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Cogitatio

Full name: Decision Support Based on Argument Mapping
Homepage: http://dsd.sztaki.hu/projects/present/cogitatio/en/
Department: Department of Distributed Systems
Start date: 2005. 06. 01.
End date: 2006. 05. 31.

Project manager

Csillag, Kristóf

Participants

Description

The goal of the project

The long-term goal is

• to create a a freely available, versatile, sophisticated, and user friendly argument mapping software system,
• to promote the usage of it as widely as possible.

This is done in the hope that

• armed with this potent tool, the information processing ability of society (and the individuals) will improve, so that this way, we might get closer to the truth, and we might be able to make better decisions.

About argument mapping

Argument mapping is a method, that aims to make handling complicated arguments and debates easier and more efficient (or at all possible, above a certain difficulty level).

The essence of the method is that the messages are decomposed to their elemental components, and the system of logical connections is mapped between these elements. (The messages can be arguments, the trains of thought, or (in case of more that one participants) the debate, the arguments of parties, and their answers given to each other's arguments.)

Once the material stored in this sensible system, numerous interesting operations can be performed, e.g. it becomes possible to visualize the stucture of arguments, to analyze the structures (within a certain compass, automatically) by computers, or, in case of diverging opinions, to conflict the theories in a much more focused way than it's usual.

Using these possibilities, understanding and presenting issues can be made considerably easier. With this, our ability to find out the truth can be increased, so we may improve the efficiency of the decision-making process.