Instigator / Pro
0
1518
rating
5
debates
60.0%
won
Topic
#1216

The self is God. (unrated, practice debate)

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
0
Better sources
0
0
Better legibility
0
0
Better conduct
0
0

After not so many votes...

It's a tie!
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
15,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
0
1641
rating
63
debates
65.08%
won
Description

I realize normally people associate "god" with religion, but I will let my opponent know now, I'm going to primarily be arguing philosophical arguments, and this is why I have the category in philosophy rather than religion. Though it could be argued to fit in either.

Since it would be an entirely false statement for me to argue this from an evidence-based perspective, in the spirit of having a fair debate, and since I'm not totally confident I can argue my position well, my opponent must agree to not base any arguments off of the scientific method or scientific literature to prove either of our positions. Should either of us do this, it can be considered a conduct violation. I understand that under normal circumstances what I am asking is unreasonable, but given that I'm arguing an impossible position to prove scientifically, I consider it reasonable. By accepting this debate, you as my contender agree. Logic and philosophy will be the primary methods we use to argue for our positions.

To further offer reasons why we are going to dismiss the scientific method:
It uses observation as a means to find evidence. In this debate, we are going to assume this is a faulty means due to that it since it makes the unsubstantiated assumption that one's perception is accurate. One cannot accurately observe things if they do not have a solid way of perceiving things. Thus, the scientific method relies on a postulate/axiom, something that can't be proved nor disproved. The statement it relies on is "My perception/observation skills exist and are accurate". This statement can't be proved or disproved without using those very same perceptive and observational skills.

Perhaps the most common method people use to verify they aren't hallucinating is by asking someone else if they see/hear/sense something they are sensing. Well, the only way you know that person exists is with your perception. The only way you become aware of their answer to your query is by determining they are answering it with your perception/observational skills(you wouldn't know that another person exists without them or what their answer is). To do this is circular reasoning: a fallacy. You're using perception to prove one's perception is accurate. It's not possible to prove, and thus science, in order to get anywhere, makes the unproven assumption that one's perceptions/observational skills are accurate. It's built on that, dare I say, faith and belief that you're perception is accurate for the observational part of the scientific method. To offer a metaphor, since I realize this concept is rather hard to grasp for some: if someone is born in a coma and completely deaf, blind, in paralysis, etc, how do you prove to them there is an outside world? How would they know you even exist? They don't. To them, nothing else exists but the life in their mind. By default, that means perception is proved by using perception. They would never know the concept of perception. It's unprovable and inconceivable to them since we use perception to prove perception exists and is accurate.

So, again, as my contender, you accept what I've stated here. Other than this, I have no need to describe further, and here are the rules of the organization of this debate:

Round 1: Used for acceptance and defining one's terms and positions. As my contender, you may present any definitions of major terms you believe are important to do so, and I will automatically accept them, so long as they are within reason. Otherwise, we will use definitions of terms that are most common.
Round 2: Opening arguments for me, the instigator. My contender may rebut what I have to say, and does not need to provide evidence to the contrary position since I accept the full burden of proof given my claim seems rather extraordinary, and in the words of Carl Sagan "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
Round 3: I will counter my opponent's rebuttals and/or present further new arguments, and my opponent will again point out any issues in reasoning for my arguments/counters in this round.
Round 4: This round is for concluding statements and no new arguments may be made. Each of us will explain why the arguments they've brought up outweighs the arguments our opponent has introduced.

Due to I have little confidence in having any remote chance of winning, and I also am not sure I even personally hold this position personally, this is an unrated debate, more for practice and fun. Should I find that I argue reasonably here and others concur, I may find myself adopting this position. This position as asserted in my title is rather intriguing to me as I've pondered over the philosophical arguments for it. So, perhaps in the future, I'll hold this debate again where it is rated. Anyways, good luck to my opponent(or perhaps to me is more proper lol)

I aim to make a vote on this at some stage in the near future. Well argued both of you.

But yeah, I suspected what I just said in comment #8 to be the case before I even engaged in this debate. And that's why I decided to keep this unrated since I don't want my inability to communicate in written word be such a huge factor that would bring down my score for the ability to debate. Of course, one could say this is what makes a good debater, to avoid such instances like this, but I would say that's not the case in this specific instance due to that I am fairly positive there were no words I could have used to properly communicate the idea in English, and the ones I found which were closer, would have sounded foreign to the average person since the average person only knows a few tens of thousands of words out of the million of English words there are.

I am quite certain I have a better command of the English language, diction, and vocabulary than most(as I actively put in effort constantly in my everyday use of the language, to find alternative means of communicating what I mean), and even I'm having trouble communicating this. I did a lot of research into the English language to see if there were better ways to communicating my thoughts here, but I didn't find anything completely satisfactory that doesn't require the proper interpretation of my diction. I have to agree with a lot of deconstructionists out there that language is very limiting. It's especially so for a topic as deep and thought-intensive as the one in this debate.

Most other debates I do not have a problem with getting the proper interpretation from readers, but I suspected this one would be very difficult to do so. It requires the readers to transcend above the meanings of the words I used in English, and I'm not sure that's going to happen here.

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@Speedrace

This was a rather enjoyable debate and has helped me further consider this issue.

The problem is, I have difficulty conveying these ideas I'm presenting. I have to say I think some of the contradictions you pointed out were more due to me having trouble properly communicating what I meant. In this respect, I'm finding language to be a huge limitation on the ideas and things I've pondered over for this topic. German is my second language, and there are certain ideas and concepts that can be communicated in German that really do not have any sort of equivalence in English. I find myself in my inner thoughts switching between the two languages.

A lot of this, sadly, will be whether the voters interpret what I've said the same way I interpreted in my head, but couldn't properly represent through the written word.

Apologies to my opponent and voters/spectators for cases where my paragraphs seem to randomly break up. For whatever reason, debateart is messing with how I'm organizing things when I type in it. I tried to solve this issue by typing up my arguments in documents first and copy and pasting, but it seems I didn't catch all instances of where my organization was originally messed up. As you can see the second paragraph in my third counter is all split up rather oddly. This counter is supposed to have only two paragraphs. Any time there is not a line break between what appears to be different paragraphs, are likely technical issues I experienced with debateart. Apologies again, i'm trying to prevent it from happening, but that particular paragraph's misorganization escaped my notice before I published.

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@Cogent_Cognizer

Yeah that's cool

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@Speedrace

So, I find now my next argument to be dependent on arguing over what constitutes the "universe" sadly enough. I think neither of us anticipated the need to define certain terms.

To try to keep this fair conduct-wise, I want to ask if this definition, found through a google search, suffices for you of the term "universe":

"All space-time, matter, and energy, including the solar system, all stars and galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space, regarded as a whole."

So long as you agree, I'll present that formally in this round too, and I'm accepting your added definitions as well.

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@Cogent_Cognizer

Awesome, thanks dude :) great debate so far

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@Speedrace

By the way, I accept those definitions. While, yes, it doesn't follow the organization I have laid out, it's fine because I stated in the description that unless otherwise stated, we accept the most common definitions of terms. What you presented to me seem to be the most common definitions of perceive and create, so I have no objections. I'll state my acceptance again in this round though, which I'll hopefully have my counters and/or new arguments up within 24 hours. Just thought i'd let you know now, but so that it's on the record I'll also state I accept them in the official debate too.

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@Cogent_Cognizer

Oh ok cool, and no I'm not a troll I'm #4 on the leaderboard XD I'm just super busy and I forget about this stuff because I don't get notifications anymore :/

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@Speedrace

No worries about taking so long. Just glad you got back to it lol. Thought you might have been a troll who just accepts debates and then never answers since you've accepted two of my debates and up until now, hadn't posted. Glad to see you're not a troll.

To clarify, it is "the self is god, PERIOD". I'm not arguing the collective selves are the creator of the universe. That would also require me to prove other people exist, which would be inconsistent with my line of reasoning I've presented so far and what I plan to present.

Anyways. Though I have 72 hours allotted time, I should have my argument up within 24. I'm going to be taking a nap first, then should soon after post my opening arguments.