pood
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2021
- Messages
- 2,464
- Basic Beliefs
- agnostic
Does the statement "life begins at conception" contain some ambiguity? We've been through this already.I notice you avoided the question. Is a zygote, embryo, or first-trimester fetus ”someone” (a person) in your view? You certainly seem to imply it, but when asked directly, you dodge the question by saying that you don’t have to prove anything. I find that disingenuous.
Yes, of course it’s ambiguous. It’s why I linked the paper earlier that cited a definition of “life” that is immediately problematic. That definition — “chemical systems capable of Darwinian evolution” — immediately excludes individual people from being examples of “life” (though bizarrely, under the definition, they are still “alive”), while including viruses, which most biologists do not believe are examples of life at all. It also ipso facto excludes unknown life forms that may potentially evolve in Lamarckian fashion, and fire, which grows, reproduces, feeds on resources and does other things characteristic of life, but does not undergo Darwinian selection.
The point, again, being, it is not possible to define any non-trivial term to philosophical completeness.
Moreover, in this latest post of yours, your are moving the goalposts. You asked, “when is it OK to kill SOMEONE,” and not, “when is it OK to kill a clump of cells.” I am maintaining, quite reasonably, that a clump of cells is not a SOMEONE. It’s a clump of cells.
In any case, if it’s impossible define to philosophical completeness “life,” then so too it is impossible to define to philosophical completeness “personhood.”
The "clump of cells" has long been used to relieve the guilt of those who feel bad about killing someone.
You really shouldn’t try to speak for others. No one, like me, who denies that a clump of cells is “someone,” is going to feel guilty killing a clump of cells. Is this really so hard for you to comprehend? Perhaps you feel that a clump of cells is “someone” and think that we should feel that way too, but in that case, as I invited you do to earlier, make an argument for why anyone should consider a clump of cells to be “someone.” By the way, is an unfertilized ovum a “someone” also? How about sperm? Should feel people feel guilty for masturbating or using a condom, and hold funerals for the mass slaughter? You say “life begins at conception” without offering any reason why this so, and moreover you illicitly conflate “life” with “someone.” Your whole argument is an inconsistent botch depending on arbitrary definitions that only serve to confirm your own biases.
In any case, in my view, asking when life begins is the wrong question, because, as someone noted earlier, life does not begin. Life began, here on earth, some 3.8 billion years ago.
you want to claim no person's future ceases to exist because they weren't a person yet, that's your reasoning. If you point at a zygote and say, "I don't see a person."
All I can offer is say, Just wait. They'll be here soon, provided you don't destroy that clump of cells.
No, I don’t see a person. I see a clump of cells. A clump of cells is not a person!
But here you contradict yourself. Earlier you castigated me for characterizing a zygote, embryo or first-term fetus as a “potential person,” and here you are doing exactly the same thing! And in so doing, you are conceding the main point — that a clump of cells is not a person. If it were a person, you wouldn’t to wait for it to become a person, would you?
Also, why do you think I care about your views on abortion?
Why do you think that I think you care? You asked a question — “when is it OK to kill someone?” — and I answered it.