According to your bible sure

Lol I don't believe in the bible, I believe the biology.

We don't know, which is why the Supreme Court ruled the way they did.

Everybody has strong opinions on abortion but haven't the slightest fucking clue what the SCOTUS ruling on it is. It is nothing short of brilliant. It flat out claims it is beyond the court's ability to decide when personhood starts and puts unrestricted abortion rights before the first trimester only, when whatever is in there obviously isn't a person yet.

Me personally, I say our consciousness is us. It is the only thing that leaves when we die, all the matter stays behind. Yes my consciousness is emergent from this matter, just like my life is, and only both of those things are truly me, the rest is just mine. There is a distinction between what is me and what is mine.

This post was edited by Skinned on Oct 4 2014 11:37am

Yes, but my point was that just because you don't remember it happening doesn't mean you weren't experiencing anything at that moment, black out drunk, etc. etc. IMO after we develop consciousness it's an uninterrupted stream until eventual death, but that is really just speculation and more research needs to be done on the relationship between experience and brain function.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Oct 4 2014 11:41am

I'm not sure if it is an uninterrupted stream or if it just exists moment to moment and our projection of causation makes us perceive it as an uninterrupted stream because we would necessarily experience it like that. I think the brain is active all the time, and dreams are powerful stuff, but it is a hard call. I suppose just how active our brains are while we sleep is evidence enough that stuff is going on, but it isn't necessarily dealing with new sensory experience, or sensory experience of what is going on while we are asleep. I think what is going on during sleep is purely mental, and to an empiricist nonexistent.

This post was edited by Skinned on Oct 4 2014 11:44am

Well, biologically speaking, since our neurons fire as discrete units there must be some level of interruption from moment to moment I guess.

It is all conjecture. Even science is conjecture most of the time, a theory being effective (truthful) as long as it works and being discarded when it stops working.

For example Newtonian physics was true until Einstein's physics better modeled the actual situation. This brings up a couple of possible ramifications: there is either not a real truth just temporary knowledge, or there is a truth in which we can get right in degrees and some models can indeed be more true than others, however this suggests a teleological goal in truth, some sort of absolute truth, which smacks of Plato/Hegel/Idea of Heaven/Idealism.

Epistemology is fun but always self-defeating

This post was edited by Skinned on Oct 4 2014 11:48am

That's not really a good description though, because theories aren't touted as truth. Nobody really claims "My theory is truth and there will never be a contradiction!" except mathematicians, but they get to have logical proofs in their work so its not as impressive. Newton's theories are still used to get to the moon even almost 100 years after Einstein gave a much more descriptive model.

The conscious is a characteristic of the living organism that developed with time aka maturity. It isn't a different species before reaching that level.

The SCOTUS is a political entity not an end all to the pursuit of truth.

Your body is not separate from your conscious. When you die your body shuts down and with it your brain. Just a function of who you are not all of what you are.

Given that you guys are so unsure about this arbitrary cutoff, is it better to err on the side of life or termination?