Unicorns Once Existed

Thanks Con. Ontological Argument: First my opponent attempted several appeals to ridicule, which I find rather weak and pulls into question the integrity of Con's rebuttal . I kindly ask voters to ignore such tactics. Both Ontological and Kalam are logically valid arguments, that being the case, if the premises are true, then the conclusion necessarily follows. Regardless of whether you like the conclusion or not. Therefore we need to assess the premises' plausibility in turn. My opponent makes the remarkable concession: "It is possible that a maximally great unicorn exists.' Sure its possible, but I reject this claim without further evidence" But that is exactly the point! By granting the argument's other premises and in particular this one (of possibility), my opponent has effectively conceded the entire debate! If the Invisible Pink Unicorn is a metaphysical possibility to be the greatest being imaginable, then it follows it must exist in all metaphysically possible worlds. When challenging the premises my opponent states: "This is an assumption which I reject and everyone reading the debate should reject as there is no evidence for The Invisible Pink Unicorn existing." Once again my opponent just reiterates his objection to the conclusion, not the premises! This is akin to me showing a murder tape recording and having Con reject it saying there's no evidence it was the person in the video!! This argument itself provides strong philosophical evidence for the existence of the Invisible Pink Unicorn. The fact my opponent did not even attempt to address the direct point Con was quoting leads me to conclude Con actually accepts this premise, that "It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that The Invisible Pink Unicorn is a being than which none greater can be imagined". This just weakens Con's case. My opponent's appeal to ridicule for Superman doesn’t work. As a being that fits the attributes I have given necessarily requires both conceptual (immaterial) and physical properties, otherwise it could not interact with both! Superman has purely material properties, and therefore is a poor candidate for the greatest possible being. Pro’s other appeals to ridicule also fail for similarly, which my opponent did not attempt to expand upon despite having ample character space in order to do so. Kalam Cosmological Argument: My opponent astonishingly attacks the first premise of the argument! In the process of doing do Con makes a gross equivocation of philosophical definition of 'nothing' (ex nihilo), and the current physicists definition of nothing. Let me bring up the definition of the Casimir Effect: "The Casimir effect is a small attractive force that acts between two close parallel uncharged conducting plates. It is due to quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field." The part I underlined & bolded is a big fat juicy 'something' (!). This something acts as a sufficient cause for these quantum fluxuations to occur. In other words my opponent has only reinforced my case for premise 1 in that even the smallest beginnings of existence require a cause! My opponent would like me to prove that the nothing in the Casimir effect occurs within is different from the philosophical definition of nothing. Besides the obvious description of a field, let's have a quick look at the wiki definition of a Quantum Fluxuation: "In quantum physics, a quantum vacuum fluctuation (or quantum fluctuation or vacuum fluctuation) is the temporary change in the amount of energy in a point in space, as explained in Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle" Which just reaffirms my previous point; you need space for quantum fluxuations to occur. As they by definition are a result of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle, which is a statement you can only know to a certain degree of precision, the momentum and location of anything. Both these properties require space, which thanks to relativity; we know is a very tangible something indeed. Mammalian Unicorns: When I was referring to the fossil record I was referring mostly to the evolution of horses and rhinos. Note that unicorns are morphologically very closely related to horses, and I provided a prediction of the intermediate form of the Rhino and Horse which was in line with what is reported in mythology. I will expand on this reasoning mathematically: Terms: U = # of Unicorns t = time UB = # of Unicorns born overall Ub = # of Unicorns born per unicorn d = Rate of change of... LS = Lifespan First we need to assume that the unicorn population was once at equilibrium. Given the large timescales involved and in the time before there was major human influence this is a reasonable assumption on ~10,000 year scales. Second, we need to get the total population of unicorns that ever lived U(totol) = dUB*t Now we know the earliest unicorns existed was at most 8 MYa-1 MYa judging from the horse evolution fossil record. Now, the fact there are no examples of the unicorn fossils in the record makes a prediction, which is that dUB must have been very low. Most animal populations achieve an equilibrium, so we can assume that dUB was largely constant over its period of time from the deduction 1. dU/dt = 0 2. dU/dt = dUB/dt - dUD/dt 3. 0 = dUB/dt - dUD/dt 4. dUB = dUD This should hold true unless Con is going to argue unicorns being teleported away from Earth or something, which is absurd. Now, for a population to go extinct, dUB/U is likely a relatively small figure. For if for example we started poaching rats (with a high dUB/U), we might reduce the population some, but their high reproductive rate per rat would easily accommodate any ecological pressure, therefore we can conclude that dUB/U is a small figure. With this in hand, let's see how lifespan affects reproduction rate at equilibrium: dUB=cU The total number of unicorns birthed by each unicorn is expressed as follows: 5. LS* dUb/dt=Ub This is a simple rate*time = total, similar to velocity*time = distance Given Ub can be assumed to remain roughly constant, a low reproduction rate predicts a high life span, and a long life span a low reproduction rate. Both directions of this prediction have been attested to by the lack of unicorn fossils and also the mythological attestatiosn to long lifespan. Two independantly corroberating methods of determing this. Which further explaisn the already extremely rare fossilization process (all human fossils can be fit in the back of a large car), so it should be no surprise we don't have any direct fossil examples. Conclusion: I have thoroughly demonstrated the existence of unicorns at some point in the past. A number of my arguments have gone unanswered, such as the Boltzmann Unicorn argument for one, and the intermediate form predictions for another. I would like to thank my opponent for this great debate!The resolution stands. Vote Pro! References: 1. http://math.ucr.edu...