Abortion: Legal or Illegal

Gamemako wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Even if you everything you say carries the utmost truth, you seem to profess it with such a cold disposition that I'm hard pressed to want to adopt your view.  I could shower it with apologies, but that will truly not make it more appealing at its core. Accepting the notion that a living brain in a jar is more human than a child's dead body is something most people will never do (or want to do, as they will justify to themselves). Again, for most people, morality is an emotional response which we later justify (I do not claim to be different; I cannot know my own thought processes). Sure, I could talk about the dignity of life or some similar notion to manipulate your emotional response. I could do my damnedest to pull the wool over your eyes. Maybe that would please your ego, but it would be a disservice to all here and, in my opinion, ethically questionable (as was Bush using peripheral arguments like the "mushroom cloud" to convince people to go to war). I do not devalue human life, I devalue the vessel in which we reside.

One can have a view which he logically sees as true while still exhibiting an emotional response to the contrary which he can reconcile with his more scientific approach. I don't need you to appease me ego. Instead I'm just lamenting the lack of compassion that I perceive in your words.

I will say that I find your view of human to be humorous. I do not see how you can divorce the body from humanity. When you speak of being human, you seem to only be speaking of sentience.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: The Truth wrote: Epignosis wrote: This summarizes your view.  No mind = no humanity.  I feel comfortable rejecting that without much thought. What makes one human then? Perhaps the something similar to what makes a dog a dog and a wolf a wolf despite them having fairly similar brains?

It's not the brain I'm referring to, it's the mind. Emotions, memories, etc. all the things that to me, make a human a human. What is Rob referring to and if he does indeed mean the mind, what does make one human?

The Truth wrote: Epignosis wrote: This summarizes your view.  No mind = no humanity.  I feel comfortable rejecting that without much thought. What makes one human then?

It's like porn.  I'll know it when I see it. 

Through the lens of evolution, I'm not sure.  Folks a million years from now might see us as non-humans.  However, if a human (as we understand human) and another human create a baby, they aren't going to produce a zebra.

The Truth wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: The Truth wrote: Epignosis wrote: This summarizes your view.  No mind = no humanity.  I feel comfortable rejecting that without much thought. What makes one human then? Perhaps the something similar to what makes a dog a dog and a wolf a wolf despite them having fairly similar brains? It's not the brain I'm referring to, it's the mind. Emotions, memories, etc. all the things that to me, make a human a human. What is Rob referring to and if he does indeed mean the mind, what does make one human?

Dogs have memories and emotions.  They are not human.

Tanner, check out Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained.  I like his book Freedom Evolves better (easier read too), but its a fascinating book still.

Andy Webb wrote: The Truth wrote: Their still human. OH GOD THEY'RE* continue

Reminds me, I just saw this:



I fixed it before I refreshed the page anyway.

Epignosis wrote: The Truth wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: The Truth wrote: Epignosis wrote: This summarizes your view.  No mind = no humanity.  I feel comfortable rejecting that without much thought. What makes one human then? Perhaps the something similar to what makes a dog a dog and a wolf a wolf despite them having fairly similar brains? It's not the brain I'm referring to, it's the mind. Emotions, memories, etc. all the things that to me, make a human a human. What is Rob referring to and if he does indeed mean the mind, what does make one human? Dogs have memories and emotions.  They are not human. Tanner, check out Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained.  I like his book Freedom Evolves better (easier read too), but its a fascinating book still.

Looks interesting and explanatory. Maybe I will.

The Truth wrote: So you'd kill a goldfish with a developed human mind but not a fetus which doesn't have memories or emotions? 0_o

Did I say that? I would not. I admit the possibility of other being with rights whose life I will respect besides humans. I imagine computers reaching that point sometime in the not too distant future.

Epignosis wrote: This summarizes your view.  No mind = no humanity.  I feel comfortable rejecting that without much thought.

That is exactly my view.

Epignosis wrote: I am a materialist Christian...Whatever is physical is real... You call a fetus a blob.  I say we are but blobs.  We are just cells doing their jobs.  That's why I cannot distance myself from the unborn.

Understandable from your religious beliefs. Because we do not share these beliefs, our views on life

Epignosis wrote: The mind is but a product of DNA.

I am a bit puzzled. You do not seek to protect DNA, you seek to protect flesh.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Instead I'm just lamenting the lack of compassion that I perceive in your words.

Would you like it better if I included more ponies and rainbows? Or maybe pictures of kittens to demonstrate?

Equality 7-2521 wrote: I will say that I find your view of human to be humorous. I do not see how you can divorce the body from humanity. When you speak of being human, you seem to only be speaking of sentience.

Not sentience, necessarily, but close.

//EDIT: You know, sentience is pretty much the best word for it, and I would value all sentient beings, so that's acceptable.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: So if I put your mind into a fish, you would still consider yourself human?

Yes, I'd still be human, just as I am still human when taking the role of Kabuto in a video game. Would be a terribly awkward experience, though, being a fish. I'm not quite certain how it would come about.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Did I say that? I would not. I admit the possibility of other being with rights whose life I will respect besides humans. I imagine computers reaching that point sometime in the not too distant future.

Edited by Gamemako - January 29 2012 at 21:46

Epignosis wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: The Truth wrote: So you'd kill a goldfish with a developed human mind but not a fetus which doesn't have memories or emotions? 0_o Did I say that? I would not. I admit the possibility of other being with rights whose life I will respect besides humans. I imagine computers reaching that point sometime in the not too distant future. A brain is a computer, is it not?

It is, but our man-made computers are not sufficiently complex for me to assign rights to them.

Gamemako wrote: Would you like it better if I included more ponies and rainbows? Or maybe pictures of kittens to demonstrate?

Yes please. Anything to appeal to the 13 year old girl in me.

Gamemako wrote: Not sentience, necessarily, but close. //EDIT: You know, sentience is pretty much the best word for it, and I would value all sentient beings, so that's acceptable.

I would assign value to all sentient beings as well, but clearly there's a difference between that and being human. If a dolphin awakes to consciousness it is not suddenly human.

Gamemako wrote: Yes, I'd still be human, just as I am still human when taking the role of Kabuto in a video game. Would be a terribly awkward experience, though, being a fish. I'm not quite certain how it would come about.

That analogy makes no sense. You can deny physicality all of you want, but role playing and the your body are fundamentally different. You seem to be confusing human with some sense of self-identification which perhaps just comes from our knowledge of only one sentient species. You are either very confused or poorly choosing words to express yourself.