@stukus:

Always a body, and so body and mind are inseperable?

Yes... and no.

My point isn't that a mind can't survive with no body, it needs a storehouse, be it machine or man.

My point is it does not necessarily need to be the SAME body, and so having the same body is not the mark of personal identity, particularly if you grant the not-so-implausible mind (or, if you orefer, memory) transfer scenario.

@BernieAnderson:

My giving the viable fetus the definition of human isn't technologically based at all.

It follows logically without modern technology...

If it has all the features of a human being INCLUDING the ability to experience the outside world and begin forming a persona, then... if it has all the pieces and requirements of it being human-

It IS a human being.

The fact it can come out of the fetus via technology is new, but that doesn't change the evolutionary/"God-given" (whichever you prefer) design that gives it the abilites and requirements of human being at that stage.

And everyone seems to forget a key point I made (at least I believe I did, if not, consiuder this the clarification):

It's not just experience empirically, as stated, a fetus of even earlier stages can do THAT.

It's the ability to BUILD those experiences into a persona.

Even though our memory to great extent as a born baby doesn't extend for quite some time, we DO learn basic ideas on pain (doctor slapping you, stubbing your toe) and pleasure (soft teddy bear, "meal time" with mom.)

"Human life isn't a question of philosophy, it is a question of Biology. Life clearly begins at conception. History teaches us that arbitrarily classifying people as "not human" is very, very dangerous."

This is clearly a loaded definition designed to present a pro-life perspective. Life doesn't "clearly" begin at conception. For one, biologists have a pretty hard time pinning down a useful yet consistent definition of life itself. In what sense is an egg or a sperm cell not alive, but once they meet the zygote they create is alive?

In any sense, even if I agreed with the definition that human life begins at conception, it is still just a definition. Science can tell you how things are, but not how things ought to be. The moral consideration given to a zygote, blastula, embryo, foetus, or baby is a value judgement of how we ought to treat them. While science may inform our decision, it cannot make it for us. Science can tell us that neither a zygote nor a blastula is at all capable of subjective experience, let alone suffering. Science also tells us that zygotes and blastulas have the potential to become a human being which is indeed capable of subjective experience. These are facts, not definitions. The value judgement one has to make is, does a group of cells incapable of subjective experience but potentially capable to form a human warrant moral consideration?

obiwanobiwan - The problem with you definition list is that only conception, birth, and 18 years old are actually clear demarcations. The rest are all a bit "fuzzy" as to when they occur and thus they can not form a clear line.

Also, you never really responded BernieAnderson's comment on your circular logic used to define someone as human. I would also argue that a single cell can react to external stimuli, and thus it can "experience" the outside world. As to what impact that might have on adult personality, I have no idea whatsoever what the impact is and I don't think anyone else does either.

@Chrispminis:

I'm not classifying people as non-human.

I'm defining a person as the mind/personality, generally conjoined with the body, empirically formed through external experience and growth and development, and human in species.

In short, a person is a persona encased in a human body and usuing it for its desires.

Thus, to be a person, you must first be a human being.

As I am denying the four-cell life form the status of human life, and just life, as of yet indeterminate (to use science to make a point, all mammals are/look the same in the early stages, so, essentially, I AM right, if that holds, by saying they are not human at four cells, they are merely life, and mammalian life, but still not definitely human in form, and thus cannot be a person as I define in the mind-sense.)

So I'm not playing Hitler and calling a race sub-human.

I'm just saying at four cells and lacking the requirements for being definitively human, let alone a person as I define it...

It's not yet human.
And so definitely not yet a person.

obiwan, I hope you're not just ignoring my posts now. I took the time to write them because I find that you're making a lot of assumptions about the nature of minds, cognition, and human neural development while completely glossing over the science that actually governs these areas. For example, you wrote:

"Even though our memory to great extent as a born baby doesn't extend for quite some time, we DO learn basic ideas on pain (doctor slapping you, stubbing your toe) and pleasure (soft teddy bear, "meal time" with mom.)"

See, from a scientific perspective, I could tell you that you don't have episodic memory for much of your baby life because the hippocampus, a structure in the brain that is intimately tied to memory, isn't fully developed until you're a toddler. Pleasure and pain are innate functions, and not something that is to be learned. Rather, things that are learned are often learned with regards to their association with pleasure and pain. "Meal time" with Mom is an instinctual behaviour as well and has nothing to do with learned experience. Before a baby ever figures out that it gets nourishment out of suckling it will attempt to suckle your fingers, its fingers, or other things. Babies are certainly not devoid of personality that they must develop over time through their experiences. If you have ever have a baby I'm sure this will become quite clear to you.

@nola2172:

How is 18 years a clear definition, its just as arbitrary, that being my point, they're ALL arbitrary in a sense...

And I am afraid I'm, after debating this for hours at college, not getting BernieAnderson's point...

Can you state it point-by point, bullet-form if possible? I'd love to respond, but heavy reading after a 10-hour day of classes isn't up my alley at the moment.

;)

Oh nvm, you've just responded.

"Human life isn't a question of philosophy, it is a question of Biology" - i entirely disagree. Biology can only tell us how things work, not why we consider life important.

obiwanobiwan - Since when does "looking" like an adult form have anything to do with anything? And what does "look like" mean anyway? If I am using a DNA testing machine to determine whether or not two things look alike, then an early stage fetus looks almost identical to an adult human.

Also, I would propose a general rule for discussions of this type. It is "Error on the side of life". Essentially, in any case in which there is doubt, assume that the life is worth protecting.

Orathaic: Thankfully, biology is a matter of philosophy.

@obiwan: I haven't read much of this thread, but I noticed your earlier comment about transferring memories to another body.

In a certain way, I think the assumption that YOU would wake up in another body is begging the question. I think we can agree that in some sense there is an internal continuity apart from one's memories, etc. that is "you". Isn't it possible that in the scenario you describe, the more accurate situation would be that someone else would wake up and remember being you, while your internal continuity would cease?

"As I am denying the four-cell life form the status of human life, and just life, as of yet indeterminate (to use science to make a point, all mammals are/look the same in the early stages, so, essentially, I AM right, if that holds, by saying they are not human at four cells, they are merely life, and mammalian life, but still not definitely human in form, and thus cannot be a person as I define in the mind-sense.)"

I would agree with you here, but it seems like you're really responding to Bernie more than me here. The post that I wrote, which you seem to be responding to, was written in response to this statement of yours:

"Yes- but my point is that they are not human, in my argument, and so I am saying something non-human cannot have a human experience; even something like eating is one kind of experience for a zebra, one for a fetus... and one for a human being."

See, right here, you're not making a definition of personhood. You're saying that a fetus is not capable of human experience, just fetus experience. My point was simply to say that the fetus is still experiencing, and you can't just define that away. If fetus experience is similar enough to our own than should it not warrant moral consideration? This question remains irregardless of whether you define fetus experience as distinct from human experience because you've defined a fetus as non-human.

@chrispminis and @orathaic

Yes, the argument against abortion rests on the moral claim that we shouldn't kill people. However, this is a moral claim which is universally recognized.

@Chrispminis:

I'll try to respond... and try to restate.

Pai and pleasure being innate, it STILL is an experience actually... experiencing them. Forming the associative connections, as you said.

Meal time with mom may be instinctual, but experiencing still adds to your accumulated being... and, to be cruel but put it another way, the abscence of such a thing, then the abscence of mom for feeding time, that will have an impact.

I acknowledged the episodic memory not being functional early on for the baby...

Still, by experiencing, it builds, even early on. Again, perhaps its easiest to look at the negative scenario:

Baby Oedipus is left alone, abandoned. It instinctually knows its meal time with mother, maybe, but as she's not there, no one to feed him and no comforting presence, it is a cause of distress, perhaps even the discovery of distress, Oedipus being so young as a baby, maybe this is his first brush with a bad, truly bad experience, and there are plenty here- abandonment, association (or in his case lack thereof) wioth human beings, food...

I'm probably not being th most coherent I've ever been, long day, but I hope my general point is being commuted, that even before the episodic memory empirically the child cna still be shaped by what is- or isn't- there.

@lulzworth:

??? I REALLY didn't get your point... are you agreeing or not with the mind-body idea... or something else... how is internal memory relevant, I didn't say memory and mind were different, if anything I've said they were very much the same thing...

obiwanobiwan - 18 years old is completely arbitrary, but what I meant is that we KNOW when someone is 18 years old (as defined as time since birth) to the exact second if we wanted to. Similarly birth, and if we were watching, similarly conception (though it can be checked out definitively). The other periods (1 week after conception for instance) are not really an exact moment in time because most of the time, we have no idea when the woman conceived so we could be wrong.

Finally, what BernieAnderson stated is that you first define human experience to exclude fetuses and then use this definition to state that fetuses are not human. This does not really prove anything.

@Chrispminis:

If I got your question right... you asked that if the fetus is experiencing fetus experiences, and that is similar to human experience, shouldn't that merit moral consideration?

Assuming that IS what you meant...

Right there I see the distinction, though...

FETUS experience, not HUMAN experience... and so not human, and so...

Why treat what is not human as such?

Take another four-cell organism that is not a a conceived one from humans... I would say that we should treat the four-cell "from human egg and sperm" subject on par with its peer, that non-"human" four-cell orgainism.

Same with fetuses- as it is experiences as would a bat fetus, or a chicken fetus, or another sort of mammal, I would then treat it on par with its peers.

And I don't see the issue with Chicken fetuses, I don't see the line of folks defending them, so... treating likes as likes... now, when it reaches Viability, it has distinctly human form and, if, for lack of a better phrase, was "freed" from the womb early, it would survive as a human baby, that Viable Fetus has human rights, at least in part, as it has human form and can at any moment be born and thus acquire a personality through experience...

Become a person.

obiwanobiwan - If you sister (I don't know if you have one, but for the sake of argument) was pregnant and someone attacked her and as a result the child she was carrying died, would you want that person prosecuted for simple battery or for murder? Based on your 10:39pm EST post, it looks like it would just be battery because to kill a fetus of any animal species is not a crime in a lot of cases, and when it is, a pretty minor one at that.

"If I am using a DNA testing machine to determine whether or not two things look alike, then an early stage fetus looks almost identical to an adult human." - no i think you will find that DNA goes through many complicated changes, as genes for certain things switch on and off, we can't currently reverse the changes which mean embryonic stem cells are capable of becoming any type of human cell but adult cells can only produce more cells of the same kind.

The genes may be the same, but how they mechanically produce protiens is very different. (i don't actually know the details of how they would look...)

@Bernie: "Yes, the argument against abortion rests on the moral claim that we shouldn't kill people. However, this is a moral claim which is universally recognized." - yes, but there is no universally accepted definition of 'person' - or when life ends, should feeding tubes be removed from brain dead patients? or when life begins.

Or when the soul enters the body...

@nola2172:

Reading your rephrasing of BernieAnderson';s objection... it seems on both counts I'm denying fetuses human rights and saying they are not human, so how is that inconsistent or circular?

To restate:

-A human body, as a baby, may be seen from the Viable stage, as it may be born fully ready, to birth
-A human MIND is shaped by experience that is acquired during its time as a fully-formed human being experiencing those forces which act on human beings (to put another way, wind and sun and teddy bears... etc.)
-Emprical gains create a persona
-A mental persona is a human being/person, and the body is the capsule in which it is carried and uses instruments (ie, hands)
-The pre-Viable fetus lacks these traits and lacks the human experiences
-Pre-viable fetuses have pre-viable fetus experiences, as opposed to human/person ones as above defined
-Likes should be treated as likes
-Human beings/people should be, then, treated as equals
-Fetuses of the pre-viable state should be treated as other mammalian pre-viable fetuses, their likes

From that:

-Abortion of the Pre-Viable fetus should not be a favorite pastime, but is morally acceptable when necessary (ie, the poor single parent should not have her life ruined due to a rape baby; Bill Gates' daughter has the financial means so that she can keep the baby and keep her old mode of life, and so there is no logical reason to destroy the potential for life.)



That's my ultimate view of fetuses:

POTENTIAL for a human being and a human life... NOT human life at the start.

And while we should try to maximize potential, it should not be done at the detriment to already-standing people, hurt an already-actualized human life and experience on account of a potential one.

A bird in a hand is worth two in a bush...

A life in progress is worth two in the womb.

orathaic - Your DNA at conception and your DNA as an adult is the same. The thing that differentiates one type of cell from another is which genes are active withing that cell, not the DNA sequence (which is always the same). All human cells that have DNA (a few don't) contain the same DNA within a single person.

@obiwan, I was never disputing the importance that experience holds in the formation of an individual person. However, I was trying to show you how incorrect Blank Slate empiricism is in the face of modern scientific understanding. You seem to be basing a lot of your conclusions on abortion on outdated philosophical premises.

Again, my point was that *you* defined a fetus as non human, and it was just a definition. If I defined a fetus as a human would we have to abandon our discourse? The fetus' experiences are unchanged regardless of our definitions. Should we be basing our morality on what we've named things rather than on what things are? The idea that one ought to give moral consideration to humans is not based upon what we call or define as human, but the properties that comprise a human.

"Yes, the argument against abortion rests on the moral claim that we shouldn't kill people. However, this is a moral claim which is universally recognized."

And I agree. However, in this regard, it is not a question of biology. Science does not and cannot tell you when personhood begins.

obiwanobiwan - The actual life or death of an adult person I would argue is of equal value to a life in the womb (though you may differ here), but I am not sure how the temporal convenience of an adult person could possibly outweigh the life or death of a human in the womb.

Also, before I have to deal with somebody talking about personal freedom or something to that effect again (though TGM does not appear to be around), if someone is trapped under some rubble and you are holding up something from falling on them but are not able to move lest they be killed, then I would argue that you have a clear moral obligation (outweighing any "personal freedom" you might have) to stand there until some other help arrives (or until you are physical incapable of holding up whatever it is you are holding). Simiarly, if the temporary inconvenience of one person can only be "alleviated" by the death of another, then that person is going to have some inconvenience for a while.

"I am not sure how the temporal convenience of an adult person could possibly outweigh the life or death of a human in the womb."

Well, first... I have defined the fetus in the womb as NON-human... so...

Even granting it human-hood (though I still don't) are you saying, then that what amounts to a POTENTIAL life is more valuable than a life in progress?

By that logic... why, when the fetus endagers the mother, does even the Catholic Church, a staunch opponent, obviously, of abortion, allow for abortion under that circumstance?

Even those against abortiona dn against 9/10 of waht I've said agree with me there, that a life in progress is valued more than a potential life...

And your rubble-person analogy and calling carrying a child a "temprary inconvenience" that...

Have you ever BEEN pregnant?
Try telling THEM that it's just "inconvienent." ;)

But in the serious case... the woman's body changes, is under high stress both physically and hormonally...

Carrying a baby is a serious and at least a good portion of the time dangerous business, and there is NO justification for the state to force a woman to endager her body so, ESPECIALLY for a potential life.

"All human cells that have DNA (a few don't) contain the same DNA within a single person. " - barring the few chimeras, and ignoring the fact that identical twins are considered seperate people each with full human rights even though they have the same dna...

Yes, but the cells aren't the same, how does the DNA know it is on or off? if it doesn't then it's not such a useful thing to use for comparison of adult cells to embryonic cells because it is not determining the characteristics of the cell.

obiwan, you can't just define away the issue! I'm pro-choice but I do not agree with your arguments at all.

nola's not arguing that a potential life is more valuable than a life in progress as you call them, but that the potential life is more valuable than the life in progress's convenience. I think nola recognizes the mother's right to life, but carrying a baby for nine months and giving birth isn't really an infringement of that right is it? It would be if she were to die in child birth which is why the Catholic church allows abortion in that circumstance.

obiwanobiwan - If the mother and the child in her womb are going to die without an abortion being performed but only the child in the womb would die (the mother would be OK) if the abortion is performed, than an abortion is permissible per the moral teachings of the Catholic Church.

And you have still not said what on earth a "life in progress" means and your argument about that is rather unformed. Women very rarely die as a result of childbirth in developed societies, so their life is not worth more or less than the child they are carrying and when the child is born, both of them are still alive. It comes down to the question (again) of convenience. Should one person die so that another is not inconvenienced for a little while?