Probably will be human

[john9blue]

Just for clarification I certainly dont think that human life starts with conception and am slightly bewildered as to where the idea came from.

does the term "DNA" ring a bell?

[patrickaa317]

My stance is pro-life with the only exceptions being if a woman was raped or she could potentially die from having a child.
Though if she was raped, it absolutely must be taken care of as early as possible. The closer you get to it's birth, the more I frown upon the act.

I'd agree but often times women tend to deny rape until a while later so you have to take that into account. I cannot blame a woman for this as it would be tough to come forward soon after. I do think that they should have to file some sort of report and DNA from the aborted baby should be taken in hopes of finding the perp.

[comic boy]

Just for clarification I certainly dont think that human life starts with conception and am slightly bewildered as to where the idea came from.

does the term "DNA" ring a bell?

Read the OP , I was refering to the suggestion that I supported the idea in question. Amusing though that you think the conception proposition started with the discovery of DNA , there I was thinking it just another marketing ploy to ensure a ready supply of Catholic bums on church seats.

[patches70]

BBS, would you say that you are a human being? Yes or no?

If no (which is quite possible, you could be an eggplant for all I know), then what do you care about the stages of human development?

However, if the answer is yes (most likely, since an eggplant can't type) then take that simple truth (that you are a human being) and then look at each stage of your life.

Start at the stage you are today and go backwards. By the time you reach the very beginning of your specific life, where will you be at in your development?

OP question answered.....

[Haggis_McMutton]

If no (which is quite possible, you could be an eggplant for all I know), then what do you care about the stages of human development?

However, if the answer is yes (most likely, since an eggplant can't type) then take that simple truth (that you are a human being) and then look at each stage of your life.

speciesist

[BigBallinStalin]

BBS, would you say that you are a human being? Yes or no?

If no (which is quite possible, you could be an eggplant for all I know), then what do you care about the stages of human development?

However, if the answer is yes (most likely, since an eggplant can't type) then take that simple truth (that you are a human being) and then look at each stage of your life.

Start at the stage you are today and go backwards. By the time you reach the very beginning of your specific life, where will you be at in your development?

OP question answered.....

What do you mean by "me/I"?
Where would I be? I would no longer be "me" by that point. I, the human being @ 2012 Oct 19, am not I, the fertilized egg, because not only is the fertilized egg not a human being, but also my experiences and etc. differ across time and their effects differ on the formation of me.

Think on the margin. I @ now is extremely similar to I @ yesterday. I @ now is extremely different from "I" @ fertilized egg. I would be so different from myself that I wouldn't even be "myself," at that point in the past. I'd no longer resemble a human being.


Language
I've been using "life" and "being" interchangeably. When I say, "human life," I'm talking about "human beings," which dovetails with the question: "is a fertilized egg a human being/person?" (which is the topic of the OP). So, I'll answer the 1st half of your post:


The person who typed these words is labeled as "homo sapiens." I'll fit into that category--until I fail the Turing Test.

Then there's subcategories for homo sapiens--from my perspective (cuz I dern't knew bilogiy 2 much). Criteria for moral and intellectual development are used to distinguish from the different types of human beings, e.g. adult, pubescent, child, baby, adult who still behaves like a child, veggie, fertilized egg, etc.

The last two enter the Gray Zone of Being Human.


Words v. Actions
Some people wish to fit a fertilized egg into the homo sapiens and/or human being category. When they do this, I'll then resort to the reductio ad absurdum argument and expose such adherents as wrong because they're being inconsistent/insincere. In other words, they really don't believe that the fertilized egg is human because you can see the expression of their belief vary in their own actions.

Their defense becomes exposed as fallacious because it's contradictory. One's actions reveal one's knowledge which was not articulated (or was intentionally held back). Therefore, a fertilized egg can't be a human being--from their own point of view.

Expanding the Meaning of Words
Besides, if a fertilized egg is part of human life, then so is sperm and unfertilized eggs, which are earlier "stages of human life"--if of course, we wish to make the word "human life" more vague, thus more encompassing.

We can use this method in favor of the fertilized egg. We equate "human being" with the expanded meaning of "human life," which now includes the stage of conception. Since that stage entails the fertilized egg, and since "human life" describes/is "human being, then we erroneously conclude that a fertilized egg is a human being.

[patches70]

Think on the margin. I @ now is extremely similar to I @ yesterday. I @ now is extremely different from "I" @ fertilized egg.

You today are nothing like you were when you were an infant. In fact, if one were to hold a pic of you when you were but a day or two old and compared to you today, one may find themselves unable to see any similarity.

But you at one day old are still "you".

You don't resemble what you were when you moved from infant to toddler, to puberty, through all the stages of your life.
I bet you don't even remember your trip through the birth canal.
I assure you, at the time, it was a very strange time for you. All nice and warm, content. Then shoved through a narrow opening into the brightest light you'd ever encountered. You probably had one hell of a hard time understanding what was happening.
Using your lungs to breath air for the first time was very strange to you, but it was still you.

No matter how you cut it, you BBS, your life began before you even have the ability to remember.

I don't know if you exist or not, BBS, only you know that. How can you discount your own existence just because you don't remember it or you didn't look like you do now?
I bet you don't remember your first baby steps, did you exist then? Where you a human being? I guess only you can answer that.
But your life began, BBS, with the very first cell division.

How can one know this?
Because you are here, aren't you?

Your life could have ended after a dozen divisions, or it might end minutes, hours, days or years from now. It will end though, at some point. And everything with an ending has a beginning.
You'd like to think your life began when you struggled out of that birth canal. But before you ever fell out from between your mother's legs, you would dream. You slept, you ate, you stretched, you breathed, your heart pumped blood.
I wonder what you dreamed about when you slept in your mother's womb? What could you dream about, since you had no experiences outside the womb at the time.
But you did dream, don't think you didn't.

And you can remember none of that, but it doesn't change the fact that it was you. You before you were born.

[AndyDufresne]

Think on the margin. I @ now is extremely similar to I @ yesterday. I @ now is extremely different from "I" @ fertilized egg.

You today are nothing like you were when you were an infant. In fact, if one were to hold a pic of you when you were but a day or two old and compared to you today, one may find themselves unable to see any similarity..

I always thought BBS had a baby face. Zing!


--Andy

[patches70]

Think on the margin. I @ now is extremely similar to I @ yesterday. I @ now is extremely different from "I" @ fertilized egg.

You today are nothing like you were when you were an infant. In fact, if one were to hold a pic of you when you were but a day or two old and compared to you today, one may find themselves unable to see any similarity..

I always thought BBS had a baby face. Zing!


--Andy

A young BBS was standing at his mother's side as she was looking at something and smiling.
"Watcha lookin' at, Ma?" the youngster asks.
"Oh, BB, it's a picture, called an Ultra sound. You wanna see?" Momma replied.
"Don't look like much of anything Ma, what's it a picture of?" he asks as he squints at the picture.
"Oh silly, why it's you! While you were still in Mommy's tummy." she chuckles.
"Can't be!" the tike exclaims. "That can't be me. That was only a potential me! That 'me' never existed." the young sophist nods assuredly.
"Oh shut up, BB." Momma says, snatching the picture back...

[Neoteny]

Life definitely begins at the acrosome reaction.

[BigBallinStalin]

Think on the margin. I @ now is extremely similar to I @ yesterday. I @ now is extremely different from "I" @ fertilized egg.

You today are nothing like you were when you were an infant. In fact, if one were to hold a pic of you when you were but a day or two old and compared to you today, one may find themselves unable to see any similarity.

But you at one day old are still "you".

You don't resemble what you were when you moved from infant to toddler, to puberty, through all the stages of your life.
I bet you don't even remember your trip through the birth canal.
I assure you, at the time, it was a very strange time for you. All nice and warm, content. Then shoved through a narrow opening into the brightest light you'd ever encountered. You probably had one hell of a hard time understanding what was happening.
Using your lungs to breath air for the first time was very strange to you, but it was still you.

No matter how you cut it, you BBS, your life began before you even have the ability to remember.

Expanding the Meaning of Words
Besides, if a fertilized egg is part of human life, then so is sperm and unfertilized eggs, which are earlier "stages of human life"--if of course, we wish to make the word "human life" more vague, thus more encompassing.

We can use this method in favor of the fertilized egg. We equate "human being" with the expanded meaning of "human life," which now includes the stage of conception. Since that stage entails the fertilized egg, and since "human life" describes/is "human being, then we erroneously conclude that a fertilized egg is a human being.

[BigBallinStalin]

Life definitely begins at the acrosome reaction.

There were many me's 'in the beginning' of me!

[john9blue]

Life definitely begins at the acrosome reaction.

yeah, well, arcane terminology from MY field of study which you wouldn't know about because you didn't spend years of your life studying it!

[Haggis_McMutton]

Life definitely begins at the acrosome reaction.

yeah, well, arcane terminology from MY field of study which you wouldn't know about because you didn't spend years of your life studying it!

I don't think you can really call it life till its abstract syntax tree has been parsed to three address code.

[BigBallinStalin]

Does this mean that I am merely an abstract syntax tree which has been parsed to three address code?

I don't even know what I am anymore! The computer science articles on wikipedia!: They hurt my eyes!

[patches70]

Expanding the Meaning of Words
Besides, if a fertilized egg is part of human life, then so is sperm and unfertilized eggs, which are earlier "stages of human life"--if of course, we wish to make the word "human life" more vague, thus more encompassing.

We can use this method in favor of the fertilized egg. We equate "human being" with the expanded meaning of "human life," which now includes the stage of conception. Since that stage entails the fertilized egg, and since "human life" describes/is "human being, then we erroneously conclude that a fertilized egg is a human being.

Why are you taking the woody way out and not answering the questions posed to you? You like to ask questions, so at least answer these-

Are you a human being?

If yes,
Then go back to the very beginning of your life. Where is that point?

Do your think your life only begins at the point where you can remember?
Since you acknowledge that human life goes through stages, do you believe there is a stage in your life where you were not human life and then reached the point where suddenly you were human life?

If so, what were you before that point? Eggplant?

[Haggis_McMutton]

For the purpose of this illustration we will assume BBS is this fellow:




Hey BBS, do you have a beard?
Ok, go back to the very beggining of your beard. Where is that point?

Do your think your beard only begins at the point when you first noticed meek pubic-like hair on your 14 year old chin?

Since beards go through stages as can be evidently seen in the transition from 14 year old pubic hair chinned you to strapping current you, do you believe there was a specific moment in your life when your beard suddenly materialized?

If you cannot identify such a specific instant of time when you began having a beard it then follows that you've had a beard since conception.

[john9blue]

the argument of the beard doesn't work against BBS because he actually was born with a beard.

[BigBallinStalin]

Expanding the Meaning of Words
Besides, if a fertilized egg is part of human life, then so is sperm and unfertilized eggs, which are earlier "stages of human life"--if of course, we wish to make the word "human life" more vague, thus more encompassing.

We can use this method in favor of the fertilized egg. We equate "human being" with the expanded meaning of "human life," which now includes the stage of conception. Since that stage entails the fertilized egg, and since "human life" describes/is "human being, then we erroneously conclude that a fertilized egg is a human being.

Why are you taking the woody way out and not answering the questions posed to you? You like to ask questions, so at least answer these-

Are you a human being?

If yes,
Then go back to the very beginning of your life. Where is that point?

Do your think your life only begins at the point where you can remember?
Since you acknowledge that human life goes through stages, do you believe there is a stage in your life where you were not human life and then reached the point where suddenly you were human life?

If so, what were you before that point? Eggplant?

"The person who typed these words is labeled as "homo sapiens." I'll fit into that category--until I fail the Turing Test."
(I hope that "homo sapiens" in your dictionary means "human being.")

With my previous post with you, I reposted "Expanding the Meaning of Words" in order to help you yourself realize how you're accidentally misconstruing this.



Anyway, I'll try another angle. See my other response (thx to Neoteny and Haggis):
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=179873&view=unread#p3930060
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=179873&view=unread#p3929899

I guess we can conclude that "I" am an abstract syntax tree (lol, thx, Haggis--although I'm probably using that incorrectly), or "I" am before the fertilized egg stage. In other words, "I" am the occurrence of multiple acrosome reactions, i.e. "I" am a bunch of sperm trying to penetrate the shell of an egg.
Because of course, as we all know, a human being is a bunch of sperm trying to penetrate an egg--literally. Do you really think that a human being is a bunch of sperm undergoing acrosome reactions in order to penetrate the shell of an egg?

No (I hope not), so your position is becoming silly, but you'll pursue it because you're getting mixed up in the language.

For example, this question of yours: "do you believe there is a stage in your life where you were not human life and then reached the point where suddenly you were human life?"

You're positing that I (but not "I") actually existed as a bunch of sperm penetrating an egg. It's not a stage in My life; it's a stage through which (nearly all?) humans have undergone, but that doesn't mean that the organism at stage A of "human life" is actually a human being. (Hence, from my first long post: "Language" and "Expanding the Meaning of Words"):

Yes, I'm human--unless I fail the Turing Test. But wait, what does "human being" mean? And how does that relate to the stages of human life? [Answered already--see "Language" and "Expanding..."

You see what you're doing? You're taking stages of human life and then (presumably) will assert that one is a human being at all stages (if you don't make this assertion, then there's no point to your argument, in my opinion). Remember my post on form (1st page, CTRL + F "Aristotle")? I pointed out this ambiguity among human beings across ages, but when the ambiguity is expanded over All 'human beings' into 'stages of the fetus' and then further into 'fertilized egg,' then on the margin we're talking less and less about a human being--until the form of a human being is completely different from the form of the fertilized egg, thus it's no longer a human being.

So, you stretch that "stages of human life" concept into places where it fails to describe human being. (Yeah, at some point, I was using "human life" interchangeably with "human being" but since the "Expanding Language..." section, I've made that distinction clear and there and again in this post I show how particular "stages of human life" do not constitute as a human being).

Stop stretching it, dawg.

[patches70]

BBS as a baby-

[BigBallinStalin]

For the purpose of this illustration we will assume BBS is this fellow:




Hey BBS, do you have a beard?
Ok, go back to the very beggining of your beard. Where is that point?

Do your think your beard only begins at the point when you first noticed meek pubic-like hair on your 14 year old chin?

Since beards go through stages as can be evidently seen in the transition from 14 year old pubic hair chinned you to strapping current you, do you believe there was a specific moment in your life when your beard suddenly materialized?

If you cannot identify such a specific instant of time when you began having a beard it then follows that you've had a beard since conception.

Shucks, <kicks a beard>

I guess human beings are actually a bunch of sperm undergoing acrosome reactions in order to penetrate an egg.


(or if we apply the argument of the beard, does this mean that no human ever existed? --I'm muddling through the wikipedia, so I'm not sure how to apply that fallacy).

I think you're mostly joking, but I don't see how the argument of the beard entirely covers the arguments involved in "human being" and fertilized egg. Our use language and certain words muddles the description of certain things. Aristotle goes on about matter, form, and their compound, which leads to a substance (which is that primary 'thing' of being). When we ask, "What is 'this'?" for Aristotle, we're asking about the substance (e.g. 'This' is a human being). So, matter = biological stuff, form = pattern (human form), compound = human being.

We're stuck with form as the main determinant of the difference among objects (acc. to Aristotle and me for now). If one wishes to claim that a fertilized egg is a human being, then they'd have to argue that this is equal in form to this.

Of course, these are in no way similar in form. However, if we compare babies to kids to adults, then arguably they are not the same exact form; however, c'mon, we got enough similarity in form for us to conclude: "ah-ha! all three are definitely human beings!"

How does the argument of the beard mesh with the above three paragraphs?

[BigBallinStalin]

"do you believe there is a stage in your life where you were not human life and then reached the point where suddenly you were human life?"

Long ago, there was a stage in my life where I was a widely distributed assortment of atoms. These atoms were spread across the universe! Then, as the gases coalesced, they formed stars, and within these stars, some tiny bits of My Life were there. Toward the ends of their lives, the larger stars contracted, and expanded, and contracted!, and expanded! at greater and greater velocities until they exploded! New elements were made (like carbon), so additional new bits of My Life were created and spread across the universe.

Eventually, they got to Earth, some stuff happened, and now here I am. Therefore, stars are human beings.


And since bits of My Life were somewhere during the Big Bang, and perhaps bits of My Life were before time itself began, then I must be god? Wait, that can't be right...

... Or is it?

Are all human beings gods? Were the Satanists right all along? I think patches has proven that Satanism is correct.

[patches70]

"do you believe there is a stage in your life where you were not human life and then reached the point where suddenly you were human life?"

And since bits of My Life were somewhere during the Big Bang, and perhaps bits of My Life were before time itself began, then I must be god? Wait, that can't be right...

... Or is it?

Are all human beings gods? Were the Satanists right all along? I think patches has proven that Satanism is correct.

Maybe, who can know for sure, eh?

[Neoteny]

Life definitely begins at the acrosome reaction.

yeah, well, arcane terminology from MY field of study which you wouldn't know about because you didn't spend years of your life studying it!

I'M BROADENING YOUR HORIZONS

[patches70]

Eventually, they got to Earth, some stuff happened, and now here I am. Therefore, stars are human beings.


And since bits of My Life were somewhere during the Big Bang, and perhaps bits of My Life were before time itself began, then I must be god? Wait, that can't be right...

... Or is it?

That's not a bad line of thought, not at all. I think even after a lifetime of contemplation, you will be no closer to an answer than you are now.

I think you should devote your entire existence to the pursuit of this answer.
Best of luck!

(Though, you might want to be a touch careful declaring yourself a God. I know, I know, all throughout history people have claimed that often enough. Seems a bit....arrogant, in a way I think. But, maybe it's true. Plan it all out how to pursue this endeavor, and remember-
There are no bad plans. Only good plans that go horribly wrong.....)