Six months is pretty extreme. — praxis

Fine. Your are talking public policy. Make it 4 months. We’ll call it the Praxis rule.

the Catholic faith — praxis

Is this confession? Or are you a canon lawyer? Why would I think you could understand what I am saying at this point?

Divorce is a legal process. I don’t see any reason to change policy there.
There is no divorce allowed in the Catholic Church.
So others can get a divorce, but I won’t, because I agree with the Catholic Church.

Same thing with abortion policy.

Splaining done.

Is there anyone here who rejects essentialism and opposes abortion? — Banno

Is there anyone here who rejects essentialism and opposes anything?

You got some splaining ta do. — praxis

Explain what? To whom?
You worried about whether I am contradicting myself again, or whether I might be a servant of Satan, hiding in the Catholic Church?

Scientism and essentialism might be seen as things that dissipate with experience. — Banno

That was clever. But still doesn't explain Praxis' immaturity. Only mine maybe.

public policy. It is understandable that the sort of religious person you described would want to stop people from killing zygotes, and there's no reason why they can't try to influence public policy. — Relativist

So my question everyone wants to point out how difficult it is to ask, and how difficult it is to answer, is: what is a human being/person and when does it first come into being?

Pro-choice is a public moniker for what I would call Pro-abortion rights. Because we need to make public policy, and the above question is philosophically deep and no one will ever agree on this (or even talk about it), I choose the “pro-choice” public policy route with certain limitations. Everyone get's to ask these questions for themselves and up to like 6 months or so, when most agree the fetal thing should start to feel pain or has some sort of experience, up until then, they can answer it any way they like. Or they can completely avoid these questions, assert that they don't value 2 week old blastocysts or 2 month old fetuses, etc, or just say they don't even care to think about it, they just don't want to be pregnant and have an abortion. Be done with the public policy by compromise where abortion for any reason is allowed until the fetus becomes some sort of thing that should be protected by the state. And be done with it.

Now back to the question.

No rule, no definition of "individual human being" can work universally because "individual human being" is fundamentally a fuzzy concept. — Relativist

I agree, no definition of "individual human being" works to make a public policy based on that definition, because its fuzzy and no one agrees on the less fuzzy parts even. But if we were to all agree that abortion would remain legal forever, even up to the moment of birth, carve the law in stone and make it a constitutional amendment, is anyone still interested in being a philosopher and answering the question of when my life or his life or her life actually begins? Just for curiosity sake? Anyone?

Seems just weird for someone to say he didn't always exist (which he didn't) but that he won't even conjecture on which point or time period in history when he'd have to say he started existing.

Just no way out? We're here. We're human. Got over it.

Any keywords that would help me discover the secret? — praxis

Immaturity.

Can anyone else say that what a person is, or what a human being is, and most importantly, when either one of these pops into existence?
— Fire Ologist

No. — Banno

So is this because:
no one can say it?
no one can know it to then say of it?
nothing can be known?
or, there is no such moment (or time frame) when I first existed?

Seems unscientific to not be able to even address when something is and when something is not, like a person for instance, or like a value-making-subject for instance. I mean, if I am a values granting subject, and I am pretty sure I am doing this value-making in space and time with a body among bodies, and I am pretty sure I didn’t used to be here, isn’t there a moment when I first came to be?

Seems like there has to be an answer.

Can anyone else say that what a person is, or what a human being is, and most importantly, when either one of these pops into existence?

I assume all those reading this popped into existence sometime. And you are human type organism doing personal things. Except for Praxis. Praxis might be God. For anyone else, when would you say you started existing?

There isn’t just one aspect to being human obviously. — praxis

Great assertion. How about some aspects.

People with Klinefelter syndrome have 47 chromosomes, and there is also a condition where a person has 48 chromosomes. — Relativist

We could figure out exceptions to the rule. But we need a rule first. Is anything a human being?

(e.g. intelligent aliens would be non-human persons) — Michael

So, on earth, where do you find persons?

If you want to draw a distinction between a person and a human being, you have to show me what a person has or does, and what a human being has or does. You are distinguishing them. That's perfectly fine.

Presumably persons are where we find thinking/self-awareness/desires etc., and human beings are just a category? So "person" is the thing, and "human" is the biological category that is a non sequitur?

Secret religions — praxis

By the way. I've stated what my religion is more than a few times in the forum. It's no secret. I'm just not telling you here. Because Satan told me, not to worry, he'll take care of you.

I found a great quote:

"Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere aude! [Dare to know!] Have the courage to use your own understanding! That is the motto of enlightenment."
- Immanuel Kant, 1784

So I'll ask one more time. What is your thought and supporting argument on the topic of abortion and new human life, etc?

Matter and cells - some we are made of, some we eat, What's the difference? — unenlightened

Are you asking "what are 'we'"? Are you acknowledging that we are made of cells and asking "what else are we?"

That's what I'm asking. The spirit of the conversation is an answer to that question. Pre-valuation of any cells, or eating.

Living things go through changes. They are still one living thing. That is not a premise, it's a conclusion so maybe you agree or disagree with this conclusion. But I'm operating under the assumption that there are things, objects, like a person, and these living things go through changes, and these changes don't redefine what type or individual thing they are, they extend it. A puppy is one thing; when it becomes an adult, it is still that one thing, now grown.

So let's say a person is a thinking thing. An organism in the zygote stage can't think. So if a person is a thinking thing, a zygote is not a person.

Fine, no more need to discuss it, and we can apply this to abortion however we like.

But some say, hey, but a baby doesn't look like it thinks at all. We measure brain waves and we can't see enough similarity to an adult thinker, so it is really these brain waves that are the structure and foundation of when a new human being comes into being. We might apply abortion questions to the baby then however we like.

So let's say instead, that a person is a being that can sense pain. If we leave it at that, we cannot tell the difference between a person and goat, at any stage in any life. So we need more. A person is an organism that can sense pain and has 46 chromosomes. Great, now we have a person first coming into being around 6 months or something of gestation. We can apply this to abortion however we like.

My argument is everything is arbitrary after you have a living organism with 46 chromosomes. Waiting for thought capabilities, or desiring or sentience is like waiting for laughter or pooping, or any other activity. Also, my argument is a sort of reductio ad absurdum - if a person is thinking, then to be consistent, many newborns are not persons. I think that's not an explanation of person that anyone is after.

Aside from my values being out of whack for even asking the question, I'd like to hear how actively thinking and/or sentience must be occurring before we have a person actively being. I think there are good arguments for that, but I'd like to hear some from somewhere else. I keep having to make all the substantive points for all of us to pick apart.

Whether or not some entity is a member of some biological taxonomy is of the latter kind [a game], not the former [essentialist like asserting a triangle]. — Michael

The issue doesn't have to be whether the distinctions we make refer to objects that are independent of us, or objects we invent as part of the game of conversation. I am just saying we can't keep shifting the ground on which we rest subsequent assertions, or we get nowhere.

If you say adults have heads and zygotes don't, which I say as well, we can't move on to the next point without leaving this as fixed, either fixed in an independent material world, or fixed as a choice we've made to continue the discussion.

To skip all the painful steps in between, I'm sure we agree on a lot of the facts (gamed or gleaned).

It is coherent to me to say that a person is an organism that thinks, desires, values, etc. A zygote cannot do any of those. Therefore, a zygote is not a person. That's coherent.

Further, I think it would be coherent with the above to say that an infant doesn't think, desire or value anything. It's more like a zygote. So an infant is not a person either. (You can still say that an infant has great value to many adults, and therefore, we will protect it's life because we want to, but it would not be because it is a person...but that's another conversation.)

Staying within the game we've started, you could go the biological route and show how a infant does think and desire, and is thereby a person, or not.

Or, we could start over and say that a person is a thing (organism) with 46 chromosomes and that is sentient. So now infants certainly fit the bill, and we would place the moment a new person comes into being closer to 6 months development after conception. That's also completely consistent.

Now I know that all of the above might make you cringe because of all of its essentialist-speak, but saying "If you cannot visually determine that a human has a head and that a zygote is a single cell then you are either blind or hallucinating." is using the same type of language I'm using.

you've just sealed your death — praxis

Kind of creepy. But really spot on analysis.

I don’t think it helps at all to have this conversation in religious terms.

I think some religious people think that the reason human beings are valuable is because they have a soul, and souls come from God at conception. Great. Wonderful for them. But there is nothing to argue about there, nothing to talk about, nothing to measure and no explanatory power. You just end up replacing one question “what is a human being” with another “what is a soul” and now there is less chance of answering anything.

That is exactly right. No goofing around. You nailed it. I had no idea who I was dealing with. Impressive.

Now. Do you have any of your own views? Or…where do you want to go with this? I mean I don’t want to waste your time.

There is an independent material world, and two facts about that material world are that adults have heads and that zygotes are a single cell. Given the way that objects reflect light, the way light stimulates the eyes, and the way the brain responds to the eyes, looking at an adult is going to cause a significantly different visual experience than looking at a zygote. — Michael

I agree with all of that.

But that means to me, neither of us have any choice in the matter.
“There is an independent material world”.

I’ll even stipulate that we could revisit this as a question and maybe there is no material world. But for our purposes, sharing our thoughts in a conversation, and for purposes of having a conversation about abortion, “there is an independent material world.”

So maybe we are choosing to stipulate this together, but for now, the choice is made. Everything we say further will rely on this as a fact that neither of us can choose to ignore it or we will no longer be addressing the subject.

“There is an independent material world” is itself an essentialist, objectivist position. Such a world is independent from our choices, correct? Maybe we only engage with it through choice, but it, in itself is independent, or you wouldn’t have said “independent”.

Do you want to keep going? Eventually I’d be talking about the independent differences between a fetal, a newly born and an adult human organism, and whether these differences are independent of me and my choices, or not.

Are you just a collection of particles or are you something more? This is where religion probably comes into play. — RogueAI

I’m at least a collection of particles.

That’s all I need to be to have this conversation.

The conversation, to me, is can we draw a line, a distinction between me and say, my clothing, naming me a “human being” and naming my clothes “not a human being”. So we are taking clumps of particles and distinguishing them from one another giving them names.
And the conversation, to me, is can we draw a line and say when, the clump of particles we now call a human being because of its distinction from clothing and other clumps, when did this human being first pop onto the scene?

That’s it for me. Rather we pretend no one ever thought of religion or even morality. I think this is enough material for tons of further analysis.

I don’t know what you mean by asking if we “must” see a difference. If we have working eyes then we will see a difference. — Michael

Words are always important, but they don’t need to be the focus as when making a semantical point. I think you split hairs on “will/must” without the distinction making a difference in your point.

If you cannot visually determine that a human has a head and that a zygote is a single cell then you are either blind or hallucinating. — Michael

You are saying anyone with eyes will see the difference, and if those eyes are working they must see a difference or else they are “blind or hallucinating.”

So I still see you asserting facts, visual differences in an objective world no longer subject to debate or choices, that working eyes will see, must see, are clear…

Is your position that a Zygote and an Adult Human are the same thing? — AmadeusD

This is a difficult question to answer in the context of a living organism.

So let me ask, is me today the same thing as me yesterday?

In some senses no. Too many atoms and cells and other things changed to use the word “same” naively. Heraclitus figured that out long ago and I don’t refute it.

But if we leave it at that, there is nothing left to talk about. How can we even compare me today with me yesterday, when even me today is in motion and not the same thing as me two minutes ago?

I don’t refute any of this. And if you look at a zygote and an adult it is much easier to see they are not the same thing.

But there is another sense to this question. If by “me today” I mean a living, growing, changing body having self-awareness and intelligence, then yes, despite all of the bodily motions, me today endured through all of the changes occurring to me yesterday.

So we need to define a “me” or an adult or a zygote and choose a sense in which the term “same thing” is being used.

Does that track?

If you can’t see a difference between these two photos then you should get your eyes checked. — Michael

Why not just answer the question then? My eyes and your eyes are now the context, you are saying we both, if our eyes are working, must see a difference between a zygote and an adult.

Correct?

So the answer is yes, there are biological facts we both have agree on; if our eyes are working, we will both see the same thing, namely, that a zygote and an adult are clearly different.

zygotes and adults — Michael

Do I have to see a difference between zygotes and adults in order to understand the significance of what you are saying? I think the answer has to be yes.

Essentialism is false. Whether we call zygotes, corpses, the brain dead. or babies born with anencephaly “human” is a choice, with no moral significance. — Michael

Damn. So ends the conversation.

There are organisms — Michael

Is that a choice?

Is there any physical/biological fact in this context we both have to accept?

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!! — frank

Ha!

You implied — praxis

True. As I continue to be completely open I'll admit that I implied you may have been interested to know who you were talking to when the words "religion" and "spiritual" came to your mind and you bothered to put them in your post.

Do you think we are having a conversation? I think we are having some sort of job interview. I don't think you trust my answers for some reason. And I'm curious why but really would rather hear some sort of argument relating to abortion from you.

There are organisms, like me, that are self-aware, can feel pain, can want things, and so on. It is wrong to kill organisms like this.

Zygotes aren't self-aware, they can't feel pain, they can't want things. Nothing about them warrants moral consideration; they are just a tiny mixture of chemicals. It is acceptable to abort them if that is what the woman wishes. — Michael

Perfectly coherent position based on facts we can both observe for ourselves.

Good. I agree with all of this verbatim:

There are organisms, like me, that are self-aware, can feel pain, can want things, and so on.
Zygotes aren't self-aware, they can't feel pain, they can't want things. — Michael

You said it. I would say it. Exact same page.

So before I go back the positive route of positing what a human being is (because that would be essentialist of me), can I just ask, to go as broadly as possible, are you saying a human being is an organism with enough structure to feel pain, or to just feel or perceive anything, or do you need to be able to want things and be self-aware too?

A religious person might say that they’re pro-life because abortion policy is a spiritual issue. — praxis

That was the first time the word “religion” was used between us.

Contradiction contradicted. Again.

What’s your next really important issue in this debate discussion?

The reason it's wrong to kill me is because I'm intelligent, not because I'm human; it would be wrong to kill intelligent non-humans too. — Michael

I see what you are saying. You are focused on the “because” part of these statements. You don’t want to bother with some underlying subject/substance like “human being” and then attach conditions to that substance like “intelligence”. That would allow people like me to equate “it is wrong to kill human beings” with “it is wrong to intelligent beings” and these aren’t equivalent. And once essentialists make this equivocation we can subsume the “intelligence” as part of the essence and just talk about “human beings” as if the nuance “with intelligence” wasn’t the more material thing.

So can I assume there is some thing called “intelligent being” that we are talking about?

You are saying a human being is something that has/is a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-consciousness/intelligence. Correct?
— Fire Ologist

No, I'm saying that humans do have a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-consciousness/intelligence, and that it is wrong to kill things with a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-consciousness/intelligence. — Michael

That doesn't track for me. "has/is" has become "do have". And because of this you make a distinction between the phrases:
"a human being is something that has/is a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-consciousness/intelligence"
and
"humans do have a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-consciousness/intelligence,"

What is the distinction between these two phrases?

Non-humans might also have a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-consciousness/intelligence, and so it would be wrong to kill them even though they're not human. — Michael

I agree with that but that obviously would be outside the general topic of abortion, which is a human practice.

Also, you mentioned that you’re religious. Why mention it if this has nothing to do with religion for you? Another contradiction. — praxis

You brought it up first, not me. I was just being open and honest and responding fully to you.

Where are you trying to go with the conversation? Still digging for subtext? Where is Praxis?

an innocent human has/is Y — Michael

Thank you for saying what you think and explaining it to add some content for us to talk about.

I am focused on the question: “what does any human being have/is?” (These are your terms, invoked by you to make your argument.)

7. It is wrong to kill an innocent human because an innocent human has/is Y
8. It is wrong to kill an innocent frog because an innocent frog has/is Y
9. It is not wrong to kill an innocent frog because an innocent frog doesn't have/isn't Y

Y is what matters. — Michael

Y is what matters most to me too. What a nominal "human" has/is is my question.

I don't think the first question [namely, what is a new human being] matters. I'm not an essentialist. There is no such thing as some necessary and sufficient set of conditions that must be satisfied for an organism to "count" as human. — Michael

I still think it does matter. I think you need to speak to it as well.

For me, that Y concerns a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-awareness/intelligence, etc. — Michael

You are saying a human being is something that has/is a sufficient degree of consciousness/self-consciousness/intelligence. Correct? I'm sure there is more you would and could say, but you are saying at least this, correct? So for you, "it is wrong to kill an innocent human, because an innocent human has/is a degree of consciousness/self-awareness/intelligence." Correct? Or do we need more premises, maybe about valuing consciousness/self-awareness/intelligence in the first place?

if you admitted to goofing around — praxis

Are you reading my whole posts? The time I’m putting in to try to answer your questions.

I admitted the phrase you took to GPT was confusing AND I cleared up my thoughts again. If you think there was any goofing around, are you still not understanding me?

what about all of the other things I said to you about what a zygote must be biologically and metaphysically speaking?
— Fire Ologist

You’ll have to describe your religious views — praxis

That came out of nowhere. You’ll have to describe how religious views have any bearing or relevance in conversation about when an animal first comes to exist.

This all has nothing to do with religion to me.

I’d rather you just lay out and explain your own view or we can keep circling around some point about me and what I must really think.

I’d trust you more if — praxis

Odd thing is, I couldn’t be more clear about exactly what my conclusions are. There is nothing left to hide.

Wish you would take your turn.

So what do you mean by saying that a human zygote is the same thing as an adult? And why is this sense of being the same thing morally relevant? — Michael

So first, I am treating these two questions completely separately. The first question is: when does a new thing that comes into being, have to be called a “human being”? When does something like you and me first begin to exist?

I have no interest yet in assigning value or moral relevance to whatever may be the answer. I’m treating a human being like a frog, as just any old organism, and asking when does an individual organism first come to be? At this point, there is nothing of moral value anywhere in the discussion, for me.

I think much, but not all, of the controversy on the moral (second) question is because of bad or no answer on this metaphysical/biological (first) question.

When we get to the moral question, I don’t intend to give equal moral relevance to anything other than a person. But for now, I just intend to lay out some definition of a person, and point to where on the timeline such a creature pops into existence.

Is that a conversation you want to have? The metaphysical/biological question of when any new type of life is new?

I get it that it looks contradictory The term “anti abortion-without-exception” is confusing, depending on where the hyphens go.

It’s a stupid term. There’s “anti-abortion, without exception” which is what chat GPT defined, and then there’s someone who is against (anti) unrestricted abortion for any reason (abortion without exception), which what I am.

Although I think I was very clear, in the interest of exchanging more discussion with you on my supporting arguments, I’ll try to clear up what my conclusions are as you’ve asked.

Public policy: Abortion should be legal to be conducted for any reason up to six months, and then after should be restricted to cases of necessity.

Personal reasoning on the issue: Since even a zygote is a human being, I would not ever recommend an abortion except in cases of necessity (ie, life of the mother).

So, given my public policy stance and private personal stance I say I’d basically leave the law so others can have room for different personal stances, but I am personally against abortion unless it is for a necessary reason. I called this anti abortion-without-exception (versus pro abortion-without-exception) and created the contradiction controversy. The better catch phrase might be anti-private right of abortion-without-exception. And because this phrase is open to some limited abortion rights, I, without contradiction, leave space for a public stance that is pro- public right of abortion with some limitation.

I hope that helps. Sorry about the confusion. There’s no contradiction there. It’s a fairly common bunch of conclusions.

Personally none of the above is really interesting, except to catch me in a contradiction, which is relevant because why should you continue speaking with someone who contradicts themselves.

But now that we’ve cleared that up, what about all of the other things I said to you about what a zygote must be biologically and metaphysically speaking?

some abortions are definitely not a sin — praxis

Oh you were wondering how I think that, because all abortion is the killing of a person, only some abortions might be sins. An easy example is an abortion to save the life of the mother. It’s not a sin in a crappy situation to do the best you can to save lives, and if the way to save any lives involves killing the fetal human, it’s not a sin or immoral to do so.

Ok, I mistook you to be skeptical of my motives. You were skeptical of my ability to make a coherent point. Fair enough.

Abortion without exception - means abortion any time for any reason.

I personally am against someone having an abortion for any reason they want. So personally, I am anti abortion without exception. This opinion only comes up when someone asks. It’s not a tee-shirt I hand out at rallies. I don’t go to rallies.

But I am fine letting people use their own reason to figure out their own choices about a lot of things. I don’t think we need nearly as many laws as we have. So practically, I’m pro private right of abortion with certain limitations (up to six months or something, then for life of the mother, etc).

Anything more metaphysical seem contradictory?

If they are not 'different thing's then they cannot be alternate states of 'one another', let's say. They would be the same thing. There is a difference, which you acknowledge here. — AmadeusD

This is because it is hard to describe a living thing with a static word “thing”. We have to be precise and language, which fixes things, is trying to fix a living, changing organism. So it’s messy.

An adult organism is constantly changing too. So if we want to say an adult human Is a “thing”, and then say it constantly changes, tomorrow morning we have a new “thing” too according to you. Really, moment to moment everything changes.

So “thing” becomes a meaningless term. There are no things anywhere ever anymore.

But if we want to believe that, in the changing motion, there is some sort of temporary but for a time lasting component to reality, as in, a pregnant woman that can last nine or so months, we can integrate constant change with its permanent subject of that change.

Now when a sperm fertilizes an egg, we can say the constantly changing sperm is a thing that, once joined with the egg, ceases to be a thing, and the egg and sperm together start the motions and changes of a new thing.

I’m saying that the motions and changes of that new thing, the zygote, if left to play out, move on to fetal forms, infant form, adolescent and adult, and I’m saying this is the life of that one thing.

Overall situations are more significant to me than categorical imperatives. — Tom Storm

I think you nailed the competing interests here. Some are focused on more specific scenarios and situations, and me, I am focused on anything universal that might be gleaned from it.

I would appreciate you giving me the biggest contradiction, particularly with regard to the essentialist/change part of the discussion. I am happy to challenge my own ideas. What’s a good glaring one that might matter to discuss?