18. "Any uncertainty regarding the personhood of an unborn human means that we should err on the side of assuming that it has it." WHAT UNCERTAINTY? Just because abortion opponents try to create uncertainty about personhood, by invoking prejudice, or spouting bad data and propaganda, that doesn't make their anti-abortion arguments valid --not to the slightest degree.
19. "Abortion is immoral." IRRELEVANT, because morals are arbitrary. Some cultures consider eating pork to be immoral, while others don't. Some say nudity is immoral; others say it is "often seen and seldom noticed". Likewise, some cultures consider abortion to be immoral, while others don't. The unsupported opinions of one group do not deserve to be arbitrarily forced upon other groups, else all groups might end up with something truly ridiculous, perhaps "The middle toe must be removed from each foot".
Not to mention, how many abortion opponents will consider it immoral to dismantle one of those small "growing" electronic machines previously mentioned? It may be appropriate to once again use the word "prejudice".
20. "Facts that disqualify unborn humans from personhood also disqualify newborns from personhood, and therefore infanticide should be moral." IRRELEVANT, for at least two reasons. First, it has nothing to do with providing a reason to prohibit the abortion of unborn humans, all of which fail to qualify as persons.
Second, "morals" are decided by cultures, for reasons that those cultures find acceptable. So, in ancient Rome it was perfectly normal/moral for physically deformed newborns to be allowed to die of exposure/neglect. In our current American culture, personhood is a legal definition, and encompasses such things as business corporations, not just humans. That legal system currently grants personhood to newborn humans, in ignorance of the scientific facts of the matter.
That ignorance is probably excusable, since the Laws were written before all the relevant facts were discovered. Now it would certainly be possible to adjust the Law, one way or the other. It could be adjusted to become aligned with the scientific facts, to make infanticide of very young infants generally legal --but extremely few in the nation seek to do that. Or, the Law could be adjusted to include unborn humans in the definition of "person", and certainly very many in the nation seek to do that.
However, it is not the intelligent thing to do, since it outright-denies the scientific facts. Indeed, there are interesting Questions, "How is personhood, which includes intelligent behavior as one of its generic characteristics, being exhibited by abortion opponents who stupidly deny scientific facts?" and "Are they really as equivalent-to-dead as their own logic indicates?"
21. "The Biblical Sixth Commandment forbids murder, and thereby also forbids abortion." FALSE --not the first part, but the second. Murder involves the killing of a person, and unborn humans don't qualify as persons. (Meanwhile, it might indeed be a violation of that Commandment, murder, to kill a frightful-looking non-human that was merely walking down the ramp of a just-landed flying saucer.)
Therefore, abortion, which kills an unborn human non-being/non-person, is exactly equivalent to killing any other type of ordinary non-being/non-person animal. Any objection based on the human-ness of the unborn is strictly and purely worthless/stupid selfish egotistical prejudice, on the part of the objector. And this time it wasn't even necessary to mention the word "machine"!
22. "Children are a gift from God." GENERALLY FALSE. The physical Universe operates primarily under the Law of Cause and Effect. God is not part of its ordinary day-to-day operation, as proved by the invention of the lightning rod:
miltontimmons.com/ChruchesVsLightningRod
Likewise, children are usually another possible-but-uncertain result of the Law of Cause and Effect (described in more detail later); God is no more necessary than a petri dish, for sperm to fertilize egg.
Now, this is not to say that God never even occasionally Acts to give someone the gift of a child. However, since God isn't an idiot, it is extremely unlikely that anyone being given that direct-from-God gift will be someone who afterward would seek an abortion, and, besides, in a classic story, wasn't the Virgin Mary specifically asked for permission, before she became pregnant?
Nevertheless, in the vast majority of pregnancies, God is not involved in the process of conception, simply because God doesn't need to be involved. That's just the way the Universe works (or was Created to work, if you want to put it that way).
23. "Unborn humans are persons because God gives them souls at conception." GOD IS NOT THAT STUPID. Some flaws in that argument have been previously presented in this document; here an expansion can be done, because of additional relevant concepts introduced between there and here.
"What do zygotes with fatally flawed DNA need souls for?" has already been mentioned. Something different is based on psychological studies known as "sensory deprivation experiments":
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2699/is_0003/ai_2699000310
God knows all about "sensory deprivation", of course, and how it can cause someone to start going insane after only a week. Well, a soul locked into a new zygote is exactly in a sensory-deprivation environment, isolated and lonely, and will be unable to experience any senses for months (the sense organs have to grow, first!).
Religions knew nothing about sensory deprivation experiments when they arbitrarily Pronounced that God creates souls at conception. But since God is supposed to be smart and knowledgeable and Loving, why should anyone think that God is going to inflict that horrible thing, months of sensory deprivation, on new/innocent souls?
The notion of a Loving God directly relates to the Overall Abortion Debate. Compare a woman, fully ensouled, to a just-fertilized ovum. The zygote won't have a soul until God creates one for it. Before God exercises Free Will and creates that soul, is there any reason why God should love the zygote more than, or even as much as, the woman? Since God does not stupidly confuse "potential person" with "actual person", the answer should be obvious.
Next, if that woman becomes pregnant, then God will know the exact probability that that woman might seek an abortion, and may just plain know, due to sheer omniscience. If we assume that God knows the woman will get an abortion, then see the logic:
A. If God gives the zygote a soul, then the abortion will be murder, and the woman can be condemned by God.
B. If God doesn't give the zygote a soul, then the abortion will not be murder, and God has no problem with the woman.
C. Therefore, if a murderous abortion occurs, it occurs partly due God's Choice to create a soul, while knowing an abortion would be done!
Basically, Item A violates the fundamental claim that God is Loving. That is, a Loving God is not going to create a soul for a new zygote, just so the woman can be condemned when she aborts an unwanted pregnancy!
Thus the fundamental inconsistency in Religion-based anti-abortion arguments is revealed. If God is Smart and Omniscient and Loving, then God isn't going to be part of deliberately putting people into situations where they must be condemned.
It is now appropriate to speculate about machines having souls. In a purely secular argument, the topic wouldn't arise; the ability for either biology or machinery to tap into the total randomness of Quantum Mechanics, to allow Free Will to exist, makes souls unnecessary, since the Religious Dogma is that the main purpose of a soul is to provide Free Will in humans, and having a soul is related to the Essence of Personhood.
Can the two notions be reconciled? Perhaps. One of the key things about Quantum Mechanics is that it is full of probabilities, and it happens that there are ways to manipulate at least some of those probabilities.
physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/47856
Suppose that a soul specializes in manipulating the probabilities associated with Quantum Mechanics. In this way a soul could send signals though certain appropriately-tiny natural biological structures in human brain cells, which are sensitive to Quantum Randomness, and thereby influence the overall actions of a human body.
Well, as it happens, in the current quest to develop True Artificial Intelligence, things that we learn about how the human brain works are being copied into electronic hardware.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network
zdnet.co.uk/news/ ... /ibm-neuron-chips-mimic-brain-processing
Logically, if we specifically include Quantum-Mechanical "taps", to allow access to total randomness, consistent with the purely secular notion of where Free Will could come from, then in theory an actual soul could use those taps in the same way it uses equivalent natural brain-cell structures. There actually wouldn't be a reason why a True Artificial Intelligence couldn't have a genuine God-created soul! The only question now is, "When might it be given one?..."
19. "Abortion is immoral." IRRELEVANT, because morals are arbitrary. Some cultures consider eating pork to be immoral, while others don't. Some say nudity is immoral; others say it is "often seen and seldom noticed". Likewise, some cultures consider abortion to be immoral, while others don't. The unsupported opinions of one group do not deserve to be arbitrarily forced upon other groups, else all groups might end up with something truly ridiculous, perhaps "The middle toe must be removed from each foot".
Not to mention, how many abortion opponents will consider it immoral to dismantle one of those small "growing" electronic machines previously mentioned? It may be appropriate to once again use the word "prejudice".
20. "Facts that disqualify unborn humans from personhood also disqualify newborns from personhood, and therefore infanticide should be moral." IRRELEVANT, for at least two reasons. First, it has nothing to do with providing a reason to prohibit the abortion of unborn humans, all of which fail to qualify as persons.
Second, "morals" are decided by cultures, for reasons that those cultures find acceptable. So, in ancient Rome it was perfectly normal/moral for physically deformed newborns to be allowed to die of exposure/neglect. In our current American culture, personhood is a legal definition, and encompasses such things as business corporations, not just humans. That legal system currently grants personhood to newborn humans, in ignorance of the scientific facts of the matter.
That ignorance is probably excusable, since the Laws were written before all the relevant facts were discovered. Now it would certainly be possible to adjust the Law, one way or the other. It could be adjusted to become aligned with the scientific facts, to make infanticide of very young infants generally legal --but extremely few in the nation seek to do that. Or, the Law could be adjusted to include unborn humans in the definition of "person", and certainly very many in the nation seek to do that.
However, it is not the intelligent thing to do, since it outright-denies the scientific facts. Indeed, there are interesting Questions, "How is personhood, which includes intelligent behavior as one of its generic characteristics, being exhibited by abortion opponents who stupidly deny scientific facts?" and "Are they really as equivalent-to-dead as their own logic indicates?"
21. "The Biblical Sixth Commandment forbids murder, and thereby also forbids abortion." FALSE --not the first part, but the second. Murder involves the killing of a person, and unborn humans don't qualify as persons. (Meanwhile, it might indeed be a violation of that Commandment, murder, to kill a frightful-looking non-human that was merely walking down the ramp of a just-landed flying saucer.)
Therefore, abortion, which kills an unborn human non-being/non-person, is exactly equivalent to killing any other type of ordinary non-being/non-person animal. Any objection based on the human-ness of the unborn is strictly and purely worthless/stupid selfish egotistical prejudice, on the part of the objector. And this time it wasn't even necessary to mention the word "machine"!
22. "Children are a gift from God." GENERALLY FALSE. The physical Universe operates primarily under the Law of Cause and Effect. God is not part of its ordinary day-to-day operation, as proved by the invention of the lightning rod:
miltontimmons.com/ChruchesVsLightningRod
Likewise, children are usually another possible-but-uncertain result of the Law of Cause and Effect (described in more detail later); God is no more necessary than a petri dish, for sperm to fertilize egg.
Now, this is not to say that God never even occasionally Acts to give someone the gift of a child. However, since God isn't an idiot, it is extremely unlikely that anyone being given that direct-from-God gift will be someone who afterward would seek an abortion, and, besides, in a classic story, wasn't the Virgin Mary specifically asked for permission, before she became pregnant?
Nevertheless, in the vast majority of pregnancies, God is not involved in the process of conception, simply because God doesn't need to be involved. That's just the way the Universe works (or was Created to work, if you want to put it that way).
23. "Unborn humans are persons because God gives them souls at conception." GOD IS NOT THAT STUPID. Some flaws in that argument have been previously presented in this document; here an expansion can be done, because of additional relevant concepts introduced between there and here.
"What do zygotes with fatally flawed DNA need souls for?" has already been mentioned. Something different is based on psychological studies known as "sensory deprivation experiments":
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2699/is_0003/ai_2699000310
God knows all about "sensory deprivation", of course, and how it can cause someone to start going insane after only a week. Well, a soul locked into a new zygote is exactly in a sensory-deprivation environment, isolated and lonely, and will be unable to experience any senses for months (the sense organs have to grow, first!).
Religions knew nothing about sensory deprivation experiments when they arbitrarily Pronounced that God creates souls at conception. But since God is supposed to be smart and knowledgeable and Loving, why should anyone think that God is going to inflict that horrible thing, months of sensory deprivation, on new/innocent souls?
The notion of a Loving God directly relates to the Overall Abortion Debate. Compare a woman, fully ensouled, to a just-fertilized ovum. The zygote won't have a soul until God creates one for it. Before God exercises Free Will and creates that soul, is there any reason why God should love the zygote more than, or even as much as, the woman? Since God does not stupidly confuse "potential person" with "actual person", the answer should be obvious.
Next, if that woman becomes pregnant, then God will know the exact probability that that woman might seek an abortion, and may just plain know, due to sheer omniscience. If we assume that God knows the woman will get an abortion, then see the logic:
A. If God gives the zygote a soul, then the abortion will be murder, and the woman can be condemned by God.
B. If God doesn't give the zygote a soul, then the abortion will not be murder, and God has no problem with the woman.
C. Therefore, if a murderous abortion occurs, it occurs partly due God's Choice to create a soul, while knowing an abortion would be done!
Basically, Item A violates the fundamental claim that God is Loving. That is, a Loving God is not going to create a soul for a new zygote, just so the woman can be condemned when she aborts an unwanted pregnancy!
Thus the fundamental inconsistency in Religion-based anti-abortion arguments is revealed. If God is Smart and Omniscient and Loving, then God isn't going to be part of deliberately putting people into situations where they must be condemned.
It is now appropriate to speculate about machines having souls. In a purely secular argument, the topic wouldn't arise; the ability for either biology or machinery to tap into the total randomness of Quantum Mechanics, to allow Free Will to exist, makes souls unnecessary, since the Religious Dogma is that the main purpose of a soul is to provide Free Will in humans, and having a soul is related to the Essence of Personhood.
Can the two notions be reconciled? Perhaps. One of the key things about Quantum Mechanics is that it is full of probabilities, and it happens that there are ways to manipulate at least some of those probabilities.
physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/47856
Suppose that a soul specializes in manipulating the probabilities associated with Quantum Mechanics. In this way a soul could send signals though certain appropriately-tiny natural biological structures in human brain cells, which are sensitive to Quantum Randomness, and thereby influence the overall actions of a human body.
Well, as it happens, in the current quest to develop True Artificial Intelligence, things that we learn about how the human brain works are being copied into electronic hardware.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network
zdnet.co.uk/news/ ... /ibm-neuron-chips-mimic-brain-processing
Logically, if we specifically include Quantum-Mechanical "taps", to allow access to total randomness, consistent with the purely secular notion of where Free Will could come from, then in theory an actual soul could use those taps in the same way it uses equivalent natural brain-cell structures. There actually wouldn't be a reason why a True Artificial Intelligence couldn't have a genuine God-created soul! The only question now is, "When might it be given one?..."