Originally posted by Robtard
A bug could be aware that it's alive. So what's your point with the bug bit?
My point is that people kill bugs all the time and don't care about it, yet they defend the right to live for a fetus who has basically that same level of consciousness as a bug. Just pointing out hypocrisy.
And I would have to ask a neurosurgeon when the brain is developed enough for a sentient mind to exist.
Originally posted by Robtard
You should really leave that philosophy "are we really here" out of an abortion debate.
Haha, I thought it could spice things up a little...😛
Not that this debate needs spicing.
Speaking of things being left out though...I notice noone has brought up the dreaded R word yet...
Originally posted by inimalist
i do, but disagree entirely
So a gradual drip drip effect?
Originally posted by inimalistThalamocortical connectivity...?
you are able to draw such a line between a conscious organism and an not-conscious one?
Originally posted by RobtardThat addresses part of my post... the other part is more complicated and interesting. The male pronuclei from the sperm and the female pronuclei from the oocyte don't actually fuse until the first mitotic division iirc. So if I destroy the cell between fertilization and the first embryonic cleavage am I or am I not taking "a life."
Conception would be fertilization, which would equote to life beginning. The fact that it could self terminate doesn't negate that life has begun.
Originally posted by inimalist
they don't know 😉
In a way they would. There is much we know about the brain now, we know the parts that control things like reasoning and problem solving and I am sure they could make at least an approximation on when a brain has developed enough to support these functions.
Originally posted by Aster Phoenix
One that is aware of it's own life actions and the consequences of those action.One with the capacity to override their instincts.
One that can reason and comprehend ideas.
One capable of problem solving.
The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor... What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but, "Can they suffer?"
Originally posted by Aster Phoenix
My point is that people kill bugs all the time and don't care about it, yet they defend the right to live for a fetus who has basically that same level of consciousness as a bug. Just pointing out hypocrisy.And I would have to ask a neurosurgeon when the brain is developed enough for a sentient mind to exist.
What level of consciousness does a bug possess?
How much consciousness would a fetus need to qualify?
They don't know.
Originally posted by xmarksthespot
That addresses part of my post... the other part is more complicated and interesting. The male pronuclei from the sperm and the female pronuclei from the oocyte don't actually fuse until the first mitotic division iirc. So if I destroy the cell between fertilization and the first embryonic cleavage am I or am I not taking "a life."
You'd be stopping life, or the process of life continuing, that isn't the issue though, imo. It's "when it is a human deserving said rights", when it comes to abortion.
Originally posted by Robtard
What level of consciousness does a bug possess?How much consciousness would a fetus need to qualify?
They don't know.
They would need a level of consciousness that could be defined as sentient.
Originally posted by Aster Phoenix
In a way they would. There is much we know about the brain now, we know the parts that control things like reasoning and problem solving and I am sure they could make at least an approximation on when a brain has developed enough to support these functions.
the problem is that, as neuroscience has discovered much underlying these effects, little room for consciousness is left.
Much reasoning and problem solving is done subconsciously, like you reading these words. You are never aware of the processes underlying your understanding of them, yet one you read a sentence you have the entire idea.
From a neuroscience perspective, at least in my take, its not that they would have trouble saying when the child is conscious, but in defining what consciousness is. Without any concrete evidence that humans even possess consciousness, it is very difficult to say when it begins.
Originally posted by Aster Phoenix
consciousness, sentient.
can you give a reasonable working definition for either of these terms?
Originally posted by inimalistCould a bug or fetus do the same?
yet one you read a sentence you have the entire idea.
can you give a reasonable working definition for either of these terms?
Originally posted by Aster Phoenix
[B]One that is aware of it's own life actions and the consequences of those action.One with the capacity to override their instincts.
One that can reason and comprehend ideas.
One capable of problem solving.
Originally posted by Aster Phoenix
A bug has an extremely low level of consciousness, they merely act on instinct with no capability for reasoning of choice beyond that of instinct.They would need a level of consciousness that could be defined as sentient.
I have a 2 week old son, I could argue that besides the instinct to seek out food (via crying and moving his mouth), he is currently not mentally developed enough to reason. Ergo, does his lack of "conciousness" render him equal to a bug?
What would this level be?
Originally posted by Robtard
I have a 2 week old son, I could argue that besides the instinct to seek out food (via crying and moving his mouth), he is currently not mentally developed enough to reason. Ergo, does his lack of :conciousness" render him equal to a bug?What would this level be?
Babies can still problem solve, they can still override their instincts. On some level more then instinctually they are aware of cause and effect. They can learn and comprehend new ideas.
Originally posted by xmarksthespot
Thalamocortical connectivity...?
potentially, and there is something to be said for 30-60Hz gamma bandwidth oscillations, yet I am highly skeptical that anything resembling what people refer to as "consciousness" will develop from these ideas.
Like, look at the LGN. there are tons of geniculocortical pathways, yet much of its processing remains subconscious and pre-attentive. lol, the thalamus is a big place and obviously plays a major roll in what we subjectively feel at any moment. My problem here is that, historically, the term consciousness encompasses many things that are already mutually exclusive with modern neuroscience. Gazaniga's work with people who have their corpus collosium cut or from Libet's free will work. Both sort of show our "conscious" self to be highly lacking in terms of the rational, in control, free will having individual that, at least to me, consciousness assumes.