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This is such a baity statement. This is literally the heart of the “personhood” debate, so you can’t sit here and pretend like this is a clear cut scenario. If

This is such a baity statement. This is literally the heart of the “personhood” debate, so you can’t sit here and pretend like this is a clear cut scenario. If you want to make a falsifiable statement, go for it, but don’t make a metaphysical statement and then assume it’s well established physics.

ImJamal 1y ago
Why are you conflating personhood with being alive? Things can be alive without being a person. As far as I can tell no embryologist would deny that embryos are alive. The only debate is if they are a person. If you kill a dog then the dog died. If you kill an embryo then the embryo is dead. It is irrelevant if either of those two are persons.
- BugsJustFindMe 1y ago
  Question to understand the baseline you're coming from: Are you declaring a moral equivalence in this thread between destroying a non-person thing and a person thing?
  - ImJamal 1y ago
    No. I'm saying three things. First, embryos are alive. Second, you were once an embryo (it is a stage in human development). Third, destroying an embryo means you ceased to exist, not that you never existed like the original person I responded to said. I'm not taking a position on if an embryo has personhood.
    - BugsJustFindMe 1y ago
      I was also once the molecules from the outgassing of Napoleon's corpse and the cheesecake my dad had for dinner, and burying Napoleon differently or my dad being on a diet might have caused someone else to be born instead of me, but it's curious that I don't see us debating weight loss and the burial practices of exiled monarchs. Maybe causal chains of branching paths and being grown from cells aren't actually useful metrics for being "me" after all. > Third, destroying an embryo means you ceased to exist, not that you never existed like the original person I responded to said. Something that eventually became me ceased to exist. It wasn't anywhere close to being me yet, just a precursor, like Napoleon's chest hair.
      - smeej 1y ago
        Do you really see these as equivalent in a biological sense? Like, it's not in dispute that every adult human was originally a specific embryo, with the same DNA the adult has. It is truly universal scientific consensus that it is the same organism at every point from fertilization until adulthood, just at different stages of development. I find it hard to believe you really aren't familiar with this basic truth of biology, which makes the rest of your argument seem disingenuous.
        BugsJustFindMe 1y ago
        There's nothing special about the embryo that became you that isn't also true of the specific conditions and precursors to that embryo, and the precursors to those precursors, ad infinitum. If not for that exact sperm and egg and conditions, it would have been a different embryo which would have become a different person who isn't you. If not for Napoleon's decaying nipples, that exact sperm would never be. A person altering Napoleon's burial ultimately determined that you got born over someone else. Your selection of gamete fertilization as your starting point and no sooner is arbitrary because it is based on a selection criterion that is arbitrary, so you shouldn't be so surprised that other people might point out how arbitrary it is. It sounds like you might actually care more about the intention behind the selection than the fact that selection has occurred. That someone might have looked at you specifically and said "no thanks". That objection is completely orthogonal to age. Someone looks at you every day right now and says "no thanks", whether it's for a job or for a sexual partner. Someone every day is deciding that they do not want your sperm or your egg, which means that your hypothetical child together is prevented from being born, the same as it will be prevented by this. And it may feel bad to think about it, but the selection is that person's to make. Life is full of making selections and being or not being selected. This isn't special.
        smeej 1y ago
        > There's nothing special about the embryo that became you that isn't also true of the specific conditions and precursors to that embryo, and the precursors to those precursors, ad infinitum. Of course there is. The embryo is the same organism as an adult, just at a different stage of its own life. All it needs is time, nutrition, and safety and it will become an adult. It's the same life form at different stages. It takes an intervention to stop an embryo from becoming an adult. For any other precursor, something fundamental has to change. For either of the gametes (the immediate precursors), they have to merge with the other gamete to form a whole new organism. That's extremely different. It's even more different the farther back you go. You're either woefully ignorant of basic biology or just completely philosophically disingenuous. Do you sincerely not know how organisms work at all? What they are? That they go through stages? That they have a clear beginning, a definite first stage of their lifecycle, before which they don't exist and after which they have to die in order to stop existing? This is some real elementary school science class stuff. It's not just humans. This is basic basic stuff.
- bobmcnamara 1y ago
  Perhaps this is intentional, but you seem to presuppose quite often in your arguments.

ImJamal 1y ago

Why are you conflating personhood with being alive? Things can be alive without being a person. As far as I can tell no embryologist would deny that embryos are alive. The only debate is if they are a person. If you kill a dog then the dog died. If you kill an embryo then the embryo is dead. It is irrelevant if either of those two are persons.

BugsJustFindMe 1y ago
Question to understand the baseline you're coming from: Are you declaring a moral equivalence in this thread between destroying a non-person thing and a person thing?
- ImJamal 1y ago
  No. I'm saying three things. First, embryos are alive. Second, you were once an embryo (it is a stage in human development). Third, destroying an embryo means you ceased to exist, not that you never existed like the original person I responded to said. I'm not taking a position on if an embryo has personhood.
  - BugsJustFindMe 1y ago
    I was also once the molecules from the outgassing of Napoleon's corpse and the cheesecake my dad had for dinner, and burying Napoleon differently or my dad being on a diet might have caused someone else to be born instead of me, but it's curious that I don't see us debating weight loss and the burial practices of exiled monarchs. Maybe causal chains of branching paths and being grown from cells aren't actually useful metrics for being "me" after all. > Third, destroying an embryo means you ceased to exist, not that you never existed like the original person I responded to said. Something that eventually became me ceased to exist. It wasn't anywhere close to being me yet, just a precursor, like Napoleon's chest hair.
    - smeej 1y ago
      Do you really see these as equivalent in a biological sense? Like, it's not in dispute that every adult human was originally a specific embryo, with the same DNA the adult has. It is truly universal scientific consensus that it is the same organism at every point from fertilization until adulthood, just at different stages of development. I find it hard to believe you really aren't familiar with this basic truth of biology, which makes the rest of your argument seem disingenuous.
      - BugsJustFindMe 1y ago
        There's nothing special about the embryo that became you that isn't also true of the specific conditions and precursors to that embryo, and the precursors to those precursors, ad infinitum. If not for that exact sperm and egg and conditions, it would have been a different embryo which would have become a different person who isn't you. If not for Napoleon's decaying nipples, that exact sperm would never be. A person altering Napoleon's burial ultimately determined that you got born over someone else. Your selection of gamete fertilization as your starting point and no sooner is arbitrary because it is based on a selection criterion that is arbitrary, so you shouldn't be so surprised that other people might point out how arbitrary it is. It sounds like you might actually care more about the intention behind the selection than the fact that selection has occurred. That someone might have looked at you specifically and said "no thanks". That objection is completely orthogonal to age. Someone looks at you every day right now and says "no thanks", whether it's for a job or for a sexual partner. Someone every day is deciding that they do not want your sperm or your egg, which means that your hypothetical child together is prevented from being born, the same as it will be prevented by this. And it may feel bad to think about it, but the selection is that person's to make. Life is full of making selections and being or not being selected. This isn't special.
        smeej 1y ago
        > There's nothing special about the embryo that became you that isn't also true of the specific conditions and precursors to that embryo, and the precursors to those precursors, ad infinitum. Of course there is. The embryo is the same organism as an adult, just at a different stage of its own life. All it needs is time, nutrition, and safety and it will become an adult. It's the same life form at different stages. It takes an intervention to stop an embryo from becoming an adult. For any other precursor, something fundamental has to change. For either of the gametes (the immediate precursors), they have to merge with the other gamete to form a whole new organism. That's extremely different. It's even more different the farther back you go. You're either woefully ignorant of basic biology or just completely philosophically disingenuous. Do you sincerely not know how organisms work at all? What they are? That they go through stages? That they have a clear beginning, a definite first stage of their lifecycle, before which they don't exist and after which they have to die in order to stop existing? This is some real elementary school science class stuff. It's not just humans. This is basic basic stuff.
bobmcnamara 1y ago
Perhaps this is intentional, but you seem to presuppose quite often in your arguments.