Case #503 against blind faith--Stem Cell Research

real life wrote:

Anon-Voter wrote:
You boys and girls just keep pounding away with your religious tripe. Pretty soon, everyone is going to get tired of your BS!! Don't be real surprised when people in general start hating your guts!

Anon

Do you presume to speak for everyone?

If all you are looking forward to is the day when you can convince more people to hate, then maybe you should turn off the TV, log off of barbrastreisand.com for a while and go out to meet a few folks who think differently than you.

Ah, the Christian faithful making homophobic remarks. So much for the Christian faithful ... everything I've been saying has just been emphasized. You indeed are a pitiful little speck of humanity. So much for all your self-righteous whining! You're hilarious!!

Anon

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Einherjar wrote:

echi wrote:
Einherjar--

What marks the beginning of consciousness?

Dunno exactly, but brainwaves are mesurable. I think we can safely rule out consciousness without brainwaves, in which case a blastocyst would certainly not be conscious.

Thanks, Einherjar. I had to really think about this one.
I agree that there are (obviously) no brainwaves, as there is no brain. However, there surely must exist some kind of similar activity to brainwaves, some type of electrical/chemical activity, as a precursor to brain activity. Question

Conscious awakening must develop in stages, just as it continues to develop as a person grows into adulthood. I can think of no other point at which this development might begin than when the sperm and oocyte join to form a genetically unique human zygote.

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I'll have another go at explaining my position. I'm not so much ethically concerned with human life as I am with human experience, hence, to me, killing a chimera, someone with two genetic blueprints but only one mind, would constitute only one murder while killing a pair of identical twins, twins developed from a single genetically distinct zygote, would constitute two. I do not consider myself ethically obligated to respect the rights of a foot, even if it is genetically distinkt from the rest of the body. Since I consider myself ethically obligated to consider the experiences of others, not their lives, it should come as no great surprise that I do not confer rights upon humans that have not yet become experiencing entities, or upon humans that will experience no more (read in a permanent vegetative state).

And no, I don't think there is any sort of brain activity until brainwaves commence. If there is though, it doesn't affect my argument.

So, if those tiny little human blastocysts don't experience, and never will, what is the harm in using them for research with the goal of enhancing the quality of life for those experiencing humans inhabiting this planet? Why should we confer rights upon them?

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Einherjar--

I am certain that I have experiences, but I cannot be certain of the same for anyone else. No description of "experience" will succeed in explaining why or how it is perceived.
I assume that a lady walking down the street has experiences because I assume that she is similar to me, at least to that degree.
I assume that a toddler has a somewhat different manner of experience and a newborn, an even greater difference.
I might explain these differences by pointing out that the newborn, the toddler, and myself each has a brain at a unique stage of development from the others.
I can even assume, rather safely, that a fetus also has experiences. (My sister, the mother of two, claims she had a sense of her children's personalities, prior to their births, based on how they moved around.)
We know that all of the potential, the innate ability to become an adult human, is present within that tiny glob of cells (which is why it is so treasured). Everything is there. It is a human being at an early stage of development.
There is no solid, scientific reason to think that a human at this stage does not experience "reality". So, considering what's at stake, why should we make that assumption?

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echi wrote:

There is no solid, scientific reason to think that a human at this stage does not experience "reality". So, considering what's at stake, why should we make that assumption?

Yes, there is. It has no brain waves, no brain, no heart, no organs, and no possible way of even registering any experience whatsoever. That seems pretty solid to me. You, however have not shown one iota of scientific evidence that this little bundle of cells is a human being that can experience anything. You are guessing.

On the other hand, we know that people with spinal abnormalities, cancer, and a whole host of other problems do have the experience of having to go through the pain of their afflictions, and even die excruciatingly painful deaths because of them.

You'd put this unformed bundle of cells' needs over that?

Sorry, but I don't see how that is ethical at all.

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kickycan wrote:

echi wrote:
There is no solid, scientific reason to think that a human at this stage does not experience "reality". So, considering what's at stake, why should we make that assumption?

Yes, there is. It has no brain waves, no brain, no heart, no organs, and no possible way of even registering any experience whatsoever. That seems pretty solid to me. You, however have not shown one iota of scientific evidence that this little bundle of cells is a human being that can experience anything. You are guessing.

So are you.

Quote:

On the other hand, we know that people with spinal abnormalities, cancer, and a whole host of other problems do have the experience of having to go through the pain of their afflictions, and even die excruciatingly painful deaths because of them.

You'd put this unformed bundle of cells' needs over that?

It is not an "unformed bundle of cells". It is a forming bundle of cells, just like every other living being.

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Amen echi.

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echi wrote:

kickycan wrote:
echi wrote:
There is no solid, scientific reason to think that a human at this stage does not experience "reality". So, considering what's at stake, why should we make that assumption?

Yes, there is. It has no brain waves, no brain, no heart, no organs, and no possible way of even registering any experience whatsoever. That seems pretty solid to me. You, however have not shown one iota of scientific evidence that this little bundle of cells is a human being that can experience anything. You are guessing.
So are you.

I think you are stretching the meaning of the word "guess" to the point of absurdity.

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kickycan wrote:

echi wrote:
There is no solid, scientific reason to think that a human at this stage does not experience "reality". So, considering what's at stake, why should we make that assumption?

Yes, there is. It has no brain waves, no brain, no heart, no organs, and no possible way of even registering any experience whatsoever. That seems pretty solid to me. You, however have not shown one iota of scientific evidence that this little bundle of cells is a human being that can experience anything. You are guessing.

On the other hand, we know that people with spinal abnormalities, cancer, and a whole host of other problems do have the experience of having to go through the pain of their afflictions, and even die excruciatingly painful deaths because of them.

You'd put this unformed bundle of cells' needs over that?

Sorry, but I don't see how that is ethical at all.

Whether the unborn can be said to 'experience' something is really beside the point.

Can a person in a coma 'experience' to your satisfaction? If not, is it ok to kill them and harvest their organs?

The point is not 'experience' or 'consciousness'.

The unborn is a living human being. As such he deserves protection from being used as your science fair exhibit/experiment.

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A person in a coma has brain activity.

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kickycan wrote:

A person in a coma has brain activity.

Not enough to suit some folks. They use it as a rationale to end the life and harvest the organs.

His 'experience' or state of 'consciousness' in these folks' opinion is not enough to warrant protecting him, so he is fair game if a family member wants his money or if he is just too much trouble to care for.

The amount or level of 'experience' or 'consciousness' is not the same as a definition of life.

A living human being is the issue, not how much he 'experiences' or how well, by someone else's standard.

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real life wrote:

Whether the unborn can be said to 'experience' something is really beside the point.

Not to me it isn't, I confer personhood according to that characteristic.

real life wrote:

Can a person in a coma 'experience' to your satisfaction? If not, is it ok to kill them and harvest their organs?

Personhood is, as far as I am concerned, conferred upon the mind of the individual, and is retained for as long as that mind retains the capacity for human experience (at present or in the future).

I would approve of harvesting the organs of people in permanent vegetative states who have not signed legal documents to the contrary.

real life wrote:

The point is not 'experience' or 'consciousness'.

The unborn is a living human being. As such he deserves protection from being used as your science fair exhibit/experiment.

Again, I reject your axiom that personhood should be conferred upon conception, and introduce my own, that consciousness or capacity to experience should form an additional requirement.

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real life wrote:

kickycan wrote:
A person in a coma has brain activity.
Not enough to suit some folks. They use it as a rationale to end the life and harvest the organs.

His 'experience' or state of 'consciousness' in these folks' opinion is not enough to warrant protecting him, so he is fair game if a family member wants his money or if he is just too much trouble to care for.

The amount or level of 'experience' or 'consciousness' is not the same as a definition of life.

No it isn't, and you're missing the point. I hold that it is more intuitive to tie rights to human minds than to cellular strains. A genetically distinct human finger is but a human finger is but a human finger, and no rights should be conferred upon it. Meanwhile, upon a single strain of human cells, deveoped into two fully functional humans, two seta of rights should be conferred.

Quote:

A living human being is the issue, not how much he 'experiences' or how well, by someone else's standard.

When to confer personhood is the issue, there is no reason that would have to be at the beginning of life.

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I submit that none of you can show proof of when brain activity starts to occur.

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echi wrote:

I submit that none of you can show proof of when brain activity starts to occur.

Yes thank you Echi for anticipating my point.

A person using Einherjar's standard will inevitably condone the killing of someone that should have been recognized as a person by that very standard.

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I think that scientists can test to see if there is brain activity. Maybe I'm wrong on that. Einherjar? Do you know?

It really has nothing to do with the stem-cell research debate though, since a blastocyst has no brain, and therefore no brain acitivity.

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kickycan wrote:

I think that scientists can test to see if there is brain activity. Maybe I'm wrong on that. Einherjar? Do you know?

It really has nothing to do with the stem-cell research debate though, since a blastocyst has no brain, and therefore no brain acitivity.

And evidence of consciousness is not necessary for a living human being to be deserving of protection and preservation of life, at the very least.

Einherjar is in favor of bumping off folks in comas and cutting their organs out before the flesh is cold.

What about folks who have come out of comas after long periods of time?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-07-09-coma-usat_x.htm

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/12/earlyshow/main673662.shtml

Using Einherjar's rationale, these people would have been exterminated.

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Einherjar's logic is a little bit too on the extreme end, but so is yours, RL.

The blastocyst does not have a brain, as of yet. Furthermore, any damage you do to a blastocyst can be potentially undone if done properly.

Besides, ES cells come from IVF. They were either going to be kept frozen or destroyed. It would be impossible to have the mother bear them all, not least because the majority of them would spontaneously abort if you put them in her womb anyway.

So, what are you going to do? Put them in the mother and let them spontaneously abort (the more likely option), put them in the mother and burden her with way too many children than she can take (the least likely option) or use them for medical use?

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How does a blastocyst not have a brain? No one even knows what a brain is, anyway.

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echi wrote:

I submit that none of you can show proof of when brain activity starts to occur.

I did a google search, and came up with this:

http://accessible.ninds.nih.gov/news_and_events/press_releases/pressrelease_fetal_brain_scanning_090502.htm

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,54944,00.html

It would seem that fetal brainwaves can indeed be detected, and though the method is not entirely reliable, repeated measurements should at least give us an inkling as to when brain activity gets going.

To my understanding the brain takes a while to organize, in which brain activity occurs, before we can speak of any sentience or consciousness. That is where I would like to draw the line, I only suggested reliable brain activity as a testable boundry located on the "safe side" of consciousness and sentience.

My point though is that I intuitively assign personhood based upon this crtiteria, and find any proposed criteria for assignment that requires splitting a realised person in order to account for identical twins, and merging realized persons in order to account for chimeras deeply counterintuitive. Seriously, how do you deal with those phenomenons working from the pro-life premise?

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Case #503 against blind faith--Stem Cell Research

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