Monotheism Reduces to Monism.

Clarification of monism: derived from the greek monos "alone" or "one" "Monism is any doctrine based on the assumption of a single underlying principle. " . http://www.mb-soft.com... Obviously there are many doctrines that fall into this category. As of late the term "Monism" has become synonymous with "Substance Monism": the belief that reality consists of one kind of thing. This is where confusion may arise because I am NOT referring to substance monism in anyway. Instead I am confining monism to refer to the claim that only one self/being exists. This is not absolute monism b/c absolute monism is a type of substance monism. It claims that only one self exists AND only one substance exists. The version of monism I am using claims that just one being exists but it doesn't claim anything else, it allows for the possibility of substance dualism, pluralism or monism. -- My opponent has replied with a slue of rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions themselves do not entail a counter argument. The majority of my opponent's rebuttal was spent questioning the truth/falsity of my premises. Questioning the truth or falsity of my premises is not the same as proving them false. At the moment it is still unknown whether or not my premises are true or false. Now I will try to answer some of your questions. Allow me to define an experience, the following constitutes one experience: You: a) See a green grass field in front of you with tall mountains in the background, a blue sky over head, and a big bright sun directly above you. b)Feel the warm breeze across your skin and through your hair. -The weight of your body against the ground as you're sitting. –The grass gently touching your leg. – The feel of your clothes. – And a slight tinge of hunger. c) Hear the wind blowing and crickets chirping d) Smell the earth and grass e) Taste your own saliva. f) Are emotionally content b/c of the weather but also feel a slight inner sadness deep down. g) Are thinking about what to make for dinner and b/c of such you are barely aware of this experience at all. All of the aspects a-g constitute what I would call one experience and that experience is identical to one's own self. They are exactly the same. A self simply is an experience or series of experiences. My entire argument rests on the truth of this claim. It is impossible to definitively prove the claim true or false. So it breaks down to a matter of opinion. There is a just reason for believing it however. Everything falls into three degrees of "unprovability". 1) Things that can absolutely be proven 2) Things that can't be absolutely proven but have just reason for belief and 3) things that can't be proven and don't have just reason for belief. Examples: 1) The statement; "Nothing is true. " cannot be true 2) Everything is not a figment of my imagination and 3) There is a teapot floating in intergalactic space. The only way we can ascertain that selves exist at all is through our experience as selves. Therefore believing that our experience is identical to ourselves falls into the 2nd degree of unprovability. Claiming that a soul or some kind of extra self exists beyond our experience cannot be proven in anyway b/c we simply can't experience it. Such a claim would fall into the 3rd degree. Therefore it is more reasonable to assume that we are simply our experience. Once you have accepted this much we can probe deeper and clear up the confusion surrounding my second premise in my original syllogism. There are two kinds of knowledge. 1) Knowledge about an experience and 2) the experience itself as a form of knowledge. The first is analytic the second is experiential. Analytic knowledge is knowledge about an experience while experiential knowledge is just the experience. Being aware of an experience is having analytic knowledge about the experience where as simply having the experience is also knowledge itself b/c it contains information. Anyone familiar with information theory will realize that the above aspects a-g are bits of information. Information is acquired and interpreted as knowledge in many different ways. One way is through seeing (a) collecting photon information. Another way is hearing (c) collecting molecular vibration information. Yet another way of collecting information is through the act of cognitive thinking (g). My opponent's argument attempts to reduce all forms of knowledge about information to the act of cognitive thinking. While I hold thinking to be one aspect of experience itself and one way of acquiring knowledge. My opponent asks, "Is not an experience an afterthought? " An afterthought is a form of analytic knowledge, as opposed to experiential knowledge. And furthermore, knowledge about an experience (analytic knowledge) is itself also an experience. -- My opponent is right, I did make a slight logical jump when I stated "6. Since being a self is identical to such knowledge every self would be identical to a part of that greater being. " Let me clarify. I still hold that being a self is identical to a certain form of knowledge. For clarity the "certain form of knowledge" is the accumulation of all a given being's knowledge whether it be analytic or experiential. Therefore a self is identical to the accumulation of all its knowledge. My opponent agrees (if my syllogism holds) that I proved thus far that being a self is identical to being part of the knowledge of an omniscient God. This god is a self/being/entity. And as a self His self/being/entity is identical to the accumulation of all His knowledge b/c that is how selves are defined. If X is identical to Y then Y is identical to X. So it holds that the accumulation of all God's knowledge is identical to God Himself. ERGO being a self is identical to being part of an omniscient God. This means that "self" and "part of an omniscient God" are two phrases that describe the same thing. Lets put it in simpler terms Suppose "=" symbolizes identity G= Omniscient God K= all knowledge of all kinds. E= accumulation of all the knowledge of every non-omniscient self. C= all knowledge G might have that isn't E K= E + C G=K (established) Ergo G=E+C T= total number of all selves' S= One non-omniscient self/being A= accumulation of the total of one non-omniscient being's knowledge M = T – S (basically M is the total of all selves minus one self. ) S=A (established) Ergo T= E Ergo G=T+C T = G – C (This means that all selves combined equal a part of G) T= M +S M +S= G – C Ergo S = G – C – M (meaning one self is identical to a part of God, G= C+M+S) Q/A: -" Does living necessarily constitute an experience? " No, plants are living. They don't have experience so they don't have selves. If, however, we discovered that plants do have experience then they would have selves. - Mentally retarded people have experience so they have selves. However, people who are 100% brain dead don't have experience and therefore don't have selves at the moment they are brain dead. Their self may come back into existence if their brain/experience is restored. - "Does every material object experience" No, every material object does not, but if it did then it would have a self. -- "since being must come before experiences, and it is only the existence of the being that can produce experiences" I disagree with this notion. Experience, in my definition is the act of being (a self that is). They are identical—one does not come before the other. The self comes into being the moment experience does b/c they are the same thing. That isn't to say that things can't exist unless they have experience. Rocks and plants both exist but don't have experience/selves. Yet in order for a self to exist experience must exist because they are the same thing. Thanks Again