I think the problem is how the two positions structure the two truths. I'm not expert, so I am ready to be corrected.
The two truths doesn't mean the same thing to everyone in every context-- it is a little slippery. Mipham distinguishes, for example, the conceptual ultimate from the non-conceptual ultimate. The conceptual ultimate is what you say, and the non-conceptual ultimate is what you actually see. So everything we're talking about it obviously the conceptual ultimate, and not what you actually experience when you remove obscurations and afflictions.
So let's take a common definition from Mipham: relative truth is appearances, and ultimate truth is emptiness. Appearances in this case is how things seem to deluded beings-- solid, fixed, enduring, with an essence, and so on. Emptiness is what appearances actually are-- not solid, not fixed, not enduring, without essence and so on. And when we are Buddhas, we will see emptiness directly. But we can know that how deluded beings see appearances is false, even without becoming a Buddha. How? Through analysis! When we analyze appearances, we discover they cannot be as they appear. Accordingly, the relative truth is false.
So what is emptiness? It is a lack. A lack of what? You can say like HHDL that it is emptiness of inherent existence--- inherent means independent, permanent, and unitary. Or you can say like Khenpo Karl that emptiness is a lack of fixed reference points. Hakuin says that true nature is no nature. Accordingly, emptiness isn't
something. It is the absence of
something. This is why the Mipham says that conceptually, emptiness is a non-affirming negation. You can see how this is tricky. Emptiness isn't a thing, it is a lack of
thingness.
So to combine it, you can say that relative truth consists of appearances that seem solid. Ultimate truth is a lack of solidity. It isn't correct, then, to say that appearances depend on emptiness. Appearances are actually empty. And there is no emptiness apart from appearances. It is like trying to split heat and fire, or saying that fire depends on heat or heat depends on fire.
Plugging this into position #1:
That there is a lack of solidity and appearances that seem solid, and appearances that seem solid depends on the lack of solidity. No! Appearances that seem solid depend on ignorance.
Plugging into position #2:
There is no lack of solidity, and therefore appearances that seem solid is the lack of solidity or the lack of solidity is appearances that seem solid. It doesn't make sense.
You can also see that emptiness isn't some sort of substratum or foundation. In fact, emptiness is the lack of any substratum of foundation--- so that is a logical contradiction right there.
Sherab wrote:
There are two positions here in this thread:
(1) that there is an ultimate and a relative, and the relative depends on the ultimate. Which is why the ultimate is true or non-deceptive while the relative is false or deceptive;
(2) there is no ultimate, and therefore the relative is the ultimate or the ultimate is the relative.
I have shown that (2) is logically incoherent. That logical incoherence has not been refuted.
Since you disagree with me, I have to assume that your position is that of (2) and that you are comfortable with its inherent logical incoherence .... unless you have a position that is completely different from (2), and not just some variation of it. If so, then of course, we have to agree to disagree.