164 replies to this topic

[wolfmoon]

I believe Clifford to be speaking of fertilization (he has indicated), but fertilization is not conception, and fertilization cannot be detected and called a pregnancy.

Every day all over this world, and at this very moment, women are flushing blastocysts from their bodies with the normal course of menses. It is not and never has been considered a "loss of life".

I looked around for a timeline for fertilization to implantation and found this instead. It sums up nicely what most women feel about the fertilization issue and is well thought out even if rife with grammatical errors.

Subject: Stemming the Flows of Compassion & Hypocrisy…
From: Demosthenes2
Date: May 25 2005 7:30AM 

Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
--Eric Hoffer

Yesterday, in the wake of the compromise cut by the Senate moderates and the Minority leader that curiously cut out majority leader Frist, the House passed legislation to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Bush, for his part, has threatened to veto any such legislation should it pass, though he may find himself to be the next Dr. Frist (both in terms of competency and marginalization) should he do so as a majority (57%) of Republicans support embryonic stem cell research and achieving override may be easier than anticipated.

This is an issue that I have both some experience in and a vested interest in, so I'm going to address this from several perspectives because the administration makes it a point of pride to display its disdain for both science and metaphysics more complex than a first grade Sunday school primer.

As it happens, I have adopted one of those frozen embryos in a fertility clinic that this debate whirls around. My son—my six month old baby boy—is the blessing of embryonic adoption and that has without question transformed my life. It is troubling to hear so many talk about the disposition of these embryos when so few actually have any exposure to the process. So, having actually done more than talk about those frozen entities and done something about it, I'd like to take the opportunity to inform those who insist on meddling in the very private matters of those of us involved in these processes.

Tom DeLay stated that we those who vote in favor of this measure: "vote to fund with taxpayer dollars the dismemberment of living distinct human beings for the purposes of medical experimentation." Apparently DeLay shares Bush's disdain for science and metaphysics. Therefore a few points for both officials are in order.

First, 'conception', 'life' and 'living distinct beings' are not the same thing as 'fertilization', no matter how much it serves one's purposes to make it so. Fertilization and the creation of blastocysts is an unremarkable event that takes place daily. If that embryo doesn't implant, there is no conception, no life, no pregnancy. Every day millions of women have 'embryos' floating around in their uteri, flush them during menses and nobody bats an eye. These embryos that have not implanted and sunk a vein and begun the process of advancement are not, even by the most conservative of standards, life. Nobody posits funerals or mourns for the millions of these that are, with no awareness, flushed every day. Give a woman as many pregnancy tests with an embryo inside her that has not implanted as many times as you like—there will be no positive result, pee on as many EPT sticks as you like, no plus sign. This is why after an IVF transfer (the two week wait) people so anxiously wait—they are hoping—desperately—that they have CONCEIVED. It hasn't happened yet.

That embryo may or may not implant and create a conception, a pregnancy, but one thing is for certain—those women who get their period without ever knowing there was a fertilized egg that failed to implant are not flushing 'living distinct human beings.' There is the potential for a conception—nothing more. So, ladies—suck it up and deal—Bush and DeLay need you to stop menstruating post haste—just cross your legs and get thee to a an OB-GYN every 28 days. You see, we need to blood test you and ultrasound the hell out of your uterus in case you absent mindedly were about to flush a 'living distinct human being', because we're all about a 'culture of life'—just not yours. You're an incubator. We need to stem the flow of blood in this culture of death, and apparently that means your menstrual flow.

Secondly, these frozen embryos are so incredibly valuable to the administration that they cannot be used for embryonic stem cell research… because they need to be… THROWN OUT! What they fail to understand is that the disposition of these embryos, like banked chord blood or donated blood or tissue donation, lies with the donor. When you participate in an IVF cycle you sing a form that determines what happens to any leftover fertilized eggs. The choices are cryogenic preservation for: adoption, stem cell research, later transfer to the originating parent, medical research or destruction. DeLay, Bush and his cohorts are saving nothing. It's not as though these embryos in cryogenic willed for research are know suddenly going to be adopted or implanted. They won't—our 'culture of life' perversely demands that they be thrown into the garbage—that's how precious they are, and that's how much we value them. We must destroy life, according to the administration, to AVOID preserving life! Go back and re-read that sentence.

I love my son, profoundly, deeply, more than I ever though possible, but my son became my son when he grew in that womb and survived the transfer. There were four embryos transferred that day—and nobody mourned those other three that simply flowed out naturally, no more my son than the other hoped for pregnancies that were unsuccessful as we hoped each month and waited and prayed that this month the test would be positive.

The key to understanding this intellectual schizophrenia the administration subscribes to is understanding that the point is not to save those embryos—if that were the concern, they'd be scrambling to adopt them like I did—no, this is about the agenda of throwing a bone to their ill informed and zealous base.

The problem is they do a grave disservice to that base, to you, to embryonic adoptive parents like me, to the ill, to EVERYONE in confusing prophylactic measures (the prevention of implantation) with abortificents. It's not the case, and no amount of obfuscation will make it so.

The obfuscation and misdirection is important because it reveals both the real agenda here the actual consequences of these actions and the hypocrisy of the Bush standard: 'No destruction of life to save life.' Indeed. The problem is we're not doing that. We're preserving tissue rather than destroying it so we can throw it out as if the administration has some perverse new garbage disposal regulation (and that would be the first evidence of environmental concern form them!), and designating the sick and elderly as unworthy of not only our efforts but unworthy of even taking the time to make these distinctions.

The administration's actions give lie to their words. It is mind boggling to watch an administration that talks about a 'culture of life' or not 'destroying life to save life' and then blithely proceeds to slaughter tens of thousands to 'save lives and bring democracy' or that has no qualms about executing everyone from the incompetent to juveniles not for vengeance or for deterrence, but to destroy lives to save lives. It is astonishing to watch an administration that would willingly come meddle in your lives to dictate to when your life begins and ends in your hospital bed, in your bedroom, in your doctors office, and at the pharmacy but it is despicable to watch them continue in this vein so ill informed, with actions so ill considered and so triumphal in their ignorance.

That ringing in your ears is the cognitive dissonance from listening to the administration and the noise they make as they come to tell you what you will do, and why—in your bedroom… in the hospital… with your doctor, with your very life—and they'll define that for you, thanks very much. Because they'll preserve what they want and destroy what they want for different reasons and in different ways because they can't be bothered to make the distinctions—and they like it that way. And apparently, so do we.

So while we're stemming flows, of blood, of ignorance, of death, and abandoning any pretense of 'compassionate conservatism' how about stemming the flow of hypocrisy?

The zeal which begins with hypocrisy must conclude in treachery; at first it deceives, at last it betrays
--Francis Bacon

Edited by wolfmoon, 16 June 2005 - 07:32 PM.

[John Schloendorn]

Clifford,

There is also an enormous amount of difference between a newborn baby and gifted and talented mature adult. Does the newborn baby have a much lesser value?

Both of them meet my key approximation for value roughly equally well: Perceived level of sentience. Although it cannot be measured precisely, most humans seem to have a fairly consistent ability to tell sentience when they see it. In terms of level of sentience, an adult and a newborn seem just closely related to each other as a blastocyst and a volvox.
The differences I see between adults and newborns relate to the knowledge of the world and the ability to use effective methods to reach goals. While these differences can give rise to limited value-like attitudes (e.g. I prefer to converse about bioethics with adults rather than newborns), they are negligible for more important decisions, such as on whom to prefer to inflict suffering.

type III civilisation... post human conversions

Ask me again in a few thousand years [thumb]

I can by definition not know what I would think if I had a "radically higher intellectual capacity than you have now". So I can answer your question only for this time:

Or, would you be greatful that you life was not ended as a newborn baby

Yes. Same for blastocyst, Zygote, separate egg and sperm, the blastocysts that became my parents, the monkey that first decided to climb down from the trees, the amoeba that decided to try life on the land and the singularity that decided to blow up for no reason, 14 times 10 to the 9 years ago. Isn't this nice [!]
(as an argument vs abortion - see asymmetry of time again)


Wolf,
Thanks for sharing this blazingly witty essay! Got to love this one:

the administration makes it a point of pride to display its disdain for both science and metaphysics more complex than a first grade Sunday school primer.

or that environmental concern phrase [lol] [tung] [thumb]

But:

Nobody posits funerals or mourns for the millions of these that are, with no awareness, flushed every day

The (naturalistic) fact that nobody values something is by itself unrelated to whether or not it should be valued. Not sure if it's wise to borrow a page from the bioconservative book in this way.

[wolfmoon]

The (naturalistic) fact that nobody values something is by itself unrelated to whether or not it should be valued. Not sure if it's wise to borrow a page from the bioconservative book in this way.

Hmmm, yes, I see what you mean. But how do we know whether or not it is to be valued? A bit of a paradox, isn't it? If we don't know it exists (as is the case with a blastocyst flushed by menses), does it have value? In lacking a known existence is value possible? And as we never know from month to month whether or not a blastocyst is/was there - how can we determine a value for something we never knew we had or didn't have or when it will or won't occur?

Ugh, my head hurts spinning that one around. Pass the Motrin and help me out here. [g:)]

[Clifford Greenblatt]

A bag containting an egg and sperm has potential just the same as a united egg and sperm.  If you don't acknowledge a bag with egg and sperm as human, you are repudiating potential as the criterion for defining humanity.

There is a huge difference between a remote potential and process actively at work.

So reversing the inhibitory process would be saving a human life?

Yes, as long as the inhibitory process is really reversible.

A uterus contains essential means of life support, such a blood supply, micronutrients, hormones, etc.  It is so sophisticated that it is nowhere near replicable with current technology.

The earth also contains essential means of life support. Technology is sufficiently advanced to keep humans alive in space, but even in space they cannot survive without air and food. I do not know whether technology is yet sophisticated enough to create fully nutritious meals from simple elements without the aid of biological processes. I will agree that the uterus exceeds current technology by an enormous degree (after all, it was not invented by human intelligence). However, it is not involved in the administrative process of directing the vast complex of activities within the embryo.

An embryo in a vacuum will go nowhere at all.

Neither will a mature human live very long without air.

The first unit of human life is not a single cell, but a complete biological system of multiple tissues and organs (or so someone else may say).

The fertilised egg is a complete biological system that immediately proceeds to develop the whole complex of multiple tissues and organs without external guidance.

There is nothing in a "potential" or "drive" based theory of personhood to objectively pick among a cell nucleus, a bag with sperm and egg, an embryo, or a fetus as a starting point for personhood.  They all have potential for maturation.  They all require a specific environment to mature.

Potential is not enough to begin personhood. The development process must be actively progressing to maturity.

Any theory of what makes a human... human, must look at properties other than potential.  Here's a clue: If you believe that crippling the development of an embryo makes it non-human, what about a genetic switch that turns off development at the age of 18?  Presumably you would regard that embyo as human.  From an immortalist perspective, it would be an ideal human!  Now consider development triggered to stop at 10, 5, 2 years, 2 months, fetus, blastocyst.  At what point does the development-inhibited embryo cease being human in your view?  Thinking about that will help you think about what attributes truly make a human being.

Stopping the growth process at the age of 18 does not stop the vast complex of life processes that keep the person functioning.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Are you saying intelligence is an unconscious thing? An automatic, involuntary action? How can intelligence *not* be sentient? Common acknowledgment (global definition), aside from the information form of intelligence, states intelligence is something that is very conscious and very sentient. How can acquiring and applying knowledge not be sentient? The power of thought and reason not be sentient?

This was discussed in a poll I posted here. I was amazed that 42.11% of those who voted were actually willing to give up being sentient in exchange for a radical upgrade in their intelligence. I say sentience here because this is what I really meant when I referred to consciousness in the poll. I had not yet understood the difference between sentience and consciousness at that time. An entity must be conscious to be sentient but does not need to be sentient to be conscious. I think that those who responded understood that the hypothetical superintegrated mind which I presented is conscious but not sentient.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

I believe Clifford to be speaking of fertilization (he has indicated), but fertilization is not conception, and fertilization cannot be detected and called a pregnancy.

Every day all over this world, and at this very moment, women are flushing blastocysts from their bodies with the normal course of menses. It is not and never has been considered a "loss of life".

I looked around for a timeline for fertilization to implantation and found this instead. It sums up nicely what most women feel about the fertilization issue and is well thought out even if rife with grammatical errors. 

This author of the article seems to think that a life begins at attachment rather than at fertilisation. The author supports her position by noting that many embryos fail to attach. What percentage of embryos fail to attach? What is the rate of miscarriage after successful attachment?

I was unaware of an administration directive to discard embryos in place of preserving them for stem cell research. Is there a primary source of information about this directive available on the internet?

Does the NPLA statement that life begins at conception refer to the point of fertilisation or the point of attachment?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

I could argue all these points. The definition of Intelligence(1a,b) is not satisfied.

The problem here may be that the word “intelligence” may not be suitable for communicating the power of the biological administrative system. Do you know of any system invented by human intelligence that is as advanced or anywhere near being as advanced as the biological administrative system which operates in the development of the human embryo to bring it to maturity?

[wolfmoon]

What percentage of embryos fail to attach? What is the rate of miscarriage after successful attachment?

Apologies, Clifford, but my personal med knowledge is a bit dated. I retired from the med field in the early 90's so I'm having to rely on the info I'm seeing currently displayed by Merck, NIH etc.

I've seen estimates range from 15% to 75%. It's so frequent I would guesstimate the true number to be somewhere in the middle of those percentages, possibly around 40-45%. Example of typical statements I'm encountering, "Miscarriages are common. We know that at least half the eggs that are fertilized are lost this way. It may well be more. Half of all miscarriages happen so early that they are not recognized." http://www.surgerydo...us_abortion.htm

Does the NPLA statement that life begins at conception refer to the point of fertilisation or the point of attachment?

I don't know how the statement could reflect fertilization. Fertilization is not currently detectable unless it takes place IV. However, this sure doesn't mean that they aren't referring to fertilization. The NPLA has an agenda and they will forward that agenda by whatever means they are able to include misleading the general public by allowing them to assume that it is fertilization and not attachment that is detectable, IMHO.

[DJS]

What percentage of embryos fail to attach? What is the rate of miscarriage after successful attachment?

PCOBE -- Early Embryonic Development: An Up-to-Date Account

Is Heaven Populated Chiefly by the Souls of Embryos?

Do All Embryos Go To Heaven?

John Opitz, a professor of pediatrics, human genetics, and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah, testified before the President's Council on Bioethics that between 60 and 80 percent of all naturally conceived embryos are simply flushed out in women's normal menstrual flows unnoticed. This is not miscarriage we're talking about. The women and their husbands or partners never even know that conception has taken place; the embryos disappear from their wombs in their menstrual flows. In fact, according to Opitz, embryologists estimate that the rate of natural loss for embryos that have developed for seven days or more is 60 percent. The total rate of natural loss of human embryos increases to at least 80 percent if one counts from the moment of conception. About half of the embryos lost are abnormal, but half are not, and had they implanted they would probably have developed into healthy babies.

[bgwowk]

Clifford wrote:

There is a huge difference between a remote potential (sperm and egg in a bag) and process actively at work (fertilized egg).

The distinction is entirely arbitrary. Both systems will form a child given the same external conditions.

Stopping the growth process at the age of 18 does not stop the vast complex of life processes that keep the person functioning.

You have previously said that an embryo unable to develop beyond the blastocyst stage (but otherwise continue functioning) is not a person. But you also apparently say that an embryo lacking capacity to develop beyond a healthy 18-year-old (but otherwise continue functioning) is a person. So what level of development capacity makes an embryo a person, and why?

Yes (restoring development capacity to an embryo is saving a life), as long as the inhibitory process is really reversible.

But you have stated that a development-inhibited embryo is not a person. Once inhibition is in place, there is therefore no life to save. There can be no moral imperative to save people that don't exist.

Potential-is-personhood implies that any act that removes and then restores the same potential is preserving personhood. Yet potential-is-personhood also implies that such acts can't preserve personhood because personhood can't exist in absence of potential. This is a contradiction.

---BrianW

P.S. If I repeatedly remove and re-install a development-essential gene from an embryo, am I a serial killer, a killer, or nothing at all?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Clifford wrote:

There is a huge difference between a remote potential (sperm and egg in a bag) and process actively at work (fertilized egg).

The distinction is entirely arbitrary. Both systems will form a child given the same external conditions.

One is a static potential. The other is a dynamic process.

You have previously said that an embryo unable to develop beyond the blastocyst stage (but otherwise continue functioning) is not a person.  But you also apparently say that an embryo lacking capacity to develop beyond a healthy 18-year-old (but otherwise continue functioning) is a person.  So what level of development capacity makes an embryo a person, and why?

It need simply retain the capacity to develop or maintain sentience, even if many other capacities may be lost.

But you have stated that a development-inhibited embryo is not a person.  Once inhibition is in place, there is therefore no life to save.  There can be no moral imperative to save people that don't exist. 

Potential-is-personhood implies that any act that removes and then restores the same potential is preserving personhood.  Yet potential-is-personhood also implies that such acts can't preserve personhood because personhood can't exist in absence of potential.  This is a contradiction. 

---BrianW

P.S. If I repeatedly remove and re-install a development-essential gene from an embryo, am I a serial killer, a killer, or nothing at all?

If you see contradictions in my posts, it may be because I am acquiring knowledge through the discussion process. I may have put too much emphasis on potential in the early stages of my arguments.

A person is not a static potential but a dynamic process. However, the dynamic process could be slowed down or suspended for a time. When not inhibited, the embryo is in a highly dynamic process of development. If the embryo is frozen or inhibited, then the process is slowed down or suspended but not destroyed. The proper embryonic development is destroyed when the process is irreversibly prevented from continuing to pursue its dynamic course toward sentience.

Here are some comments on the slowing down or suspension of the dynamic process of the person which I copied from a B. J. Klein post. In this case, he regards the person as continuing to exist under conditions which are far beyond the capabilities of present day technology to reanimate.

Another important question.. but I think answered simply:

Cold = slowed.. but Cold does not = changed.

Meaning that when tissues and cells are lowered in temperature (liquid nitrogen) this doesn't somehow change the information.  The material is still there, and the material can theoretically be restored to serve as the architect of life.  Of course, only sufficiently advanced (small) reanimation tools (nanotech) will be able to repair the inevitable freeze morph.

So, you are right in that the "dynamic processes" of the mind are changed, but these processes are NOT discontinued.  There is still some movement (continuity), however small, even at the lowest temps.

Yes.  As implied in my above answer, I think most currently advanced cryonics procedures sufficiently preserve enough information so that future tech will be able to revive patients to good health.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Both of them meet my key approximation for value roughly equally well: Perceived level of sentience. Although it cannot be measured precisely, most humans seem to have a fairly consistent ability to tell sentience when they see it.

Do you think that the unborn child becomes sentient gradually or do you think there is some sudden borderline threshold of sentience? If you think there is a sudden borderline, then where do you think that borderline is? If you think the process of becoming sentient is gradual, then at what points would you regard the unborn child as having a half, a quarter, or a tenth of the value of a newborn baby?

In terms of level of sentience, an adult and a newborn seem just closely related to each other as a blastocyst and a volvox.

Is a volvox actively engaged in the process of becoming something as advanced as a blastocyst?

The differences I see between adults and newborns relate to the knowledge of the world and the ability to use effective methods to reach goals. While these differences can give rise to limited value-like attitudes (e.g. I prefer to converse about bioethics with adults rather than newborns), they are negligible for more important decisions, such as on whom to prefer to inflict suffering.

What goals do newborn babies have? Would you regard it a much lesser matter to kill a newborn baby than to kill a mature person if the means of death is completely painless?

[bgwowk]

Clifford wrote:

One is a static potential. The other is a dynamic process.

An egg and sperm in a bag and an embryo in a bag are both bags of chemicals "processing" toward sentience in a proper environment. In your "process and potential" arguments for personhood, there can be no distinction between two bags of chemicals each trending toward the same end state. In this case, one bag is simply at an earlier stage of the same process than the other bag.

A person is not a static potential but a dynamic process.

The contradiction remains. An embryo without genes to form a brain is not a process leading toward sentience, and therefore not a person by definition. Therefore if I remove the genes to develop a brain from an embryo, I am a killer. I have changed a person to a non-person. I have not merely suspended a person. I have KILLED a person because the embryo is no longer person. Yet if I reinsert the genes, I recover the original state, so I did not cause the loss of a person. Therefore even an embryo without genes required to develop sentience must still be a person. That is a contradiction!

It (an embryo designed to stop development at age 18) need simply retain the capacity to develop or maintain sentience, even if many other capacities may be lost.

Sentience seems to have emerged as a key concept. I agree. But the only way to use sentience in definitions of personhood without running into absurdities is to regard SENTIENCE ITSELF as the criterion for personhood. Only this way can we protect the interests of beings (human, transhuman, non-human, animal, alien, computer,...) capable of conscious experience, which is where ethical rubber meets the road.

The fact that it isn't possible to isolate an exact moment when sentience begins or ends does not invalid sentience as a criterion. In the words of Edmund Burke:

Though no man can draw a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet light and darkness are upon the whole tolerably distinguishable.

---BrianW

Edited by bgwowk, 19 June 2005 - 02:06 AM.

[John Schloendorn]

at what points would you regard the unborn child as having a half, a quarter, or a tenth of the value of a newborn baby?

I do not quantify such fractions and that is unrelated to my ethical stance on embryos. See Brian's Burke quote.

Is a volvox actively engaged in the process of becoming something as advanced as a blastocyst?

That is a matter of interpretation, and it would matter to me only if I valued potential.

What goals do newborn babies have? Would you regard it a much lesser matter to kill a newborn baby than to kill a mature person if the means of death is completely painless?

Killing sentient creatures is bad. Causing them pain is bad, too. Newborns are sentient. Therefore, killing newborns is bad, and causing them pain in the process is worse.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

An egg and sperm in a bag and an embryo in a bag are both bags of chemicals "processing" toward sentience in a proper environment.  In your "process and potential" arguments for personhood, there can be no distinction between two bags of chemicals each trending toward the same end state.  In this case, one bag is simply at an earlier stage of the same process than the other bag.

Two trains running full speed in opposite directions on the same track could be heading for a horrible wreck. The wreck has not happened until the collision has actually occurred. Upon actual collision the destructive process begins, not before. Likewise, a new life does not begin in the egg until the fertilisation process has started a significant chain reaction. Even when the sperm breaks through the cell wall of the egg, the massive chain reaction has not started. It does not start at least until the two sets of DNA are fully joined. Another analogy is that of a bullet entering a person’s head. Even penetration of the bullet into the skull does not start a death process. The death process does not really start until the bullet has done sufficient damage to vital functions to set off a massive chain reaction of destruction.

The contradiction remains.  An embryo without genes to form a brain is not a process leading toward sentience, and therefore not a person by definition.  Therefore if I remove the genes to develop a brain from an embryo, I am a killer.  I have changed a person to a non-person.  I have not merely suspended a person.  I have KILLED a person because the embryo is no longer person.  Yet if I reinsert the genes, I recover the original state, so I did not cause the loss of a person.  Therefore even an embryo without genes required to develop sentience must still be a person.  That is a contradiction!

I would need to know more about the removal and reinsertion of genes process to which you refer. It seems that you may be referring to an established laboratory procedure but I am not familiar with it. As I indicated before, suspension of a human life process is not the same thing as death. Death has occurred when the extent of damage irreversibly ends the possibility of restoration to the path to sentience. In the case you mention it appears to me that removal of the gene temporarily suspends the life process but does not irreversibly end the possibility of restoration to the path to sentience. If the massive chain reaction leading to sentience had not yet started, then a human life was never there.

[bgwowk]

Clifford wrote:

Two trains running full speed in opposite directions on the same track could be heading for a horrible wreck. The wreck has not happened until the collision has actually occurred. Upon actual collision the destructive process begins, not before. Likewise, a new life does not begin in the egg until the fertilisation process has started a significant chain reaction. Even when the sperm breaks through the cell wall of the egg, the massive chain reaction has not started. It does not start at least until the two sets of DNA are fully joined. Another analogy is that of a bullet entering a person’s head. Even penetration of the bullet into the skull does not start a death process. The death process does not really start until the bullet has done sufficient damage to vital functions to set off a massive chain reaction of destruction.

This argument is based on apparent irreversibility. You define train wrecks and death to begin at the moment when trains or people become irreversibly committed to wreckhood or death respectivity. Therefore, by analogy, you would not regard a bag with an egg and sperm as a person because they are not yet irreversibly committed to development of sentience.

This argument doesn't work because AT NO STAGE IS AN EMBRYO IRREVERSIBLY COMMITTED TO DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIENCE! The development of an embryo into a sentience can be stopped at any time by any of a number means, just as the process of fertization can be stopped. The point is that both bags-- the bag with an egg and sperm, and the bag with an embryo --are both interruptable or continuable to the development of sentience. Your only recourse is to continue insisting that fertilization isn't part of human development, which is merely begging the question.

In the case you mention it appears to me that removal of the gene temporarily suspends the life process but does not irreversibly end the possibility of restoration to the path to sentience. If the massive chain reaction leading to sentience had not yet started, then a human life was never there.

Imagine two identical embryos. One embryo began as a normal embryo, but then had a gene necessary for sentience reversibly removed. The other embryo was formed from the very beginning without this gene. The embryos, both lacking the same gene for sentience, are physically identical. Yet you would argue that one is a suspended person, while one is a non-person. For one we have a moral obligation to restore the gene, while for the other we can do whatever we want. That is a contradiction!

---BrianW

[DJS]

I wonder...

Clifford, could you tell me if this would be ethically acceptable to you.

What if we could:

(1) genetically engineer gametes so that the zygotes produced by fertilization are nonviable.

(2) genetically engineer a somatic cell's DNA (while it is still in the somatic cell) so that when SCNT is performed only nonviable clonal zygotes are produced.

Would you agree that zero "potential" is being destroyed in this scenario?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

I wonder...

Clifford, could you tell me if this would be ethically acceptable to you.

What if we could:

(1) genetically engineer gametes so that the zygotes produced by fertilization are nonviable.

(2) genetically engineer a somatic cell's DNA (while it is still in the somatic cell) so that when SCNT is performed only nonviable clonal zygotes are produced.

Would you agree that zero "potential" is being destroyed in this scenario?

I would say that if a massive chain reaction is started but the process was never capable of progressing toward sentience then anything that develops from the process could be a useful part of a human but would not be a human in itself, just as a heart or kidney is a useful part of a human but is not a human person in itself.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Yes. Same for blastocyst, Zygote, separate egg and sperm, the blastocysts that became my parents, the monkey that first decided to climb down from the trees, the amoeba that decided to try life on the land and the singularity that decided to blow up for no reason, 14 times 10 to the 9 years ago. Isn't this nice [!]

Here you are talking about life in general rather than about the life of an individual. If you apply your argument to immortality, the what really matters is the immortality of life that originated on the earth in general rather than immortality of any individual lives.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

This argument doesn't work because AT NO STAGE IS AN EMBRYO IRREVERSIBLY COMMITTED TO DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIENCE!  The development of an embryo into a sentience can be stopped at any time by any of a number means, just as the process of fertization can be stopped.

So can the life of a mature person be stopped at any point.

Imagine two identical embryos.  One embryo began as a normal embryo, but then had a gene necessary for sentience reversibly removed.  The other embryo was formed from the very beginning without this gene.  The embryos, both lacking the same gene for sentience, are physically identical.  Yet you would argue that one is a suspended person, while one is a non-person.  For one we have a moral obligation to restore the gene, while for the other we can do whatever we want.  That is a contradiction!

You could also reduce a mature person down to simple elements as if the person never existed.

[bgwowk]

Clifford wrote:

(Like development of an embryo) So can the life of a mature person be stopped at any point.

I mentioned the arrestability of embryo development at any stage to counter the seeming assertion that fertilization was a point of irreversible commitment to sentience, thereby making it a special moment. It is not, and the point stands.

Imagine two identical embryos.  One embryo began as a normal embryo, but then had a gene necessary for sentience reversibly removed.  The other embryo was formed from the very beginning without this gene.  The embryos, both lacking the same gene for sentience, are physically identical.  Yet you would argue that one is a suspended person, while one is a non-person.  For one we have a moral obligation to restore the gene, while for the other we can do whatever we want.  That is a contradiction!

You could also reduce a mature person down to simple elements as if the person never existed.

For someone who regards sentience (information theoretic paradigm) as the criterion for personhood, there is no paradox. As long as information encoding past memories and personality of a sentient being exists in some form, a person still exists, and there is a moral imperative to protect and restore that person if possible.

The paradox is only created when one defines personhood as a process or potential leading toward sentience. Again I ask you: Is or is not an embryo lacking a gene essential for development of sentience a person? The process/potential definition of personhood requires us to assert that such an embryo is not a person. Yet the process/potential argument also requires us to assert that such an embryo created by reversible gene deletion is a suspended person. That is a contradiction. The process/potential definition of personhood is therefore internally inconsistent, and thereby disproven. QED

---BrianW

Edited by bgwowk, 19 June 2005 - 06:07 PM.

[bgwowk]

More process/potential folly:

If I fertilize a barren planet with a nanotechnological probe designed to create a biosphere with 10 billion sentient beings (although the probe holds personal memories of none of them), and I then destroy that biosphere at an early stage of the development cascade, have I killed 10 billion people?

---BrianW

[Clifford Greenblatt]

I mentioned the arrestability of embryo development at any stage to counter the seeming assertion that fertilization was a point of irreversible commitment to sentience, thereby making it a special moment.  It is not, and the point stands.

Commitment to sentience can be destroyed at any time as can a mature life. However, I think your idea is really about reversible change rather than about destruction so I will comment on this further below.

For someone who regards sentience (information theoretic paradigm) as the criterion for personhood, there is no paradox.  As long as information encoding past memories and personality of a sentient being exists in some form, a person still exists, and there is a moral imperative to protect and restore that person if possible.

The difficulty here is that a person’s personality can be radically altered and much of a person’s memory can be lost without the person becoming a nonperson. Suppose there is a set of identical twins who have been nurtured and educated together. Suppose their personalities are very similar though not identical. Suppose they also happen to have very similar interests and are close in intelligence. Now suppose one of the twins suffers brain damage in an accident. He survives the accident and remains sentient. He loses about half of his memory and his personality is significantly changed. Which of the two twins would you say better qualifies for continuing the life that the injured twin had just before the accident?

Imagine two identical embryos.  One embryo began as a normal embryo, but then had a gene necessary for sentience reversibly removed.  The other embryo was formed from the very beginning without this gene.  The embryos, both lacking the same gene for sentience, are physically identical.  Yet you would argue that one is a suspended person, while one is a non-person.  For one we have a moral obligation to restore the gene, while for the other we can do whatever we want.  That is a contradiction!

You could also reduce a mature person down to simple elements as if the person never existed.

The paradox is only created when one defines personhood as a process or potential leading toward sentience. Again I ask you: Is or is not an embryo lacking a gene essential for development of sentience a person? The process/potential definition of personhood requires us to assert that such an embryo is not a person. Yet the process/potential argument also requires us to assert that such an embryo created by reversible gene deletion is a suspended person. That is a contradiction. The process/potential definition of personhood is therefore internally inconsistent, and thereby disproven. QED

I think the main point of your argument is that two embryos can be in the same state; i.e., gene deleted, and yet one would be a person and the other would not be a person by the arguments I have presented. I could argue that they may be physically identical but they do have a significant difference in their histories. Here is an excellent example of how history does really matter rather than just the present state of affairs. Suppose a child dies at the age of four years, never having the opportunity to make much of an impact on society. The family mourns the child, scatters his ashes in the ocean, and eventually life goes on. Many decades later, no one remembers the child. Did it matter that the child lived at all? Does it matter any more whether the child was happy, unhappy, content, or suffering in the past?

[bgwowk]

Clifford wrote:

The difficulty here is that a person’s personality can be radically altered and much of a person’s memory can be lost without the person becoming a nonperson.

Sentience determines whether an entity is a person. Life memory determines whether an entity remains a particular person.

I think the main point of your argument is that two embryos can be in the same state; i.e., gene deleted, and yet one would be a person and the other would not be a person by the arguments I have presented. I could argue that they may be physically identical but they do have a significant difference in their histories.

Exactly right. The only way to rehabilitate the process/potential definition (which by itself is internally inconsistent) is to make history an explicit part of the definition. You must say, "A person is an entity that is progressing toward sentience, or an entity that has progressed toward sentience at some time in the past."

But that doesn't get you out of the woods. Once you adopt history as part of the criterion, you get into different troubles. For instance, if I use mature nanotechnology to rework the atoms inside a normal human embryo to turn the cell into a chicken embryo, the chicken embryo would be a person by this definition. And why not? If I have the technology to turn a human cell into a chicken embryo, I could use the same technology to turn the chicken embryo back into the human embryo.

Do the reworked atoms even need to be animate? What if I just turn the embryo into a stack of non-living C,N,O,P,S,H atoms pending reassemly? Will that stack of materials be a person?

Or is the very idea of such experiments repugnant? Now we come to the real basis of process/potential definitions of personhood, which I suspect is simple dislike of intefering with human life processes, regardless of effects on actual thinking beings. It should be axiomatic that ethics only pertain to entities at least capable of conscious experience. Unfortunately much of the world doesn't think that way.

Clifford, here is your ultimate ethics test: You have a choice of running into a burning building and saving a ten-year-old child crying for help, or a petri dish with 100 single-cell human embryos. Do you save one person, or 100 "people"?

----BrianW

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Sentience determines whether an entity is a person.  Life memory determines whether an entity remains a particular person. 

This is most interesting. You seem to be saying that sentience has no individual properties. Then one person’s sentience is as good as another’s. If you could somehow swap sentience between two brains without disturbing memories then there would be no swapping of persons between the brains. If you could somehow swap memories between two brains without swapping sentience then you have completely swapped persons between the two brains. This means also that a person has no fixed core identity but has an identity that is continually changing. Then why care at all about immortality? Why not be happy with the idea that sentience will continue long after you are gone and intelligence will become superior to what you have now?

But that doesn't get you out of the woods.  Once you adopt history as part of the criterion, you get into different troubles.  For instance, if I use mature nanotechnology to rework the atoms inside a normal human embryo to turn the cell into a chicken embryo, the chicken embryo would be a person by this definition.  And why not?  If I have the technology to turn a human cell into a  chicken embryo, I could use the same technology to turn the chicken embryo back into the human embryo.
Do the reworked atoms even need to be animate?  What if I just turn the embryo into a stack of non-living C,N,O,P,S,H atoms pending reassemly?  Will that stack of materials be a person?

Or is the very idea of such experiments repugnant?  Now we come to the real basis of process/potential definitions of personhood, which I suspect is simple dislike of intefering with human life processes, regardless of effects on actual thinking beings.  It should be axiomatic that ethics only pertain to entities at least capable of conscious experience.  Unfortunately much of the world doesn't think that way.

The nanotechnology to turn the atoms that compose a human into a chicken is not futuristic at all but has been around from antiquity. Use the remains of a human that has died to grow some grain. Feed the grain to some hens. The hens will convert the grain into eggs from which chickens will hatch.

Clifford, here is your ultimate ethics test: You have a choice of running into a burning building and saving a ten-year-old child crying for help, or a petri dish with 100 single-cell human embryos.  Do you save one person, or 100 "people"?

We are faced with this kind of ethical question all of the time and most often make very poor choices. Is it better to spend a huge sum of money on cryonic preservation of ourselves or should that money be used to feed and educate a multitude of starving third world children?

[bgwowk]

We can talk about sentience, brains, and personality until the cows come home if you want. God knows I've done it before.

But that's a sidetrack from the primary question of this thread, which is whether a mind is necessary for personhood at all. We need to get that out of the way first. There are two important questions you have not yet answered.

1) Is destroying a programmed biospheric cascade leading to a sentient civilization morally equivalent to murdering an existing civilization?

2) Would you save the child or the embryos?

---BrianW

[bgwowk]

Here is the argument that disposes of process/potential defintions of personhood once and for all:

Consider a human designed to reproduce asexually by budding. Every embryo on its way to becoming a grown human splits off a zygote progammed to do the same thing again. Therefore every zygote is not one person, but AN INFINITE NUMBER OF PEOPLE! Every zygote is a process cascade striving to become an infinite number of distinct sentient entities.

A finite cell cannot be morally equivalent to an infinite number of entities. Therefore any definition of personhood based on potential or processing toward development of future entities is internally inconsistent, and therefore invalid.

There is no way out of that one, Clifford. Process/potential arguments don't work. Interferring with a non-sentient process can be a property crime if the process is claimed by a person, but non-sentient processes are not people.

---BrianW

[Clifford Greenblatt]

1) Is destroying a programmed biospheric cascade leading to a sentient civilization morally equivalent to murdering an existing civilization?

This appears to be the same thing as asking whether it is an act of murder for a fertile woman to live a celibate life because the woman has the ability to produce children and does not put that ability to use. Therefore, children are not born who could have been born if the woman decided to not be celibate. I do not see how the biospheric cascade is an equivalent to an embryo.

2) Would you save the child or the embryos?

You did not answer my question that was directly related to this but is real rather than hypothetical. However, I will partially answer this before seeing your answer. I am responsible for feeding and protecting my own children ahead of feeding and protecting the children of others. However, this does not mean that I have no responsibility for other children also. It also does not mean that the children of others are less valuable than my children. Neither are starving children in third world countries less valuable than children in our own country. I would be responsible for rescuing the child crying for help first because he has strong emotional ties to his own life and to the life of others. I would also have a responsibility to rescue the embryos to the best of may ability. I will now repeat my question to you and add another ahead of it.

1. Suppose there were 101 ten year old children in a burning home for abandoned children crying for help and you could rescue only 1 of them. Suppose one of the children is your own child who is visiting the home. Suppose the chances of successfully rescuing your own child is 1% and the chances of rescuing one abandoned child who you do not know at all is 100%. Which child would you attempt to rescue?

2. Is it better to spend a huge sum of money on cryonic preservation of ourselves or should that money be used to feed and educate a multitude of starving third world children who would die without this help and who would prosper and be productive with this help?

Edited by Clifford Greenblatt, 20 June 2005 - 09:38 AM.