...there is nothing complicated about the issue ; you either believe embryonic life should be protected so it can realize its potential or you don't . Straining to wax philosophical about such a simple choice is dishonest .

So what's the difference between killing an "object" that you explained in post #68 as compared to a living baby at 5months pregnant? If you don't care or believe whether it's alive or not then you are by definition saying they are both indifferent.

But they are not because you said "What I'm saying is that prior to development of consciousness the embryo, fetus, whatever stage it is at, is simply an object and as such cannot be wronged."

You claiming the object cannot be wronged, but now claiming if it's alive or not is irrelevant, is hypocrisy. You cannot be on both fences, it's either you believe in abortion or you don't.

This post was edited by HighschoolTurd on Oct 3 2014 03:25pm

Well I think this is not correct, but let's say you're right, if hypothetically there was a way for someone to temporarily extinguish their consciousness then what's the difference?

If you could do that then I wouldn't see any problem with killing anybody since temporarily extinguishing your consciousness means consciousness could be created from nothing, and suddenly we can just make any person you want.

No, it doesn't mean that at all. Say for example there is a section of the brain which is a requirement for consciousness, and that zapping it in a particular way inhibited it from allowing consciousness to be produced. (there's actually some evidence that the claustrum in the brain is just that: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329762.700-consciousness-onoff-switch-discovered-deep-in-brain.html#.VC8Yi_ldUeE)

By the way, consciousness is already created from "nothing" all the time when new life is brought into the world, it just takes a little bit of time.

You should know better than to link a pop science article as evidence. I don't even need to read the article to tell you they're interpreting it wrong, but damn it makes a good headline.

"The claustrum is a thin, irregular, sheet-like neuronal structure hidden beneath the inner surface of the neocortex in the general region of the insula. Its function is enigmatic. Its anatomy is quite remarkable in that it receives input from almost all regions of cortex and projects back to almost all regions of cortex. We here briefly summarize what is known about the claustrum, speculate on its possible relationship to the processes that give rise to integrated conscious percepts, propose mechanisms that enable information to travel widely within the claustrum and discuss experiments to address these questions."

From the article abstract.



There's another article they seem to be talking about but I can't find any reference to it, and it's behind a pay wall so I'm pretty sure you haven't read it either.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Oct 3 2014 03:53pm

Or you believe the living breathing womans rights are more important

...personal justification to ease your conscience ?

K, whether or not it's actually good science is beside the point, I posted it because I thought it was interesting and people might like to read it.

I don't know how it would work if you could bring yourself back from having your consciousness destroyed. Is it just a manifestation of brain function, or is there something more unique? How sensative would it be to the changed states between being destroyed and brought back? Lots of questions that are totally unanswerable as without actually performing the experiment I don't see how we could even say if we are ourselves after being destroyed and recreated.