Geeks + Gamers › Forums › Community Hub › General Discussions › The point at which an abortionist realized he was wrong
But yes, I might be wrong or I might be correct. You might also be incorrect, we will never arrive at a definite answer because it is not anything that can be proven.
Exactly my point and you have more or less proven my entire thought process. You cannot arrive at a definitive answer on where a soul or a consciences is imparted.
But there is a life or death difference between you being incorrect and me being incorrect.
If I am wrong, it means nothing really. If you are wrong then 500,000+ people a year in the US are slaughtered and most often just out of inconvenience. I have seen far smaller numbers of intentional death referred to as genocide.
I mean human is just what our species is. An unborn child is of the human species. But I assume you mean the fetus without consciousness, I believe it is not alive and therefore not worth protecting.
Words are a method of communication. If we are in the situation where words mean different things to different people then we are not communicating and the words serve no purpose. A single cell is alive. A collection of cells is alive. An unborn child regardless of development stage is surely alive.
So now we are on the same page. An unborn child is a human. Good. Now, you can say things that you hope I passively aggressively accept but I will not. A fetus is a descriptive word for a stage of human development. I rebuke your statement that is has no consciousness and you stated earlier we cannot prove when this happens. So with that being said, you cannot prove a fetus is not consciousness nor has a soul. And I rebuke the idea entirely that the unborn person has no intrinsic value because maybe it does not have consciousness.
Yes, but I have a consciousness.
Please define consciousness and prove to me that you have it.
I would much rather have an abortion when the fetus has no consciousness, meaning it reacts the same way a dead body reacts to something (which is no reaction as it can not feel or understand anything) over a fetus with severe defects being forced out to live with Edward’s Syndrome and being in pain for a year before dying from their heart collapsing.
Again, we agreed earlier that the possible point of consciousness cannot be defined. So you are speaking from a foundation that we have already disproven. Now just because you say you don’t believe in God but then turn around and grant yourself his powers does not mean you have that right. Your life is your choice. But you don’t have the right to impose death on others. People often assume a short life or a hard life is of no value. That is entirely a false premise used to devalue life. And the thing about devaluing life is you cannot devalue some of it without devaluing all of it. So you are functionally arguing for lessoning your own person. And you are not just not arguing for it you are demanding it. You have been fooled into demanding shackles and cheering putting them on because someone fooled you into believing shackles are freedom.
Saying ”the resulting thing is most certainly alive, therefore, it’s a living human being” is not based on any framework, it’s just a statement. This is the part that I am curious to hear, I want to know why ”having these attributes” is what determines it.
The framework? I would call that reality and or the way we define the world around us. Call it science if you want, call it observation if you wish.
A unique set of human DNA or let’s say human attributes are human. It’s in the words. If I pointed at a butterfly and asked you what that was would you call it a set of meaningless random attributes? No you would call it a butterfly because it is a butterfly. And again, a fetus, collection of cells , a single cell are all by definition alive. So an unborn child is a live human. If you want to question every word, every reality, every long standing understanding because you want to be able to do away with people then you go right ahead. That’s not a science or logic thing that’s you forcing your will on your own understanding.
Your opinions should be based on the truth, you should not be basing truth on your opinions.
But why is the baby alive but not the corpse?
That’s an absolute nonsense question and I am not sure why you asked it. I know you are an intelligent person so I am not sure if we are so in the weeds here you have lost sight of the forest for the trees or if you are simply not self aware. Obviously, a baby that is alive is not dead. It is a living organism. A corpse is an organism where life has ceased and is therefore dead.
A rock is not dead nor alive. It is not nor was it ever an organism. It never achieved being alive and therefore cannot achieve death. You cannot achieve death without having been alive. A corpse was a live human. But now it is a dead human because the processes of life have ceased. So if he/she came to the end of life then clearly there was a start of life. That being the point where it was a live human. IE conception.
The explanation of conception is through science though
Again, does not matter. Through simple observation we see that human sexual activity can result in pregnancy. A new organism results such that it lives, grows and is born. This is what I can clearly observe. I don’t need other humans to be able to define things for me to understand that. For someone who often speaks negatively of faith and blind adherence you seem to display much of that for other humans.
Your entire philosophical tact (and mine as well) can be distilled down to single crux.
Overall, your points on this rely on the prioritization of the self. Mine hinge on the value of others.
But there is a life or death difference between you being incorrect and me being incorrect.
If I am wrong, it means nothing really. If you are wrong then 500,000+ people a year in the US are slaughtered and most often just out of inconvenience. I have seen far smaller numbers of intentional death referred to as genocide.
But we do not generally base opinions or choices through the process of risk minimization as the primary reason, otherwise no medicine should exist for example. I base my opinion on this subject on what I believe is correct. Also, we will never arrive at the absolute truth so one could ask if it is even possible to be objectively wrong.
I rebuke your statement that is has no consciousness and you stated earlier we cannot prove when this happens. So with that being said, you cannot prove a fetus is not consciousness nor has a soul.
Soul is too abstract to use as a tool to determine, but I didn’t say consciousness can’t be proved. You can’t say exactly when consciousness is developed in advance, as you can’t say exactly when your chest hair starts to grow, but it is possible to detect when consciousness developes through following when thalamocortical connections in the brain develop via scans, and it can be tested to see if that is what is the determining factor via stimuli checks. Fetuses without thalamocortical connections are unable to react to stimuli or anything, meaning they react the same way dead bodies react. They don’t.
And I rebuke the idea entirely that the unborn person has no intrinsic value because maybe it does not have consciousness.
That is the fundamental disagreement we have and why I feel like the conversation will just spin circles forever. Because I believe consciousness is the thing worth protecting, as people with non functioning hearts can be held alive with a pacemaker but the second your thalamocortical connections are permanently damaged and your brain stops working and you cannot deploy consciousness, you are pronounced dead. The only reason braindead people are held on life support is the hope that their consciousness gets back, if there is no way for it to get back, the person is not worth protecting anymore and dead. As for fetuses, when they get aborted there is no conscious experience or ”life” that ceases to exist in my opinion.
The framework? I would call that reality and or the way we define the world around us. Call it science if you want, call it observation if you wish.
A unique set of human DNA or let’s say human attributes are human. It’s in the words. If I pointed at a butterfly and asked you what that was would you call it a set of meaningless random attributes? No you would call it a butterfly because it is a butterfly. And again, a fetus, collection of cells , a single cell are all by definition alive. So an unborn child is a live human.
Yes I would like to hear your framework and reasoning other than ”that’s just how it is”. I will give an example. Many people would answer heartbeat as the determining factor for life. The framework and justification would be something like ”heartbeat is the only muscle keeping us going every second through our lives and it circulates the blood which is necessary to stay alive, and when we are dead the heart stops”. But my issue with heartbeat is that we can in fact live without a functioning heart if we have a pacemaker, some animals can survive completely without a heart and if heart is the determining factor then pulling the plug would be murder. Some might bite the bullet and say pulling the plug is murder, but then they would have to accept that abortion before development of a heart is justified.
As for your framework, I still do not know why DNA is the determining factor when we can chop off limbs which have DNA but are not considered living humans, why is not a sperm’s DNA sufficient as its DNA is not identical to the man ejaculating. The sperm needs to be alive to fertilize the egg, and it has human DNA so why is sperm not a potential human life like a fetus is, when it has human DNA but is not the exact same DNA as the man ejaculating?
Also, why are dead people ”dead” when they have DNA still. I feel like using DNA to determine life has so many inconsistencies that it just feels like a way to justify in hindsight a pro life stance.
Please define consciousness and prove to me that you have it.
I would say consciousness is the ability to react to your surroundings and being aware of it. I could prove it by showing I have the capability to react to my surroundings and being aware of things happening. If your question is metaphysical like how do I know my experiences are real, I cannot answer that but at that point nothing can be ever proven.
Obviously, a baby that is alive is not dead. It is a living organism. A corpse is an organism where life has ceased and is therefore dead.
But what determines death? Is it DNA ceasing to exist? You already know my answer to this, life begins and ends with consciousness. When you have one, life starts. When it ends, you are dead. A fetus, a braindead person and a dead person with no functioning organs I consider unalive and not worth protecting.
But we do not generally base opinions or choices through the process of risk minimization as the primary reason, otherwise no medicine should exist for example. I base my opinion on this subject on what I believe is correct. Also, we will never arrive at the absolute truth so one could ask if it is even possible to be objectively wrong.
You are not taking anything in. It would be impossible for you to rationalize any harder than this. I believe your arguments are disingenuous. People can learn and people can progress. But they have to be willing to do both. You are willing to neither. Like many cultists you assume you are correct to the point of refusing to consider new information as it would give credence to the notion you might be wrong.
Abortion. Risk minimalization? You insult whatever intelligence I have with that tripe. I am talking life and death here. By your own description we are talking about possibly murdering half a million children every year because they are inconvenient based on things not definable.
But that’s the whole idea right? You can do that with a clean conscience because you devalue and minimize the thing you murder before you do.
but it is possible to detect when consciousness developes through following when thalamocortical connections in the brain develop via scans
It’s so entirely ironic how people who claim faith in God is a sign of low intelligence or being fooled. But you can turn around and have such faith in science that you are willing to kill people based on it because when you kill them you consider them not people. That’s so entirely historically incorrect I don’t know what to tell you. Yes, us folks of faith in God do place faith in God. But we do so as we believe he is perfect and infallible. You know for an absolute fact humans are corrupt, error prone and self absorbed, yet you place your faith in them.
That is the fundamental disagreement we have and why I feel like the conversation will just spin circles forever. Because I believe consciousness is the thing worth protecting
If you fall into the freezing cold ocean in Alaska, it does not need your agreement to be cold nor does it require your belief in it to swallow you up.
If there is God and if his values are a thing. Then your disagreement absolves you of nothing nor does it have any bearing on how right or how wrong you were.
Yes I would like to hear your framework and reasoning other than ”that’s just how it is”.
It’s literally impossible for me to explain this any clearer than I have. A “fetus” is human. A fetus is clearly a living thing. Hence it is a living human being. If you want to wave your magic wand of “not a human” on an unborn child you go right ahead. But when that wand gets used on you in the future remember how you agreed with it’s use initially. Decisions have consequences in the here and now but also downstream of that.
If your question is metaphysical like how do I know my experiences are real, I cannot answer that but at that point nothing can be ever proven.
Exactly. So if you cannot prove this point for yourself why are you advocating it must be proven for others otherwise it’s morally acceptable to kill them.
But what determines death? Is it DNA ceasing to exist?
OK, so you are either just trolling me now or you just refuse to accept anything that conflicts with your agenda.
What is death? Are you serious with that?
The absence of life is the answer. You have used the word corpse several times. So I am certain you are familiar with the concept of life and death. And as I mentioned you cannot achieve death without having achieved life. The corpse is a corpse as it was once alive and is now dead.
DNA has nothing to do with if something is alive. We have recovered DNA from many things long since dead.
Look man, if you refuse to believe anything outside your own thoughts, well OK. What you do and what you think is between you and God. I have zero sway in that.
But for goodness sakes. If you are going to make an intellectual argument then follow a logical line of thought.
Have you ever been REALLY hungry or REALLY thirsty? Or maybe even REALLY in pain. If you have, then you know your mind begins to warp around what you need or tremendously desire. You will ultimately rationalize what you need to so that your perception quenches your wants at the time. This is avoidable but it takes A LOT of intestinal fortitude to stave off.
This is you. Willing to ignore what is or look away from reality so you can rationalize killing people by saying not a human, or well there is no consciences so again, not a human.
That mental slight of hand has been played multiple times in the past. It’s resulted in nothing by mass death.
People can learn and people can progress. But they have to be willing to do both. You are willing to neither. Like many cultists you assume you are correct to the point of refusing to consider new information as it would give credence to the notion you might be wrong.
I have readjusted my position on many things, abortion being one of them, but that requires evidence or a logical explanation, not empty statements.
I am talking life and death here. By your own description we are talking about possibly murdering half a million children every year because they are inconvenient based on things not definable.
This seems to be yet another appeal to emotions. The argument of ”think about the children”.
It’s so entirely ironic how people who claim faith in God is a sign of low intelligence or being fooled. But you can turn around and have such faith in science that you are willing to kill people based on it because when you kill them you consider them not people.
I do not find it ironic, the existence of God is something that has never had any bit of evidence, it’s all word of mouth and ”you just have to believe and not think”. Everything we have today, the development and progress of medicine and literally everything that has progressed human life expectancy from 30 years to 80 years is based on gathering information from previous generations and working on that. If we would disregard what other people have created and come up with, and only live based on our own instincts and experiences we would still be cavemen. This is a crucial difference between humans and animals, as animals are not able to stockpile information from other animals and expand on that information, but everyone starts from zero.
I think belief in something like a God worked as an explanation to things that could not be explained before, like people could not study or explain the concept of something like rain 1500 years ago so it was ”idk some magical guy in the sky probably creates it. Just believe it.”
But you can turn around and have such faith in science
In terms of brain function and its link to consciousness, it passes the theoretical and practical trial. It has a theory about a certain function in the brain required to deploy consciousness, and it passes the practical test by seeing if a fetus can react to its surroundings before the said function and after.
The answer is, a fetus cannot react to stimuli before the thalamocortical connections develop, it can react suddenly after they are developed, but once they get severed a human suddenly loses its ability to deploy consciousness. That’s a lot of coincidences for it to not be true.
That’s like saying we cannot trust car mechanics who theorize a car cannot run without gas, even if it is tested that cars cannot run without gas, with gas they suddenly can but after they run out of gas they cannot function anymore. Car mechanics have gotten a lot of things wrong in the past, we can’t trust them! But don’t worry, God is actually the one who starts the car.
Would my answer satisfy you more if I told you that God said to me life begins at consciousness?
If you fall into the freezing cold ocean in Alaska, it does not need your agreement to be cold nor does it require your belief in it to swallow you up.
Nope, but it has a scientific explanation to why freezing cold and hypothermia negatively affect humans and lead to death. If you wanna disregard the explanation because people have been wrong before, go ahead. Try throwing a person with strong belief that God will protect him and he cannot freeze and drown into the ocean and see if his belief can outdo science.
It’s literally impossible for me to explain this any clearer than I have. A “fetus” is human. A fetus is clearly a living thing.
I would rephrase that as ”it’s literally impossible for me to explain with a clearly structured framework so I will just repeat a statement with no explanation”. I could also argue the oppsoite and have my explanation as ”it just is like that whether you like it or not”.
Exactly. So if you cannot prove this point for yourself why are you advocating it must be proven for others otherwise it’s morally acceptable to kill them.
This is just pointless at this point. If you want to talk about metaphysical consciousness and experiences then you can’t prove fetuses even exist at all, as literally nothing exists at all necessarily. Not even you. But you don’t need to prove everyone that you exist, we all take for granted that we do not live in a metaphysical reality and we all believe you exist without proof needed. This feels like a hail mary to muddy the water, some things needs to be proven but not everything.
If I walk into a class in Harvard and the professor is like who are you and why are you in this class. I need to have proof that I got accepted and enrolled there, but I do not need to prove my consciousness and existence is real. Telling the professor ”how can you prove you exist, and that your consciousness and experience of me being an outsider here is actually real?” is not a suitable argument.
OK, so you are either just trolling me now or you just refuse to accept anything that conflicts with your agenda.
What is death? Are you serious with that?
The absence of life is the answer. You have used the word corpse several times. So I am certain you are familiar with the concept of life and death. And as I mentioned you cannot achieve death without having achieved life. The corpse is a corpse as it was once alive and is now dead.
DNA has nothing to do with if something is alive. We have recovered DNA from many things long since dead.
You disregard my point by claiming I am trolling, and then you do not answer it and just handwave it. I am not trolling, being disingenuous or have an agenda, I’m sincerely curious to know your rationalization.
I think a good way to measure if someone is sincerely participating in a debate or conversation and not just spewing talking points is if they are able to summarize the other person’s points correctly, so by all means correct me if I am wrong.
So you believe life starts at conception because that is the point when the unique set of human attributes, DNA, is established, therefore a new living human being is ”born” and starts being worth protecting. The absence of life is when something is dead or ”unalive”, but when talking about the point when something is no longer alive, suddenly DNA is not anymore the indicator because you believe ”DNA has nothing to do with if something is alive”.
My question to test your framework is, why is the unique set of attributes, DNA, the indicator for when a life starts, but not anymore the indicator to when life ends? Then what do you believe is the indicator to when someone dies, and why is it not the same indicator to when a life starts? Is pulling the plug from a braindead person who will never gain consciousness as much of a murder as abortion?
You claim I am just echoing propaganda and say anything to justify it, but I have a clear and consistent framework for my belief. I think a person not able to deploy consciousness is not alive, whether it is permanently braindead or a fetus without consciousness. They are not alive, no matter if their other organs are still functioning. I don’t like using movie references or fiction as supprt for arguments, but in sci-fi movies about AI taking over, we consider them alive (or as alive as technology can be) when they are able to deploy consciousness and think and react for themselves.
I don’t know if you have watched Dragonball, but there is a moment when Captain Ginyu (bad guy) uses a body change technique on Goku (the main hero), so their consciousness is now in the other person’s body. If Captain Ginyu’s body (with Goku’s consciousness) would die, I would argue Goku is dead and Captain Ginyu is alive, even if Goku’s body with his unique DNA, heart, organs etc are still alive but has Captain Ginyu’s consciousness.
I would say your framework is incredibly incosistent, if you even have one, and change the indicator of life and and your arguments to what supports your agenda. You seem to start with a conclusion that abortion is bad, and work backwards to justify an explanation to why aborting is wrong by saying the unique DNA is what determines if it is alive or not, but switch quickly the indicator when talking about death because you do not wanna bite the bullet and say people are alive as long as they have DNA.