Oxymandias wrote:Are you alluding to manners or something much more deeper? Regardless, I am interested in this debate and I'd like to see how it would turn out.
Manners might be a bit simplistic, common-convention perhaps would be a better term, which is somewhere between manners and formatting. Most Americans who are evenly vaguely familiar with actual debates in the west would have a sense of what was appropriate and what was not, so it can be hard to explain.
As an example, in the case of a text-format as we are doing, posting out-of-turn would be a violation of "general rules" that are commonly accepted without having to be specifically outlined. Likewise, using excessive derogatory language or low-brow language would be considered inappropriate in serious debate, as would the sort of tactics and formatting that we commonly see from posters on here like POD and TTP, but also it would preclude the use of memes and gifs, etc, etc.
A serious and civil debate ought to have the appearance of both civility and seriousness.
Now, granted, what we have agreed to in our debate is anything but formal in the typical academic sense, this is more-or-less going to be a low-stakes sparring session as there is no serious structure other than we each have eight-post-limits.
Structurally, I am going to try to establish the existence of an ontological category that is not physically reducible and likewise is subsumable under a commonly accepted definition of "mental."
A tall task indeed, but a low pressure one given the structure of the debate and the limited opportunity I have allowed myself to accomplish the task.
In all honestly, this debate is more of an opportunity to explain my ideas more fully for
@Saeko, and to act as a prelude to letting her see my actual proof for God's existence and my bold claim that God must, necessarily, be Trinitarian in nature.
To be honest, as far as she is concerned, I think she sees the main debate as merely foreplay before getting to what she really wants. I have set a criteria for my own checkmate in the debate only because I believe in stating such clear-cut goals for decisive victory ahead of time (following the medieval approach to public disputation) and as a personal challenge for myself as an academic.
I want to see if I can accomplish that goal in only 8 posts, its going to be fun either way because I enjoy debating with intelligent, serious, open-minded, and civil debaters. I believe
@Saeko is such a person which is why I agreed to debate.
I do hope you enjoy it and that I have answered your questions.