The religion of "no beginning".

[4321lynx]

Oh but they (fertilised eggs) are very much like a person in that they possess a diploidnumber of chromosomes whereas gametes (sperm and ova) possess a haploid number. Two full sets of chromosomes vs one full set. A good place for a "beginning".

https://www.diffen.com/difference/Diploid_vs_Haploid

A good place for us to arbitrarily select as a 'beginning', for some, but not all, purposes.

But not a beginning in any objective sense.

Chromosome number is not one of my go-to tests when encountering an object, in order to decide whether it is a fellow human. There's nothing non-human about human gametes, and they are clearly distinguishable from the gametes of other species. Nobody mistakes a human spermatozoan for a grain of sycamore pollen - which should be a commonplace error if haploid cells were not demonstrably specific to a particular species.

Sorry, but a haploid human cell is still clearly a human cell.

I am not deciding who is human and who/what is a sycamore. I am countering the statement that "nobody has ever been able to see anything even remotely like a person when looking at a fertilised egg?!"


The haploid cells are in search of/awaiting another haploid cell to begin[ dividing by mitosis in order to form a human. This probability is a beginning, not without obstacles and total failures on the way, yet the human race continues. Haploid cells represent dormant possibilities only, and no possibility in humans of successfully completing to form another human without the required other and different human gamete.

A good place to start unless you want to go back all the way to the Big Bang and before that. But we do not know who was banging whom/what then, where, why, and how many times, so I prefer to think that a particular human began as above, even if I don't know who banged whom then, where, why and how many times or if it was artificial insemination that did it.

 

[bilby]

Oh but they (fertilised eggs) are very much like a person in that they possess a diploidnumber of chromosomes whereas gametes (sperm and ova) possess a haploid number. Two full sets of chromosomes vs one full set. A good place for a "beginning".

https://www.diffen.com/difference/Diploid_vs_Haploid

A good place for us to arbitrarily select as a 'beginning', for some, but not all, purposes.

But not a beginning in any objective sense.

Chromosome number is not one of my go-to tests when encountering an object, in order to decide whether it is a fellow human. There's nothing non-human about human gametes, and they are clearly distinguishable from the gametes of other species. Nobody mistakes a human spermatozoan for a grain of sycamore pollen - which should be a commonplace error if haploid cells were not demonstrably specific to a particular species.

Sorry, but a haploid human cell is still clearly a human cell.

I am not deciding who is human and who/what is a sycamore. I am countering the statement that "nobody has ever been able to see anything even remotely like a person when looking at a fertilised egg?!"

But that's true. A fertilised egg looks NOTHING like a person. Chromosome number is practically the only similarity, and that's weak. A fertilised egg is no more a person than a cell extracted from my pinky finger is a person (both are the same in terms of chromosome number though).

A fertilised egg might, given near perfect conditions (including a functional uterus), be the a key ingredient in making a person one day; but then, given different near perfect conditions (including a well equipped cloning laboratory), so might an extracted cell.

 

[Elixir]

A fertilised egg looks NOTHING like a person.

That's why we have to protect them AT ALL COST!!

ETA: In response to Uber's assertion that egg+sperm=beginning of a human, I'd point out that the majority of incidents where egg-meets-sperm do NOT result in a human. many times these cells are simply adsorbed, some spontaneously abort after dividing a few times...
I'll believe that a blastocyst is human when Texas puts one to death!

 

[Kharakov]

Still, me, I did work out your formula!
EB

That's not possible. How did you add up an infinite amount of terms in a finite amount of time?

You're not paying attention to UM's very sensible line of arguments! Imagination, man! The power of imagination! Imagination gives you true power over infinity.

That said, it took me quite a lot of time, actually.
EB

The easy way is.. familiarity I suppose.

I was looking for mathematical patterns the other day, trying to divide by infinity (turns out I was mangling terminology due to my lack of education, doing an inverse  Cauchy product rather than division and equating it with division... so I could divide by infinity to get what I was calling a "well defined zero"). So I know the series. I didn't learn about it the correct way though- I wonder if 3blue1brown does something on  telescoping series?

part of my convoluted, but naturally arising, experience follows:

Show

so I was assuming (another bad practice in mathematics) "division" (inverse Cauchy product) by any of the series would end up being zero, so:

1/ (2+3+4+5....) = (1/2 -3/4) + (1/4 -1/8) +(1/8 -1/16) + (1/16 -1/32)..... //I can explain how I arrived at this if you like, or save it for some other time if you get curious

so you get = -1/4 +.... something that must equal 1/4 for the series to equal 0 so 1/8 +1/16 +1/32... = 1/4 so I know that series, which can be shifted by 2^n to create powers of 2 without altering the structure.




There is also the easier way to get zero with the same series (from which you can pick a section and say anything past it equals the opposite sign of the section):

(1/2 -3/4 +1/4) + (-1/8 +1/8) + (-1/16+1/16) +(-1/32+1/32)....= 0+0+0+0....




You can also do the "the sum - the sum = 0" method, as long as the sums are convergent ( Riemann Series Theorem)

1/4 - 1/4+1/8 -1/8+1/16- 1/16+1/32 - 1/32..... combine terms

1/4......-1/8........-1/16 ........ -1/32 = 0 so 1/4 = 1/8 +1/16 +1/32....



There is the other method too. Look at what the limit approaches:

1/4 +1/8 = 3/8. 3/8 +1/16 = 7/16 7/16 +1/32 = 15/32 .... so it approaches 2^(n-1)/2^n as n--> infinity, or 1/2

Which leads me to a question about limits. Sheesh.

 

[untermensche]

When a sperm cell fertilizes an egg cell the person begins.

So now you would know that the fertilised egg is the beginning of a person even though nobody has ever been able to see anything even remotely like a person when looking at a fertilised egg?!

Logic is not your forte.
EB

It is you that has problems, serious problems, with simple logic.

If a thing must continually resemble what it did at it's beginning it will not become anything.

In terms of life, beginnings mean becomings.

Without the beginning there is no becoming.

 

[untermensche]

Still, me, I did work out your formula!
EB

That's not possible. How did you add up an infinite amount of terms in a finite amount of time?

You're not paying attention to UM's very sensible line of arguments! Imagination, man! The power of imagination! Imagination gives you true power over infinity.

That said, it took me quite a lot of time, actually.
EB

You seem to have trouble understanding the difference between the real and the imaginary.

Hint: If it "exists" only in minds it is imaginary.

It is possible for something to be purely imaginary. Like infinity.

 

[untermensche]

Oh but they (fertilised eggs) are very much like a person in that they possess a diploidnumber of chromosomes whereas gametes (sperm and ova) possess a haploid number. Two full sets of chromosomes vs one full set. A good place for a "beginning".

https://www.diffen.com/difference/Diploid_vs_Haploid

A good place for us to arbitrarily select as a 'beginning', for some, but not all, purposes.

But not a beginning in any objective sense.

Chromosome number is not one of my go-to tests when encountering an object, in order to decide whether it is a fellow human. There's nothing non-human about human gametes, and they are clearly distinguishable from the gametes of other species. Nobody mistakes a human spermatozoan for a grain of sycamore pollen - which should be a commonplace error if haploid cells were not demonstrably specific to a particular species.

Sorry, but a haploid human cell is still clearly a human cell.

It is a cell and will only be a single cell unless it joins with another cell. When that happens it will be the beginning of something instead of a dead end.

It has nothing to do with chromosome number.

A Downs child begins at fertilization too.

It is about a transformation. The transformation that occurs after fertilization.

The necessary transformation for a life to develop.

 

[Juma]

Oh but they (fertilised eggs) are very much like a person in that they possess a diploidnumber of chromosomes whereas gametes (sperm and ova) possess a haploid number. Two full sets of chromosomes vs one full set. A good place for a "beginning".

https://www.diffen.com/difference/Diploid_vs_Haploid

A good place for us to arbitrarily select as a 'beginning', for some, but not all, purposes.

But not a beginning in any objective sense.

Chromosome number is not one of my go-to tests when encountering an object, in order to decide whether it is a fellow human. There's nothing non-human about human gametes, and they are clearly distinguishable from the gametes of other species. Nobody mistakes a human spermatozoan for a grain of sycamore pollen - which should be a commonplace error if haploid cells were not demonstrably specific to a particular species.

Sorry, but a haploid human cell is still clearly a human cell.

It is a cell and will only be a single cell unless it joins with another cell. When that happens it will be the beginning of something instead of a dead end.

It has nothing to do with chromosome number.

A Downs child begins at fertilization too.

It is about a transformation. The transformation that occurs after fertilization.

The necessary transformation for a life to develop.

Every second of any life is a necessary transformation.

 

[4321lynx]

I am not deciding who is human and who/what is a sycamore. I am countering the statement that "nobody has ever been able to see anything even remotely like a person when looking at a fertilised egg?!"

But that's true. A fertilised egg looks NOTHING like a person. Chromosome number is practically the only similarity, and that's weak. A fertilised egg is no more a person than a cell extracted from my pinky finger is a person (both are the same in terms of chromosome number though).
A fertilised egg might, given near perfect conditions (including a functional uterus), be the a key ingredient in making a person one day; but then, given different near perfect conditions (including a well equipped cloning laboratory), so might an extracted cell.

It depends on your definition of the term "looks" as used here. If you look naked-eye you see little aside from some fluid, in the case of fertilised/unfertilised eggs. If you examine the stuff you "see" a clear difference very quickly.

For cloning you need a somatic (diploid) cell as well as the oocyte (unfertilised egg) to succeed.

And you did not want to discuss possibilities vs probabilities or you would not have cut off a good chunk of my post. It wasn't solemn enough?

 

[bilby]

Oh but they (fertilised eggs) are very much like a person in that they possess a diploidnumber of chromosomes whereas gametes (sperm and ova) possess a haploid number. Two full sets of chromosomes vs one full set. A good place for a "beginning".

https://www.diffen.com/difference/Diploid_vs_Haploid

A good place for us to arbitrarily select as a 'beginning', for some, but not all, purposes.

But not a beginning in any objective sense.

Chromosome number is not one of my go-to tests when encountering an object, in order to decide whether it is a fellow human. There's nothing non-human about human gametes, and they are clearly distinguishable from the gametes of other species. Nobody mistakes a human spermatozoan for a grain of sycamore pollen - which should be a commonplace error if haploid cells were not demonstrably specific to a particular species.

Sorry, but a haploid human cell is still clearly a human cell.

It is a cell and will only be a single cell unless it joins with another cell. When that happens it will be the beginning of something instead of a dead end.

It has nothing to do with chromosome number.

A Downs child begins at fertilization too.

It is about a transformation. The transformation that occurs after fertilization.

The necessary transformation for a life to develop.

Transformations are not beginnings - in the context of 'did the universe have a beginning', the word 'beginning' is clearly used in a way that omits 'transformation' - if the Big Bang singularity represents a transformation from an earlier state of the universe, then the answer to the question 'did the universe have a beginning' is 'No'.

If becomings and beginnings are synonymous, then the word beginning is valueless. Every event would be a beginning, and specifying any one event as 'the beginning' of something would be completely arbitrary and pointless.

 

[bilby]

I am not deciding who is human and who/what is a sycamore. I am countering the statement that "nobody has ever been able to see anything even remotely like a person when looking at a fertilised egg?!"

But that's true. A fertilised egg looks NOTHING like a person. Chromosome number is practically the only similarity, and that's weak. A fertilised egg is no more a person than a cell extracted from my pinky finger is a person (both are the same in terms of chromosome number though).
A fertilised egg might, given near perfect conditions (including a functional uterus), be the a key ingredient in making a person one day; but then, given different near perfect conditions (including a well equipped cloning laboratory), so might an extracted cell.

It depends on your definition of the term "looks" as used here. If you look naked-eye you see little aside from some fluid, in the case of fertilised/unfertilised eggs. If you examine the stuff you "see" a clear difference very quickly.

For cloning you need a somatic (diploid) cell as well as the oocyte (unfertilised egg) to succeed.

And you did not want to discuss possibilities vs probabilities or you would not have cut off a good chunk of my post. It wasn't solemn enough?

It wasn't existent enough.

I didn't cut anything - perhaps you edited it after I had replied?

Regardless, my concern is not with the meaning of 'looks', but the meaning of 'person'. Which in the context of gametes, zygotes and blastulae, is very much not synonymous with 'human'.

Oh, and in principle there is no reason why any human tissue is required to make a new human being - the practical and ethical barriers prevent it from being done, but there is no in principle reason why a zygote couldn't be built with a custom assembled genome built base pair by base pair, using entirely non-living precursors, and inserted into an entirely artificial oocyte. It's all just biochemistry, no magic is required - just the desire and the money to make it happen.

Obviously it's a LOT easier, cheaper, and less likely to get you arrested to make a human the old fashioned way. But while the end-to-end process hasn't been (and may never be) done, every one of the required steps to make a human without using any human derived components or ingredients has now been done.

 

[Elixir]

Transformations are not beginnings.

What a killjoy you are! I suppose that next, you'll be telling Unter that everything is constantly transforming, so either there are no beginnings, or any point along the history-line of anything can be designated a "beginning" with equal validity.
Almost as if you might be trying to shut him up. But you wouldn't do that, would you?

 

[Kharakov]

You're not paying attention to UM's very sensible line of arguments! Imagination, man! The power of imagination! Imagination gives you true power over infinity.

That said, it took me quite a lot of time, actually.
EB

You seem to have trouble understanding the difference between the real and the imaginary.

Your fake infinite inability to grasp logic is real. My ability to grasp logic is imaginary, because I can't actually physically grasp it, but I have a real grasp of it.

Hint: If it "exists" only in minds it is imaginary.

So neurons are imaginary? How do you know if they exist in minds, or minds exist in them? Is up down or what?

It is possible for something to be purely imaginary. Like infinity.

That's only your version of infinity, which isn't what everyone else is talking about. You have to use the same nomenclature as others. Or at least try. Just joking, you don't, but some of us do.

 

[untermensche]

It is a cell and will only be a single cell unless it joins with another cell. When that happens it will be the beginning of something instead of a dead end.

It has nothing to do with chromosome number.

A Downs child begins at fertilization too.

It is about a transformation. The transformation that occurs after fertilization.

The necessary transformation for a life to develop.

Transformations are not beginnings...

Says who?

The transformation is the beginning of the new organism that did not exist before the transformation took place.

 

[untermensche]

Hint: If it "exists" only in minds it is imaginary.

So neurons are imaginary? How do you know if they exist in minds, or minds exist in them? Is up down or what?

Is English your first language?

Neurons exist out there in the world. All over the place.

Infinity exists nowhere except in the mind that partially conceives it.

That's only your version of infinity, which isn't what everyone else is talking about. You have to use the same nomenclature as others. Or at least try. Just joking, you don't, but some of us do.

You tried with your infinite direction dead end. Every time you try to apply infinity to something real you end up with absurdity. You do not end up with something that can be observed in any way.

This is not my version on anything.

Give me another version.

Show me infinity. Where is it?

Don't just talk about it.

- - - Updated - - -

Transformations are not beginnings.

What a killjoy you are! I suppose that next, you'll be telling Unter that everything is constantly transforming, so either there are no beginnings, or any point along the history-line of anything can be designated a "beginning" with equal validity.
Almost as if you might be trying to shut him up. But you wouldn't do that, would you?

Did your life have a beginning?

If you travel to Cleveland will you begin the trip?

If you never have a beginning to the trip when will you get there?

Beginnings everywhere.

No miraculous beginnings but they are not the only kind.

 

[bilby]

Transformations are not beginnings.

What a killjoy you are! I suppose that next, you'll be telling Unter that everything is constantly transforming, so either there are no beginnings, or any point along the history-line of anything can be designated a "beginning" with equal validity.
Almost as if you might be trying to shut him up. But you wouldn't do that, would you?

Did your life have a beginning?

If you travel to Cleveland will you begin the trip?

If you never have a beginning to the trip when will you get there?

Beginnings everywhere.

No miraculous beginnings but they are not the only kind.

You are completely free to choose:

A) Beginnings everywhere, in which case, who cares about any specific beginning - they are all more of the same old same old, and none has any particular importance. OR

B) Beginnings are significant, in which case, they need to have a unique characteristic that distinguishes them from mere transformations. The creation of space, time, mass or energy would count as a beginning under this second definition. However we have no evidence of any beginnings of this kind; Whether any are real is a subject of intense speculation, and cannot be resolved with our current scientific knowledge.

But you have to pick - using the two very different definitions as though they were the same is a Fallacy of Equivocation.


If you travel to Cleveland, when does the trip begin? When you join the interstate? When you start your car? When you step out of your front door? When you start walking towards your front door? When you get up that morning? When you are born?

Regardless, you get there when you arrive. No need for a defined beginning - or a beginning at all.

No miraculous beginnings - and they ARE the only kind, for the definition of 'beginning' that you discuss in the OP.

Loads of beginnings for the other definition of 'beginning' - but no reason to pick any of them as special, important or different.

 

[Kharakov]

Infinity exists nowhere except in the mind that partially conceives it.

Most people understand that the universe is chock full of infinites, such as normal every day infinites like the infinite amount of directions a person faces when they turn their head any finite amount. Of course, you seem to think there are only a finite amount of directions, which isn't possible in a continuum.

That's only your version of infinity, which isn't what everyone else is talking about. You have to use the same nomenclature as others. Or at least try. Just joking, you don't, but some of us do.

You tried with your infinite direction dead end.

Everything's a dead end to a moron. They don't know how to turn an infinite amount of directions in a finite amount of time. Just turn.

 

[untermensche]

Most people understand that the universe is chock full of infinites, such as normal every day infinites like the infinite amount of directions a person faces when they turn their head any finite amount. Of course, you seem to think there are only a finite amount of directions, which isn't possible in a continuum.

That simply isn't true.

You can't face close to an infinite number of directions.

No matter how slow you turn.

This dissolves to absurdity instantly.

A direction has to have at least some fraction of a degree or it isn't a direction. It has to be something to be a direction.

An infinitely small direction is not a real thing.

You have no argument.

There are no infinities in the real world.

Infinity is an imaginary conception.

 

[untermensche]

Did your life have a beginning?

If you travel to Cleveland will you begin the trip?

If you never have a beginning to the trip when will you get there?

Beginnings everywhere.

No miraculous beginnings but they are not the only kind.

You are completely free to choose:

A) Beginnings everywhere, in which case, who cares about any specific beginning - they are all more of the same old same old, and none has any particular importance. OR

This isn't about caring about anything.

I don't care that the concept of "no beginning" is meaningless. It just is.

Beginnings are significant, in which case, they need to have a unique characteristic that distinguishes them from mere transformations.

There has to be an observable beginning to something. Something has to begin.

Not all transformations are beginnings but when something begins because of one they are.

Take a trip without beginning.

Get a haircut without beginning.

"Without beginning" never gets you anything.

If you travel to Cleveland, when does the trip begin? When you join the interstate? When you start your car? When you step out of your front door? When you start walking towards your front door? When you get up that morning? When you are born?

Knowing precisely when the trip begins is not the point. It is not close to the point. The exact moment of fertilization is never known. All that is known is that it has taken place. A beginning has occurred.

To move to any destination requires beginning some movement, in any direction.

Sitting still and never beginning means no trip takes place.

 

[DBT]

It seems to have slipped my mind....are you proposing a First Cause for the Universe?