164 replies to this topic

[Lazarus Long]

I seek to demarcate the status of a fetus from that of a more mature human, using brain development as the distinction. I've read that sentience arises between the second and third trimester, somewhere between 3-6 months into the pregnancy (more likely closer to the latter stage). This seems like a reasonable point at which to stop offering abortions, except in cases where a mother's health is at significant risk.

IN the other thread you mentioned I went out on a limb and offered a standard of sentience dependent on *self awareness*. Would you be so kind as to join me on that limb and contribute your own measures to that litmus test?

I think to start with if we are going to use a quality of cognizance we leave ourselves open to dispute because of the subjectivity for that quality. That is perhaps the more tangible appeal of biology over psychology in this analysis.

Anyone can see cells divide however we are on thin ice when testing for the presence of a *person*. *Personhood* is a pretty intangible quality and that is why I suspect this discussion is served best by starting with trying to create such a measure directly and separating them by objective and subjective character as to the ability to test them.


Thoughts?

[jaydfox]

Well, the first thought that comes to mind is, how should we err in the grey area?

For example, an embryo of six weeks is only beginning to form cells that will in the coming week or so resemble a pack of neurons that will be the CNS. (I could be off a week or so, I'm not an embryologist).

So prior to six weeks, there isn't even anything to contain a basic mind, let alone a self-aware mind.

On the other hand, a full-term fetus is essentially the same as a newborn, minus the trauma of birth (which would be negligible in case of a Caesarian anyway), so full-term (36 or 37 weeks considered the safe point for birth, even though 40 weeks is technically full term) would be the latest such cutoff if we're going to assume that killing a newborn after full-term pregnancy is wrong.

So, between 6 and 36 weeks, where do we draw the line? Freedom of choice dictates we set the cutoff as late as possible (36 weeks). Respect for life dictates we set the cutoff as early as possible (6 weeks). A compromise (without further knowledge, see below) would allow some time in between.

Of course, further information allows us to refine the 6-36 week window, but there will still be a grey area for decades to come. So to which side should we as a society err? Do we put the choice of the mother before society's concern for protecting life against involuntary slaughter? This is a real dilemma, because let's say we narrow the range to 14-22 weeks, for example. That's a broad range, and it's critical if we are going to respect life that we err on the side of life. I'd rather be wrong (i.e. that something much closer to the 22-week limit is safe) and have on my conscience that I violated a woman's right to choose, than to have erred in her favor and been wrong (i.e. that something much closer to the 14-week limit is safe), and essentially permitted her to commit murder (even if of a lesser "degree", and I don't mean the degrees used in the legal system).

Society currently is strongly leaning towards erring on the side of freedom of choice, and this has been based largely, to my limited knowledge, on the assumption that science offers no opinion on personhood, and religion is not a valid justification for restrictions. I agree on the latter point, but the former point was only even remotely valid in 1973, and completely off base today.

Thoughts?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

When considering the value of an embryo, it may be useful to do so in light of the value you place on a cryonically preserved body. I will show that the embryo, from its earliest stages, has a radically more powerful potential for sentience than a cryonically preserved body. I am not doing this to belittle the value of the cryonically preserved body, which does deserve deep respect, but I am doing this to shed some light on the often neglected value of the embryo.

From the moment of fertilisation, a vast multitude of advanced processes are immediately orchestrated to drive the embryo straight ahead, nonstop, on the path to sentience.

I've read that sentience arises between the second and third trimester, somewhere between 3-6 months into the pregnancy (more likely closer to the latter stage).

So, the embryo has reached its goal of sentience within six months. In less than thirty years, the embryo has an excellent chance of being a highly intelligent and highly productive member of society. This whole time, the cryonically preserved body is likely to remain a lifeless collection of severely damaged cells, costing much to maintain, and being totally devoid of even the slightest trace of sentience.

For instance, perhaps more intelligent self-aware animal species are entitled to more basic rights, backed up by stricter enforcement. Ideally medical research wouldn't require animal testing, but since it still does, ethical guidelines can help reduce possible pain and suffering.

At six months of age, a dog has eye-muscle coordination and survival skills that far exceed that of a six month old child. Is a six month old child less of a person than a dog?

One may argue that a cryonically preserved brain is filled with a vast treasury of information that is not present in an embryo. However, this does little to help the case of the cryonically preserved brain because the living population contains a vastly greater treasury of information and is continually passing it on to new generations.

[DJS]

Is a six month old child less of a person than a dog?

This is along the lines of the point I wanted to bring up. I had a rather long, indepth debate over what constituted "personhood" in my ethics class. There are loopholes all over the place on this issue, but I think the strongest argument that can be made is that, as Lazarus mentions, "personhood" IS self awareness.

Now the problem with this stance is that, although self awareness is not present during gestation, it also not present directly after birth either. Which leads us to the question, is it okay to kill a 6 month old? --- How about a one year old? --- An 18 month old??

Heh, it definitely brings to bear that "yuck factor" for us, doesn't it? And of course we can't bring up the infant's "potential" for personhood because that leads us right back to the potentiality argument regarding the zygote. So is killing a young infant okay? And if so (hypothetically), then where would the cut off be that separated personhood from nonpersonhood?

Fortunately I believe there is an unequivocal point in the life cycle that can act as a distinctive "line in the sand"; and that is at the moment of birth. Now mind you, I am not saying that the moment of birth defines personhood. I believe that the formation of personhood is a blurry, grey area -- and this may always be the case. What needs to be kept in mind however, is that the reason why it is permissible to destroy "potential" human life in the first place is that its rights and privileges are superseded by the rights of the mother -- an actual person.

Once an individual is born (and is external and separate from the mother) there is no longer a justifiable reason to destroy the "potential" personhood. The preservation of a "potential" person's existence (and potential future value to society) thus falls under the jurisdiction of the state.

In this way, personhood does not have to be defined, only what constitutes (1) *non-personhood* and (2) the dividing line between individual and state interests.

[Lazarus Long]

Laz, I do think we can objectively identify sentience and consciousness. A brain scan of some sort could conceivably pickup the unique pattern indicative of both, ocsrazor could correct me on this point if I'm wrong. Granted these technologies don't exist today,...

Cosmos that is my point as well. That they don't exist yet does not mean however they won't exist. I do agree that trying to define consciousness is not the only problem though because along with the technologies to define it will come the means or nursing the earliest phases of embryonic development to maturity.

but our best bet for respecting life without infringing on rights would be an objective assessment of brain development (or equivalent analysis of another substrate), as well capacity, and capability. I'm being intentionally vague, because I'm limited by my knowledge in these areas.

Even the experts should qualify their statements in this area because the knowledgeable divide between what qualifies one to claim to be expert and what makes a person merely a curious explorer of this question is both all we know and all we still do not. This is still one of those wonderful mysterious areas that we can see but still not touch.

The more important question IMHO is about human rights and I will add dignity. I suggest we go a step further because we should also perhaps take a step back and attempt the rational redefinition of Human Rights without any appeal to the divine. Such appeals do not help to solve the social dilemmas raised by such advanced technologies.

Invisible judges are not useful for making socially acceptable decisions and even less helpful for interpretating social law in the form of instructions to our popular jury.

Perhaps personhood was a poor choice of words, it may indeed be too subjective and intangible.

Exactly. First lets define intelligence, then cognition, then perhaps our use of the terms awareness would be relevant and certainly the self. Person-hood could be definable for AI as easily as a human by most definitions without an appeal to biology.

It may be wrong to ask, when is a fetus, human? But instead, when has the brain sufficiently matured (with the key development of consciousness and/or sentience) to the point at which aborting the fetus under normal circumstances becomes unethical?

Yes here I not only agree but much to the chagrin of folks like my friend Randolfe vehemently emphasize that the real debate about ESC versus ASC for SCNT fundamentally revolves around this issue. At some point intent must also enter the discussion.

Why we are manipulating the cells matters. The possible results of that manipulation are important because otherwise as absurd as it sounds any skin cell could be granted the same value as a fetus.

Also the debate is a pragmatic one of utilitarian, or even draconian measure because it is also about when do the needs of the adult, or the family, or even the community outweigh the rights of the individual fetus?

Shall we consider the mother a slave to her body and the eggs within?

Should her rights and the rights of her family to a better life be subjugated to the needs of yet unborn children?

The sanctity of life is at issue but in some respects what Clifford alludes to is not perhaps the answer he wants; by the standards of the sanctity of life all life is equivalent. What allows any exception is that each species makes its own take precedent over the others in the competition understood as Natural Selection.

Are we humans up to leaving Natural Selection behind in our development along with its corollary, Social Darwinism?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

(I posted this without reading the previous two replies.)

A cryonically preserved patient once was alive, presumably providing intent behind this preservation. We're fairly sure the people cryonically preserved today would've wanted to be reanimated. I respect that decision. If a woman chooses to develop an embryo within her, I would respect her decision. However, an embryo on it's own has no intent. It is programmed to develop into a baby if nourishment is provided. I reject the potentiality argument as I understand it.

Time is symmetric. A cryonically preserved patient had a desire to live in the past. That desire is nonexistent in the present. If never reaminated, the patient will never have that desire again. An embryo will have a desire to live in the future unless stopped dead in his tracks.

From the very beginning, the embryo is in hot pursuit of sentience, orchestrating a vast complex of amazingly advanced processes to get him there. The cryonic patient is in a retarded pursuit of decay.

[Lazarus Long]

Allowing an unwanted pregnancy to go into a third trimester is the height of folly, ignorance, hubris, negligence, extreme procrastination and/or all of the above. I understand a woman should rightfully be torn in her decision but first we should grant respect that it is her decision. Then all the various interests with all of their promises and demands should stand off to the side while respectfully contributing to her process of evaluation and remember to both honor it one way or another and encourage it in a *timely* manner.

There really is no excuse for infanticide and frankly the self awareness tests used till now are ambiguous and do provide some inkling that a new born is self aware. They can recognize their own reflection in a mirror pretty early on and certainly are aware of their mothers' voice since late fetal development. Nobody gets to make this decision easy. I tend to agree with both Don and Cosmos on this, birth is the line in the sand but we need to also be honest and admit that it is an arbitrary distinction because with modern technology we may soon be able to assume life support for a fetus right after conception and carry the fetus to term artificially. Research on creating an artificial womb proceeds unabated and probably will be successful within the decade.

Also it ignores the ethical quandary of making conception the legal standard as that would not only make rational abortion illegal but morning after pills and even contraception (as preventing potentiality). This is not merely a minefield it is where no rational person treads politically if they know what is good for them.

Technology however makes the ethical issues take precedence over the convenience of ignorance. No one is an innocent bystander to this debate. The same level of technology that allows us to determine beforehand the potentiality of the clones for SCNT is the technology that probably can allow us to eventually eliminate the need for a woman to even carry the fetus.

The real point of potentiality is intention. It is the INTENT for this *potential* that brings the question back to a choice of the already living over the fate of those yet conceived and a concept of conception that is the creation of those with the ability to do so, ALONG WITH THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CHOICE!

The ethics of this debate need to be turned away from absolute measures that are not only irrational but rapidly being overtaken by technological possibility that alters the playing field faster than points can be scored by either side.

I don't agree with Don's basic scenario because the issue is that some criteria for person-hood probably exists for late term fetuses but I also think some argument for person-hood can also be made for a significant number of higher order mammals in response to Clifford.

So I will raise a different quandary that should hammer home the ethical debate into an area that any ethicist should find themselves uneasy and if they are not they are not particularly ethical.

Should mentally impaired fetuses be allowed to go to term?

If intelligence and self awareness becomes a standard of person-hood this rapidly becomes a serious dilemma, especially as the question of human rights is in play, compounded by the rapidly less intrusive way we can not only test the fetus for developmental concerns but even predict the outcome based upon parental genetics.

This is not a joke and is already a serious social concern that comes along with sex selection and designer characteristics but I must frankly ask: What sane and loving parent would INTENTIONALLY bring a Downs Syndrome or other seriously impaired child into this world?

Now who is cruel, draconian, selfish and unethical?

[Lazarus Long]

From the very beginning, the embryo is in hot pursuit of sentience, orchestrating a vast complex of amazingly advanced processes to get him there. The cryonic patient is in a retarded pursuit of decay.

And birth is the leading cause of death by this argument Clifford and should be immediately stopped. [glasses]

Is life to be defined by a bell curve or a continuum?

Even if we have been trapped in one condition should we now accept this as *fate* if we can alter, or transcend these limitations?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

An embryo is in hot pursuit of nothing, it is in desire of nothing, you seem to be personifying embryos.

A dog embryo is not a person. A human embryo is a person. What is wrong with personifying a person?

The cryonics patient had intent, as well as some paper work as evidence of that intent. Money was exchanged, some sort of agreement was made, and the cryonics company understood it's obligation to keep this person in cryonic suspension until/if progress facilitates reanimation or the company goes bankrupt with no means of saving it's patients (whichever comes first).

The legal obligation is no less if money is paid to have a dog cryonically preserved. My question is, "How does the value of the embryo compare to the value of the cryonic patient?"

We can make a person temporarily unconscious and non-sentient, but one's intent when awake (in the past) remains important. If I chose to cut life support or injected substances to stop the heart, I can end one person's life who chose otherwise but could not object at the time.

Likewise, the embryo cannot verbally object to being killed in its early stages but would very likely object at a later time. Interestingly, the Silent Scream shows an embryo objecting rather strongly to being killed.

[Lazarus Long]

Clifford ethical systems established under environmental conditions which left no real alternative for choice cannot be compared to ones where choice exits.

The dilemma you face is that technology is creating options that never really existed before and that makes intent more important than potential. Like I said potential could be argued for skin cells and even reproductive cloning doesn't have to be considered a selfish act. Raise somebody else's clone, or even pay back your parents by raising their clones.

Your arguments of what might seem to suggest that an embryo has more rights than those already alive by virtue of it being at the beginning of a life cycle but this empty rhetoric based on that bell curve view of diminishing returns. Is an infant more important than an elder?

You are creating false dichotomies.

Are those alive more important that those who only might be?

On the issue of *person-hood* I refuse to grant a definition that is a priori human, as I already suggested by introducing AI to the discussion but the additional dilemma for you is that it also may apply to a number of other higher order mammals. Would you grant them person-hood too?

This really isn't about domesticated species of pets, though if we uplift their intelligence quotients it certainly will be.

The question of infanticide was only seriously an ethical dilemma by impoverished primitives living so close to the land that times of famine made them have to choose between starving the living or killing the new born. A wolf pack's choice.

It is only acceptable if the *option* to do otherwise were not available. Once stable crops and then contraception became available it ensured that infanticide like other forms of human sacrifice were obsolete and could be rendered exclusively into the categories of unacceptable behavior.

The example I raised that you ignored of intentionally bringing a physically handicapped child to term and then committing to raising that child can be construed to be a selfless act of love when no alternative exists to prevent such a condition. However once the technology exists to reliably detect and prevent such an occurrence it converts that previously selfless act of love into a form of selfishly negligent child cruelty. What changed was not the decision, it was the ability to reexamine intent with respect to newly developed options. Technology alters the parameters for ethical decision making because the ethics are not based on some objective natural law and an appeal to some preferred Divine Law is too subjective. It begs only more argument.

If we can alter natural process through technology the ethical debate shifts from what is the potential of a few cells to what is the intent of the applied technology? To what is the intention for the child not just the potential to be a child?

If the technology is to strengthen, improve, enhance, and generate a better standard of living to be shared by all then where is the harm?

If the intent is to convert embryos into mindless super soldiers or organ banks then of course we have a problem. If the technology existed to grow a human body without a brain from the embryo to when it could be farmed for parts would that be ethical?

I am not sure I have an easy answer to that one but I will say that it focuses the debate. Is the brain the critical aspect for this discussion?

If the intent were to raise a clone as a human child to the fullness of his or her capacity why is this qualitatively different than IVF?

Edited by Lazarus Long, 06 June 2005 - 01:10 AM.

[Lazarus Long]

BTW Clifford it is another false dichotomy to continue the debate over cryo here.

This is not an either/or scenario and more over the resources are not in competition. The real concern is a viable definition of when a growing clump of cells deserves rights and whether as even adults we can preserve them in an ever increasingly complex technocracy.

The issues Cosmos raised are about individual rights and the fetus, not whether a fetus has more, or less rights than a cryogenically preserved corpse.

Rather than insist on making that comparison how about just making the comparison one between a living octogenarian and a first trimester fetus?

Should the old person have to give up their life to make room for the fetus?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Support your claim. Why are human embryos people?

Unlike any other living organism, a human embryo has the genetics that only humans have. Of course, a snip of hair has the same genetics. However, a snip of hair is not a complete biological entity but only part of one. The human embryo is a complete biological entity and has full human genetics. It is both alive and is on the continuous path of a full human life.

The state doesn't recognize the value of cryonically preserved individuals, as far as I'm aware. I stated the situation as it is, not as it perhaps should be. A dog cannot indicate valid intent on such complicated issues.

As far as I am aware also, the state does not recognise the value of a cryonic patient. However, I think many members of the Immortality Institute view this issue much differently from the state.

All the examples I provided were of mature humans with developed brains, and with prior intent indicating what should happen to them when they are incapacitated.

As you said, the intent is prior. A cyronic patient has no present intent. Likewise, an embryo has a future intent. However, very much unlike the cryonic patient, the embryo is actively pursuing the course of a full life. This is actually a present intent.

Information exists in their brains, not the potential for information, or the potential for brains.

How much information exists in the brain of a one week old child compared to a one year old dog?

If you believe every embryo is a person, then why not store the information contained in an embryo on computer and then proceed to destroy the real embryo for research? If every embryo must be saved we'll save every embryo and be done with it. If you require each embryo that is saved to be developed to maturity, we will run their lifecycle in a simulation from birth to death.

Why not end everyone's life and let the world be run by computers?

[123456]

I am against abortion. The embryo has right to life as do the the zygote. As I recently posted in another section; "I believe that as soon as all the human Deoxyribonucleic acids fuse it is a human being and has a right to life.". Just because the individuals screwed up by having conception take place does not mean the child should pay for their mistakes. I hear the argument that it is the woman's body and she should be able to do what she wants in terms of getting an abortion. Wrong, the embryo she is killing has its own unique genetical makeup she and others involved would be responsible for exterminating a human being. This issue like others in our life comes down to belief.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Evidence suggests humans are not a final product, we likely evolved up to this point. A human is a shell without a brain. A brain that supports a mind, with a non-human vessel, could concievable recieve rights comparable to those of conventional humans.

Does the law of the land give the cryonically preserved brain of a mature human these same rights?

You believe something can have intent without a mind? Intent of it's own?

Intent is demonstrated by action. The embryo is fully equipped with all the information and all the means to develop to a mature human and is actively pursuing that goal. Here is a project for you. You have a laboratory with all the chemicals needed to compose a mature human. You have eleven years to use all the intelligence in your mind to use those chemicals to construct a healthy ten year old child. You have to manipulate those chemicals yourself. You are not allowed to let the let any natural genetic processes do the work for you. How far do you think you would get?

You also assume embryos have future intent when that intent hasn't been realized yet, whereas cryonics patients have confirmed past intent.

Again, you are talking about past intent. People change their minds. The cryonic patient had a past intent to live but does so no longer.

A child's brain development is unique to that of a one year old dog. I listed the brain and it's contained information as existing in a mature human where it would only potentially exist if an embryo was given the chance to develop.

Again, is the information contained in the brain of a cryonic patient any basis for legal rights according to the law of the land?

Unless you bring ensoulment at conception into this discussion, my hypothetical scenario is entirely consistent with the embryo is a person position. Such embryos could have their information stored on computer before they're destroyed for research. Then they could be reconstructed in the lab at the molecular level and developed to maturity, or given a simulated existance for a normal finite human lifespan (as percieved by the simulated individual).

A similar principle applies to the cryonic patient. In place of the high cost of maintaining a cryonic patient, ten embryos could be permitted to live and develop to maturity and could be well educated. Very much unlike your computer embryonic construction idea and very much ulike the technology to animate a cryonic patient, this requires no rocket science. At sufficient maturity, they will contain much more information than the cryonic patient. Also, the information they contain will be much more up to date.

[Lazarus Long]

(Clifford)
Intent is demonstrated by action. The embryo is fully equipped with all the information and all the means to develop to a mature human and is actively pursuing that goal.

Does a robot have intention?

Does a tree?

This is a false standard of intention. Intention is the result of the application of the will not simply autonomic and instinctive function.

Intentions are not demonstrated by action alone. In fact no action is required for there to be intention as any procrastinator can attest to. What is required for intention is reason; the ability to perform an act that shows consistent results in accord with rational motives.

Once there is such a union of method and logic then there is the search for and application of means. You cannot make any such assertion for a fetus such that it has goals simply because it functions biologically.

Action alone doesn't require intent at all it only requires causality; cause and effect. Unless you are appealing to some type of determinism that suggests it is possible to have free will for it is impossible to have *intention* if there exists no choice; only cause and effect. However if there exists a sufficient degree of freedom such that the will is possible to express then intent follows as an issue but it still cannot overrule natural law.

Your implied interpretation of intention also doesn't follow from the dictionary.

intent
n.
1.  Something that is intended; an aim or purpose. See Synonyms at intention.
2.  Law. The state of one's mind at the time one carries out an action.
3.  Meaning; purport.

adj.
Firmly fixed; concentrated: an intent gaze.
Having the attention applied; engrossed: The students, intent upon their books, did not hear me enter the room.
Having the mind and will focused on a specific purpose: was intent on leaving within the hour; are intent upon being recognized.

Is the goal of my skin to scar after an injury?

Is the goal of my hair and fingernails to lengthen daily even after I am dead?

(Clifford)
Again, you are talking about past intent. People change their minds. The cryogenic patient had a past intent to live but does so no longer.

Again Clifford this thread is not really about cryogenically preserved people, certainly not alone as a topic but perhaps about cryogenically preserved *tissues*. As tissues the intent follows a causal relationship back to why the action was undertaken to preserve them, whether as frozen embryos or adults, whether as frozen stem or skin cells.

The intentions belong not merely to the direct objects (if at all) but to the collection of individuals joined in the effort to create the result. This is not a single minded intent but the result of a collective endeavor. BTW, so is raising a family.

You are not really addressing the basics of intention.

A cryogenic patient can demonstrate intent through a *will* a mutually recognizable legal instrument with a consistent name. The fertilized zygote cannot.

Past intent is demonstrable not by action but by comparing the results in accord with a defined purpose. You are applying the logic of Intelligent Design by presumption in order to attempt to provide a fetus with such an act of will and claim that there exists a *purpose*.

What purpose?

To live?

Schopenhauer's "Will to life" or Darwin's "instinct for survival"?

This is qualitatively as valid for the infant as the terminal patient. This is not a conscious act for mindless cells or a corpse.

Are you suggesting it is not a role defined by instinct?

Perhaps one of design?

Whose design?

The zygote without a mind in the first trimester or some external actors like parents, extended family, and society?

Or perhaps you seem to imply a grand design from an undefined being?

If the last then what difference?

How is it possible to consider some grand design as a part of our decision making when as natural laws they cannot be overruled or violated and as divine laws are not really subject to review, appeal or repeal?

http://dictionary.re...?r=67&q=Purpose
purpose
n.
1.  The object toward which one strives or for which something exists; an aim or a goal: “And ever those, who would enjoyment gain/Must find it in the purpose they pursue” (Sarah Josepha Hale).
2.  A result or effect that is intended or desired; an intention. See Synonyms at intention.
3.  Determination; resolution: He was a man of purpose.
4.  The matter at hand; the point at issue.

tr.v. purposed, purposing, purposes
To intend or resolve to perform or accomplish.

Idioms:
on purpose
Intentionally; deliberately.
to good purpose
With good results.
to little/no purpose
With few or no results.

The importance of results are not to determine whether or not purpose exists. It is to demonstrate the consistency and quality of purpose with respect to results as the measure of intent.

Action-reaction is simply cause and effect, determinism and consequence; for there to be implied a purpose there must exist a will. The analysis of results are how we determine if a given action is an example of intended or unintended consequence or simply the result of accident or associative incident. There must be demonstrable *design*, not merely as form and structure but as *explanation* along with a plan for an action to be assigned a purpose.

Are you perhaps suggesting that there exists some purpose for genetic disease?

Some possible "goodness" that needs to be accepted perhaps?

Or some blame that results is a "deserved suffering" for a child to endure?

What purpose does a microbe have by infecting a patient?

To survive and thrive?

Or perhaps you are suggesting some grand design beyond natural selection for disease as well?

[eternaltraveler]

(Clifford)

(cosmos)

You also assume embryos have future intent when that intent hasn't been realized yet, whereas cryonics patients have confirmed past intent.

Again, you are talking about past intent. People change their minds. The cryonic patient had a past intent to live but does so no longer.

The situation is the same for a person under deep anesthesia. Their consciousness is turned off. They do not experience the passage of time at all like you do when you are asleep. For all intents and purposes the part of them that makes up the self is "dead" for that time. Unless you suggest that there is a soul that is tied to the body during anesthesia that for some reason isn't when a person is vitrified.

Are you suggesting that once a person elects to have surgery they loose all their rights? Can the doctor decide to put them under and procede to do whatever experiements on them he feels like at that time because their prior intent of wanting to be cured of what troubled them doesn't matter anymore because they have no current intent?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Does a robot have intention?

Does a tree?

A tree is not only filled with intention but is highly effective in carrying out its intentions. It has an amazing system of administration that coordinates a vast complex of highly advanced processes that work together for the life of the tree. Fulfillment of its inherent plan is the intent of tree’s administrative system. A human construction team fulfills a plan to construct a building according to its blueprints with administrators and with people having a good variety of skills. However, their skills and efficiency are not match for the skills and efficiency of the team of cells in a tree.

This is a false standard of intention.  Intention is the result of the application of the will not simply autonomic and instinctive function.

Are not autonomic and instinctive functions an application of some form of a will?

Intentions are not demonstrated by action alone. In fact no action is required for there to be intention as any procrastinator can attest to.  What is required for intention is reason; the ability to perform an act that shows consistent results in accord with rational motives.

Once there is such a union of method and logic then there is the search for and application of means.  You cannot make any such assertion for a fetus such that it has goals simply because it functions biologically.

Action alone doesn't require intent at all it only requires causality; cause and effect. Unless you are appealing to some type of determinism that suggests it is possible to have free will for it is impossible to have *intention* if there exists no choice; only cause and effect. However if there exists a sufficient degree of freedom such that the will is possible to express then intent follows as an issue but it still cannot overrule natural law. 

Your implied interpretation of intention also doesn't follow from the dictionary.

intent
n.
1.  Something that is intended; an aim or purpose. See Synonyms at intention.
2.  Law. The state of one's mind at the time one carries out an action.
3.  Meaning; purport.

adj.
Firmly fixed; concentrated: an intent gaze.
Having the attention applied; engrossed: The students, intent upon their books, did not hear me enter the room.
Having the mind and will focused on a specific purpose: was intent on leaving within the hour; are intent upon being recognized.

I do not want to get any deeper into the definitions of such words as ‘will’ and ‘intention’ because such an exercise has some very real limitations in helping to understanding the value of a person.

I have had to keep my feet protected at night because our cat had a naughty little way of executing his will and intent to get his breakfast at a very early hour of the morning. He would go to our bed and bite my toe, not really hard, but just enough to wake me up to get him some food. A one-month old baby cries when hungry but is no where near as sophisticated in his methods. Is our cat more of a person than a one-month old baby?

Is the goal of my skin to scar after an injury?

 

Is the goal of my hair and fingernails to lengthen daily even after I am dead?

These are means and methods by which the whole biological system fulfills its plan.

Again Clifford this thread is not really about cryogenically preserved people

My reason for bringing cryogenically preserved people into this thread is for value comparison. If you say that an embryo is not a person but only a potential person, then how can you say that a cryonic patient is a person and not just a former person? What use is it to cryonically preserve a nonperson?

A cryogenic patient can demonstrate intent through a *will* a mutually recognizable legal instrument with a consistent name.  The fertilized zygote cannot.

A cyronic patient demonstrated the intent in the past and cannot do so in the present. An embryo, if not stopped dead in its tracks, will be able to verbally express its desire to live in the future. Legal instruments are not the only means for demonstrating intent. There are plenty of illiterate people in the world. Minors are not given power in America to produce any legally binding instruments.

Past intent is demonstrable not by action but by comparing the results in accord with a defined purpose.  You are applying the logic of Intelligent Design by presumption in order to attempt to provide a fetus with such an act of will and claim that there exists a *purpose*. 

What purpose?

To live?

Schopenhauer's "Will to life" or Darwin's "instinct for survival"?

I did not bring intelligent design into my arguments at all. Where there is a complex plan and an effective administrative system to execute that plan I would say there is a purpose. I did not say a word about anyone designing it.

The importance of results are not to determine whether or not purpose exists. It is to demonstrate the consistency and quality of purpose with respect to results as the measure of intent.

A bum wanders aimless through life, accomplishing nothing useful. Plenty of human committees and administrations are big on talk but fail to accomplish much of anything useful. Within a tree is an amazing administration that has a vastly complex plan to execute and it executes that plan with the greatest degree of consistency and quality.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Are you suggesting that once a person elects to have surgery they loose all their rights?  Can the doctor decide to put them under and procede to do whatever experiements on them he feels like at that time because their prior  intent of wanting to be cured of what troubled them doesn't matter anymore because they have no current intent?

My "purpose" was not to prove whether cryonic patients deserve any rights but rather was to show how immortalists who want rights for cryonic patients but deny that embryos should have rights are shooting themselves in the foot.

[John Schloendorn]

Clifford: Time is symmetric

When the fetus is destroyed, there will be no future person, and there will be no intent to have the fetus develop to term. When the cryonaut is destroyed, there was a past person and there was an intent to remain one. I.e. time is asymetric. From the subjective viewpoint of a human person, it causally progresses from past to future.

If an entity gains potential, e.g. by sperm and egg being brought together in a suitable womb, then they can be vauled for that potential. Similarly, if an entity loses its potential, e.g. by being aborted, then it can no longer be valued for that potential. Again, speaking from the subjective view of a human person, only the potential of the future can be changed in this manner, but not the facts of the past. Thus, those who value potential entities can determine which entities are potential and thus can be valued.

Note that this is how I believe arguments from potentiality fail.

[Lazarus Long]

(Clifford)
I did not bring intelligent design into my arguments at all. Where there is a complex plan and an effective administrative system to execute that plan I would say there is a purpose. I did not say a word about anyone designing it.

As a point of reference Clifford you did not overtly state it but there are a variety of comments and claims like these:

(Clifford)
Are not autonomic and instinctive functions an application of some form of a will?

**

(Lazarus Long)
Is the goal of my skin to scar after an injury?

Is the goal of my hair and fingernails to lengthen daily even after I am dead?

These are means and methods by which the whole biological system fulfills its plan.

***

A tree is not only filled with intention but is highly effective in carrying out its intentions. It has an amazing system of administration that coordinates a vast complex of highly advanced processes that work together for the life of the tree. Fulfillment of its inherent plan is the intent of tree’s administrative system.

****

Plenty of human committees and administrations are big on talk but fail to accomplish much of anything useful. Within a tree is an amazing administration that has a vastly complex plan to execute and it executes that plan with the greatest degree of consistency and quality.

These statements offer ample evidence of the logical inference for a designer consistent with the basis of Intelligent Design.

So it is no small irony then that it is also by inference that you suggest a design in biology, which you deny for your own claims. The difference is that I can directly communicate with the designer of the claim I am considering and contesting for clarification.

So you suggest that based upon the results, you argue we should grant final control to some unseen and assailable designer within the tree and accept the tree as all it can be but in this sense you are saying nothing changes without the will to change it and only abrogating the responsibility for that action of choice in a fatalistic manner, one that parallels ID in format to a tee.

You are granting genetics a decision making quality rather than being the result of random chance. You are looking at the beautiful complexity of biology and presuming a designer by virtue of seeing a planner. Could be possible but that is not proof that it is true. So if such a designer exists then we have a right to negotiate with that planner (if it exists) and either that unseen planner you infer must represent itself or we have the right to assert our interests.

Bonsai!

Are we listening?

Yes.

Is there a message to hear?

Show me.

Are we able to comprehend such a message?

Presuming inability begs the question. Place the message before us and we can resolve its intent. A failure to make the message plain at this point is tantamount to an admission that no such message exists by default.

You cannot continue to argue for invisible designers that cannot represent their own intentions plainly but are only implied through vague subjective interpretations of potential without also allowing for the rational competition of clearly present interests with respect to such intentions for all possible potentials.

[eternaltraveler]

I fully belive it is the intent of the third skin cell to the right on my left pinky toe to develop into a full clone of myself. It has trouble doing it on it's own, I'll just have to help it along at some point with advancing technology )

[Clifford Greenblatt]

These statements offer ample evidence of the logical inference for a designer consistent with the basis of Intelligent Design.

Who is to say what is a design and what is not?
If the plan by which a tree operates is not a design but is simply a consequence of the laws of nature then so is the process that you call your "will" along with all things that proceed from it.