What is it that you can point to to say, "I am reading a post in the English language on my computer screen."?
— Harry Hindu

I read and responded. Proof. — Jackson

Your response is not you reading the post. That comes after reading the post. How do you know that you responded to my post?

Before responding, what is it like reading my post? What form does the information, "I am reading Harry Hindu's post" take for you? How do you know who's post is whose after you've written and posted your posts? What form does the information in your memory of you having written a post take? What is it like for you to remember something? What are you comparing to say that you remember writing your post if not a visual of your post and the visual memory of writing it?

That is not true. A rock absorbs sunlight, heats up on this side and processes this information through heat conduction. How do you know it doesn't feel that? — SolarWind

What reason would there be for a rock to feel that? Rocks don't possess goals of seeking out a nominal temperature, therefore there would be no reason for it to feel hot or cold.

Humans do have goals of survival and achieving homeostasis, therefore it would need to be able to use information about it's body's temperature (feel hot or cold) to then be able to engage in behaviors that achieve such goals of homeostasis or nominal body temperatures.

You don't need to necessarily feel hot for your body to sweat. Sweating is an involuntary reaction to high temperatures, but sweating will only go so far in solving the problem. Being able to react by moving into the shade, or getting out of the kitchen, could be more useful but would require one to feel the heat to then produce behaviors to remove one from the hot spot.

It's most likely that the superman will be a computer. — Bird-Up

Then it wouldn't be a superman. It would be a supercomputer as opposed to just computers, which is what you are using right now.

Maybe superman would be more of a merging of biology and technology. In effect, cyborgs would be superhuman.

If only some relations have a qualitative aspect, then it is that which still has to be explained. You cannot get around this. Whether "process", "event" or "object" or combination thereof.. the problem remains as none of that entails qualitative aspects. — schopenhauer1

To answer your question, you should answer 180's.

My answer to 180's question would be a type of relation composed of sensory information. Sensory information is a relation between perceiver and perceived. Not all relations are composed of a perceiver and perceived. Rocks do not have eyes, ears and a working memory, therefore it is not possible for a rock to be a component (the perceiver) of a qualitative relation. It can only participate in a qualitative relation as what is perceived by a perceiver.

I do not know what it is like to be me. I am not sure that is a meaningful concept. — Jackson

Sounds like something a p-zombie would say. Are you a p-zombie? What form does your information about the world take? For instance, how do you know that you're reading this post right now? What is it that you can point to to say, "I am reading a post in the English language on my computer screen."?

Seems to me that both scenarios are real life scenarios. What use is math if not meant to be applied to real world scenarios? How is an impossible scenario described by math or language useful in real life?

Significant digits are the digits that are necessary in solving a real world problem. All other digits are unnecessary to the problem at hand. They may be useful for some other problem, but not the current one.

Depending on the number of humans and the fraction of them receiving an apple you could have ended up with an irrational number of humans. Can a human be divided and still be a human? So in the case of humans, we are only concerened about whole numbers and not any digits after the decimal.

We should keep in mind that math is a quantified representation of a world that is not composed of separate static objects but of intertwined relations. Math is more of a representaion of how the world is perceived than how the world is independent of perception, so we run into problems when we start to believe that the answers to math problems describe a world independent of our perceptions and goals.

There exists qualitative aspects to things. — schopenhauer1

This is similar to saying that there is a relational aspect to things. Saying it like this closes the divide between physical and mental things. The hard problem is only a problem for dualists and physicalists, or those that believe the world is composed of a quantity of static objects independent of other things and then try to reconcile that with the qualitative aspect of the perception of quantities of static objects.

It does not mean "what (in our experience) it resembles," but rather "how it is for the subject himself." — Jackson

What makes a subject special in this regard? Is there a way it is for any object? I'm not asking if a table or rock has a perspective or a mind. I'm asking if there is a what is the case for any object or subject? How is talking about what is the case for the environment of Earth different than talking about what is the case for your state of mind?

Or it could mean that when you are dead you can't experience anything.

In both examples the second interpretation is not about comparison. That's the sense that Nagel means. — bert1

I doubt Nagel was implying that there is nothing it is like to be a bat. I think Nagel was trying to get at the sensory information the bat posesses and the form this sensory information takes and not only how it is like (similar to) our sensory information we possess and the form it takes, but also how it differs.

What would be the purpose of defining such things, and what makes you think there would be a consensus? If you're just proposing that an individual do this for themselves, I'm fine with it. I'm just not fine with imposing a definition on people who may legitimately disagree. — Relativist

We ALL want people to do the right thing, but there's an element of subjectivity in deciding when something is wrong and there are nearly always exceptional circumstances that make any firm legal boundaries problematic in special cases. Why isn't it "the right thing" to trust women to do what's right for themselves, and refrain from creating restrictions that limit their choices? — Relativist

The issue with abortion is that it shines a light on when we, as a society or as individuals, acknowledge that some life have the right to life. At what point do we as either a society, or as an individual, recognize that another life has the the right to life?

Who decides on who is suffering, and to what degree? These judgments will necessarily be based on one's subjective beliefs because there's no objective measure of suffering and no objective identifier of what constitutes an individual human being. — Relativist

That's the thing - who speaks for those that cannot speak of their suffering? It seems to me that if a life attempts to flee or fight back against being killed then we don't necessarily need a language to make it known to others that some organism is suffering. This is why I think that most people agree that killing a zygote creates less suffering than killing a fetus with a brain and nervous system that reacts to an abortion doctor killing it. Plants also react to being killed or attacked. Do plants suffer the same way that animals with nervous systems do, or are their behaviors instinctive in that there is no self-awareness or self-reflective experiences?

This sounds a reasonable basis for you to decide on when you should or shouldn't get an abortion. But it's not based on objectively true standards, so how could you justify imposing your view on others? — Relativist

Again, this isn't me imposing my view on others. It is asking about when a life without language deserves the right to life. We already impose our views on others by putting people in jail if that life without language is terminated after it is born, but not before. It's strange to complain about others imposing their views on you when you live in a society that does just that. If you are fine with living under someone else's rules, why are you complaining about that when it comes to abortion? At what point are we imposing our views on the fetus/baby?

Is there some reason to think women are getting late term abortions for a reason that is so bad that it needs to be made illegal? — Relativist

I didn't think so until I saw women bragging about having an abortions. What would be the goal a woman is trying to achieve by bragging about it, or calling it joyful? If a serial killer calls their killing of others joyful and brags about it, what would you conclude?

I understand, and in the abstract - it's a reasonable objective. In practice, there are problems. Louisiana was considering a law that would treat any act that causes the death of a zygote as a homicide, including a morning after pill, in-vitro fertilization, and failure to medically implant a fertilized egg in an entopic pregnancy. The legislators who favored it believe they would be preventing evil things from occurring. — Relativist

I would do what I am doing now - question the consistency of such a position when they believe that killing viruses and bacteria is a good thing. I wouldn't consider an abortion a good or evil thing - just a necessary thing from some people. In my opinion, terminating the life of a zygote isn't much different than terminating the life of a virus. Terminating the life of a fetus is approaching that area where morality begins because we cross into that gray area of a language-less organism having the right to life or not. Do only organisms that can use language and make others aware of their suffering via utterances deserve to live?

This is the wrong direction of approaching the issue. It's a direction that makes sure that the matter never gets resolved.

If, on the other hand, we focus on the intention of those involved in abortion, it all gets very clear and very simple. They act with the intention to kill. They know what that glob of cells is likely going to develop into, and this is what they want to stop from happening. So as far as intention goes, it's irrelevant whether the unborn feels pain or not, whether it should be considered a person or not. Because the intention is to kill. — baker

Sure, but then so is using bug spray to terminate bugs and weed spray to terminate weeds. The intent is the same (to kill) but are the consequences the same - meaning is a weed's life any more important than a zygote in the grand scheme of things? To human's a zygote in a woman's womb is more important than a weed, but that doesn't mean that a zygote in a woman's womb is objectively more important. The universe doesn't care, nor does it place any value on one life over another. We do that. What if an alien race that evolved from weeds millions of years ago travels to Earth, defines humans as the pests and attempts to eradicate the infestation?

Again, too narrow a scope. The issue is the intention for engaging in sex in the first place. In discussions of abortion, this is rarely or never addressed.

And since you bring up suffering and magnitudes of it:

What is the greater suffering:

Enduring a sexual urge and not acting on it until it passes (after about 10 minutes),
or risking the health and life of the woman with hormonal contraceptives (and abortions, in case the contraceptives fail)? — baker

It seems to me that one can have the intention of experiencing the pleasurable feeling of sex and the orgasm that follows, or even building stronger social bonds between you and your mate, not necessarily to have kids. The existence of contraceptives allow us to make that distinction. Since my wife went through the pain and effort to carry and give birth to our children, I thought that it only fair that I be the one that gets a vasectomy. While it wasn't entirely painless, it was far less invasive than my wife getting her tubes tied. Getting the vasectomy was one of the best things I did. Now I can enjoy sex with my wife without worrying about a pregnancy. Of course the tubes can always find their way back together, but that hasn't happened in 15 years and now my wife is post-menopausal so even if my tubes did reconnect, there would be no pregnancy.

If by some crazy fluke, my wife got pregnant, we would abort because for us, three is enough. We wouldn't wait until the third or second trimester, though. We would do it as soon as possible. We would terminate the pregnancy not just because we have the number of children that we want, but also because there is a higher risk of birth defects for women over 40. Would it be fair to the child and to us if we were forced to have a child with birth defects? Which would cause the most suffering?

Sure, going under a doctor's knife can have it's risks, but in today's modern world, that is a small risk, and I think that, as individuals, it is our own prerogative to make our own risk assessments.

That's been explained to you repeatedly: performative utterances. — Banno

No. Some of them make something the case.

But that is apparently beyond your comprehension. So be it. — Banno

Why so snarky? You've repeated yourself many times to many others on this forum, and I'm sure they have repeated themselves to you, and then you ignore what they said and end up repeating yourself without acknowledging what others have said.

Repeating myself here:
Commands don't make something the case if the person being commanded refuses to do what was commanded. Commands are shortcuts for expressing the utterer's wants and needs (just imagine "I want/need you to" preceding every command), not making something the case because the one being command can refuse.

Greeting someone isn't making something the case other than your intent to start a conversation because the one you greet might not greet you back.

You don't seem to comprehend that the listener or reader needs to participate in making it the case and there is a chance they might not, so just saying it doesn't make it the case.

There is no information inherent in nature. Information is always about something we define. A wavefunction contains no information, neither is there an "it from bit" computed beneath and displayed as matter. — Hillary

In making the argument that information is the relationship between cause and effect I am asserting that information is inherent in nature.

What do you mean by "wavefunction"? Are you talking about mathematical equation (a string of scribbles) or what the scribbles represent? If the former then the scribbles are the effect of some observation of what the scribbles represent. If the latter then what they represent may be uncaused - meaning that it would not be information as you say.

In saying that information is about something, effects can be about their causes. The crime scene is the effect and the criminal and their motive is the cause. The former is about the latter.

Tree rings are the effect of how the tree grows throughout the year, not something made-up in the mind of some observer. The mind does not project the age of the tree into the tree rings. The tree rings represent the age of the tree because of how the tree grows throughout the year. The tree rings are about the age of the tree because how the tree grows year in and year out produces the tree rings.

The idea that we're here merely to eat and shit is egregious. — baker

I don't know how you arrived at that from what I said. One of the ideas that I did propose was that we're here to initiate the next step of evolution. I also proposed the idea that asserting that you know why you are here is something akin to a delusion of grandeur.

I don't think we are here for anything. We are here because of many things (the Big Bang, the formation of the Earth, the evolution of humans and our parents having sex), but here for nothing. We each create our own purposes for ourselves, so if you don't want to be here just to eat and shit, then that is your prerogative. I don't want to be here to just eat and shit either, which is why I am here having a discussion with you and doing many other things besides just eating and shitting.

Paradoxically it may sound, but a phone with information on it actually weighs more than without. — Hillary

You need to provide some kind of evidence for this that shows that downloaded apps on your phone changes the mass of your phone or changes the Earth's force of gravity.

Adequacy of means to ends. — 180 Proof

Around and around we go.

You tell me. What makes something work vs. not work, or more reliable vs less reliable? — Harry Hindu

In saying that something works or is reliable is also saying it is adequate, so what makes something work vs. not work, reliable vs. unreliable or adequate vs. inadequate if it does contains some element of truth vs. false - as in it follows from what is the case vs. what is not the case?

Thanks for clarifying that for me, but I do hope you don't mean that in the literal sense. If I write "my phone weighs 500 gm" does my phone gain 500 gm? :chin: — Agent Smith

I said that weight is the relation between your phone's mass and the force of gravity on surface of the Earth. How does writing scribbles on this screen change that relation? It seems that to change that relation/information you'd have to add mass to the phone or change the force of gravity on the Earth. You could also go to the Moon and your phone would have a different weight.

If information is the relation between cause and effect (weight as the effect of some mass influenced by the gravity of Earth), then changing the information in your smartphone would require a cause - as in you downloading an app. The installed app is the effect of prior causes - like the lines of code that were written by a programmer to use the electronics of your phone to produce new information depending on the input it receives. It is also the cause of new effects in that it computes input to outputs.

Information is everywhere. The goal in some mind is what amplifies (focuses the attention on) certain information over others. For instance, the scribbles that appear on this screen are the effect of some human having an idea and the intent to share it. The types of scribbles are determined by their idea, the language they learned and are using, their level of understanding of the language they are using, and many other causes. You, as the reader, have the goal of understanding their idea so are focused on that cause of the scribbles being on the screen. You are using the scribbles on the screen to get at their idea (the cause), just as you could use the scribbles on the screen to get at the language they are using and their level of understanding of the language they are using - if that were your goal - and just as the investigator using the evidence at the crime scene to get at the identity and motive of the criminal.

Information = change.
A by itself is nothing but A in relation to B? Now that’s information. Because they are either qualitatively or quantitatively different from each other in some form or another. Information is the property of contrast, for if something had no matter, no spatial dimension, no mass, was completely uniform in every way with no characteristic dividing it into any other category, it would have no means by which to interact - nothing that can be relative to itself.

“It takes two to tango” — Benj96

Yep, cause and effect are like A and B. Information is the relation between them, or more specifically a spatial-temporal relation between two events.

No set of traits can draw sharp boundaries that fit all analyses. E.g. if humans have 46 chromosomes, then men with XYY syndrome don't fit; evolutionary history: there's no sharp boundaries in species' emergence. — Relativist

This is simple to resolve. Instead of just two categories (man vs. woman or person vs. non-person), there could be three or more. Transitions between extremes would be a separate category. For instance, we don't say that black and white are the only colors. We recognize that there are many colors, not just two and the other colors are the transition between black and white (no colors vs. all colors).

That said, for most cases of criminal law, it's not problematic- there's no confusion or disagreement, no sorties fallacy. But there IS disagreement in terms of fetal development, and the problem isn't solvable by creating a definition. But that is exactly what anti-abortion advocates try to do. It's not fair for me to insist they drop their religion-based belief that a zygote is a human being with a soul, but neither should they force their view on others - particularly on those who may suffer. We should all accept there's disagreement that is honest and sincere in terms of identifying some point in fetal development as a dividing line. — Relativist

Then the question is who suffers more and who has the power to prevent the greater suffering in using contraception instead of relying on abortion as the only option to prevent a birth? I don't see anything wrong with using a morning-after pill to abort a pregnancy because I don't see a zygote as a something that can be self-aware or suffer. The longer you wait, the more it becomes an issue. The only reason I can see for having a late-term abortion is because the woman's life is in danger.

That door is always open, unfortunately, and the risks aren't eliminated by pointing the evil-doers at a lexicon. — Relativist

Sure it is. The prosecutors read the statute that the offender has broken, and people are put in jail because of some words on some court documents. I think that the words of a statute prevent some people from doing evil things. For some the words don't matter as they will respect others or not regardless of what some law states. I'm interested in talking to those that can do the "right" thing even when not threatened with prison. Are you one of those people?

For vegans, yes. They are fine with killing plants for food, but not pigs, chickens and cows because they point to suffering, not necessarily personhood, as the reason to not kill some organism. — Harry Hindu

Facile anthropomorphism. Now Jains (re: ahimsa + fasting), at least, are 'consistent'. — 180 Proof

But that is what I'm asking, 180. At what point are we merely projecting human qualities onto objects vs. those qualities actually existing independent of our projecting them?

Even then it's a matter of degree. An adult with congenital insensitivity to pain, a foetus at 24 weeks old, and cockroaches aren't capable of suffering in the same way that I am. At what "strength" does it become an ethical concern? — Michael

Physical pain isn't the only type of suffering. I would imagine that the adult with congenital insensitivity to pain would still suffer from mental anguish of realizing that they could seriously injure themselves and not even know it.

24 week old fetuses and cockroaches don't have a concept of time, much less even a realist concept of an external world (object permanence), so they couldn't experience the mental anguish of some event in the future causing them harm. They would only exist in the present. I would also argue that a 24 week fetus's brain is much different than an adult cockroach. I think that the reactions of cockroaches to injury are instinctive in that there is no conscious awareness of this pain. So the question is at what point does a particular brain create a sensory-feedback loop of self-awareness.

There's no point where it "becomes" killing. As I've said before, there is no point where something that wasn't alive "becomes" alive; it's all a matter of degree. Like personhood, life isn't some binary state that something either has or doesn't have. — Michael

Then there are no extremes. You described both extremes as one being a person and one not being a person. If that isn't binary, then what is it?

Again, we can narrow down the transitionary period between not-person and person to the point where the time in between the two binary states is short enough to not make much of a difference.

No I don't. I just think he happens to be right. — Michael

Which is to say that you think that his words are infallible. Many people think Jesus was right. What is the difference?

Personhood, life, being a game -- none of these are some intrinsic property that things either have or don't have. The world is a chaotic place, and to help us navigate it we start using words like "person", "life", and "game". But such use isn't dictated by some strict formal system of logic; it's often imprecise and inconsistent. That's just the reality of language. — Michael

Yet you laid out the argument for the existence of extremes. How can extremes even exist if there aren't intrinsic properties that make one a person and one not a person. You keep conflating the transitionary period with the extremes. Is the world a chaotic place or is it orderly, or somewhere in between? You keep proving Witt wrong every time you make an argument for what is the case - as in the world is chaotic, and what Witt said, which means that you have no issues with understanding what Witt is vs. what Witt is not.

Pro-choicers please kindly inform pro-lifers that choice is so important to God's vision of humanity that he permits the most horrific atrocities to be committed (re free will & the problem of evil)! — Agent Smith

Being pro-life isn't necessarily religious. Maybe it's more of a pro-personhood, in that one can respect the rights of another person. The question is, what makes one a person that deserves these rights? And we don't even have to bring a government into this. God and government are irrelevant here. What type of rights do you, as an individual, recognize that other persons have? At what point do you, as an individual, recognize that a thing either deserves those rights and doesn't deserve those rights? At what point in your own development would you want others to recognize those rights for you?

You'd have to define "suffering."

Does suffering require a sense of self? If it's just the firing of nociceptors, then earth worms can suffer. — frank

Sure, I think suffering is the awareness of your own pain. I think there are animals, like earth worms, that don't possess that awareness. Their behaviors of running from the source of pain is instinctual. There is no "what it is like" for an earth worm, at least not in the way there is for a human. It's not just having a brain, but having a particular type of brain.

It means we construct useful categories, nothing more. — Banno

What does it mean to be useful if not that it carries some element of truth (as in what is the case)? All of your statements are about what is the case. Either we construct useful categories or we don't. You can use scribbles, "we", to refer to we. Are we just more scribbles, or are you using scribbles to refer to things that are not scribbles, like a group of humans?

Reason, while misusable and in some respects is inadequate for adapting to reality, works better – more reliably, more defeasibly – than all of the alternatives.
— 180 Proof — Harry Hindu

Yes. And there must be a reason for this. — Harry Hindu

More than that it works – why? — 180 Proof

You tell me. What makes something work vs. not work, or more reliable vs less reliable?

Substance? Sorry! File not found! — Agent Smith

:grin: Yes! Words are like variables in a computer language. They need to be defined to be used in the program. If not, then they can't be used until they are defined.

True, information isn't a substance like, for instance, clay or paper is. If it were matter, my pen drive should gain weight as I continually save files on it. No! Is information energy? Can I perform work with information? How many joules (of energy) is 8 bits of information? Beats me! — Agent Smith

Uh... wait. If there is no "file found" when using the scribble, "substance", then asserting that "information isn't a substance like..." would produce an error just the same. It seems that you would avoid using the term, "substance" altogether because it hasn't been defined.

Weight is information as in the relationship between an object's mass and the gravitational pull of the Earth. The information has no weight. Weight is the information.

Information is first and foremost structured. A pile of rocks is just a pile of rocks, but the same pile laid out to spell ‘this is a pile of rocks’ in structured by the act of laying it out, and is no longer just a pile of rocks. It conveys information — Wayfarer

A pile of rocks contains information in that the pile of rocks is the effect of some prior causes, just as re-arranging them is another cause and their new arrangement is the new effect - meaning that both are just different information - meaning that different causal processes went into creating them. Information is the relationship between cause and effect. There must be some reason as to how the pile of rocks got there for you to observe, just as there is a reason how the pile of rocks spells out, "this is a pile of rocks". The relationship between how the rocks are arranged and what caused that arrangement is information.

Poets should be arrested and put away for a million years...for rule-breaking at such scales and severity. Wouldn't you agree? Where's the language police when we need 'em? — Agent Smith

That's the difference between drawing a picture of an actual event and drawing a picture of a meaningless design. Both are pictures, but only one actually represents something. With one you can show others what was the case. With the other you hang on your wall to show others that you that you have enough resources to waste on trivial things, just like many philosophers have enough time on their hands, thanks to not having to worry about where their next meal is coming from or evading predators, to make art from words. There's a difference between being meaningful with words and being artful with words. Ask Banno and he thinks every use of words is an artful use, as in every use is a game.

We can say (language) things we cannot mean (logic). For instance: The apple is all red AND The apple is not all red! There, I said/wrote a frank contradiction but when I attempt to think it, I draw a complete blank (Zen koans, mushin no shin). — Agent Smith

Because you said one thing and then negated it with the second statement. Each statement on it's own means something, but both statements together mean nothing. Think of not saying anything as the state of 0. Saying something is a positive assertion, therefore 0+1 = 1. Negating what you just said is basically subtracting from what you just said, essentially 1-1=0, so you ended up not saying anything at all. You say something with the first statement and then negate what you said in the second. Your mind only draws a blank after the second statement.

You essentially made a string of meaningless scribbles. What makes a scribble a word and not just a scribble? It is that the scribbles refer to what is the case. If you haven't referred to what is the case, then you essentially have just drawn scribbles on the screen, and didn't say anything at all.

Note that each assertion on their own are both positive assertions. You are asserting what is the case, either the apple is all red or it isn't. By using the second sentence, you negate what you just said. There would be no contradiction if both statements didn't share something in common, as in talking about the same apple and the same color, "red" in that is red or it isn't. There is no contradiction if you are talking about different apples in each sentence, or if you are talking about different colors in each statement. The apple is all red, and the apple is not all green are not contradictions.

In other words, what our our reasons for trusting reason? — Paulm12

For one, you wouldn't be able to communicate if not for reason. Using language is an endeavor in reason.

Reason, while misusable and in some respects is inadequate for adapting to reality, works better – more reliably, more defeasibly – than all of the alternatives. — 180 Proof

Yes. And there must be a reason for this.

You won't know until you try.

"Murder" is a legal term, so it comes murder if the law declares it to be murder. — Michael

Would it be better if I used the term, "kill"?

Because you seem to think that there is some set of necessary and sufficient conditions that qualify a thing as a person, but as Wittgenstein argued, this is a mistake. Instead, we just use the word "person" to refer to things that fit within a (vague) family resemblance, and that there are some things that clearly fit the use and some things that clearly don't, and then other things that sit within a grey area. — Michael

And you seem to think that Witt is a prophet of some sort whose words are infallible. You don't seem to have a problem discerning what Witt said vs. what Witt did not say.

It seems to me that maybe the issue is using the distinction between "person" and "non-person" is the issue. What if we were to point to "capable of suffering" vs "not capable of suffering" as the distinction?

Are you arguing that abortion is always wrong? — frank

Nope. Go back and read my first post in this thread.

What's the connection between our definition of "person" and whether or not abortion is OK? I didn't realise that how we use words is the measure of morality, — Michael

So when does abortion become murder if not by the way we define "person"?

I don't know what you mean here either. All I've said is that there is a very clear difference between a fertilised egg and a healthy adult. — Michael

Then I don't understand why you brought Wittgenstein into this discussion.

but then there are cases where there's no clear answer (and by this I don't just mean that we don't know which it is, but that there isn't a definite fact of the matter). — Michael

Yet you're saying that there is a clear-cut case between what is discernable vs. indiscernible.

Does "healthy adult" include other species other than humans?
— Harry Hindu

Possibly, if they're intelligent enough. I would think some advanced extra-terrestrial life would quality as persons. But dogs probably aren't (even if they're more intelligent and more self-aware than a newborn baby). — Michael

Then intelligence is another defining factor?

We put people in jail for animal abuse. It's okay to abuse a pig on a farm, but not a dog? Pigs are actually more intelligent than dogs. What about dolphins or apes?

Again, see Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations re. what is a game. If you're looking for some set of necessary and sufficient conditions for something to qualify as a person then you're approaching the issue the wrong way. That's just not how things work in many cases. There are extremes where it's easy to say what is or isn't a person (a healthy adult is, a sperm isn't) and where it's easy to say what is or isn't a game (chess is, clouds aren't), but then there are cases where there's no clear answer (and by this I don't just mean that we don't know which it is, but that there isn't a definite fact of the matter). — Michael

Yet, those cases where it seems to be difficult to say one way or another are rare compared to the all the cases where it is easy to say. Depending on how we define "person" vs. "non-person" the transition between the two can be very brief or very long. What we are trying to do is narrow that window of transition. By doing this and then by giving the benefit of the doubt to the fetus during this transition, we only end up adding a small amount of time to when it is not okay to abort a life.

A healthy fetus in the third trimester has lungs. Is there anything else?
— Harry Hindu

There are thousands of differences between an ovum and an adult human. I'm not going to list them all, and I don't understand the purpose of doing so. — Michael

But I wasn't talking about an ovum. I was talking about a fetus in the third trimester.

There are many differences; a healthy adult has lungs and a fertilised egg doesn't, a fertilised egg is about 100 microns in diameter and a healthy adult is quite a lot larger. — Michael

Okay. Now we're moving the conversation forward!

A healthy fetus in the third trimester has lungs. Is there anything else?

Does "healthy adult" include other species other than humans?

No I didn't. I offered a healthy adult as an example of a person. — Michael

You didn't say it was an example until now. Have any other examples? And after you give those examples, provide the traits that they share that qualifies them as a person.

So the victims of school shootings were not people?
— Harry Hindu

No, how did you some to that conclusion? — Michael

I would say the two extremes are a newly fertilised egg (not a person) and a healthy adult (a person). A 24 week old foetus and someone in a vegetative state might be somewhere in between. — Michael

You defined a person as a "healthy adult". Does this also mean that an adult with cancer is not a person?

Yes, there's a difference between a fertilised egg and a healthy adult. — Michael

You're repeating yourself. What are those differences?