abe smith

Resp >Phil, your qy to me of 18july: I do not go to/see/watch movies anymore. (Do you consider my choice = not-to, a moral fault?) I saw last a re-run of *The Sting* about late-1970s.
My response to your post is, my position is absolute!: THE WOMAN WHOSE BODY CONTAINS THE "UNBORN" ENTITY HAS ABSOLUTE JURISDICTION OVER IT/ITS EXISTENCE.
You (or anyone else)don't LIKE THAT? Then DON'T IMPREGNATE ANYONE!
The woman (left) holding the bag has absolute power over its contents. In fact, I offer the biological fact, that a human conceptus is an absolute PARASITE in the body which contains it; and who here wd like to discuss THIS ?

And, ex-xian, your opinion is of course allowed here like the opinions of all the rest of us; and/but invective from you is *not argument*. If you want to change my/others's opinions, bullying won't effect that; try persuasion & reason. My opinion (further) is that your declared repugnance for *biology*, and the implicit, that you don't know much about biology, human & other, diminish considerably the "strength" of your argument(s).

I'd like to fling down another biological idea/argument; Someone aloft^here mentioned colon cancer. Now, human colon cancer is a collection of intensely-striving human cells. *HUMAN* cells, honeh; not aliens at all; legitimate members of the singular human body of which they are a part. HENCE, I inquire >>> Do we not have a moral obligation to ALLOW THOSE HUMAN (holy?)
CELLS to continue to live & thrive? Are they also not the "Work/Creatures Of GOD"? And therefore are we not obliged to transplant such cells (from the body they are about shortly to kill) into OTHER HUMAN BODIES? so as to allow those HUMAN cancer cells to live?
My opinion is that human cancer cells have an absolute god-given right to exist; and that therefore we (as subjects of the Absolute Owner who created us all, including cancers) are absolutely-obliged to foster those growths......
Someone want to open a new thread on this topic?

keyser_soze

Ouch.

Roland98

No, taking that to show that you have no understanding of the way that science works. None of the rest of what you have posted follows, sorry.

yguy

I take this to mean that you think my premise is false, which would mean that science DOES know that any consciousness an embryo may have is depedent on a functioning brain.

Which, of course, is nonsense.

Dr Rick

...consciousness is dependent upon a functioning brain.

yguy

I'm perfectly aware that this is the accepted view within the scientific community. However, science has yet to determine whether consciousness continues after death, let alone exactly what the necessary conditions for it are.

Dr Rick

Dead people aren't conscious.

In addition to having a brain, one has to be alive to be conscious.

If dead people were conscious, they would probably say "ouch" or something when we did autopsies on them, and they wouldn't be dead...

..you know, this has got to be one of the silliest points I've ever had to explain to someone...I wonder if yguy is conscious of that.

yguy

What you mean, of course, is that a dead body does not exhibit the signs of consciousness which formerly gave the outside world cause to note that the individual we associate with it is conscious, semi-conscious, or unconscious. Thus you assume a fact not in evidence, namely that the body encompasses the totality of the individual.

Dr Rick

Dead people are dead people; dead people don't think and aren't conscious. They're like rocks in that sense:

Really, yguy, what is your point, here? That we don't know anything for certain? How do you know a rock isn't alive and conscious?

yguy

This is merely argument by assertion, as if you could make your assertion true by the force of your own intellectual arrogance. Neither you nor anyone else has sufficient knowledge to credibly claim that a functioning brain is necessary for consciousness. OTOH, NDE's provide evidence to the contrary, I believe.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

All patients had a cardiac arrest, and were clinically dead with unconsciousness resulting from insufficient blood supply to the brain. In those circumstances, the EEG (a measure of brain electrical activity) becomes flat, and if CPR is not started within 5-10 minutes, irreparable damage is done to the brain and the patient will die.

As a layman, I take this to mean that for some period of time the brain was not functioning. Nevertheless, the subjects were conscious of something during that time, without regard to whether what they claim to have seen was illusory.