Sackett wasn't being serious, so I have to take on someone else.
You chose this venue to post in knowing full well what kind and how much of a response you would get. Don't keep whining that you're in over your head, because we're all sick of it. Your inability to discern obvious mockery from serious debate doesn't speak well for you. In choosing an obvious heckler as your designated opponent, you revealed that you were looking only for someone who would agree to your one-sided ground rules, not someone whose rebutls you considered to be serious challenges.
You don't get to determined what the world thinks of you. You can only act honorably -- or dishonorably. You've done very little to support the notion that you're interested in taking criticism seriously, here or elsewhere. And you've ignored thousands of posts from obviously very well educated and knowledgeable people who have volunteered to educate you. You have the burden to prove you're interested in more than just a pulpit from which you can spew your teenage navel-gazing and expect rounds of applause. Carefully tailoring your opposition to be nothing more than token resistance doesn't carry that burden.
I just can't deal with all you guys at once --
Boo-frickety-hoo.
You chosen the venue and you agreed to the terms. Trying to impose your own rules on the venue to keep you from being appropriately challenged is a desperate act.
But there's a loftier purpose. You've plainly said you are able to do something no one else on Earth can, or has been able, to do -- iincluding people like Aristotle and Plato. You've plainly said you think you can prove, by objective mathematical means, that an immortal soul exists. I would say that's the Holy Grail of religious thought, but I fear that would branch off to another holy-artifact thread. Joking aside, I asked you specifically why you thought you could succeed where so many other able thinkers have failed. You said you had a unique perspective and approach that no one else has had.
Let's be absolutely clear. Phrased like that, your claim boils down to the notion that Jabba is the most brilliant thinker on this subject that has ever lived. If you succeed, you're going to be written up not only in the history books but also in the annals of statistics, philosophy, and theology. People for centuries to come will laud your name as the person who finally proved that immortality is a mathematical certainty, not just a wishful theological doctrine.
What sort of hurdle should a person be made to clear who asks permission to bask in such bright and universal glory? Should it be an easy test? Should millennia of philosophy bow down to Jabba after only a brief examination by one opponent that Jabba himself designates? Or does the world have a duty to make sure that ideas only get pedestals after passing an arduous test? Does someone who wants to luxuriate in all the world's gaze need to face all the world? Or does a token palooka suffice?
Even were you to face every single one of the dozens of participants that are now actively engaging you, trying to hold you accountable, it would be a paltry scrutiny in light of the profundity of your claim. The very best that ISF could muster would be a drop in the bucket to what would be an appropriate test of the world's first objective proof of immortal life.
I need one spokesperson for your side.
No. You don't get to publish your ideas to the world and then insist on a throttled critical response. The purpose of public debate is so that you face the public. If you want to debate a single person, send an e-mail.
Further, we've tried this before. The behavior you say was (and is) a consequence of too much criticism didn't improve when we limited you to one critic. The evidence says this proposed ground rule is just another thinly disguised effort to hobble your critics.
Also, I need to deal with one sub-issue at a time...
No, you don't get to control the path of the debate. You don't get to write a script for your critics to follow. Your critics rightly raise points you don't consider in your case-in-chief. You don't get to sidestep them simply because it's not on the list of your approved "sub-issues."
Further, the past five years have seen you wallow in irrelevant detail endlessly while avoiding more pertinent arguments. As I have noted, this is a well-worn tactic the fringe uses to avoid a meaningful test of their ideas. You make no headway on any of your "sub-issues." Instead you pontificate endlessly on speculative nonsense akin to how many "potential selves" can dance on the head of a pin.
If no one volunteers...or is nominated,
That's not how the forum works, Jabba. You don't get to foist your own ground rules for the "privilege" of debating you. Everyone who posts in this thread has already volunteered to help you look for errors in your proof. It falls to you to demonstrate that's what you really want.
If you want to answer to me or anyone else, do it here in the venue you chose, according to the ground rules you agreed to when you signed up and started posting your arguments to this forum. Those ground rules provide for every member to ask questions and expect answers from you. And kindly answer retrospectively; your critics are not obliged to constantly repeat themselves in the face of your admitted dereliction. In my case, by my estimate you've largely ignored about a year's worth of my posts, so you have a lot of catch-up work to do. We've seen your willingness to go back and review the thread to produce lengthy anthologies, so please perform a suitable review now for the period corresponding to your previous dereliction. We're not just going to start the debate over for the hundredth time.
To make myself perfectly clear, I have no intention of dignifying your "blog" or "map" with any participation whatsoever on my part, or even the semblance of approval. In case it's not clear, I consider your offline summaries of your debates here and elsewhere to be highly dishonest and childish. I have no intention of being your designated punching bag. I have no intention to represent anyone but myself. I have no intention of being your one designated respondent. You do not have my permission to reproduce my ISF posts anywhere else. I hope that clarifies my approach to debating you.
I will simply
not play your games.
You were in it.
