Touchy subject: What is your stance on abortion?

[punkbass2000]

However, if you were just casually sleeping around, I have no sympathy for you and you should not be able to have a abortion because unfortunately, you messed up yourself and you should have to face the consequences. I don't like people seeing abortion as an easy way out for "accidents" that happen during casual sex.

Incidentally, do you have a method for determining which people would be allowed to have abortions?

 

[punkbass2000]

Leaving aside that I know humans to possess souls, I don't think it is an unreasonable claim to make that there is a real thing called a "human". I'm more than the sum of my matter: I'm me, I'm a person. You could replace each of my atoms, one by one, and T-sub-1 (Taliesin after the changes) wouldn't be importantly (and therefore, I conclude, substantially) different from T-sub-0 (Taliesin before the changes). I would survive the eradication of all my matter. Perhaps you object to the existence of things other than atoms, which would certainly be tenable, though it run directly contrary to an everyday perception of the world. However, I think we can agree that at least humans, and perhaps all animals, are discrete things. Even if you deny that, you're stuck with the problem that our entire social and legal structure rests on the presumption that humans are real and irreducible things, so that in matters of morality and common parlance, it makes good sense to continue to presume it.

The Buddhists might describe your view as "dependent arising", based on "emptiness". I should note that "emptiness" does not mean "non-existent". Essentially, all things are intrinsic, intimate and fundamental members of Reality. Yet, if you truly look for any one specific thing, you will not find it. A book, for example. Sure it's easy enough to pick up a book and say "This is 'a book'. I have found it." But when did it become 'a book'? Is it 'a book' the moment it is bound? Is it 'a book' when the author makes his final edit? Is it 'a book' as soon as the author decides he's going to write it? Is it 'a book' as soon as he first conceives of the notion of what he eventually decides to turn into a book? On the flip side, when does it cease to be 'a book'? Does it stop being 'a book' when one of it's pages is removed? How about two? Three? Half of the pages? And even if you only remove one page and is still 'a book', is it the same book that it was before that page was removed? I think you see where I'm going

 

[Fifty]

You could replace each of my atoms, one by one, and T-sub-1 (Taliesin after the changes) wouldn't be importantly (and therefore, I conclude, substantially) different from T-sub-0 (Taliesin before the changes). I would survive the eradication of all my matter.

Would it be the same Taliesin, or would it be a copy of you (with the original you dead) I'm sure to any outside observer speaking to you there would be no difference whatsoever, and we would be led to beleive that you are the exact same person, but I don't see how it could be *you* and not just a sort of "perfect clone", with the original Taliesin deceased. The hard part is that there is NO conceivable way to verify whether it is that a perfect clone took over, or if you and your own introspective qualitative experience, your "essence" was actually transferred to the clone.

 

[punkbass2000]

Would it be the same Taliesin, or would it be a copy of you (with the original you dead) I'm sure to any outside observer speaking to you there would be no difference whatsoever, and we would be led to beleive that you are the exact same person, but I don't see how it could be *you* and not just a sort of "perfect clone", with the original Taliesin deceased. The hard part is that there is NO conceivable way to verify whether it is that a perfect clone took over, or if you and your own introspective qualitative experience, your "essence" was actually transferred to the clone.

You are aware that what he described actually happens, right? Your body will have completely different set of cells approximately every seven years. So, are you the same person?

If you want my opinion (which you probably don't ), all that remains is the concept of self. Some might refer to this concept as self as a "soul".

Incidentally, I know of an interesting study my mother related to me a couple weeks ago which applies here. The researchers described a boat to a group of people. This boat would sail about (as boats tend to do ), and over the course of time, it would come to dock. Now boats tend to have wear and tear like anything else, so at the these dockings it would have parts of it replaced. Over the course of seven years, bit by bit, every single part of the ship was replaced. The question was whether or not it is the same boat that it was. The overwhelming response was: "Yes, it is." They then asked another group of people the same thing, except the time frame was only 24 hours instead of seven years. The overwhelming response was "No, it isn't."

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Ship of Thesseus... axe of my grandfather... old debate, no good answer.

Interestingly, the FAA even practices this for airplanes. If the black box of an airplane is torn off and destroyed, a new one can be put in and it's considered the same airplane. But if everything but the black box is destroyed, a new airplane can be built from that box and retain the same designation.

 

[Mise]

You know I don't really have an opinion on this anymore. It's kinda like the speed limit.

I suppose that makes me in favour of abortions remaining legal.

 

[Fifty]

You are aware that what he described actually happens, right? Your body will have completely different set of cells approximately every seven years. So, are you the same person?

Are you sure that includes brain cells?

Oh and the question can be raised of what might happen if an exact copy of Taliesin was made and the original stayed alive. Kindof makes the whole notion of a single "self" a bit odd.

 

[nonconformist]

I support the right of abortion in the first two trimesters, and uin the case of potential problems with the fetus.

 

[punkbass2000]

Are you sure that includes brain cells?

Yes.

Oh and the question can be raised of what might happen if an exact copy of Taliesin was made and the original stayed alive.

Given quantum mechanics, everything we know of is replaced by an inexact copy every single instant.

Kindof makes the whole notion of a single "self" a bit odd.

And again, I say there is no self in the typical sense, BTW. Just a concept of self. In the same way that I described 'a book' previously, if you search for your "self", you will not find it. It exists, IMO, but it is not a separate and distinct entity apart from the rest of Reality.

 

[El_Machinae]

Are you sure that includes brain cells?

The cells themselves certainly don't change (although we're hopeful that stem cells will eventually be used to halt brain degredation). But the atoms constituting the cells change over time.

I've chatted with PBass2grand with this topic before. My conclusion is that the 'self', the 'El_Mac' is the part of me that if you hit with a hammer, I would die ... it's not my thumb, or my heart, or even my memory center of Aunt Lolla. But I'm 100% sure that there's a part of the brain that's susceptible to damage that will result in a death of the person.

And once a baby has that area, it's immoral to kill it (imho)

 

[El_Machinae]

I think it would be more prudent to discuss when life actually begins, not when there is a potentiality for life.

Either it began with the first cell (if you follow evolution) or with Adam and Eve or with whatever creation myth you follow.

The fact is that 'you' followed a chain-of-life from the sperm cell of Adam all the way to where you are now. Until you came free of your mothers womb (assuming you're not typing from within), the chain-of-life that is 'you' has been a part of the life of every single ancestor.

The sperm was once part of a germ cell which was part of your father. But your father was created from a sperm that was once part of a germ cell which was his father. Etc. We can get an embryo to divide and become egg cells - there's nothing really all that 'important' about an embryo becoming a person, if your goal is to get more egg cells.

The fact is that we can turn a skin cell into an embryo (in a lab) by bathing it in hormones and nutrients. Just like you can turn an embryo into a fetus by bathing it in a certain combination of hormones and nutrients.

A LOT of proactive and positive interventions need to occur to turn anything (any cell) into a person. And since (at every stage) the thing that is involved is 'alive' (whether it's a skin cell or a germ cell or a sperm or an embryo), we need a discrete time when we're not allowed to kill it, but we also need a time when we can (or else we'd never be able to slough a skin cell).

What you need to do is decide what part of you is 'you'. Then you can assume that the same thing is what's utterly important when protecting life.

 

[Perfection]

Leaving aside that I know humans to possess souls, I don't think it is an unreasonable claim to make that there is a real thing called a "human". I'm more than the sum of my matter: I'm me, I'm a person. You could replace each of my atoms, one by one, and T-sub-1 (Taliesin after the changes) wouldn't be importantly (and therefore, I conclude, substantially) different from T-sub-0 (Taliesin before the changes). I would survive the eradication of all my matter. Perhaps you object to the existence of things other than atoms, which would certainly be tenable, though it run directly contrary to an everyday perception of the world. However, I think we can agree that at least humans, and perhaps all animals, are discrete things. Even if you deny that, you're stuck with the problem that our entire social and legal structure rests on the presumption that humans are real and irreducible things, so that in matters of morality and common parlance, it makes good sense to continue to presume it.

Well the common practice of humans being discrete works on most levels, your standard person only goes into these questionable states of personhood twice a lifetime and usually a moral decision isn't needed to be made about them. But consider this Taliesin, if I were to destroy your brain one cell at a time when would you stop being you? There are gray areas despite what common sense and everyday notions may say.

 

[El_Machinae]

Alternatively, if you lost an arm, would you still be 'you'? Would you allow your arm to be removed to save your life? How about your eyes?

If you replaced your heart with a mechanical one, would you be you?

Okay, how about if you lost your memory of your 3rd birthday? Would you be you? Wait a sec, you've already lost that memory, right? Weren't you 'you' when you had that memory? I'm sure you say you were.

Therefore it's not even our discrete memories that make 'you' into 'you', so there must be something else. I posit that it's the part of the brain that answers the question "Do I exist? Am I me?"

Sadly, we cannot prove this, because when this part of the brain is damaged, people cease being responsive. We cannot do a positive experiment.

 

[Perfection]

I don't think we can reduce a person to a small part of a brain that has nothing to do with memory peronality or emotions.

 

[El_Machinae]

We sure can.

Because we can reduce a person from their memories, and they still remain a 'person', right? (amnesia)

We can reduce a person from their personality, and they're still a person, right? (I see this one all the time, brain damage causing personality change)

We can reduce a person from their emotions. (brain damage causing 'dullness', like with a lobotamy).

Of course, having these is part of being a 'complete' person, just like having an arm is part of being a 'complete' person. But, if you damage that centre of the brain that responds to 'who am I?', the person dies. Of course, so far it seems to be gross damage, because we've yet to specifically fry those areas on purpose.

Regardless, there's a discrete part of the brain that needs to die in order to consider a person 'gone'. Just ask Terry Shiavo.

 

[carlosMM]

Safe, legal, and rare. The best way to preven abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies, which means proper sex ed, not the abstinence-only BS. Banning abortion will just drive it underground and we'll be back to the days of back-alley abortions with coathangers, and you'll be ending up with both dead moms and dead babies.

Yup! (10 10 10)

 

[Irish Caesar]

Do safe and legal ever really go hand in hand with rare?

 

[GenMarshall]

I find that it is immoral to kill an unborn living human baby/fetus. Does not matter where in the trimester it is done, its murdering a human being and human life.

BTW, I am pro-life.

 

[Taliesin]

Would it be the same Taliesin, or would it be a copy of you (with the original you dead) I'm sure to any outside observer speaking to you there would be no difference whatsoever, and we would be led to beleive that you are the exact same person, but I don't see how it could be *you* and not just a sort of "perfect clone", with the original Taliesin deceased. The hard part is that there is NO conceivable way to verify whether it is that a perfect clone took over, or if you and your own introspective qualitative experience, your "essence" was actually transferred to the clone.

My consciousness would survive continuously throughout the whole process, and at the end I would be the same "me" that I had been at the beginning. My matter would change, but the me whose matter it is would not. (There are, of course, theories of self on which there's a new me at every instant in time, but I think they're silly.)

But consider this Taliesin, if I were to destroy your brain one cell at a time when would you stop being you? There are gray areas despite what common sense and everyday notions may say.

I would stop being me when I died. And I know that that is a question-begging, circular answer, but the question of when somebody dies is now a difficult one. Was Terry Schiavo alive when her brain had turned to liquid? I want to say no: it seems strange to suppose that a body without a brain above the reptilian bit could retain human substance. One answer is that a brain is part of the "requisite matter" of a human, which doesn't itself constitute human substance but without which a human cannot exist. So maybe we could say that a body without a cerebral cortex is not a human being. You could take away my brain cell by cell, and I would gradually grow stupid and lose memories; at some point, I would die. I don't know when that point is.

 

[CaptainF]

I am pro choice.

I should be REAL hard to get an abortion however.

People have the right to choose whether or not to have a baby.

Aborting a pregnancy whilst it is still a clump of cells is no problem to me.

About the whole adoption thing, I dunno, but if I were a child born and put up for adoption, I would feel pretty darn hurt that my parents didn't want me, and that I had to get put in a foster home.

I find it interesting that many people who are "pro-life" are, ironically enough, supporters of the death penalty.