Abortion

Originally posted by Bardock42
I am saying it's a pretty arbitrary line regardless. It doesn't have some magical "I'm the starting point" power. It's all just part in this huge chemical reaction we call life.

Of course all this definition stuff is really just semantics.

And, you are the one talking about eye-sorish avatars....you?

Not implying "magical" or even "special", as others have.

Sperm and Eggs are both the ingredients needed to create life, either alone is just an ingredient, there is no chance of sentience forming; once that union happens, the process of life has begun, then and there.

I'm saying killing(ie an abortion) that process is far different than masturbating over your keyboard and killing sperm (an ingredient); likening the two is ridiculous.

Picard with fashinable snow gear is anything from an eye-sore, good sir.

Originally posted by Bardock42
But neither is every successive step equal to it. It's still a random line. Sure, something's different. But a sperm or an egg are just as special as a zygote, just in different ways.

Biologically, no, they are not as special as the zygote. Again, NOT special as in...your ginger bottle. Special as in significant. The significance here is biological.

I'm cool with saying a zygote is leagues behind, biologically, to a fetus. I would agree. (and so on and so forth until you get a human like Backfire.)

but special and significant are all value statements

there is really, in objective terms, nothing more "special" or "unequal" about zygotes than sperms or eggs.

It is the human evaluation and judgment of these things that makes them unequal. They are not "objectively" "unequal". There is a very simple linguistic reason for this (also likely why I mistook what you were saying for being in the abortion context): for things to be measured for "equality", there must be a variable in question.

To say any two things are just "equal" is nonsense. They must be equal in something. Thus, humans must interpret a variable along which sperms and zygotes differ to call them "unequal". Most of, if not by definition all, these variables are entirely anthropic, and any significance gained from them is existential, making the "inequality" a product of human perception, and not a quality of the sperm or zygote themselves.

If the process of life is all the same, ie equal across the board, let me ask then, what makes a month old baby greater (or unequal) to a zygote?

Or would you call he entire stage of human development and life the same (equal) from start to finish?

Originally posted by dadudemon
Biologically, no, they are not as special as the zygote. Again, NOT special as in...your ginger bottle. Special as in significant. The significance here is biological.

I'm cool with saying a zygote is leagues behind, biologically, to a fetus. I would agree. (and so on and so forth until you get a human like Backfire.)

My argument is that it is an arbritarily decided line. There's no "more special biologically". It has different characteristics. And it is less common, but it's not more special. That's your personal judgment on it, deciding that a zygote for your reasons is the superior thing and that comparison to sperm or egg are silly. While they are clearly not, just different.

Originally posted by Robtard
Not implying "magical" or even "special", as others have.

Sperm and Eggs are both the ingredients needed to create life, either alone is just an ingredient, there is no chance of sentience forming; once that union happens, the process of life has begun, then and there.

I'm saying killing(ie an abortion) that process is far different than masturbating over your keyboard and killing sperm (an ingredient); likening the two is ridiculous.

Picard with fashinable snow gear is anything from an eye-sore, good sir.

Yes, and that was what I replied to. I don't think it is ridiculous, on the contrary, I find it ridiculous to argue that the egg and sperm the second before they potentially fuse are so incredibly different in subjective value than that later second when they have seems more silly to me. Of course that's a simplistic view of the whole process.

Originally posted by Robtard
If the process of life is all the same, ie equal across the board, let me ask then, what makes a month old baby greater (or unequal) to a zygote?

Or would you call he entire stage of human development and life the same (equal) from start to finish?

in each of us, at the very base of our DNA, contains the information of what is suspected to be the single celled life-form which produced all biodiversity on the planet.

As it divided and gained complexity over billions of years, it became us.

Each person is a simple variation of that cell, just compounded over huge timescales.

I consider all life, period, to be what you are describing. There has never been a stage in this process where non-life has become life, as living organisms are used to impregnate other living organisms to form more slightly variant organisms.

I would draw this back to the chemical reactions that originally produced what we would call life, as well. I personally see no objective line between organic and inorganic, unless we put special importance on organic matter, which would almost have to be anthropic.

This need to categorize things into "this" and "not-this" is such a byproduct of our minds, and not of the nature of reality itself.

Originally posted by Bardock42

Yes, and that was what I replied to. I don't think it is ridiculous, on the contrary, I find it ridiculous to argue that the egg and sperm the second before they potentially fuse are so incredibly different in subjective value than that later second when they have seems more silly to me. Of course that's a simplistic view of the whole process.

I note a difference when the process of life actually starts as having value, you obviously don't.

Simplified terms, lone egg or lone sperm can't make a person (super-science aside), the union is essentially life beginning, that's were [more] value is added.

Originally posted by inimalist
in each of us, at the very base of our DNA, contains the information of what is suspected to be the single celled life-form which produced all biodiversity on the planet.

As it divided and gained complexity over billions of years, it became us.

Each person is a simple variation of that cell, just compounded over huge timescales.

I consider all life, period, to be what you are describing. There has never been a stage in this process where non-life has become life, as living organisms are used to impregnate other living organisms to form more slightly variant organisms.

I would draw this back to the chemical reactions that originally produced what we would call life, as well. I personally see no objective line between organic and inorganic, unless we put special importance on organic matter, which would almost have to be anthropic.

This need to categorize things into "this" and "not-this" is such a byproduct of our minds, and not of the nature of reality itself.

You went way out there with that.

You really don't value (or acknowledge precedence) the life of a person over the life of a fly, or the life of a dog over a handful of sand?

I would say our minds is what make reality, to us at least.

Originally posted by Robtard
You went way out there with that.

You really don't value (or acknowledge precedence) the life of a person over the life of a fly, or the life of a dog over a handful of sand?

I would say our minds is what make reality, to us at least.

sure, I, as a human, can make value judgments for myself. My future goals in life relate to such categorization of human behaviour, something which the same can be said for.

I'm not even saying that pragmatic categories can't be made, simply that these represent anthropic evaluations. I can tell you why human life is important to me, but I can't in any terms that don't relate to existential value judgments.

Its highly reductionist, I know, but I feel it works. Like how a series of photos can be combined to create a large picture. That larger picture is an illusion created by our perceptual system and the way it categorizes the relationship between stimuli.

Like, we are totally off abortion at this point. By definition, it will be anthropic judgments that will decide any appropriate limits on that, and it is foolish to look for such objective definitions.

I don't know, you can talk about micro-macro, or emergence, but I don't think either address the tangibility of the "macro" or "emergent" phenomena. Life is not proved by the fact that there are items in the universe that behave in ways that we attribute to life, but rather we attribute certain qualities to life and categorize all things that behave that way as it. The only way to distinguish life from non-life is through subjective judgments.

blah, I'm writing a crazy neruoscience paper right now, so sorry if this is weirder than my usual

Originally posted by Robtard
I note a difference when the process of life actually starts as having value, you obviously don't.

Simplified terms, lone egg or lone sperm can't make a person (super-science aside), the union is essentially life beginning, that's were [more] value is added.

It's random though, that's not the "start" of life, in any absolute sense.

And that's a weird view. You disregard everything that has to happen for the zygote to become a grown human, while the fusion of sperm and egg is, to you, for some reason the important barrier that has to be crossed.

Originally posted by Bardock42
It's random though, that's not the "start" of life, in any absolute sense.

And that's a weird view. You disregard everything that has to happen for the zygote to become a grown human, while the fusion of sperm and egg is, to you, for some reason the important barrier that has to be crossed.

When does it start then?

When/How did I disregard the process of human life, when I'm specially talking about that process, to the point, the beginning of life from that process. Sex happens, a child isn't necessarily the outcome, even vital sperm being ejaculated into a vagina with an egg in waiting isn't a guaranteed that a union of the two will happen, ie the process of life begins when that [union] first step happens. Sex isn't even really necessary anymore.

Originally posted by inimalist
but special and significant are all value statements

there is really, in objective terms, nothing more "special" or "unequal" about zygotes than sperms or eggs.

Would you say the same of a full grown adult? I don't think so.

I would agree that the "value" or "significance" has to start somewhere. We end up at life at some point in the process. That doesn't start happening until the zygote is formed.

I would consider it the moment we have "significant data when we have the complete DNA set required.

Anything before then can be discarded as building blocks that amount to nothing.

Originally posted by inimalist
It is the human evaluation and judgment of these things that makes them unequal.

True. Everything you say after this is a given.

Originally posted by inimalist
They are not "objectively" "unequal". There is a very simple linguistic reason for this (also likely why I mistook what you were saying for being in the abortion context): for things to be measured for "equality", there must be a variable in question.

To say any two things are just "equal" is nonsense. They must be equal in something. Thus, humans must interpret a variable along which sperms and zygotes differ to call them "unequal". Most of, if not by definition all, these variables are entirely anthropic, and any significance gained from them is existential, making the "inequality" a product of human perception, and not a quality of the sperm or zygote themselves.

I know what you are trying to say, and I've thought the same things when ponder what aliens would think of humans (Yes, on sleepless nights, I think about what aliens would think about us. 😐 ) Since we are humans, we are bound to anthropomorphisms* to create understanding.

*I see that you may not be talking about the same thing I am, now. I may misunderstand you. I was thinking that you thought it was slightly absurd that I am assigning things like "significance" and "special" without realizing that I was assigning human traits to those items being discussed, ergo, losing objectivity of the entire point I was making. I could be mistaken on what you were trying to convey. I just think "life" is more definable (or closer to being definable) in the form of a zygote than separately in the form of an egg and sperm. Agreed?

Originally posted by Robtard
When does it start then?

Life? Some billion years ago I guess.

Originally posted by Robtard
When/How did I disregard the process of human life, when I'm specially talking about that process, to the point, the beginning of life from that process. Sex happens, a child isn't necessarily the outcome, even vital sperm being ejaculated into a vagina with an egg in waiting isn't a guaranteed that a union of the two will happen, ie the process of life begins when that [union] first step happens. Sex isn't even really necessary anymore.

Yes, but a zygote being created doesn't mean that a child is the outcome of it either. More likely, sure. But an actually value difference not really. Personally I don't see any moral difference between aborting a fuzed sperm and egg or shooting sperm into some tissue. The great leap, that makes it, in your opinion, ridiculous to compare, does not exist, imo. It is solely down to your personal judgement.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Life? Some billion years ago I guess.

Yes, but a zygote being created doesn't mean that a child is the outcome of it either. More likely, sure. But an actually value difference not really. Personally I don't see any moral difference between aborting a fuzed sperm and egg or shooting sperm into some tissue. The great leap, that makes it, in your opinion, ridiculous to compare, does not exist, imo. It is solely down to your personal judgement.

You know what I meant, jackass.

Fair enough, but you're wrong, because I'm right.

Edit: When do you see the difference/at what stage?

Originally posted by dadudemon
I just think "life" is more definable (or closer to being definable) in the form of a zygote than separately in the form of an egg and sperm. Agreed?

both the sperm and the egg are, by definition, alive.

so no, I disagree. A sperm is only a "building block" is there is the assumption that its purpose is to build something. This is incorrect. There is no purpose to a sperm. It is a biological organism that follows the same genetic expressions that all other living things do. It merges with an egg to create humans, but this is no more than a more complex version of the same process unless you privilege the fact that a human is the end product.

Originally posted by inimalist
both the sperm and the egg are, by definition, alive.

so no, I disagree. A sperm is only a "building block" is there is the assumption that its purpose is to build something. This is incorrect. There is no purpose to a sperm. It is a biological organism that follows the same genetic expressions that all other living things do. It merges with an egg to create humans, but this is no more than a more complex version of the same process unless you privilege the fact that a human is the end product.

Then we disagree and we'll never come to a common ground.

I hold a zygote to be more important than a sperm and an egg, separately, biologically. Sure, they are each their own entities, but one is MORE potentially a full fledged multicellular organism than the other's.

When that happens, there can only be one recourse, Thunderdome!

Originally posted by dadudemon
Then we disagree and we'll never come to a common ground.

I hold a zygote to be more important than a sperm and an egg, separately, biologically. Sure, they are each their own entities, but one is MORE potentially a full fledged multicellular organism than the other's.

you are privileging multicellularity

you might have something in that it is further along in a process, but it can be equally well argued that a sperm has finished its process, given the demarcation you make. It ceases to be a sperm, and thus, has nothing more to become. A zygote is still miles from what it is going to be.

"going to be" is the factor, you don't think that's worth anything of notice, others do.

Edit: and yes, I'd hold you life as more valueable than an Archaea's. Call me crazy.

I hold my life more important than most things

that doesn't give it any objective value

as to the potential, why then that point? it is no less arbitrary than any other moment during development