to be assuming, you mean you lost a yelling match with the worst person imaginable at lunch then no, not a great idea to change your mind. If, as someone who assumes you are a reasonable competent human would, you mean a specific point which has been thoroughly examined for some time, then yes, change your mind.

If you can’t at least make the argument for the opposing side you shouldn’t be trying to have the argument. So your stance should ideally be solid based on information from either side. You should be able to understand what and why the speaker holds the opinion they do regardless of if you agree. Having conviction in your beliefs should stay solid. Unless objective irrefutable evidence you are wrong is provided.

I don’t really think of debate as win lose. If the argument is good it should effect you and help you come to conclusions. Most things are not either or and its unlikely one goes from one extreme to the opposite extreme. If anything it might nudge into a different perspective. Sometimes though something big you never thought of comes ot light and completely changes how you look at things.

“If I can’t win an argument, I must change my mind.”

No, that is not logical.

Take me for example: I am always right, therefore I never need to change my mind.

But OTOH I do not win arguments, because I simply do not argue - no need to, because I am right anyway.

And so it happens that some people, who don’t know sh*t, seem to win arguments despite being wrong and absolutely needing to change their minds.

/s

You should stop viewing arguments as a win lose proposition. They are an opportunity for all participants to learn. All parties should be open to changing their mind. They should enter into the argument hoping to gain consensus and something closer to the truth.

In my mind, an argument isn’t about proving myself right and the other wrong. I long ago changed my goals of arguing to learning something in the process. This works for me and it tends to encourage the right people and infuriate the people who deserve it. Though I still tend to be mean from time to time if I feel like the other person/people are being disingenuous. I still have work to do on myself.

No.

Only assholes think arguments must result in people changing their minds to the ‘winner’s’ side.

real argumentation is not about winning, it’s about learning.

Defer to superior logic and not to superior rhetoric.

No. Consider that arguing is a skill that people do not all possess to an equal degree, and what implications that has.

Suppose there’s an ongoing debate about some issue with two sides, side A and side B. Now suppose that, while the people involved might not all know or believe or understand why, side A is objectively correct in this instance, side B believes something that simply does not match with how the universe works, but matches observations close enough for this to not necessarily be clear to humans, hence the argument.

What happens if someone who is not especially skilled at arguing takes side A, and someone who is rather good at it takes side B? There’s a pretty good chance that side B “wins”, on account of being better at winning arguments, but if the person on side A changes their mind, they would actually be more wrong than before.

The point of this isn’t to say one should never change ones mind of course, just to point put that arguments are actually a rather flawed way to determine truth, and therefore that losing one isnt enough proof on it’s own to require one change one’s mind if one doesn’t find the points raised genuinely convincing.

It can be better than nothing, especially if the participants are both skilled and to an equal degree, and actually aim to find the most defensible position rather than treating the thing as a competition with a winner, but that is not what most arguments are, and if I was to bet, I’d guess that the percentage of internet arguments especially, made by the majority of people not actively trained in this (or who are trained in it but as a competitive sport, like in debate completions), that can be described that way is very close to zero.

A lot of arguments are not winnable by either side and it doesn’t imply they should both change their minds. Sometimes there is no “right” view.

If I can’t win an argument it means the other person isn’t listening /s

Important distinction for this thread:

• A dialectical argument is one where both sides compare views to see if they can together arrive at a higher truth by realizing their mistakes. Good for changing your mind. Requires good faith on both sides.
• A debate is a rhetorical battle, often more for the sake of presenting views to an audience than for the sake of the debaters. Do not change your mind because you’ve been rhetorically outmanoeuvred. This is the common type of argument for politicians and public discourse.

IF one can’t win the argument because the opposing-position is true, correct, framed-rightly, presented-accurately, etc,

THEN one must ( according to integrity! ) change one’s mind.

ELSEIF one can’t win because the opponent WON’T frame things rightly, because they WON’T accept-as-valid-anything-outside-their-axioms, the WON’T allow correct-reasoning to be valid, the WON’T tolerate anything outside of their ideology/prejudice/“religion”/formal-system,

THEN one ought ditch the “discussion” & find somebody with intellectual-integrity to discuss things with, instead.

Go see some stuff on Peter Thiel, or the ones who hold that the world is being overtaken by evil because women have rights…

Go see some of the ones who hold that Trump is pristine, & all others are evil…

Go see some of the fascist stuff…

Go see some of the Communist-Imperialism stuff…

Go see some of the zionist/christofascist/islamist/fundamentalist-atheist/hindutva/“buddhist”-genocider-of-Tamils/etc stuff…

& see that you can’t win an argument against any of these axiom-based ideologues, & that’s a feature, not a bug:

they’re enforcing that their-continuums/souls get locked into what they want, & that will enforce that their-continuum/soul WILL “reap” the consequences of what they want, until their souls grow up.

That’s how enforced-evolution-for-all-souls/continuums works:

ALL energies contained-in-EndlessStreamOfUniverses gets recycled!!

Including my-continuum/soul, including your-continuum/soul, ALL continuums included.

Endlessly.

Purification’s enforced & guaranteed, & natural-ignorance AND intentional-ignorance are allowed, because that’s Free Will, & it’s required, for continuums/souls to have their own way, their own path, their own lessons, their own realizations.

No escape, ever, until a given continuum has earned ALL of its-own meanings, & ALL of its-own purifications, & ALL of its-own Truths…

So, if someone, anyone, holds-to retarded-“meaning”, why should that convince more-awake-one to hold to more-retarded-“meaning”??

Hold to what’s framed-universally, livingly-True, upright, correct, open, BEing-integrity, etc, … & let the world enforce its ignorance & its intentional-ignorance,

& if that means that one only gets prejudice & contempt, well that’s just good honest aversion-therapy, to help one break one’s attachment-to-getting-caught-in-human-existence, isn’t it?

( it is. )

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No. If I believed that, I’d turn into a racist chud because I have never been able to “win” an argument with racist chuds as I tend to argue with logic and facts.

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

So no is my answer. But we could argue about it.