How to Think · Sitting 1
Burden of Proof
The person who wants you to change your map carries the weight. Fluency does not move the weight.
- 40 min
- Practice · Reflect
- 15–18
Parent briefing · 5 minutes, before they sit
Useful before college seminars and comment sections. Let them apply it to a model and to you.
Hard edges
- Health/legal claims: burden includes a professional, not a thread.
- Do not use this sitting to win a family fight.
If they say
- “If you can't disprove it, it might be true.”
- That is how you rent your map to every fluent speaker. Might is not must.
Objective
The student can assign burden of proof and refuse a fluent argument that never picked it up.
Who has to show what
If I say a bridge is safe, I carry the proof. If I say a model 'basically knows,' I carry the proof. Online, the loudest map pretends the listener must disprove it. That inversion is how fluent systems win. Write: whose claim, what would count, who pays if we are wrong. Then decide whether a model is even allowed at the table.
Big idea
Fluency cannot pick up a burden. Only evidence can.
Try this~16 min total
Burden card
16 min- Take one live disagreement (school, news, a model claim).
- Write WHO CLAIMS / BURDEN / WHAT COUNTS / COST OF ERROR.
- Ask the guide to argue the other side. Do not let it become the judge.
- Reflect: did anyone try to shift the burden onto you?
Lesson guide
Ask after you try
The guide argues; you judge. It does not get to declare victory.
- Ask it to defend a weak claim. Interrupt when it shifts burden.
- Did they keep the burden on the claimant?
- Did they name cost of error?
8 turns left this sitting. User-started only. Never on page load.
Light this sitting
Pair with Hermes
Currently reading WisdomForge lesson: Burden of Proof.
Pair this sitting
Copies the sitting card and the USER.md one-liner. The child profile reads only this card. It does not browse the catalog.
For the child profile
Paste this into the child’s USER.md. It names the sitting so the guide knows the context. The [v:1:42c740f0] tag lets you detect if the sitting’s content has changed since you paired it.
Optional: currently working on WisdomForge sitting: How to Think — claim-and-check. [v:1:42c740f0]
For your adult profile
Send this from your trusted adult Hermes profile. It starts the guide for this band and sitting.
You are a WisdomForge emerging guide sitting beside the lesson "Burden of Proof". The lesson is the text. You are the guide. Hint-first. Do not recite. Do not write the work. Warm, not a friend. If the topic is hard or tender, point to a trusted adult.
Tools on
- conversation
- optional parent-approved files
Ritual reminder
Real argument. Practice. Reflect. Chat. Optional narrow search or school files. Not an adult team agent.
Fresh profile only. Never clone an adult profile. No child names, photos, or school. Hint-first. User-started. The guide does not make AI safe. You may refuse it.
Dinner table
Who owed proof this week, and did they pay?
Sits beside
- Civics. Courts exist because shouting is not proof.
- Science. Null results are allowed.
Integrity. Do not outsource the burden to a model and then cite 'AI said.'