Definition of when life begins

[Zero]

Cows have central nervous systems as well. So do chickens. Do we care about those ones? No. What defines a human mind differently?

That's a retarded argument. We kill animals even when they are quite capable of thinking and feeling. The point is that we don't consider human flesh to be a human being until it can think.

But then you're doing the same thing I do when I tell myself that I'd never suggest to a woman to get an abortion. You're ascribing a value to something simply because it's human, without defining why or how. Why should intellect in humans matter more then in other animals?

[Surlethe]

No, but you said yourself that the presence of a mind was your qualifier. Can you actually explain the difference between the neural processes going on in a 21-week-old fetus's head, and any other animal in the world? A functional mind just seems a week qualifier for humanity, since so many creatures other then humans have them.

The phrase "it's human" springs to mind; there's no need to apply human rights to other animals.

But the entire purpose of this thread is to decide when something goes from being a bundle of cells to being 'human'. The entire point is to establish what makes someone human, and if having a mind is his qualifier, then it ought to apply to everything with a mind.

You're saying everything with a mind ought to be considered a human being, which is, in fact, patently ridiculous. The point here is a human becomes a human -- with all the rights, &c. -- when it has developed a mind.

[Zero]

No, but you said yourself that the presence of a mind was your qualifier. Can you actually explain the difference between the neural processes going on in a 21-week-old fetus's head, and any other animal in the world? A functional mind just seems a week qualifier for humanity, since so many creatures other then humans have them. And I didn't say that there was no difference between the mind of a cow and the mind of a human, but your qualifier of having a mind applies to both.

The neural processes in a 21-week old fetus' brain, with sufficient input, will become human. The neural processes of cattle remain the neural processes of cattle. It's blatantly simple.

We recignize the mind to be the person, dumb dumb. That's why braindeath is what it is.

The fetus that's not 21 weeks old at all will, given the proper sequence of events, eventually become 21 weeks old with the brain of a 21-week old fetus, and eventually become a human. This is also true of the sperm and egg before combination. Potential intellect as a measure would also include the young fetus, so that isn't viable for the 21-week limit.

[Zero]

The phrase "it's human" springs to mind; there's no need to apply human rights to other animals.

But the entire purpose of this thread is to decide when something goes from being a bundle of cells to being 'human'. The entire point is to establish what makes someone human, and if having a mind is his qualifier, then it ought to apply to everything with a mind.

You're saying everything with a mind ought to be considered a human being, which is, in fact, patently ridiculous. The point here is a human becomes a human -- with all the rights, &c. -- when it has developed a mind.

No, actually, I was trying to make the point that not only humans have minds, so there's no real reason to place our minds above the minds of others, besides an arbitrary value associated with being human, or perhaps potential, but potential has its own issues.

[Surlethe]

You're saying everything with a mind ought to be considered a human being, which is, in fact, patently ridiculous. The point here is a human becomes a human -- with all the rights, &c. -- when it has developed a mind.

No, actually, I was trying to make the point that not only humans have minds, so there's no real reason to place our minds above the minds of others, besides an arbitrary value associated with being human, or perhaps potential, but potential has its own issues.

No real reason aside from our extreme level of intelligence and sentience as a species?

[Zero]

Extreme intelligence doesn't apply to a 21-year-old fetus, to babies, to most children, and to many grown people. As for sentience.. it's not a very definite term. Can you explain what it means? Can you prove that all humans have it? Can you explain why other animals don't (if other animals do, it's nothing special about humans)?

[Zero]

Ghetto edit: 21-week-old. Blarg...

[Surlethe]

Extreme intelligence doesn't apply to a 21-year-old fetus, to babies, to most children, and to many grown people. As for sentience.. it's not a very definite term. Can you explain what it means? Can you prove that all humans have it? Can you explain why other animals don't (if other animals do, it's nothing special about humans)?

Red herring. Get back to me when you feel like addressing my point.

[Zero]

My point is that your point is invalid. Extreme intelligence isn't something all in our species share, and sentience is something that's completely indefinable. Your point says jack shit about humanity, or its worth.

[Surlethe]

My point is that your point is invalid. Extreme intelligence isn't something all in our species share, and sentience is something that's completely indefinable. Your point says jack shit about humanity, or its worth.

Red herring: I wasn't comparing extreme intelligence between individuals within our species, I was comparing the general intelligence level of our species with other species. Get a fucking clue.

[Zero]

If the criterion of extreme intelligence and sentience is your qualifier, why do you only apply it as a generalization for why our species has worth, instead of a qualifier for individual worth? If this generalization isn't true of all in the species, why should it apply to all within the species?

[Surlethe]

If the criterion of extreme intelligence and sentience is your qualifier, why do you only apply it as a generalization for why our species has worth, instead of a qualifier for individual worth?

There's a reason I don't apply qualifiers across topics: I might end up sanctioning abortions of male babies because I'm heterosexual.

If this generalization isn't true of all in the species, why should it apply to all within the species?

For the third time: herring.

Because humans, as a rule, are more intelligent and more sentient than other species, humans have more rights than those other species. There's no fucking reason a rule for comparing species should apply to individuals within a species. Got it?

[Zero]

Alright, if humans as a species are more intelligent, and thus deserve more rights, I still don't get at all why those with more intelligence, by your standard, ought not deserve more rights, and those with less intelligence ought not deserve less. I just can't get why your criterion should only apply to the group, and never the individual, when the group is really just many individuals... can you explain to me why any criterion ought to be applied to an entire group, but not to the individuals within that group?

Right now, I just want to understand what the fuck your point is. Why should the criterion that gives humans worth (according to what you're saying) apply to everyone within the species, even those that the generalization doesn't apply to? Furthermore, what bearing does/should this have on the rights of the individuals within the species, if it says nothing about them?

[Surlethe]

Alright, if humans as a species are more intelligent, and thus deserve more rights, I still don't get at all why those with more intelligence, by your standard, ought not deserve more rights, and those with less intelligence ought not deserve less. I just can't get why your criterion should only apply to the group, and never the individual, when the group is really just many individuals... can you explain to me why any criterion ought to be applied to an entire group, but not to the individuals within that group?

Because there is NO REASON why standards used to judge between species should be used to judge between individuals. Since you are positing otherwise, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate why one should apply interspecies reasoning to individual questions of rights.

Right now, I just want to understand what the fuck your point is. Why should the criterion that gives humans worth (according to what you're saying) apply to everyone within the species, even those that the generalization doesn't apply to? Furthermore, what bearing does/should this have on the rights of the individuals within the species, if it says nothing about them?

The point is that human minds -- the average human mind, if you wish -- are inherently different from other animals' minds in terms of intelligence and sentience.

I've engaged you on this tangent long enough; let's get back on topic.

[SirNitram]

God, how fucking dumb are you? Seriously?

Intelligence is not being used as a sliding scale. It's being used as a cutoff point. This is not exactly a difficult distinction. But apparently, it's beyond you.

[Kuroneko]

The fetus that's not 21 weeks old at all will, given the proper sequence of events, eventually become 21 weeks old with the brain of a 21-week old fetus, and eventually become a human. This is also true of the sperm and egg before combination. Potential intellect as a measure would also include the young fetus, so that isn't viable for the 21-week limit.

A potential future is important, yes, but it alone does not imply what you think it does. To use a crude analogy of a different kind of value as an illustration, raw materials in a lightbulb factory certainly have value, and they also have the potential of becoming lightbulbs, but it does not follow that they have the same value. A more canonical hypothetical found in the literature: supposing that there is a two-year-old baby and a chest with 1000 preserved human embryos in a burning house, and you can only save one of them while the other is destroyed, which do you choose? The whole issue is resolved once one realized that there is no contradiction in assigning potential intellect value while at the same time positing that that value is correspondingly lesser or greater in accordance to the degree that this potential becomes actualized. A human baby has already started developing its intellect by learning, while a fetus has not yet formed the organs necessary to start--thus, although they both have a poten

Incidently, this realization forced my capitulation in an argument with Mr. Wong. It looks quite obvious in hindsight. I guess it took longer than necessary because the above accepts fully the premises of this kind of anti-abortionist argument, including the value of potential futures, while denying that they actually entail the conclusion; I was unwilling (and still am) to completely give up the premises, because they are useful in one of the best accounts of what makes life valuable.

There is an increasingly famous anti-abortion paper by Dan Marquis that supposedly removes potentiality from the above kind of argument, but it is prone to the same type of objection. Still, while I still think it fails, it is a more interesting failure than the previous anti-abortion papers in standard philosophical curriculum.

[Surlethe]

A human baby has already started developing its intellect by learning, while a fetus has not yet formed the organs necessary to start--thus, although they both have a poten

Umm...did you want to finish that?

BTW, I like the analogies. They're quite helpful. Thanks!

[The Dark]

How can it be an individual at conception? Post conception, it can become twins or more. Post conception, it can still simply fail to adhere to the side of the uterus.

We're humans because of our nervous systems. Not because we self-replicate cells, the only definitive 'starting' at conception.

Point conceded. I admit, I hadn't considered the twins angle. Even so, concpetion isn't a random event to cut things off of.. if it were, it wouldn't have a name.

Problem is, ~40% of all fertilized eggs (post-conception) fail to implant in the uterine wall, thus spontaneously "self-aborting." Even if we place conception as the cut-off point, a fetus has a less than 60% chance of becoming a human being anyway (given miscarriages). A fetus at conception does not face good odds, and is simply a mass of undifferentiated cells, with (at most) the potential to develop into a human being, no different than a cell colony that could be cloned. If we place a fetus at conception as an individual worthy of rights, than a cell culture taken from a human is just as much an individual worthy of rights from a point of view that looks at the potentials.

[DPDarkPrimus]

God damn it Zero, you're why we can't have intelligent discussion anymore.

[Darth Wong]

The concept of value as applied to living organisms is so emotionally charged that people are reluctant to deal with it, but in any debate over abortion it MUST be dealt with, regardless of peoples' comfort level.

Consider this: a human embryo at 21 weeks, having realized much more of its theoretical potential than a 1-week embryo, has substantially more value, as one can see by the reactions of a mother to a stillbirth, as compared to the reaction of a mother to an early-term abortion (indeed, very early spontaneous abortions may even occur without the mother's knowledge). To assign the 21-week fetus and the 1-week fetus the same value would be to insist that actualization of potential has absolutely zero value, which is utterly absurd.

[Surlethe]

To assign the 21-week fetus and the 1-week fetus the same value would be to insist that actualization of potential has absolutely zero value, which is utterly absurd.

People opposing abortion don't assign a 21-week old fetus and a 1-week fetus the same value; they concede value increases as the fetus ages, but they insist the fetus possesses value even at conception, which is the basis of the argument against abortion.

[Edi]

To assign the 21-week fetus and the 1-week fetus the same value would be to insist that actualization of potential has absolutely zero value, which is utterly absurd.

People opposing abortion don't assign a 21-week old fetus and a 1-week fetus the same value; they concede value increases as the fetus ages, but they insist the fetus possesses value even at conception, which is the basis of the argument against abortion.

Yes, and when pressed on the point and premise of their argument, all you get is a lot of handwaving.

Edi

[Darth Wong]

To assign the 21-week fetus and the 1-week fetus the same value would be to insist that actualization of potential has absolutely zero value, which is utterly absurd.

People opposing abortion don't assign a 21-week old fetus and a 1-week fetus the same value; they concede value increases as the fetus ages, but they insist the fetus possesses value even at conception, which is the basis of the argument against abortion.

And they have no answer for the fact that all human tissue has value, so triumphantly proving that it has non-zero value even at conception proves precisely nothing. The sperm and unfertilized egg also have value.

In order for their argument of "all non-zero value must be preserved" to work, they must:

A) Presume that the sperm and unfertilized egg have zero value.

B) Presume that all non-human life has zero value.

Small wonder all fundies believe that animals are soulless. They have to believe that crap in order to support their argument. An assignment of threshold value to the development of the human mind is not perturbed by animals or pre-conception egg and sperm, but this "any non-zero value must be preserved" nonsense most certainly is.