ericmurphy
Posts: 2460 Joined: Oct. 2005
|
Once again Thordaddy demonstrates his inability to comprehend clear, unambiguous English sentences:
Quote (thordaddy @ Mar. 28 2006,18:59) | It doesn't matter to you and yet you still argue in favor of pointlessness and meaninglessness. Huh? Would your parents say your conception was pointless and meaningless? Have you or will you claim your children's conception to be pointless and meaningless? Ok... do whatever, but don't try to convince the rest of us that these "beginnings" are pointless and meaningless just because they are to you. If this is what science has to offer, what's the point? |
Where did I say conception was meaningless? I said that arguments about when life "begins" are meaningless within the context of the abortion debate. As I've said a million times before, life does not begin at conception. Can we possibly get past that point? I'm sick of repeating myself.
Quote | But then you say, "life had a beginning," which is tantamount to saying life began at conception. This is exactly what I believe. Life begins at conception. You are certainly coming around. |
WHAT?!! Saying life had a beginning, at some point in time, is tantamount to saying it began at conception? Are you out of your mind? Or are you as logically-challenged as you are semantically-challenged? Life began some time in the distant past, not "at conception." Can you understand the distinction between "in the distant past" and "a few decades ago"?
Quote | Excuse me if I'm missing the science in your statement. The question of when life begins would be very important if it coincided with the emergence of consciousness. And that is the very debate, isn't it? Some claim human life begins at conception and some claim it begins at some unknown point after conception with the emergence of consciouness. |
Thordaddy, I have to ask: are you drunk when you write this stuff? We already know that the onset of consciousness does not coincide with the onset of life, unless you're willing to entertain the notion that sperm cells (along with every single other living organism--algae, liver cells--on the planet, arguably including viruses) is "conscious". You're placing points in issue that were settled long ago. No one but the most utterly clueless would argue that life = consciousness.
Once more from the top, Thordaddy: Life Does Not Begin at Conception. Can we finally, at long last, get past this point?
Quote | There is certainly no evidence as to when one becomes conscious and yet you are adamant that it DIDN'T begin at conception. |
If you're saying no one knows at which point, exactly, a fetus becomes conscious, you and I can agree (evidently the only point on which we agree). But if you're still going to maintain that it's even possible for a fertilized but undivided ovum to be conscious, you're quite frankly out of your mind.
Quote | You must concede that consciousness REQUIRES human life first and foremost, but you won't concede that human life is conscious from its conception. This is fine, but you run into a problem. |
I don't have to concede this at all. I'm pretty sure that, e.g., dogs, cats, dolphins, chimps, etc., are possessing something at least roughly synonymous with, if not identical to, consciousness. So you've lost that point too.
On your second point, I can't imagine how anyone could possibly think that a freshly-fertilized but undivided human ovum could possibly be possessed of anything worthy of the name "consciousness," unless you're using the term in some novel sense that you have not yet defined.
Quote | If a zygote is not human life then a zygote, much like a ovum, sperm, flower or bacteria cannot become conscious. |
God, man, can you possibly start making a distinction between "consciousness" and "life"? No one is saying a human zygote is not human life (normally I'd assume that we're limiting our discussion to human zygotes, but based on the way this discussion is going so far I'm not sure that's a valid assumption). The point everyone else here is clear on is that a human zygote, at the moment of conception, simply is not conscious. Is this point really that hard to grasp?
Quote | If you are conscious and hence represent human "life" and where at conception a zygote, then it stands to reason that a zygote can become conscious. |
Can we file this under "another statement of the bleeding obvious"? Yes, a human zygote can become conscious. So can an unfertilized ovum. So can a sperm cell. Did you have a point here somewhere?
Quote | And because a zygote can become conscious, it stands to reason that it must be human life and not the equivalent of a ovum, sperm, flower or bacteria. |
This, on the other hand, goes in the "bleeding non-sequitor" category. Because a zygote (any kind of zygote? a corn plant zygote?) can become conscious, it must be a human zygote? Well, what if it's a chimp zygote? Are you going to argue that chimps are not conscious? Or that if a chimp zygote can become conscious, it must in fact be really a human zygote? I'm afraid you've completely lost track of your argument.
On the other hand, I know exactly what my argument is. Here's the take-home lesson, Thordaddy: life does not begin at conception. Consciousness does not begin at conception. There's very little special about the moment of conception. Yes, a fertilized ovum has a somewhat greater chance of becoming a person than an unfertilized egg (or a sperm cell for that matter) does, but it has a lot less of a chance of becoming a person than a third-trimester fetus does. There's certainly nothing inevitable about a fertilized ovum becoming a person.
Drawing the line between personhood and non-personhood at the moment of conception is entirely arbitrary. Which goes back to my point that life simply is not as black-and-white/right-or-wrong as many on the right would like us to believe.
-------------- 2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity
"Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams
|