The religion of "no beginning".

[Speakpigeon]

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

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

Thanks, I'm already reasonably well informed on this bit of technical biology.

I meant looking at an egg and seeing a person there literally. Otherwise, you need to rely on your imagination to see the connection, a methodological approach untermensche has already dismissed as not kosher.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

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?!"

You certainly need to be properly a person to be able to imagine a human being just by looking at a fertilised egg.

I can do it to, you know, but my point was about untermensche's logical consistency. I look at what he writes and can't see the logic. Is that a failure of my imagination? Nah, don't think so.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

A fertilised egg looks NOTHING like a person.

I'll believe that a blastocyst is human when Texas puts one to death!

But didn't America just elected it's first fertilised egg as President?!

Should be good enough.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

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.

Oh, but it's been done.

You don't even need a human being, a person, to do it successfully.

Arguably, it's been done only once, at least that we know of.

It's called 'evolution of life on Earth' and it's been reasonably well documented.

I'm not going to go into when this process really began, though.
EB

 

[untermensche]

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

Do you see a discussion of causes in any of this?

This is about the religious belief called "no beginning".

What do you have to say about it?

 

[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.

Every second of any life is a necessary transformation.

The question is: Which transformation is the beginning of the life of a distinct organism?

Every transformation is essential but not all are the essential first transformation.

How do you have an organism, a human, without a fertilization? How do you say one exists before a fertilization? How do you not say one exists after a fertilization?

Not in the lab. I am talking about 99.9999% of the cases.

There is a difference between the potential for having a life and a specific life that exists.

The egg and sperm are only potentials.

When they join a specific life that exists begins.

 

[Speakpigeon]

That's it! We're good! We're all convinced! No need to say anything else.

Enlightenment in its purest form. Just by the sheer strength of conviction of one superior, grown up, fertilised egg!

No need for logic nor facts.

Hallelujah.

This shall be the beginning of new life for us.

Hallelujah.
EB

 

[Kharakov]

I'm glad unter won the war on logic. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

 

[untermensche]

That's it! We're good! We're all convinced! No need to say anything else.

Enlightenment in its purest form. Just by the sheer strength of conviction of one superior, grown up, fertilised egg!

No need for logic nor facts.

Hallelujah.

This shall be the beginning of new life for us.

Hallelujah.
EB

It is nothing but logic.

And only logic can deal with it.

How do you say a human life exists before a fertilization? How do you say a human life does not exist after a fertilization?

What kind of life exists after fertilization if it not a human life?

A cow life?

You need to address the argument not just give opinions about some kind of logic you heard about somewhere.

 

[Elixir]

Beginnings everywhere.

Yup. That's why "beginnings" are objectively meaningless. Did this post post begin with "Yup"? With my reading your insipid post? With my joining TFT some years ago?

The correct answer: ALL OF THE ABOVE (and more).

 

[untermensche]

I'm glad unter won the war on logic. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

It is a war on a very tiny matter but a war none the less.

And I won it before it was waged.

An organism is a distinct entity.

For it to exist it must have a beginning. If it did not have a specific beginning it would not exist.

To claim an organism can exist without a beginning is absolute lunacy.

- - - Updated - - -

Beginnings everywhere.

Yup. That's why "beginnings" are objectively meaningless. Did this post post begin with "Yup"? With my reading your insipid post? With my joining TFT some years ago?

The correct answer: ALL OF THE ABOVE (and more).

Why exactly are things that happen all the time meaningless?

 

[Kharakov]

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

Do you see a discussion of causes in any of this? This is about the religious belief called "no beginning".

In the eternal beginning, things were what they were. There was no causal framework yet other than the ones that existed because of natural interaction between the various parts of the primordial being(s), because things were undifferentiated and differentiated, and all things were also infinitely separated and joined, and all things were overlapped in every possible weave, and all things were not.

The deadeners, which got shortened to the dead, were those who had the ability to dampen qualia. They were bred intentionally, to get some control over all things. The copier, that we were lucky enough to have, got hooked on a configuration of the deadenders, who are known as the deadeners, mormons, or morons for short. Space Jesus arose out of the morons and said "let there be WTF are you fuckheads doing! We can make something good!".

Of course, the Mormons made a religion instead, because they were trying to make everything dark like the dark elves in that one Marvel movie, which is actually a cool movie about morons and Space Jesus, whose name is Loki (but you probably don't know that, because you have thetans (or morons) in your brain, deadending your reasoning ability).

 

[untermensche]

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

Do you see a discussion of causes in any of this? This is about the religious belief called "no beginning".

In the eternal beginning, things were what they were...

No such thing is possible.

To start from an absurd impossibility leads you nowhere.

That is why it sounds like religious gibberish to even talk about it.

We can comprehend "beginnings" to a degree. The topic is clear in some places and not so clear in others. If you are sitting on your couch and want to go to New York you have to begin moving off the couch.

But we can't make any sense out of "no beginnings".

In rational discourse if something had no beginning it did not exist. The person without a beginning did not exist. The book without a beginning does not exist. The movement from one place to another does not happen without a beginning.

 

[Kharakov]

We can comprehend "beginnings" to a degree. The topic is clear in some places and not so clear in others. If you are sitting on your couch and want to go to New York you have to begin moving off the couch.

Yeah, only if a credible threat to me staying on the couch exists will I begin moving off the couch. You're going to have to do better than that.

You need to show a reasonable scenario in which beginnings can exist. If there is not a causal framework that can make me move off the couch, then I am not moving.

In the beginning there was a dirty old couch on the side of the road facing an impromptu firepit. There were a couple of dixie cups scattered around it, a drawn on fat guy passed out in the bushes, and girls walking by talking about some asshole at a party the night before. I still have a beer and a cigarette from the night before. What can cause me to move?

a) the sun
b) finish the beer
c) I hear yelling in the distance and think "that might be interesting"
d) other

 

[Elixir]

It is a war on a very tiny matter but a war none the less.

And I won it before it was waged.

An organism is a distinct entity.

For it to exist it must have a beginning. If it did not have a specific beginning it would not exist.

To claim an organism can exist without a beginning is absolute lunacy.

- - - Updated - - -

Yup. That's why "beginnings" are objectively meaningless. Did this post post begin with "Yup"? With my reading your insipid post? With my joining TFT some years ago?

The correct answer: ALL OF THE ABOVE (and more).

Why exactly are things that happen all the time meaningless?

Things aren't meaningless - the word "beginnings" in the way you wish to assert it, is meaningless. Try to pay attention and read for comprehension.

 

[untermensche]

If beginnings happen all the time that supports my position.

My position is they are something we have some understanding of.

I am not claiming we can understand miracles.

If the only thing you will allow as counting as a beginning is a miracle that is a meaningless position.

 

[untermensche]

You need to show a reasonable scenario in which beginnings can exist.

If something does not exist at one point in time and then later it does exist then it clearly had a beginning.

You need to show why this should not count as a beginning.

 

[DBT]

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

Do you see a discussion of causes in any of this?

This is about the religious belief called "no beginning".

What do you have to say about it?

My question was; if you don't except the idea of no beginning to time/matter/energy, do you believe in a First Cause?

 

[Elixir]

If beginnings happen all the time that supports my position.

My position is they are something we have some understanding of.

I am not claiming we can understand miracles.

If the only thing you will allow as counting as a beginning is a miracle that is a meaningless position.

Beginnings is a colloquial expression of humans. All the matter and energy in our universe appears to have been here since the B.B., which probably arose from a prior state. Other than that, it’s continuous rearrangement of existing stuff. We call certain emergent arrangements “beginnings” at our own whim. There is no objective criterion for the designation.
Stupid stuff. But I too am curious about DBT's question - surely you have identified a "first cause"?

 

[bilby]

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.

The question is: Which transformation is the beginning of the life of a distinct organism?

That would be ejaculation, as it is the first time that human cells are physically separated from the body of a parent human.

I know that will strike you as ridiculous; but I should caution you that it is at least as well supported as your equally ridiculous nomination of fertilisation as the 'beginning'.

Every transformation is essential but not all are the essential first transformation.

Indeed. And that must be ejaculation, as it comes before fertilisation.

How do you have an organism, a human, without a fertilization?

or an ejaculation?

How do you say one exists before a fertilization?

or an ejaculation?

How do you not say one exists after a fertilization?

in any of thousands of ways. Implantation could fail. The blastocyst could have any of dozens of fatal genetic defects. Perhaps we should choose birth as the 'beginning' instead.

Not in the lab. I am talking about 99.9999% of the cases.

The proportion of fertilised eggs that reach the 16 cell stage is FAR lower than that. So no, you are NOT talking about 99.9999% of the cases; you are talking out of your arse.

There is a difference between the potential for having a life and a specific life that exists.

And yet you ignore that fact when it suits you. Again, this is an argument for birth as the 'beginning', not fertilisation.

The egg and sperm are only potentials.

Just like the zygote.

I love a self refuting argument.

When they join a specific life that exists begins.

Nope. You are trying to use special pleading to force your conclusion onto the facts; as usual, you have totally failed to think through the consequences of your arguments, and how the same arguments might apply equally (or better) to alternative conclusions.

You need to learn how to think. Logic is not innate, it's a skill that requires learning and practice. And you are atrocious at it.