Quantum mechanics and David's Ultimate Reality

[Dan Rowden]

Pity about the formality of the debate structure. Strikes me as a little bit academically anal.

But, whatever.....



Dan Rowden

[jimhaz]

The funny thing is, the side that is hosting the argument at the end of it will think they've won, regardless of how rational David is.

However, some points that David makes will stick in the minds of some people, so there might be some gain, if they don't let their emotions make those nemes become stored in their memory in a negative fashion.

[Naturyl]

Personally, I am thinking about doing a 'play-by-play' commentary, if I can find the time, and I can assure you that I will award my own points to whomever I feel has legitimately earned them. I think you'll find that most of us are capable of judging a debate objectively regardless of who we favor otherwise.

[Guildenstern]

Quote:Quote:<hr>Pity about the formality of the debate structure. Strikes me as a little bit academically anal.<hr> The formality of the debate structure was chosen because it was the easiest way to keep things fair.

I myself have never actually been in a formal debate, and so I have just recently learned what the structure actually is. ;P

[Dan Rowden]

It should be interesting whatever the format, but I'm already a bit disappointed in it. Robert doesn't even seem to want to debate the actual issue; instead he's immediately gone off on his own anti-David crusade type thing. The problem for him there is that to coherently argue that David is not enlightened he has to implicitly have an idea of what enlightenment really is underpinning that. He surely needs to argue for that view of enlightenment at some point. If all he can manage is to show that David's viewpoint is not entirely consistent with certain scriptual traditions then the debate will be an academic crock.

If his intention is to try and make it look like David has to prove his enlightenment, that will also be utterly foolish as David would never subscribe to as stupid a notion as that. Nor, for that matter, would he subscribe to a notion as stupid as that which suggests that enlightenment is anything more than an hypothesis to be tested by the individual.

Lastly, at least for this post, another problem I see is that Robert seems to use scripture as authority, which seems awfully Xian to me, whereas David would only ever say that scripture is sometimes stimulating and inspirational. Nor, for that matter, would he ever claim that from the point of view of others his own statements are anything more than "food for thought".

And anyone who takes an automatically negative stance against a person who dares to do something as outlandish <gasp> as speak from his own authority, is, to me, already arguing from a position of intellectual vacuity.


Dan Rowden

[suergaz]

David Quinn disabling himself for this debate:

Quote:Quote:<hr>There is only the purity of Nature relentlessly producing whim after whim after whim. This is Nature as it really is. This is Ultimate Reality.<hr>

No, it is reality. Nature/reality cannot be ultimate, ie. final. Only parts of it can be so. It is as ridiculous as arguing that time is a dimension.

Quote:Quote:<hr>The enlightened person is one who is fully conscious of Ultimate Reality.<hr>

This is negated easily by the fact that 'enlightened' people (however you may define them) have different degrees of consciousness, namely, their own, which are only 'ultimate' unto themselves.







Edited by: suergaz at: 2/4/04 2:23 pm

[MGregory]

Let's say you are Robert. How would you try to defeat David and prove that his authority is groundless?

Edit: I was replying to Dan, I didn't see Suergaz's post. Edited by: MGregory at: 2/4/04 2:19 pm

[MGregory]

Suergaz:
Quote:Quote:<hr>No, it is reality. Nature/reality cannot be ultimate, ie. final. Only parts of it can be so.<hr>
Why?

Quote:Quote:<hr>It is as ridiculous as arguing that time is a dimension.<hr>
Why is that ridiculous? Isn't a dimension something that is measured?

[suergaz]

Quote:Quote:<hr>suergaz:--Nature/reality cannot be ultimate, ie. final. Only parts of it can be so.

MGregory:--Why?<hr>

Because it is infinite.



Quote:Quote:<hr>suergaz:--It is as ridiculous as arguing that time is a dimension.

MGregory:--Why is that ridiculous? Isn't a dimension something that is measured?<hr>

If that was all that a dimension is, it would not be ridiculous. But it isn't. Edited by: suergaz at: 2/4/04 2:39 pm

[MGregory]

Quote:Quote:<hr>suergaz:--Nature/reality cannot be ultimate, ie. final. Only parts of it can be so.

MGregory:--Why?

suergaz: Because it is infinite.<hr>
So Nature is infinite, but the ultimate is finite?

Quote:Quote:<hr>suergaz:--It is as ridiculous as arguing that time is a dimension.

MGregory:--Why is that ridiculous? Isn't a dimension something that is measured?

suergaz: If that was all that a dimension is, it would not be ridiculous. But it isn't.<hr>
What else is it?

[suergaz]

Quote:Quote:<hr>suergaz:--Nature/reality cannot be ultimate, ie. final. Only parts of it can be so.

MGregory:--Why?

suergaz: Because it is infinite.

MGregory:--So Nature is infinite, but the ultimate is finite?<hr>

'The Ultimate'? What do you mean? What is final is finite. How couldn't it be?



Quote:Quote:<hr>suergaz:--It is as ridiculous as arguing that time is a dimension.

MGregory:--Why is that ridiculous? Isn't a dimension something that is measured?

suergaz: If that was all that a dimension is, it would not be ridiculous. But it isn't.


MGregory:--What else is it? <hr>

A physical reality.