Real simple:

FutureIncoming · Jan 19, 2007

FutureIncoming said:
It logically figures that if all the unwanted are aborted before birth, then all those born will be wanted, and will not face danger of being murdered by their parents.

Cremaster77 said:
Hypothetically this is true. Although it is clear that in this day and age when abortion is legal, there are still cases where children are either killed by their parents or horribly mistreated.

So? Why are you not asking, "How many more such cases will there be, if abortions are banned?"

Cremaster77 said:
Just because a child is wanted at the time of birth or during pregnancy doesn't mean that he or she will not be murdered at a future or be abused.

Agreed; I should have specified "immediately murdered" in #175.

Cremaster77 said:
The condition that all unwanted children are aborted is incorrect.

I made no such claim that this actually happened; I specified "if". Re-read the quote.

Cremaster77 said:
The condition you mean to say is all children who will later be killed or be abused are aborted so that there will be no children killed or abused.

Actually, I hadn't thought about it, and I don't see how that could be implemented, without all sorts of psychological testing of the parents (which will be resisted, of course). I have on various occasions stated that parents who can't afford to raise children shouldn't have them (abortions should be encouraged), and making a measurement of financial status is a much less invasive thing than psychological tests -- but not all abused children are in poverty-stricken families. So that opinion, if implemented, might reduce abuses some, but not entirely.

Cremaster77 said:
The argument you make is set up as a self-fulfilling prophesy and without real-world merit.

Your misinterpretation of what I actually wrote leads you to all sorts of wrong conclusions, too.

FutureIncoming said:
nfants don't actually need to be granted person status!

Cremaster77 said:
Being wanted during pregnancy does not equate to being wanted or no being abused after birth.

This has nothing to do with person status. Abuses take place right now, despite the existing granting of person status to infants. Do you have some reason to think that abuses will go up just because newborns might be denied person status? What about new pets in a family, that are not granted person status either? How often are they immediately abused by the adults? All I see you doing here is making hints without actually making an outright statement, much less a supported statement.

Cremaster77 said:
{{your}} position is the one you must take to justify dehumanizing fetuses, newborns, or infants.

UTTERLY FALSE. I do not "dehumanize" them at all; I know full well that all of them are 100% human. But I also know that in Scientifically Measurable Fact, fetuses and newborns are also 100% generic-animal, exhibiting 0% generic-person characteristics. And so I am not in a "must take" or "justify" situation; I am in an "accept Reality" situation.

Cremaster77 said:
Yet societally we know the danger of leaving to government to categorize which infant is defective and which is not.

I wasn't planning on leaving that to the government, as described here.

Cremaster77 said:
Is a child with Down's syndrome defect. How about one born with a cleft palate? How about one with a below average intelligence? How about spina bifida? How about sickle cell which while causing disease has clear evolutionary advantages in certain parts of the world?

This should be the parent's decision as stated in that linked message. If the parents live in a malaria-infested zone, they might well accept a sickle-cell child.

Cremaster77 said:
We have numerous historical examples of government determining whether a post-birth human is a "person" or not or whether they are relegated to animal status...the Holocaust and slavery serving as prime examples.

I agree that governments are usually stupid, mostly because they tend to ignore Scientific Fact. The current Administration of the USA is a prime example.

Cremaster77 said:
You clearly think that you are above these historical atrocities but can commit the same judgment of whether a post-birth human is defective or qualifies as a person. This is folly at it greatest.

Except that I am not making any such folly as you have so eagerly jumped to conclude. Try again!

FutureIncoming said:
The characteristics that distinguish persons from animals are manifold, and accumulate. One of the last such characteristics is described here. Infant humans enter a "grey zone" during which growth/accumulation occurs, of person characteristics. So far as I know, the first such characteristic, Free Will, different from mere animal stimulus/response, is not exhibited until some weeks or months after birth.

Cremaster77 said:
So you're definition of person is some set of amorphous qualities, one of which apparently is symbol recognition. That defines a human?

Why are you bringing up "human"? I am not trying to define "human"; genetics does that already. But "person", now --that's another matter altogether. Persons can do things well that animals do poorly or not at all. What is the list? I know that some things need to be on it more than others, but I don't pretend to know everything that should be on it. For example, symbol-recognition is a much lesser feat than abstract-symbol-manipulation; many animals can do the former, but very few of them can do the latter even poorly.

Cremaster77 said:
What about language? If a person cannot talk are they not human?

Again you unecessarily mix "person" and "human". A better way of asking that question might be, "If an organism cannot talk is it not a person?" But exhibiting language is merely to exhibit just a subset of the possibilities of abstract-symbol-manipulation. And it is necessary that the language be "mutable". After all, bees have a kind of language, "dancing", which is genetically programmed into them, and which evolved only gradually over millions of years. An ordinary person-class language-user can both learn and invent new terms, plus make puns (a meaningful mis-use of the language). Hmmm...how many ordinary animals have a sense of humor (distinct from a sense of playfulness)? It is my understanding that KoKo the gorilla has successfully assembled unique new sentences with the words she knows, but I don't know if she has ever created a pun. I've seen TV shows in which chimps, our closest genetic cousins, appear to be expressing amusement, but I'm not sure if that is Natural or a result of training. Perhaps it is only excitement that they are expressing.

Cremaster77 said:
How about upright posture? Cooperative play? Ability to use tools? Hate to tell you but all of these are exhibited by some animals and some people fail to exhibit these qualities. This is your argument for when a human becomes a person?

I've described a starting point for determining when a human becomes a person. I've discussed upright posture and cooperative play elsewhere, and see no need to repeat that here. Regarding tools, I think a better test involves creating tools, than merely using them. A bird might grab a twig and use it to poke at a bug in a hole, to encourage it to crawl out, but a person might whittle the twig into a needle suitable for skewering it. For example.

Cremaster77 said:
As I have said this argument is pointless as the traits you have put forward are no less arbitrary than saying "a human becomes a person at conception. Why? Because I say so."

But such a rule cannot be used to distinguish generic persons from generic animals. You would have to specify an open-ended list, indicating that this-or-that organism qualifies as a person at conception-equivalent. Just think about all the huge variety of organisms portrayed as being people, in the "Star Wars" saga. Each of them would have its own entry on your list, and you would always be in doubt that the list was complete. And the notion doesn't work at all for Artificial Intelligences, since their existence will not have anything like the "conception" process of biology. Indeed, a machine that is fully totally capable of Artificial Intelligence will be nothing more than a mere machine, until it starts to run the particular self-programming software that exhibits A.I. characteristics. (Yes, persons are self-programming; that's where habits come from.)

So, better to specify a set of measuable standards, by which to identify a person. It can be workable anywhere. It may grant some organisms like Koko person status. Why not? It may fail to grant some humans person status, like the severely retarded. So what? All that person status does for those humans, currently, is grant them a legal "right to life" that they haven't the brainpower to understand or appreciate or do anything with. They will not notice if the "right" is revoked. They already are so handicapped that they are unable to care for themselves, and are roughly the equivalent of "property", as I've indicated previously for newborns. More accurately, they are the equivalent of pets. Are pets frequently arbitrarily killed just because they don't have a right to life? Then why should this be expected for humans that have no more brainpower than pets, and are loved by their families as much as pets, eh?

Cremaster77 said:
The true measure of humanness comes from biology.

That's true, but has absolutely nothing to do with person-ness.

jallman · Jan 19, 2007

Felicity said:
Well, ....now I want to take my thanks back! You're not supposed to agree with me--ever!--I thought we had that figured out a long time ago! :neener

I thought following our pre Christmas conversation that we came to the conclusion that we agree on the generalities, just not the minutiae. :mrgreen:

Felicity · Jan 19, 2007

jallman said:
I thought following our pre Christmas conversation that we came to the conclusion that we agree on the generalities, just not the minutiae. :mrgreen:

Now you got me...on principle I can't agree with you because to do so, you'd have me contradicting myself in a matter of two posts. Hmmmmm....How to word this.....

Ah HA! :idea:

*ahem* I find no falshood in your statement.

(c'mon....you've got to let me save face here! :mrgreen: )

Cremaster77 · Jan 19, 2007

jallman said:
My lady, you have the patience of a saint if it took you this long to reach a point I reached months ago. But to the point, I agree with everything you so eloquently stated. :2wave:

I'll have to say, I've only been posting in this forum for the past week and a half or so, and I'm rapidly reaching that same point.

jallman · Jan 19, 2007

Felicity said:
Now you got me...on principle I can't agree with you because to do so, you'd have me contradicting myself in a matter of two posts. Hmmmmm....How to word this.....

Ah HA! :idea:

*ahem* I find no falshood in your statement.

(c'mon....you've got to let me save face here! :mrgreen: )

Well, being that a face so lovely is worth saving, I will just bow out now. You are absolutely right in all you have said. :2wave:

Felicity · Jan 19, 2007

jallman said:
Well, being that a face so lovely is worth saving, I will just bow out now. You are absolutely right in all you have said. :2wave:

Oh...yeah...now here comes the sweet talkin'....now you're really just trying to make me look bad...that's just so....devious!:devil: I love it!

Felicity · Jan 19, 2007

Cremaster77 said:
I'll have to say, I've only been posting in this forum for the past week and a half or so, and I'm rapidly reaching that same point.

Trust me...it's the same pontificating I've gone round with him on...only now he seems a bit more....snarky with all those big red "FALSE"s. He used to not be like that.

jallman · Jan 19, 2007

Felicity said:
Trust me...it's the same pontificating I've gone round with him on...only now he seems a bit more....snarky with all those big red "FALSE"s. He used to not be like that.

It's probably because he is realizing that quantity of words in a post does not necessarily translate to quality of posting.

Cremaster77 · Jan 22, 2007

FutureIncoming said:
So? Why are you not asking, "How many more such cases will there be, if abortions are banned?"

<snip>

That's true, but has absolutely nothing to do with person-ness.

FI--

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my posts. Unfortunately, we seem to be going around and around the same issue in ever increasingly long posts. The bottom line is you have used one set of criteria to define a person worthy of protection while I use another. The choice of either is objectively quantifiable but subjective in the choice itself. As such, there is no way either of us can "win" the debate as to which is the correct way of viewing when human life is worthy of protection. I do commend you on the thought you have put into the issue, but see little reason to continue this circuitous debate. If you wish to discuss the issue from different angle, I would be happy to participate.

FutureIncoming · Jan 22, 2007

Cremaster77 said:
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my posts.

It was necessary. The errors of your position needed to be exposed.

Cremaster77 said:
Unfortunately, we seem to be going around and around the same issue in ever increasingly long posts.

The posts tend to get longer as the pro-lifer grasps as straws, every one of which needs to be trashed by the pro-choicer.

Cremaster77 said:
The bottom line is you have used one set of criteria to define a person worthy of protection while I use another.

The bottom line is that your definition is provably incorrect, and my definition is provably correct. Otherwise you would not have avoided answering these questions:

FutureIncoming said:
We are just about at the {{technological}} point where we can cut someone's head off and keep both pieces alive for years. Do you think that if this happens to some human person, and the parts are widely separated, that person will thereafter be associated with the head, or with the body? If you vote "head", because that's where the mind originates, then you are agreeing with my conclusion that mindless human bodies, such as the brain-dead on life-support, and including fetuses, cannot be persons!
Do you need more valid data than that?

It is obvious that if you claim that the human body is the person, in the above scenario, you would look ridiculous, even to other pro-lifers. Just as it is obvious that {{barring ensoulment}} if you accept that the human mind is the person, your entire earlier position is exposed as the nonsense it truly is.

Cremaster77 said:
The choice of either is objectively quantifiable but subjective in the choice itself. As such, there is no way either of us can "win" the debate as to which is the correct way of viewing when human life is worthy of protection.

UTTERLY FALSE, as just explained above.

Cremaster77 said:
I do commend you on the thought you have put into the issue, but see little reason to continue this circuitous debate.

It is not circuitous at all, because of unanswered questions. Furthermore, I have some catching-up to do, of answering earlier posts of yours. I will not have it said that some pro-lifer made points that could not be countered by a pro-choicer, simply because something like your #209 implies I might not need to bother. Meanwhile, the numerous questions I've asked, which you have failed to answer, and which you appear to be trying to wiggle out of answering, should be evidence enough that your position is indeed without merit.

If you wish to discuss the issue from different angle, I would be happy to participate.

It is possible that some different angle will become apparent, as I work through the backlog of your posts.

==========================================
I'll do the first piece of backlog here, since it involves the last part of #178, the rest of which I responded to in #201.

Cremaster77 said:
First of all, let me preface this by saying that I do not believe in ensoulment and therefore do not place is as a condition for preventing abortion. But your argument makes no sense. If God places souls, then it is through His hand that twinning occurs.

NOT OBVIOUSLY SO, at all. That would be like claiming lightning occurs by God's hand, when we have a perfectly good purely physical explanation for it. I think the key fact you are missing is that the process of conception is a purely physical thing. Sexual reproduction takes place throughout a vast variety of organisms; why should human conception be, at the purely physical level, so much more special than rat conception, that twinning requires the hand of God for it to occur? Next, almost by definition souls are a NON-physical thing. This is required by every philosophy that states that souls survive the death of the purely physical body -- any purely physical thing which can be created by purely physical means can also be destroyed by purely physical means. The hand of God or some other non-physical process is necessary for a soul to come into existence; the physical process of biological conception can in no way cause some non-physical thing to exist, else souls would be exactly as mortal as bodies.

Cremaster77 said:
You placing an arbitrary limit on God saying that he can only place one soul in a zygote and the twinning after conception means that there is not a soul for the twin is idiotic to say the least.

Nice try, but no cigar. First, you are making your own unwarranted assumption about souls, that two or more (for identical quadruplets, say) can exist together within a single-celled zygote. Neither of us knows enough to be able to say what the truth of that matter is. But, using the earlier data that God need not cause twinning to happen, we might conclude that God could use power-of-Omniscience to decide that some particular zygote needs more than one soul, and leave it up to God to use other Power to see that they get along with each other in the zygote, and go separate ways when the twinning event happens. HOWEVER, once Omniscience is invoked, we now can ask about the failures. The zygotes that don't cell-divide. The blastocysts that don't escape at all from the ovum/shell. The blastocysts that merge to form a chimera (only one soul to be created for TWO zygotes!) The blastocysts that fail to implant. The blastocysts that form a "hydatiform mole" instead of an embryo. The embryos that get washed out with the next menstrual cycle. The fetuses that get miscarried. Is there any rational basis for God to put effort into making souls for new human organisms that God Omnisciently knows will never be born? Then why should God put souls into humans that will be aborted, eh?

Cremaster77 said:
For those who believe, the twinning is function of God and therefore, God may ensoul the twin at any point He wishes. He is after all, God. Any argument that says that ensoulment can't occur because of these arbitrary limits you set on God has no theological merit.

I'm not the one setting limits on God. The believers, however, in essence claim God is mechanically stupid, to create souls whenever human conceptions occur, regardless of Omnisciently knowing when the effort would be wasted. Along with the believers being ignorant of biology. They have ZERO rationale for saying that the physical/biological processes accompanying the growth of an unborn human needs to be accompanied by a soul, when this is not the case for gorillas, dogs, rats, and endless other animals. I actually think the only reason they ever made such a ridiculous claim was to create an excuse to ban abortions. As you said, God is God, and by conventional definition has the power to make souls at any moment desired (and of any degree-of-development, too). IS there a rationale for a loving God to desire to make souls at conception, instead of birth, other than to condemn women who get abortions, and be proved non-loving thereby?

Cremaster77 said:
I recognize you wrote more and I read it, but it is all basically the same. To save space I have not quoted it, but essentially your argument lacks any validty when you set arbitrary limits on personhood as you have.

I'm saying in this scenario that the soul is the person. How is that an arbitrary limit? Oh, OK, that last quote may not be about the ensoulment scenario. Which means, switching scenarios, that I'm saying that the mind is the person, not the body, as indicated earlier in this Message. The only arbitrary thing here is how much mind makes a person? Heh, there is actually an easy answer: A nonperson doesn't have enough mindpower to understand the concept of "person", and to use that understanding to claim to be one.

Cremaster77 said:
Whether that's the ability to recognize time, symbol recognition, or whatever limits you decide. The reason is that as a society we recognize from historical precedent that attempts to limited the "personness" of post-birth individuals is fraught with danger and numerous examples of atrocities that were born from that very reasoning.

Ah, but those atrocities all stemmed from ignoring the logical thing that all persons have the ability to understand the concept, and (barring physical defectiveness or accident) have the ability to declare themselves to be persons.

Cremaster77 said:
It speaks volumes that you think you are above these dangers and continue to feel that killing "defective" humans is justified because they are no more than animals.

I've answered this elsewhere in detail, and so far it doesn't appear that you have responded.

Cremaster77 · Jan 22, 2007

FutureIncoming said:
I will not have it said that some pro-lifer made points that could not be countered by a pro-choicer, simply because something like your #209 implies I might not need to bother. Meanwhile, the numerous questions I've asked, which you have failed to answer, and which you appear to be trying to wiggle out of answering, should be evidence enough that your position is indeed without merit.

You can characterize it as "trying to wiggle out of answering". In fact, it's more like I've gotten tired of the tedium of your posts. Frankly, the last few posts you wrote, I stopped reading. You can interpret that as "winning" if you want. That is your prerogative. Most people realize that simply beating your chest with verbosity (notice, I did not say substance) does not a good debate or a valid position make. As most people learn in high school debate, making points so verbose that people stop listening before any point is made is poor debate. The idea is to get your points across, a skill which you seem to lack.

jallman · Jan 22, 2007

FutureIncoming said:
It was necessary. The errors of your position needed to be exposed.

The posts tend to get longer as the pro-lifer grasps as straws, every one of which needs to be trashed by the pro-choicer.

The bottom line is that your definition is provably incorrect, and my definition is provably correct. Otherwise you would not have avoided answering these questions:

It is obvious that if you claim that the human body is the person, in the above scenario, you would look ridiculous, even to other pro-lifers. Just as it is obvious that {{barring ensoulment}} if you accept that the human mind is the person, your entire earlier position is exposed as the nonsense it truly is.

UTTERLY FALSE, as just explained above.

I got about this far before even the grotesquely fascinating arrogance of the post lost my interest...

FutureIncoming · Jan 22, 2007

Cremaster77 said:
The idea is to get your points across, a skill which you seem to lack.

Oh, I have the skill; it's just that it is useless to get UNSUPPORTED points across, which is apparently the only skill that you have. Since I try to support my points with as much irrefutable data as possible, that inherently makes my argument less than succinct. If you don't like wading through the truth, and seeing your nonsense exposed, tough. That's the equivalent of trying to Deny Reality -- a sign of immaturity. Not to mention that the inability to admit making a mistake, in holding onto nonsense after it is demonstrated to be nonsense, is another sign of immaturity.

I notice you have still avoided answering the questions that I quoted in #210 of this Thread, that originated in #233 of another Thread. Tsk, tsk. Perhaps I should add both "immaturity" and "cowardice" to the list below:

Like I've said before, every single pro-life argument is based on inadequate data (ignorance) and/or invalid data (lies) and/or prejudice and/or hypocrisy and/or excess selfishness. You've even admitted the prejudice behind your own argument, thus proving my case.

======================================

Felicity said:
now he seems a bit more....snarky with all those big red " FALSE"s. He used to not be like that

I will admit to some impatience. I put significant effort into making a solid case, and not only do I have to repeat myself when some new pro-lifer comes along, who spouts the same provably false things that others have in the past -- but after seeing the evidence, all either the old or new pro-lifer does is denounce it without providing any factual data that supports the denunciation. This includes you, Felicity. You know full well that every time I declare some quoted text to be FALSE, I also explain why it is false. Yet how do you respond to that carefulness of mine? You called it "snarky" (a minor denunciation) without even explaining why. Go ahead, please tell us why it is inappropriate/"snarky" to call something FALSE if it can be proved to be false.

FutureIncoming · Jan 22, 2007

FutureIncoming said:
What about China? They have elective abortions there, almost certainly as part of their own anti-overpopulation goals.

1069 said:
They have forced abortions,

I greatly doubt that they ONLY have forced abortions. I fully expect that the forced abortions are done only when the elective abortions are not.

FutureIncoming · Jan 23, 2007

FutureIncoming said:
when unborn humans are compared to various ordinary animals, the animals can exhibit more traits of persons than do the unborn humans

FutureIncoming said:
here is some support:
The Gorilla Foundation / Koko.org
The Elephant Debate (search for "mourn")
mondopulpo: October 2006 (search for "octopus")

Cremaster77 said:
I don't understand how this supports your claim.

??? The "support" above is for the claim quoted from #168. How can you not understand this evidence, that some animals can exhibit more traits of persons than do unborn humans?

Cremaster77 said:
If anything it refutes the claim that there is some defining trait (which you have yet to provide) that makes a human a person.

FALSE. First, for quite a number of posts I never made any claim that there was some particular defining trait that makes a human a person; I specified a group of mental characteristics that I shall call "indicators" here. Second, since I did not make anything resembling such a claim until Msg #210 of this Thread (and that one almost facetiously), there was no reason to provide any details, about some particular defining trait. Third, the data about animals exhibiting some of the traits of persons does not at all refute the claim that I had actually made prior to #210, which I will phrase here as "There are a number of characteristics that human minds exhibit to considerable degree, which mere animals can't match, that allows us to distinguish us as persons and not mere animals". Then the list of characteristics can be presented, and one or more of them may actually be unique to persons (that is, no ordinary animal exhibits it to any degree), such as the ability to do algebra.

Then came this:

FutureIncoming said:
how much mind makes a person? Heh, there is actually an easy answer: A nonperson doesn't have enough mindpower to understand the concept of "person", and to use that understanding to claim to be one.

Perhaps Koko has enough mindpower for this. If so, then shouldn't she deserve to be recognized and accepted as a person? Note that doing this does NOT refute the claim that "there is some defining trait that makes a human a person"; it merely means that that trait can also be used to recognize persons of other types.

Cremaster77 said:
Clearly, as I have stated, there are animals that exhibit some of these traits more than some humans.

Heh, I thought I was making that statement. Well, whatever. We are agreed on this point.

Cremaster77 said:
If you draw the line at murder at a person, but not a human, then you must define what makes a human a person.

That could have been more clearly/precisely phrased. For example, "murder" is practically defined as killing a person. For evidence, consider that when you swat a fly, you usually don't describe that act as "murdering" the fly. It is simply "killing", not "murdering", because a mere animal was the victim. Therefore, if killing a human is sometimes no more than that, then we do indeed need to define what can make a human a person, more than a mere animal, such that killing the human would then qualify as "murder".

Cremaster77 said:
These links actually refute your previous examples of Free Will, etc.

FALSE. None of those, by itself, was considered to be a definitive way to identify a person. They were considered to be parts of the whole, such that, especially when their magnitudes were also included, we could probably correctly describe that whole as being greater than the sum of its parts, a "synergy". Koko may have most of the parts, but not much magnitude of each. Does she have the synergy, also? I'm not the one to answer that with more than a "possibly". Furthermore the evidence is that elephants and octopi have fewer of the parts than Koko, and so are less likely to also have the synergy. IN THE END, none of your remarks really addresses the essence of the original point: If these animals exhibit more traits of persons than unborn humans, and yet those animals remain classed as only animals, then why should the unborn humans be classed as persons?

Cremaster77 said:
What I'm saying is that to function as a society, we need to accept certain societal standards. Included in that are that humans hold a place above animals,

This may have been true in the prejudiced past (a statement made by humans for humans, and all that, not technically better than a statement made by Nazis for Nazis). However, to anyone considering the Bigger Picture, it is obvious that the correct/accurate/nonprejudiced word is "persons", not "humans".

Cremaster77 said:
meaning that it is never right to treat post-birth humans as animals or to equate them, else we end up with genocide and slavery.

FALSE. In truth it is never right to treat persons as animals or to equate them with animals, because that does indeed lead to genocide and slavery. Meanwhile, if some particular human is unable to understand the concept of "person", then how can treating that human like an animal be wrong? I'm reminded of the cliche` "You don't know what you are missing." Well, if you don't know, how can you miss it? Similarly, if some human doesn't understand how self might qualify for more than animal status, how is treating that human like an animal going to be resented by that human, any more than any other animal resents being treated like an animal???

Cremaster77 said:
You may view these as "unprejudiced" ways of view other humans, but they have clearly been shown to be detrimental to a functioning society.

What has been proved detrimental is the treating of self-recognized persons as less than persons. You have no evidence whatsoever supporting any notion that taking humans unable to understand themselves as being persons, and treating them like animals, is detrimental. Consider this: Have you seen those leashes that some parents are using to keep track of their two-year-olds, while walking down a busy street (partly to prevent kidnapping)? Do the two-year-olds exhibit great resentment at being treated like dogs on leashes? So far as I know, they don't.

Cremaster77 said:
have asked, repeatedly two questions, which I have yet to get an answer.

I think by now you should have seen the answer to at least one of them. You were posting faster than I could reply, after all, at the time this was written.

Cremaster77 said:
What are the defining set of qualities that make a human a person?

I've indicated that I am not the one to Set In Stone such a list. I have presented things that I thing most will agree will be on it, but I have not claimed it was complete.

Cremaster77 said:
And how do you arrive at these definitions in an "unprejudiced" "scientifically objective and logical" way?

One of the simpler ways is to compare humans to animals, carefully. Are we likely to raise a bunch of species of traditionally-considered-animals to person status? Not likely! Well, then, why should any human having fewer person-traits than those animals, be considered a person?

Felicity · Jan 23, 2007

FutureIncoming said:
I will admit to some impatience. I put significant effort into making a solid case, and not only do I have to repeat myself when some new pro-lifer comes along, who spouts the same provably false things that others have in the past -- but after seeing the evidence, all either the old or new pro-lifer does is denounce it without providing any factual data that supports the denunciation. This includes you, Felicity. You know full well that every time I declare some quoted text to be FALSE, I also explain why it is false. Yet how do you respond to that carefulness of mine? You called it "snarky" (a minor denunciation) without even explaining why. Go ahead, please tell us why it is inappropriate/"snarky" to call something FALSE if it can be proved to be false.

jallman called it "arrogance." I agree. Your pronouncements of "UTTERLY FALSE" are merely your observations and subsequent conclusions. You are the king of your anthill, FI, enjoy.:2wave:

BTW--

Define "person" to be Universally accurate, regardless of physical nature, to distinguish people from mere animals, anywhere.

Persons are members of a species or an entity that has the capacity to demonstrate rational thought and free will. (Problem is, FI, you don't accept dictionary definitions and get hung up on "capacity").

OR:
What provable Objective Truth makes prohibition of abortion logical?

Humans belong to a species that has the capacity for rational thought and free will. FI is an example of such a human, though his actual ability for rationality often lacks, he is nonetheless a person. If you accept anything as objective truth (although technically, you cannot prove you exist), you can accept that you are a person.

I predict your response (if any) will be "UTTERLY FALSE" but I will refer you back to lenthy posts of yore to find the explanation as to why... I believe it was primarily in the "Explain Your Reasoning" thread....but I may be mistaken.

FutureIncoming · Jan 23, 2007

Felicity said:
Your pronouncements of "UTTERLY FALSE" are merely your observations

I tend to say that when I see something that doesn't contain any truth in it at all. And I always explain why the thing is false, too.

Felicity said:
Persons are members of a species or an entity that has the capacity to demonstrate rational thought and free will.

Not good enough, because it is impractical; it cannot work in all applications. For any species with a very high reproductive rate (for example, a female oysters releases millions of fertilized eggs every breeding season), you would have to grant person status and protections to every single one of the offspring of that species. This would lead to a Malthusean Catastrophe very quickly; there is no way that a 10,000% reproductive rate can be sustained --heh, we humans are having enough trouble with a population explosion involving a less-than-2% reproductive rate.
Better to base the definition on individuals rather than species, therefore. We could conceivably grant person status to Koko without granting it to gorillas in general, partly because of the "feral" thing that I've discussed before, and that I'm pretty sure you know about. Koko was raised in a very mind-stimulating environment, compared to ordinary gorillas. So her mind may have fulfilled a potential to reach person status, while ordinary gorillas don't (just as no humans did for more than 50,000 years, prior to 50,000 years ago).
So: because the young-enough of any species don't have the brainpower, and haven't experienced the stimuli that leads away from the "feral" condition, they cannot exhibit rational thought and free will. Therefore they are not persons and can be culled as needed (by the billion in a high-reproductive-rate species), to ensure that a Malthusean Catastrophe does not happen.

Felicity said:
(Problem is, FI, you don't accept dictionary definitions and get hung up on "capacity").

I don't accept incomplete dictionary definitions, and I don't accept hypocrisy from one who lambasts "equivocation" but does it herself.

Felicity · Jan 23, 2007

FutureIncoming said:
For any species with a very high reproductive rate (for example, a female oysters releases millions of fertilized eggs every breeding season), you would have to grant person status and protections to every single one of the offspring of that species.

Do you know any rational oysters with free will? Sounds like some weird opium induced hallucination of Lewis Carroll’s.

This would lead to a Malthusean Catastrophe very quickly; there is no way that a 10,000% reproductive rate can be sustained --heh, we humans are having enough trouble with a population explosion involving a less-than-2% reproductive rate.

So???

--what does sustainability of over-producing rational oysters with free will have to do with their personhood? If their over population kills them off, it is not due to whether or not they were "persons." And, BTW, if you’re going to keep referring to that silly old theory, please learn to spell it properly. It’s Malthusian

Better to base the definition on individuals rather than species, therefore.

That is bad logic--non-sequitur by name.

We could conceivably grant person status to Koko without granting it to gorillas in general, partly because of the "feral" thing that I've discussed before, and that I'm pretty sure you know about.

Since your "individual" thing is a non-sequitur, this supposed point is irrelevant.

Koko was raised in a very mind-stimulating environment, compared to ordinary gorillas. So her mind may have fulfilled a potential to reach person status, while ordinary gorillas don't (just as no humans did for more than 50,000 years, prior to 50,000 years ago).

Or Koko's just a trained great ape with no rational thought or free will and you are anthropomophizing the tricks.:roll:

So: because the young-enough of any species don't have the brainpower, and haven't experienced the stimuli that leads away from the "feral" condition, they cannot exhibit rational thought and free will. Therefore they are not persons and can be culled as needed (by the billion in a high-reproductive-rate species), to ensure that a Malthusean Catastrophe does not happen.

And, as I recall, I offered that societal living is natural to the human species and so supposedly "feral" people are in fact, highly emotionally damaged people.

I don't accept incomplete dictionary definitions, .

Will you cite a "complete" dictionary definition of "capacity" in terms of the context in which I use it, please? You are the one who attempts to limit its meaning.

and I don't accept hypocrisy from one who lambasts "equivocation" but does it herself

Aaahhhh...the reason for snarkiness is becoming clear...someone didn't like his rhetorical fallacies pointed out so clearly...well...at least you have your anthill. :roll:

FutureIncoming · Jan 23, 2007

FutureIncoming said:
For any species with a very high reproductive rate (for example, a female oysters releases millions of fertilized eggs every breeding season), you would have to grant person status and protections to every single one of the offspring of that species.

Felicity said:
Do you know any rational oysters with free will? Sounds like some weird opium induced hallucination of Lewis Carroll’s.

You are grasping at straws. I presented oysters merely as an example of a high-reproductive-rate species. I said nothing about oysters being rational and having free will. The point is, with the Universe so vast, there is every reason to think that all sorts of possible things really exist. One such thing could be a species with a very high birth rate, that also grows to rationality and free will. The existence of such a species would mean that your definition of "person" is not practical. As explained in #217.

what does sustainability of over-producing rational oysters with free will have to do with their personhood? If their over population kills them off, it is not due to whether or not they were "persons."

Mandated overpopulation is the result of your incorrectly claiming that every member of that species is a person, due to your faulty definition --your definition DOOMS that species to a Malthusian Catastrophe, for no worthwhile reason. Why do you want billions of persons to starve to death? You apparently must want people to suffer, because you have crafted a definition of "person" that makes it impossible for all people to get along with each other, long-term.

FutureIncoming said:
Better to base the definition on individuals rather than species, therefore.

Felicity said:
That is bad logic--non-sequitur by name.

Your mere unsupported claims are worthless. It is perfectly good logic that:
1) If every member of a species is called a person, regardless of whether it is factually true,
2) If it is impossible for all members of the species to get along with each other, long-term, due to Malthusian Catastrophes,
3) Then the definition of "person" needs to be examined for flaws. In this case the most obvious place to find a flaw involves the claim that undeveloped members of that species, having neither rationality nor free will, must be persons only because they are members of that species. Note that your definition requires that individuals of some species be examined for those characteristics, before you can grant person status to either them or their whole species. But -- what is your rationale for extending personhood to the whole species? This is where your equivocation (faulty logic!) about "capacity" gets to be exposed again. You are misusing language, mixing up two very different definitions of one word, to claim that "potential" ability to exhibit rationality and free will is equal to an "actual magnitude" of ability to exhibit rationality and free will. This logic is no more correct that to say that a "store", a place where various things are kept when not needed, is equal to a "store", a place where various things can be purchased.
4) Therefore, since the logic is faulty, in extending person status from the individual to the whole species, it follows that the definition of "person" should indeed be based on individuals, and not involve the species at all.

FutureIncoming said:
We could conceivably grant person status to Koko without granting it to gorillas in general, partly because of the "feral" thing that I've discussed before, and that I'm pretty sure you know about.

Felicity said:
Since your "individual" thing is a non-sequitur, this supposed point is irrelevant.

Your mere unsupported claim continues to be worthless. The logic presented above does indeed work, and correctly leads to the quote from #217.

Felicity said:
...Koko's just a trained great ape with no rational thought or free will and you are anthropomophizing the tricks.

Please note that I qualified #217 by using "could conceivably", instead of phrasing that in a more definite way. I am aware of the possibilty that Koko may not actually qualify for person status --but if she actually does qualify, then the statement from #217 remains logically consistent with the other things written above. I think I should ask, how much have you read about how Koko was trained? One of the things that I've read (years ago, before the Internet) was that she was taught sign language, and that after she learned enough of the vocabulary, she started crafting new sentences which she had never been taught, but which also were quite understandable. Since a human child, even retarded, that can do that much is not doubted to be a person, is it possible to give some benefit-of-doubt to Koko? Have you seen this link?

FutureIncoming said:
Koko was raised in a very mind-stimulating environment, compared to ordinary gorillas. So her mind may have fulfilled a potential to reach person status, while ordinary gorillas don't (just as no humans did for more than 50,000 years, prior to 50,000 years ago).

Felicity said:
...as I recall, I offered that societal living is natural to the human species and so supposedly "feral" people are in fact, highly emotionally damaged people.

Yet that hypothesis does not work to explain why humans, anatomically modern in the paleontological record for more than 100,000 years, never exhibited any form of art until about 50,000 years ago. A hypothesis that does work involves the fact that the first hominids that had the modern mutation, a capacity for rationality and free will, were rasied by parent-hominids that didn't. Even though they did indeed live in groups, "societal living" you called it, the quantity of mental stimuli needed to trigger non-feral thought simply did not exist. And it continued to not-exist for many millenia, as those humans gradually invented more stuff and exercised their brains keeping track of it and its uses. "Critical mass" of stuff, mental stimuli, was achieved about 50,000 years ago, and well-developed humans have been mostly non-feral ever since.

Felicity said:
You are the one who attempts to limit {{the}} meaning {{of "capacity"}}.

FALSE. "Capacity" has at least two different definitions that are not synonymous with each other ("potential" and "actual magnitude"). If they were synonymous, they would be found together within a single definition-description. Instead they are always found in separate definition-descriptions (like the two definitions of "store" presented above), because they indeed are not synonymous. So I am not limiting the overall definition of "potential" by insisting that the two descriptions be kept apart; they are supposed to be kept apart because they are about different things! And so, instead, you are at fault for trying to make two different things equal to each other ("equivocation").

Felicity · Jan 23, 2007

FutureIncoming said:
Mandated overpopulation is the result of your incorrectly claiming that every member of that species is a person, due to your faulty definition --your definition DOOMS that species to a Malthusian Catastrophe, for no worthwhile reason. Why do you want billions of persons to starve to death? You apparently must want people to suffer, because you have crafted a definition of "person" that makes it impossible for all people to get along with each other, long-term.

:rofl I must have hit a nerve to have elicited bold print, a larger font for the word "all" AND such a string of red highlight...I'm honored...thank-you, :thanks thank-you very much....I'll be here all week, folks!:mrgreen:

Felicity · Jan 23, 2007

Felicity said:
FI said:

I don't accept incomplete dictionary definitions, .

Click to expand...

Will you cite a "complete" dictionary definition of "capacity" in terms of the context in which I use it, please? You are the one who attempts to limit its meaning.

Skipped this, eh....TYPICAL!

FutureIncoming · Jan 24, 2007

Felicity, I note that in replying twice to Msg #219, in neither case did you present any data or counter-argument to #219. Especially in #220, trying to make fun of #219 doesn't make the data or logic go away. And so, as I wrote previously:

FutureIncoming said:
after seeing the evidence, all either the old or new pro-lifer does is denounce it without providing any factual data that supports the denunciation. This includes you, Felicity.

Your own word, which you attempted to apply to me, actually fits you better, since you knew what I wrote in #213, and went ahead and did it anyway:

Felicity said:
TYPICAL!

==========================================

Felicity said:
Will you cite a "complete" dictionary definition of "capacity" in terms of the context in which I use it, please?

NO. Because that would involve me trying to do your equiviocation ("the context in which you use it") for you.

I could dig up an old message in which you agreed that potential/capacity need not be fulfilled. Yet you go against that by granting person status to those that only have potential/capacity, they have zero actual-magnitude/capacity, just so that potential/capacity would become required to be fulfilled (via ban of abortion). Tsk, tsk. Inconsistency is certainly not the way to present an argument.

Monkey Mind · Jan 25, 2007

Monkey Mind said:
I'm perfectly comfortable with the traditional definition of person: a living human.

Future Incoming said:
Then you don't know all the traditions, even if some of them, these days, are now considered "superstitions". Ever heard of "angels"? Or "brownies", "leprechauns", and other "little people"? Nonhuman persons, according to tradition, every one of them.

What's your point? Humans are persons, regardless of developmental stage. I fail to see how your comments on mythical entities add anything to the debate. If you want to talk about the personhood of animals or theoretical entities I would love to do that in a different thread, but in this one lets focus on your attempts at dehumanizing babies and the unborn.

Monkey Mind said:
What is your definition?

Future Incoming said:
It is still under development; it involves the abilities of minds, but I don't know enough.

So you don't know enough to say for sure what a person is. Yet you blithely sicken us with your ill-reasoned arguments for murdering viable fetuses and infants. :roll: Maybe you should take a break from all this criticism of other's convictions, and come back when you have something to back it up.

Future Incoming said:
However, I do know that to limit it to humans is stupidly prejudiced.

Your concern for brownies and leprechauns is touching. I find it hypocritical and deplorable however, that you would deny the same concern to a 3-month old infant. Quite honestly, I think you're FUBAR. I may tire of this soon. But for now, I thought I would point that out.

FALSE. Minds deserve compassion. Empty bodies don't.

An empty body is a dead body. Fetuses and infants don't fit that definition, so again you show that you're incapable of consistency even within your own ill-defined logical framework.

Noah's Hammer · Jan 25, 2007

This forum certainly does not represent the general public. I have noticed that 75% are pro-choice and 25% are pro-life on here. It is vice versa in the American public. And thank God it is.

Abortion is infanticide. The idea is atrocious if you really think about it. Because a woman doesn't want the responsibility she can simply murder a baby because it hasn't been born yet? Abortion is legalized murder. A woman hires a hit man (abortion doctor) to stab her child to death before it can protest?

Abortion is in absolute oposition to the values upon which our whole society was built.

Our founding document which justified our revolt and made the case for freedom begins with these sacred words:

"We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and are endowed by there Creator with certain inalienable rights among which are LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Abortion should be a capital crime if it is not necessary to spare the life of another.

Felicity · Jan 25, 2007

FI said:
And so, instead, you are at fault for trying to make two different things equal to each other ("equivocation").

FYI, FI, that is not equivocation--equivocation is when you switch back and forth between two meanings to claim two different things concerning the same point. I have always contended that "capacity" is actual magnitude of a possibility.

As in Defs 1 AND 4 (seperately of course!):capacity - Definitions from Dictionary.com

ca·pac·i·ty –noun 1. the ability to receive or contain.

4. actual or potential ability to perform, yield, or withstand: He has a capacity for hard work.

It is an ACTUAL ability for a FUTURE possibility.

Real simple:

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