Categories Are Meaningful: Pro-Choice or Pro-Life

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Categories Are Meaningful: Pro-Choice or Pro-Life

Common sense or, as cognitive science labels it, folk theory informs us that "all things are a kind of thing". All things have in common with other things certain characteristics; i.e. all things belong in categories with other like things. Things are categorized together based upon what they have in common. It might be worth while to think of category as being a container.

In classical or conventional terms we categorize things in accordance with what are regarded as being that which is essential to that kind of thing. All things that are essentially the same fall into the same category. What is essential to a tree is that which is necessary and sufficient for that thing to be classified as a tree. To categorize a thing, i.e. define a thing, is to give its essential characteristics.

In some way or another all creatures must categorize. At a minimum all creatures must distinguish friend from foe or eat and not eat. Categorization is part of the fundamental needs for survival of the creature. If the mouse mistakes a snake for a stick that mouse becomes toast; the same categorization problem applies to the lion and to the man.

Categorization is meaningful. Meaning is not a thing; something is meaningful for a creature only when there is an association between that thing and the creature. "Meaningfulness derives from the experience of functioning as a being of a certain sort in an environment of a certain sort." It is meaningful to a soldier when s/he mistakenly categorizes a tank to be only a harmless tree or an enemy to be a friend.

There is nothing more meaningful for a creatures' survival than correct categorization of the world in which that creature lives.

When does a human female egg fertilized by a human male sperm become a person?

Quotes from "Metaphors We Live By" George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

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Re: Categories Are Meaningful: Pro-Choice or Pro-Life

coberst wrote:

When does a human female egg fertilized by a human male sperm become a person?

Sometime after the maximum term at which abortion is legal in your jurisidiction.

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Re: Categories Are Meaningful: Pro-Choice or Pro-Life

contrex wrote:

coberst wrote:
When does a human female egg fertilized by a human male sperm become a person?

Sometime after the maximum term at which abortion is legal in your jurisidiction.

This implies that one is only a 'person' if one has been granted legal rights by the government.

So in the many countries around the world where groups of humans are denied legal rights by their government (for whatever cause), are they then no longer 'persons' ?

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Depends on the criteria required to be included in the "person" category. IMO, sentience is the primary criterion. Sentience is not possible prior to 24 weeks gestation because the necessary neural connections have not been made.

You could also argue that a defining criterion for personhood is the ability to interact with other human beings and recognize yourself as one of them. If so, a fetus cannot be included in the person category until it is born. But dogs might also be sentient, they interact with us and some seem to think that they are human, so other criteria would be needed if you want to exclude them.

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So does a person in a coma lose their 'personhood' since they cannot

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interact with other human beings and recognize yourself as one of them

What about a sleeping person?

An unconscious drunk?

Someone who has been knocked unconscious by a mugger?

Can the mugger kill his unconscious victim because the victim is 'no longer a person'?

C'mon Terry.

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real life, the question was worded in a certain way. It asked

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When does a human female egg fertilized by a human male sperm become a person?

so why are you bringing in people in comas, drunks, mugging victims etc? Please butt out and attend an anti abortion rally someplace.

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Terry wrote:

Depends on the criteria required to be included in the "person" category. IMO, sentience is the primary criterion. Sentience is not possible prior to 24 weeks gestation because the necessary neural connections have not been made.

You could also argue that a defining criterion for personhood is the ability to interact with other human beings and recognize yourself as one of them. If so, a fetus cannot be included in the person category until it is born. But dogs might also be sentient, they interact with us and some seem to think that they are human, so other criteria would be needed if you want to exclude them.

Some people use theology to determine this category of personhood while others use science and other sources.

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People have been born; foetuses haven't.

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Real life, people who are asleep, drunk, or unconscious have already achieved personhood, and have not lost the ability to interact even if they are not currently exercising it. Some comas (and death) permanently remove the ability for conscious interaction and I would no longer consider them persons.

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Terry wrote:

Some comas ..... permanently remove the ability for conscious interaction and I would no longer consider them persons.

So how do you know if someone has lost that ability?

Some people have come out of coma after decades.

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Brain scans and diagnostic tools, such as the Glasgow coma scale. There are different levels of coma depending on where and how the brain damage occurred. If the consciousness-producing parts of the brain are destroyed, they will remain in a vegetative state until they die. If vital parts of the brain are injured but not destroyed and they are in a minimally conscious state, recovery may occur if the brain heals or new neural connections are made.

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I would point out that none of us here know the point at which life begins for a feotus - it could be at birth, or it could be earlier. If earlier, then how much earlier.

The definition of life would also be involved (in the case of the original question, I would think that having life is synonymous with 'being a person')

And does anyone honestly think that a childs brain suddenly becomes capable of 'being/thinking/experiencing' only after it exits the womb? Aas far as I can see, the only difference should be that what it experiences after birth is a whole new world (and a whole new way of breathing).

So to me, the only question that exists, which I haven't seen either side answer, is coberts question - when does a feotus become human / have life.

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Terry wrote:

Brain scans and diagnostic tools, such as the Glasgow coma scale. There are different levels of coma depending on where and how the brain damage occurred. If the consciousness-producing parts of the brain are destroyed, they will remain in a vegetative state until they die. If vital parts of the brain are injured but not destroyed and they are in a minimally conscious state, recovery may occur if the brain heals or new neural connections are made.

Ah, that's the rub, isn't it?

Persons formerly thought to be PVS come out of coma, and we discover that we really don't know as much of the brain's function and it's ability to heal as we thought.

Meanwhile, would you pull the plug on someone if they were diagnosed as PVS?

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Humans categorize both consciously and unconsciously; all other creatures categorize only unconsciously.

The important matter that needs attention are these unconscious categories and the brain processes associated with them that are part of the animal nature that we humans inherit.

When we learn how categories are created by our ancestors, the other animals, we will better understand why we do what we do. The empirical work done in the last 30 years by cognitive science has uncovered these matters and we are now in the position to better understand our brain activities as we try to comprehend the world we live in.

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Anti-choice, Anti-life. In some cases abortions should be mandatory.

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Hanno,

If a man kills a pregnant woman, has he committed one murder, or two?

Are you aware that an increasing number of states will prosecute for two?

Quote:

Ex-Husband Charged In KCK Deaths

POSTED: 5:17 pm CST February 5, 2008

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Three murder charges were filed Tuesday against Andrew Guerrero in the deaths of his ex-wife, her daughter and her unborn child.

Guerrero, 23, was charged with capital murder and two counts of first-degree murder. Guerrero also faces earlier charges of aggravated interference with parental custody and burglary

Police said Nicolette Lyons-Reed, 23, and her 8-month-old daughter, Leah Lyons-Reed, were found shot to death Sunday morning in their home in the 2000 block of South 10th Terrace.

Tuesday, officials confirmed that Lyons-Reed was pregnant and in her first trimester. Prosecutors used Alexa's Law to charge Guerrero in the death of an unborn child.

full story at http://www.kmbc.com/news/15226792/detail.html

I would be interested to know what Terry and other pro-abortion folks have to say about this also.

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I could see where it would depend on the womans intentions or lack there of to give birth, and that either way calling it two is a valid generalization.

But if mommy decides to end it, I mean, if a bum needed some of my blood to live and I said no, who could blame me? Just because the symbiotic relationship is part of a woman's traditional role in society I don't see why it's so sacred. I find the whole thing insensitive toward bums. And that's worst case scenario, person vs. person, whereas unless there's a little mysticism in your thinking, there's got to be a point before which the abortee is not a person...

OK, so the mandatory abortion thing I said was mainly rhetorical - but with unfit mothers, and birth defects, and overpopulation, you get my drift, if someone choses abortion why argue?

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If its not your child, its not your choice.

Sorry, my libertarianism is showing.

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hanno wrote:

I could see where it would depend on the womans intentions or lack there of to give birth, and that either way calling it two is a valid generalization.

But if mommy decides to end it, I mean, if a bum needed some of my blood to live and I said no, who could blame me? Just because the symbiotic relationship is part of a woman's traditional role in society I don't see why it's so sacred. I find the whole thing insensitive toward bums. And that's worst case scenario, person vs. person, whereas unless there's a little mysticism in your thinking, there's got to be a point before which the abortee is not a person...

OK, so the mandatory abortion thing I said was mainly rhetorical - but with unfit mothers, and birth defects, and overpopulation, you get my drift, if someone choses abortion why argue?

Taking a passive attitude toward assisting a stranger (a bum) ..............

.........and taking active measures to slice the body of the unborn limb from limb with a scalpel and suck it out with a vacuum cleaner ......

........................are two different things.

Do you understand the difference between active and passive?

But the real question, as you touched upon it, is:

EXACTLY when does the unborn become a person?

Do you know?

If not, doesn't it make sense to allow the benefit of the doubt, rather than recklessly going forward and exterminating (what even you admit) could be a human life?

Forget mysticism. If man has no 'spirit' or 'soul' , then the body is all there is, right?

On that basis, the unborn is as human as he is ever going to be.

Why is it human 'if mommy decides she wants it' and NOT human 'if mommy decides she doesn't want it' ?

The attitude of the woman cannot be a rational basis for deciding if one is a living human being or not.

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curtis73 wrote:

If its not your child, its not your choice.

Sorry, my libertarianism is showing.

OK, so if someone is raped, or beaten, or murdered, or scammed, it's not your concern as long as it's not you.

Is that what your libertarianism teaches?

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Categories Are Meaningful: Pro-Choice or Pro-Life

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