Mangetout, it has puzzled people for years. The earliest Greek philosophers split into two schools, one of which maintained that everything always stayed the same, the other maintaining that nothing was ever stable.
If you think about it, both schools of thought have value in particular circumstances. The fact is that things do change, and yet at the same time, things stay the same.
IMHO it is a problem with the human mind that has to believe one thing or the other, rather than admit that the same process is open to multiple interpretation. An illustrative model for this is the teaching of the wave/particle duality of matter- the most difficult part of teaching it is to get students to understand that a phenomenon may be a wave in one interpretation and a particle in another. Similarly, humaness may always exist (as potentiality), and yet not come into existence until other conditions are met. Thus something may be human and non-human at the same time. The cause of the problem is in the human social-construction of the categories wave/particle and human/not human; the problem is not about the real world, but about our interpretation of it.
I think I’d go along with you there; the human mind has an obsessive tidiness about it; we like things to fit into neat, often arbitrary, pigeonholes.
The conclusion that I’m prepared to take away then is that Humanity is not a boolean value, and in fact, does not consist of a single component value at all, but is a gestalt entity.
grimpixie Yes, it’s a short jump, but we pseudo-latinists call that reductio ad absurdum, or taking things to a ridiculous extreme. Personally, I’ve always thought slippery slope arguments were instantly invalid.
mangetout Things with potential to be human, or things that have lost potential to be human.
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The key thing is expression of his ideas. Hawking would certainly have a much more difficult time expressing himself without his technological tools… but would still be able to (via sign language, morse code or something).
But if a human can’t express himself, it’s kinda moot. Dream all you want, but if you can’t make yourself understood, no one will know you’re human, and not just a lump.
Does this mean technology affects my definition of a human. Yes! It’s my belief people only worry about late-term aborted fetuses because we have the medical tech necessary to keep 'em alive until they function independently. What’ll we do when we can implant a fertilized ovum in a cow uterus and grow it to term? I’ll still be comfortable with my definitions… but I guess I’m some sort of moral absolutist
Yes, there is this argument, but it’s not my point of view. My spectrum goes : things with potential to be human (foetus, babies, brain-damaged), humans (the default setting for ambulatory bipeds commonly known as homo sapiens ), persons (what Cirocco Jones calls ‘those willing to take part in the human race’)
You can feel an emotional attachment to whatever you want. I have 'em for my wife, some of my co-workers, this baby Samantha that hangs around, my bicycle, my fish, my book collection. I would grieve if I lost any of them, but my ability to form an empathic connection doesn’t mean I consider something human.
Barbarian Fair enough; please don’t think I’m saying you’re wrong - I posted this thread with an open mind.
Just one more question though; what about people who might be temporarily rendered unable to express their ideas, but with the certainty that conscious thought continues and recovery will occur? (for example temporary paralysis) - would you consider their humanity to be ‘suspended’ or what?
I once knew a phenomenal elderly woman who once told me something that I shall never forget. She said that a fetus became human upon entering the world and experiencing its first pain… childbirth. Her take was that we have no sense of ego/soul as a human being until we sense our initial vulnerability. I found this perception very interesting. I remember thinking of this woman directly after the birth of my first child. Holding her in my arms for the first time, her expression seemingly exhausted and perhaps even a bit perturbed, I couldn’t help but think; you are vulnerable, you are human.
Not an acutely scientific approach but one I rather enjoy entertaining.
Hmmm - as a White South African, I grew up under a system that took the short jump from “People of different races have different cultures and should be allowed to develop those cultures in thier own space” to “People of different races must be forced to remain in thier own areas (for thier own good) and be prevented from mixing with people of other races (for thier own good), and allowed into our areas to work for us when it suits us, and anyone who disagrees with this idea will be beaten, detained and killed (for society’s good).”
It does happen - not everyone is as open-minded and thoughtful as you…
First of all, what you’re describing is viability, not life. In order for the fetus to “survive outside the mother,” it must first be alive – after all, non-living things can not “survive.”
Second, viability currently takes place at around 20 weeks, and sometimes as early as 17 weeks. This is far earlier than “the third trimester.”
Third, the age of viability is being decreased due to medical progress. Hence, it is a measure of advancing medical technology, and is not an inherent quality of the fetus.
Fourth, by the tenth week of pregnancy, the fetus already has brain waves, a heartbeat, a functioning circulatory system, a functioning neurological system, distinct facial features, distinct fingers and toes, and much more. It can even be seen sucking its thumb and jumping within the womb. (See http://www.unborn.com/window/welcome1.htm for some high-quality ultrasound footage of such.) It would be a bizarre stretch of the imagination to suggest that this organism is somehow “not alive.”
Fifth, the unborn fetus is perfectly capable of surviving — in its natural habitat, the womb. If we were to submerge an unprotected adult in a vat of amniotic fluid, that person would not survive either. Does this make that person any less alive?
And sixth, why should independent survival be used as the indicator that someone is alive? Its ability to survive means nothing more than that – its ability to survive. Besides, as you yourself admitted, a newborn child can not survive without parental attention either, so this standard does not appear to have any consistent grounding.
For the sake of argument, I’ll say that this might be a bit of a one-sided view, as what it really talks about is not when the infant first experiences pain, but rather when the infant is first witnessed to experience pain, which might not be the same thing.
By ‘pain’ I think she was referring to the process of womb to world and its suspected traumas. At least that is how I have always interpreted it. The process of leaving the perfection of the womb to experience the initial draft, open it’s eyes to fluorescent lighting surrounded by masked nurses and the hustle and bustle of a delivery room. Being pulled away from the mother for a dose of eye drops, a quick sponge bath, a trip the scale for weight and length, etc. I think a logical speculation would be that some form of fear and anxiety would be a natural reaction to such vulnerability. After a newborn calms down from the initial squawking, one can’t help but notice that ‘what the hell just happened to me’ expression they appear to have on their little scrunched face.
), persons (what Cirocco Jones calls ‘those willing to take part in the human race’)