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Abortion

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Abortion
Should be illegal, except in extreme cases 25%  25%  [ 14 ]
Should be legal during the first trimester only 24%  24%  [ 13 ]
Should be legal beyond the first trimester 47%  47%  [ 26 ]
Undecided 4%  4%  [ 2 ]
Total votes : 55

Inuyasha
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20 Mar 2011, 4:13 pm

ryan93 wrote:
Those characteristics are still outdated. 4 and 6 certainly aren't necessary for every conceivable form of life. That list is made by looking at the life around us, and trying to find common denominators. The NASA list is more about what is actually required.

In any case, yes, a fetus is a living thing, but it isn't sentient so I couldn't care less. I kill millions of E.coli everytime I take an antibiotic, so have I just had a genocide in my intestine? Or the worlds largest abortion?


The child has a working brain, so you can't really argue that it isn't sentient.



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20 Mar 2011, 4:16 pm

It hasn't got a terribly good one though, has it?. A rat probably has more sophisticated mental processes than an early stage fetus, certainly more than a blastocyte. Sentience is what gives an organism rights, and it's the reason I don't eat monkeys or people, but do eat chickens and yogurt.


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20 Mar 2011, 4:18 pm

ryan93 wrote:
It hasn't got a terribly good one though, has it?. A rat probably has more sophisticated mental processes than an early stage fetus, certainly more than a blastocyte. Sentience is what gives an organism rights, and it's the reason I don't eat monkeys or people, but do eat chickens and yogurt.


Actually you can't conclude that due to the environment the child is in.



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20 Mar 2011, 4:22 pm

Inuyasha wrote:
ryan93 wrote:
It hasn't got a terribly good one though, has it?. A rat probably has more sophisticated mental processes than an early stage fetus, certainly more than a blastocyte. Sentience is what gives an organism rights, and it's the reason I don't eat monkeys or people, but do eat chickens and yogurt.


Actually you can't conclude that due to the environment the child is in.


there comes a point where sentience is a physical impossibility, also in a fetus.


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20 Mar 2011, 4:27 pm

Inuyasha wrote:
ryan93 wrote:
It hasn't got a terribly good one though, has it?. A rat probably has more sophisticated mental processes than an early stage fetus, certainly more than a blastocyte. Sentience is what gives an organism rights, and it's the reason I don't eat monkeys or people, but do eat chickens and yogurt.


Actually you can't conclude that due to the environment the child is in.


I'm sure neuroembryologists have a good idea of how developed a fetus's brain is at six weeks. And a blastocyte certainly doesn't think.


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20 Mar 2011, 4:32 pm

ryan93 wrote:
Inuyasha wrote:
ryan93 wrote:
It hasn't got a terribly good one though, has it?. A rat probably has more sophisticated mental processes than an early stage fetus, certainly more than a blastocyte. Sentience is what gives an organism rights, and it's the reason I don't eat monkeys or people, but do eat chickens and yogurt.


Actually you can't conclude that due to the environment the child is in.


I'm sure neuroembryologists have a good idea of how developed a fetus's brain is at six weeks. And a blastocyte certainly doesn't think.


Really, I saw video of a child in the womb at 48 days old moving one of its arms. And in all honesty I don't think neuroembryologists know what goes on in a child's head.



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20 Mar 2011, 4:37 pm

Movement doesn't imply consciousness, or even neurological sophistication. Neuroembryologists have to go by the benchmark of "it's anatomy doesn't look human, it's brainwaves certainly don't, so it's not conscious". It's the only way to approach the problem of other minds.


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20 Mar 2011, 4:41 pm

ryan93 wrote:
Movement doesn't imply consciousness, or even neurological sophistication. Neuroembryologists have to go by the benchmark of "it's anatomy doesn't look human, it's brainwaves certainly don't, so it's not conscious". It's the only way to approach the problem of other minds.


However there is nothing in the womb for the infant to study, so we're expecting the child to interact with a nonexistant object.



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20 Mar 2011, 4:43 pm

Inuyasha wrote:
ryan93 wrote:
Movement doesn't imply consciousness, or even neurological sophistication. Neuroembryologists have to go by the benchmark of "it's anatomy doesn't look human, it's brainwaves certainly don't, so it's not conscious". It's the only way to approach the problem of other minds.


However there is nothing in the womb for the infant to study, so we're expecting the child to interact with a nonexistant object.


so a dog could with the right stimuli be just as intelligent as a person?
they are already at the level of a 2 year old baby so why not?
they have several orders of magnitude more brainpower than an infant so it should be straight forward right?

**edit** sorry but my point is it requires a certain ordering of the neurons before it will even start to perceive anything.


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Last edited by Oodain on 20 Mar 2011, 4:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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20 Mar 2011, 4:44 pm

Inuyasha wrote:
ryan93 wrote:
Movement doesn't imply consciousness, or even neurological sophistication. Neuroembryologists have to go by the benchmark of "it's anatomy doesn't look human, it's brainwaves certainly don't, so it's not conscious". It's the only way to approach the problem of other minds.


However there is nothing in the womb for the infant to study, so we're expecting the child to interact with a nonexistant object.


I'm not expecting anything more than a developed brain, or a semblance of a human thought. A fetus in the first trimester shows none of these, the thing is a vegetable.

"But when does the magical journey of consciousness begin? Consciousness requires a sophisticated network of highly interconnected components, nerve cells. Its physical substrate, the thalamo-cortical complex that provides consciousness with its highly elaborate content, begins to be in place between the 24th and 28th week of gestation. Roughly two months later synchrony of the electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythm across both cortical hemispheres signals the onset of global neuronal integration. Thus, many of the circuit elements necessary for consciousness are in place by the third trimester. By this time, preterm infants can survive outside the womb under proper medical care."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ness-arise


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20 Mar 2011, 4:48 pm

ryan93 wrote:
Inuyasha wrote:
ryan93 wrote:
Movement doesn't imply consciousness, or even neurological sophistication. Neuroembryologists have to go by the benchmark of "it's anatomy doesn't look human, it's brainwaves certainly don't, so it's not conscious". It's the only way to approach the problem of other minds.


However there is nothing in the womb for the infant to study, so we're expecting the child to interact with a nonexistant object.


I'm not expecting anything more than a developed brain, or a semblance of a human thought. A fetus in the first trimester shows none of these, the thing is a vegetable.

"But when does the magical journey of consciousness begin? Consciousness requires a sophisticated network of highly interconnected components, nerve cells. Its physical substrate, the thalamo-cortical complex that provides consciousness with its highly elaborate content, begins to be in place between the 24th and 28th week of gestation. Roughly two months later synchrony of the electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythm across both cortical hemispheres signals the onset of global neuronal integration. Thus, many of the circuit elements necessary for consciousness are in place by the third trimester. By this time, preterm infants can survive outside the womb under proper medical care."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ness-arise


How complex would your thoughts be if you were essentially in a sensory deprivation chamber all your life?



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20 Mar 2011, 4:54 pm

Inuyasha wrote:
ryan93 wrote:
Inuyasha wrote:
ryan93 wrote:
Movement doesn't imply consciousness, or even neurological sophistication. Neuroembryologists have to go by the benchmark of "it's anatomy doesn't look human, it's brainwaves certainly don't, so it's not conscious". It's the only way to approach the problem of other minds.


However there is nothing in the womb for the infant to study, so we're expecting the child to interact with a nonexistant object.


I'm not expecting anything more than a developed brain, or a semblance of a human thought. A fetus in the first trimester shows none of these, the thing is a vegetable.

"But when does the magical journey of consciousness begin? Consciousness requires a sophisticated network of highly interconnected components, nerve cells. Its physical substrate, the thalamo-cortical complex that provides consciousness with its highly elaborate content, begins to be in place between the 24th and 28th week of gestation. Roughly two months later synchrony of the electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythm across both cortical hemispheres signals the onset of global neuronal integration. Thus, many of the circuit elements necessary for consciousness are in place by the third trimester. By this time, preterm infants can survive outside the womb under proper medical care."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ness-arise


How complex would your thoughts be if you were essentially in a sensory deprivation chamber all your life?


the one doesnt equal the other, true that a person with no sensory input would develop in ways i dont even want to guess at.

are you telling me you expect complex behavior at every point of development??

Image


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20 Mar 2011, 4:57 pm

How complex would your thoughts be when you have 1/40,000 of the number of neurons as an adult. If my thoughts were 0.000025 times as complex, I certainly wouldn't be conscious.


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20 Mar 2011, 5:07 pm

ryan93 wrote:
How complex would your thoughts be when you have 1/40,000 of the number of neurons as an adult. If my thoughts were 0.000025 times as complex, I certainly wouldn't be conscious.


A child in the womb doesn't need to think about all the things an adult human has to. It has nothing to interact with. You are confusing experience with personhood.



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20 Mar 2011, 5:10 pm

Inuyasha wrote:
ryan93 wrote:
How complex would your thoughts be when you have 1/40,000 of the number of neurons as an adult. If my thoughts were 0.000025 times as complex, I certainly wouldn't be conscious.


A child in the womb doesn't need to think about all the things an adult human has to. It has nothing to interact with. You are confusing experience with personhood.

i think you are confusing electricity with thought.

a frogs leg will still twitch when electricity is aplied to the neurons, but it wont mean that there is anything complex going on.


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20 Mar 2011, 5:13 pm

Oodain wrote:
Inuyasha wrote:
ryan93 wrote:
How complex would your thoughts be when you have 1/40,000 of the number of neurons as an adult. If my thoughts were 0.000025 times as complex, I certainly wouldn't be conscious.


A child in the womb doesn't need to think about all the things an adult human has to. It has nothing to interact with. You are confusing experience with personhood.

i think you are confusing electricity with thought.

a frogs leg will still twitch when electricity is aplied to the neurons, but it wont mean that there is anything complex going on.


While a frog's leg will twitch when electricity is applied to it, something has to generate the electricity or in this case send the electrical impulse to get the limbs to move. The movements I saw were too smooth to be called twitching.