Wait! You write convoluted sentences that lack sense and it is the reader’s "failure" when they do not respond to your satisfaction?
OH, YOU WANT AN EXPLANATION? OK:
FutureIncoming said:
"Actions speak louder than words." If the actions of an actual parasite are unacceptable, to the degree that extremely few object to killing it, then identical-and-worse actions by a non-parasite should, logically, also be associated with a low objection to killing it. But as we know, there are plenty of objections. Entirely due to Stupid Prejudice, of course.
The main sentence starts with an "if". It mentions the Fact that an actual parasite is often kill-able, with few objectors. Next is a "then", the consequence of the "if". It references the Fact that we have observed that something not considered to be a parasite can nevertheless act like a parasite, and can even act worse than a true parasite. Logically, because of its actions, the non-parasite should be just as kill-able as the genuine parasite, with just as few objectors. Nevertheless, in the case of an unborn human, there are plenty of objectors. Since the main difference between the true parasite and the non-parasite is the fact that the non-parasite is "human", it logically follows that Stupid Prejudice is the ultimate source of the objections.
If you can offer another rationale, besides Stupid Prejudice, for forgiving the
parasitic-and-worse actions of an unborn human, while still not-forgiving the parasitic actions of a true parasite, please do!
What in the hell are you talking about?
ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT
YOU WROTE? (the key word I've reddened below)
Bodhisattva said:
...but giving it a chance to survive does not mean that one thinks that is must survive.
You might be
talking in terms of "giving", but you know full well that some women don't want to do that "giving". They seek abortions instead.
Who is talking about forcing a woman to carry a child?
EVERY ABORTION OPPONENT WHO WANTS THE LAW CHANGED. DUH!!!
And you are wrong… you can try to change the way it is if you like though.
FACTS BEAT OPINION, EVERY TIME. In this case one of the Facts, is, Dictionary Definitions Depend On How Words Get Used. No dictionary forces people to use words in the manner specified, and therefore definitions tend to mutate, and new words get added, and old words become obsolete. At least with respect to SOME definitions! Because other definitions are based on Fact and/or Logic; they cannot change. "Hydrogen" will always have a particular definition, for example, But "person" won't, not in the long long run, when humans some day begin interacting with other species as casually as is portrayed in such fictions as "Star Trek" or "Star Wars". The influence of Science Fiction on Language is real and growing --and the Stupidly Prejudiced human-centric definition of "person" is doomed.
Just imagine trying to address an audience, when most of the members of that audience are intelligent extraterrestrial non-humans from 50 different planets, but some actual humans are there, too. Are you going to say, "Welcome, people and animals?"
NO! That would be insulting! But if you call all of them "people", a plural form of "person", then you are accepting a different definition of "person" than what you have plucked from today's dictionary! You can bet the dictionary of that future year won't have today's definition of "person"!
Some people might be serial killers but all people are people.
YOU IGNORED THE QUESTION.
How Do You Tell Whether Or Not A Newly-Encountered Organism Is A Person, Or Just An Ordinary Animal? Certainly,
after you have made a lot of correct identifications, what you wrote makes some sense. but
until you answer that Question, you are just making silly noises.
Here's a thought-experiment: Consider the extremely rare-but-possible case in which a mother gorilla has just lost her offspring, but shortly afterward she encounters a newborn human whose parents had just died in an accident. It is not unreasonable (in terms of actually-known stories) to think the gorilla might adopt the human infant. Let us now assume this event happens in the year 30,000 B.C, so that there are no obvious signs of human civilization anywhere on Earth. OK, now imagine an alien scientist landing his flying saucer in the deep jungle, looking for signs of intelligent life. He encounters the gorilla and the infant. What does he conclude about the "personhood" of both?
The problem with Stupid Prejudice is that it always fails Simple Objectivity Tests, such as that thought-experiment describes. The alien scientist will have absolutely no data with which to conclude that either the gorilla or the infant qualifies as a "person", an intelligent being. But if we insist that the human infant qualifes, regardless of the Objective Facts, then we are, indeed, exhibiting Stupid Prejudice.
A corporation is not a person but it is granted that status.
A MATTER OF CONVENIENCE. And, very likely, the most obvious path by which nonhuman intelligences will also/eventually be recognized as persons by even-the-most-prejudiced-of-humans. It makes certain things simpler! (I've deleted part of what you wrote because my only reply to that would be the same stuff I've already written about people in comas, infants, and dolphins.)
I hate to bust out the definition [of person] but it really is this simple.
INCOMPLETE, BESIDES BEING STUPIDLY PREJUDICED (as just explained above). There is, for example, the definition created by the US Congress for the purpose of conducting the Census. The Constitution
requires all persons in the USA to be counted, remember! And the Constitution specifies that the Congress write the Law responsible for specifying how the counting should be done. Well, the Founding Fathers were there in 1790 to write that Law for the very first Census.
In no Census have unborn humans ever been counted! And it makes sense, the Founding Fathers knew all about the ancient adage, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch!" --a lot of them were farmers intimately aware that many chicken eggs just don't hatch --and many pregnancies fail to result in live birth. Times may change, but adages like that one persist for a reason. Good Sense remains Good Sense! Meanwhile, today, Abortion Opponents apparently want to ignore Good Sense, and stupidly count humans before they are born....
You are talking about the Science of self-awareness… yeah, I get it. The Law doesn’t care about your distinctions and neither do I.
AND THE MOST BASIC LAW OF THE USA IS THE CONSTITUTION. Are you going to insist on counting chickens before they hatch, and immediatly look stupid as soon as non-hatchings occur, throwing the count off??? An accurate Census is specified for a Good Reason! Why do you want the Census to be inaccurate?
FutureIncoming said:
Bodhisattva said:
FutureIncoming said:
Bodhisattva said:
FutureIncoming said:
Meanwhile, Abortion Opponents want to make the Law even more inconsistent with the Facts. Which is ridiculous. And stupid....
It isn't ridiculous. It isn't stupid. It isn't more inconsistent with facts. You thinking that though is ridiculous and stupid though...
FALSE. ... I stand by what I wrote because it is mathematically obvious that if for example personhood is inconsistently-with-Facts granted at birth 12 months before any sapience is exhibited by a particular young human, it is more inconsistent-with-Facts to grant personhood before birth, for example 13 months before any sapience is exhibited by that same young human ...
Yeah, I get it... I just disagree. I am right and you are wrong. Can't be any more simple than that.
IF YOU WERE ACTUALLY RIGHT, YOU COULD PROVE IT WITH FACTS AND LOGIC. Since you didn't do any such thing, your mere claim is "worthless nonsense".
I have… I just put it in really easy to read sentences.
YOU DID NO SUCH THING. All you did was make an unsupported
claim, regarding Abortion Opponents and their efforts to make the Law even-more inconsistent with the Scientific Facts, than it already is.
You implied it by loosely saying, “the unborn” and parasite.
VERY WELL, YOU HAVE MADE A VALID NIT-PICK. The problem here is, indeed, that the phrase "unborn human" encompasses every stage from zygote to birth.
But not all of those stages are associated with pregnancy and parasitic actions. The zygote, morula, and even the blastocyst for the first part of its existence, do
not act parasitically. They only thing they do is move down the Fallopian Tube toward the womb, and then along the inside surface of the womb. Sometimes they simply exit the womb and die. When the blastocyst implants into the womb,
only then does any semblance of parasitic behavior begin (and only then does pregnancy actually begin). Note that very quickly the blastocyst ceases to be worthy of that name; it becomes an "embryo". So, What Is A Good Way To Deal With That Nit-Pick? Perhaps, instead of using the phrase, "unborn human", the phrase "implanted human" should be used. Because those are indeed the only ones acting like parasites.
... most people don’t view [the zygote] as a baby yet whereas a fetus 30 weeks on or so is viewed as a baby, has a personality, etc.
DEPENDS ON THE ABORTION OPPONENT. JayDubya, for example, would insist that the zygote be granted the same rights as a newborn human, simply because the zygote is a human. The personality of that young organism has nothing to do with that viewpoint. Just the Stupid Prejudice of that group of Abortion Opponents.
In your convoluted manner, are you suggesting that a woman can and should be able to have an abortion at any time during a pregnancy?
I'M POINTING OUT THAT FACTS AND LOGIC DON'T CARE ONE WHIT ABOUT WHAT PEOPLE OPINIONATE. And the fact remains that every womb-implanted human is acting worse than a parasite. To force a woman, who is usually a fully intelligent person-class being, to tolerate such actions by a mere animal organism is, in essence, slavery. (To enslave one person to another is bad enough, but to enslave a person to a mere animal?!?!?! That's
insulting as well as degrading!) Well, then, if the woman has Freedom, then she should be Free to say, "This Nuisance Must Cease!" at
any time during a pregnancy. It Really Is That Simple, in terms of Facts and Logic. And so, while somewhat accepting that Logic, I've also stated something of a compromise for the situation (that if the State wants a womb-implanted
and viable human to stay alive in spite of a woman's desire to abort, then the State should pay for what it wants).
There is always a form of government… always.
NO. Two explorers encountering each other in the wilderness are not necessarily going to interact in a way that any Government would find out about. Politics, now... the two interacting explorers could very easily exhibit different responses to certain actions, entirely because of political principles.
The modern version is what was discussed and written by Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Jefferson, etc. They discuss that we are actually more free when we have laws because laws protect our rights. It is the opposite of what Hobbes suggests in the State of Nature where there are no rights.
HOBBES WAS WRONG. There is a "right to try" in Nature. As for Locke, etc., if they don't recognize that the things they call "rights" are actually just human inventions, created for human purposes, then they are wrong, too. At least about
that. I won't, however, arbitrarily-at-the-moment disagree that Laws can be useful in protecting those human inventions, and that,
when such laws are accepted, they free many humans from a certain degree of worry. About being stabbed in the back!
It was entirely relevant because a 1 minute old infant can’t and isn’t learning anything. Go to a birth and see for yourself.
YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT DATA THE SUBCONSCIOUS OF THAT INFANT IS PROCESSING.
