New debate (Judging)

[pohuist]

Please vote your conscience, not your allegiance:)

[gate7ole]

Can we (the debaters) vote? I mean, I will definitely vote for my Team (as all the others), so is it fair, or do only the guests and judges vote?

[pohuist]

Judges can't vote. You can. But you shouldn't definitely vote for your team. You should think who in your heart won and vote fair.

[Nóm]

I can't vote in this because I was involved enough in it that I really can't view it from the perspective of an observer. I do not know who won.

[Hirila]

I will give my result at the end of this post, when having finished a short analysis.

First I have to admit, that I didn't read the debate to its end. I have read the first third and then it got, please excuse me, boring. People were repeating themselves all the time. Some sentences I can remember, I will use them here:

Pro Team A: The shrinking of the ring, IS a sign for its being able to act, and the ring obviously acted at a time, when Sauron was not present in ME. When it was found by Deagol e.g. But you fail to prove that the ring can really think.

Pro Team B: Your best argument is that the ring cannot feel in a way as we feel. That is, our sense of touching, smelling, seeing something. It also always responded to Sauron, only "acted" when he was "near". But you, too, fail to prove that it cannot think.
What I thought unfair was that you used the Silmarillion or UT as reference where the rules explicitly said that only LotR and Hobbit were allowed. You mention Iluvatar and the Vala. They do not appear in these latter.
But (this is positive) your debating style is better than that of Team A. You often comment on what your opponents said before bringing your own arguments.

What both teams could have done better was this: Neither has decided wether it argued for a really thinking ring, one that has the ability to ponder on things, or a ring that only has a kind of instinct and "acts" for an incentive. You should have done this instead of one time arguing for the omni-potent thinking ring one time for the instinctive reacting ring.


Now, I should very much like to announce a winner. It would be Team A. Simply for the cause that even Team B didn't fully deny the ring's being able to "react" for the incentive Sauron. And being able to react means being able to think for a certain extent. But you (Team A) couldn't agree on the topic mentioned above (thinking or reacting) so you cannot claim this victory.


I have to admit: it is a complete draw. I cannot imagine a more undecided debate. (yet, who knows what topics our Guild Masters introduce next time) Neither Team A nor Team B can verify its own hypothesis or falsify the other.
But methodology tells us: It is not because you cannot prove something that it is false. And you cannot completely deny something because you cannot prove it's existence.

[pohuist]

Hello, where is everybody?

[Nenya Evenstar]

I'm here, but do not want to vote as I was involved in the debate. I do not believe I could vote fairly.

[Nóm]

Originally posted by pohuist
Hello, where is everybody?

The debate is too boring for anyone to finish reading. It's not really right to judge without reading the full thing so perhaps that is why more people have not judged it.

[Eledhwen]

There are only so many arguments you can use for this debate from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, so we ended up going round in circles just to make sure the other team didn't win simply by getting more coverage. I don't think either team's argument was sufficiently snookered to win the match, so I'd call it a draw.

[Maedhros]

I have finally looked at the entire debate and it was waaaaaaay toooooooooo loooooooooong.
From now on, the groups will be smaller. No more than four per team.
Now the topic, I would have to say personally that the Team A where the ring is sentient had the more difficult task at hand at proving that.
I think that team B made a good point that Sauron couldn't create a sentient being, which I felt was not properly dispelled by Team A.
I should penalize both teams for dragging this debate too long and going around in circles.
Having said that, I don't think that Team B used their advantage enough to prove that the ring was not sentient and Team A argued valid points, So I will vote for a draw.

[Nóm]

Thank you Maedhros for taking the time to read the entire thing. It's good to know that someone bothered to..:)

[Walter]

I have bothered to read the entire debate and I too think it was rather longdrawn. Maybe there should be some limitations established to prevent this in future debates.

Team A has a very hard stand on this topic and IMO they struggled pretty well. Team B had it somewhat easier, but IMO they missed many an occasion to "kill the ball".

Almost a draw, but however I see some slight advantages for Team B...

[pohuist]

The debate is a draw (by those judges who bothered to vote).

I would personally like to reiterate 2 points made by Hirila and Maedhros -- team B had a good argument that Sauron could not make a sentient ring and that both team argued more whether the Ring could act, while the question is 'think'. I do not want to start a debate in philosophy but one doesn't have to be thinking even if acting of a free wil.

Thanks to everybody participating.

[Lhunithiliel]

Hey!
I would like to say a few words about the debate too.

First of all, I don't find it boring! :mad: Perhaps it was long, I admit that, but we had a whole week and we were just being active - that's all.

Second, I'd like to confess that for me personally, this was precisely the case when I had to defend a thesis that I was AGAINST - meaning that I personally believe.....or would like to believe, that the Ring IS sentient. So, I found it extremely difficult to "convince" myself in the contrary point! ;) :p Maybe that's why I don't find the debate boring - because it was not only debating my guild-mates but myself too.

Third, I still think that Team "B" did better because Team "A" could not explain and object to the arguments of Team "B" concerning the Ring's ability to THINK and SENSE.

But in final score, we ALL had a good "lesson" and I think the "spectators" should share more their opinions so that we could trully learn. ;)