Cats can be taught spiritual truths

Concession speech: . http://www.youtube.com... I think the Con won the debate on every issue except one. The youtube clips were countered fairly, accurately, and consistently, and the discussion of the capacity of the feline mind to understand spiritual concepts was thought-provoking, to say the least. I think that the analysis of Zen practice was a bit too swift, but I concede that discussing the essentially non-conceptual nature of Zen practice through concepts is a difficult task, and it would take more than a debate to give it the handling it deserves. Having said that, I cannot agree with the Con's definitions of truth and the absolute, and how it relates to a spiritual truth. The notion that something cannot grow may, perhaps, be looked upon as a benefit and a virtue. It doesn't need to grow, because it's already ideal. Yet underlying this type of definition is an assumption that a state of motionless, inertia, and inactivity is somehow preferable to constant motion and development. Looking at the brief fragment of the cosmos that we have access to, it seems that motion, change, evolution and involution are constants, and that stasis only applies to the bare principles which form the cosmos. Yet, to quote a Hindu Upanishad, "out of the perfect, only the perfect arises" --- and this, if true, would mean that the productions which arise from static laws are as perfect as their genesis, even as they continue. Could there be a kind of absolute ideal in the process of change itself? It seems that our human ideals of perfection are related to our normal, biological paradigm of desire and satiation. We want something, which we associate with change and strife, and once we get it, the mind is "pacified", like a lake that has been stilled. In contrast, the workings of nature seem to be satisfied with change itself --- that is, content with never being content to stay in place. From such a perspective, flux is ideal, and its opposite is not. Constant growth and change is ideal. So, in a nutshell, I think the Con's idea of an absolute truth is too static. If we can conceive, for instance, of an absolute cat --- perhaps a Scottish fold --- who is perfect in everyway, does this necessarily mean that the cat cannot expand, evolve, change, and interact? The idea of a static absolute is behind many systems of mysticism, but it is not the only idea. The Madhyamika sect of Mahayana Buddhism, for instance, conceives of the non-conceptual nature of ever-changing phenomena to be the absolute perspective, yet such a perspective neither nullifies nor stands in opposition to the phenomena themselves. I can conceive of a slightly overweight, gray Scottish fold centered in the heart of the cosmos to be an "expanding absolute". It is not infinite, but it is in the process of achieving infinity --- a process which may never actually be attained, but the perfection is found in the process itself, rather than an ideal state. The Con writes, "One thing can either be truth or false, it"s never something in between. Math-Logic (e. g boolean algebra) solely relies on this fact. " This may be the language of math, but is it the language of experience? Even my analysis here is not definitive, but I do think it warrants further inquiry. Perhaps I have misunderstood the Con here (it's been known to happen before), but I really wanted to paint an image of an ever-expanding Scottish fold somewhere in the center of the cosmos. I saw an opportunity and I ran with it. What can I say? I'm American.