When does "life" start?

So I was listening to a Destiny podcast between two people having a debate about abortion, and one of the key points was that despite agreeing with social constructions of legal abortion, the pragmatic issue of being terminated and aborted frightened one of the speakers into his own conclusion.

And, so I was wondering, when does life really even begin, is it even when you are born?

For me, "conception" really means little of significance. I don't see what the relevance of this specific moment is, the brain of a person is ultimately what makes of most them, who they are, and this is not developed for 33 weeks, and is not displaying typical thought patterns much later than this moment either. And so I wonder if individuality really even occurs at the moment you are born. To help bridge this example, the majority of all people have a condition called Childhood amnesia, or infantile amnesia, and the truth is almost nobody remembers being 1 years old because the brain has not fully finished development even after your are 'alive'. This is why you cannot remember things from being young, and especially do not remember being born. To be blunt, we are alive much longer, before we are 'living'. My own theory is that conception is only popular because people of faith tend to need to be required to be all on the same page before making any of their 'own' arguments for the illusion of a coherent pathos argument.

And then I also just wanted to share, that worms have no brains. For me, the question of a sperm and egg being alive is similar to the question of if a worm is alive. A worm is a series of chemical reactions producing an anticipated result. It has no consciousnesses, it has no thoughts, it has no brain, no individuality, nothing. Is a worm alive? Regardless of how you look at it, a person is not alive at the moment of conception if what you are linking is that persons individuality and soul. You can say the idea of being terminated frightens you, and so you should not do that to others, but the others in question are not frightened of anything, they have no brain, they are already in a state of endless ignorance and share no concern of their own consequences. Making the case for their survival is as arrogant as to know what angle a plant will prefer of the Sun before planting the seed. The case is often of people with unanticipated births share a disproportionately lower quality of life, and so for all intents purposes, you can't really argue the fetus agrees with you. Who honestly would choose a dissatisfying life over one with responsible upbringing? No one logical. It seems endlessly ironic the conservative outlook of abortion itself is as abrupt as the child being born is no longer any of their concern. It is when it is in the state of pure ignorance they care most for the fetus, and then when the child is brought to suffering of life; they care no longer if it's poor, or has a family, or a future.

It appears that you believe we are only animals.

I believe we are spirit beings in an animal body. I got out of my body after a bad motorcycle accident 10 years ago.

King David once said to God " You knew me before I was born", and I believe that too

Technically life begins at conception. But there's more to life then 2 cells joining. After conception the brain develops and it becomes at a matter of when does conciseness begin? At what point after those two cells meet does conscience become relevant? It's open to conjecture but my own personal belief is there is a certain cut off point the brain is too far into development for abortion. I'm pro abortion if it's early on in a pregnancy.

All life is sacred but not every life needs to exist. It's up to the person carrying that life to make that decision because it effects them the most. I don't pass judgement on others. What they do in their lives is their business.

I hunt and I fish I've killed thousands of animals in my life. I don't take killing these animals lightly. I have the utmost respect for the wild game that I take. But in nature we have to do what's best for ourselves even if it means killing.

originally posted by: visitedbythem
It appears that you believe we are only animals.

I believe we are spirit beings in an animal body. I got out of my body after a bad motorcycle accident 10 years ago.

King David once said to God " You knew me before I was born", and I believe that too

We're no different then the rest of the animal kingdom. We share 96% the same genes as chimps. We just happen to be the top of the food chain.

a reply to: wantsome

I would share this opinion fully, thank you for your input

You will want to confirm this prolly but there is a visible flash of light at conception

i no i no...duckduckgo

Life begins when something can die. As for a one year old child not aware of its existence neither is an adult during certain phases of sleep but that doesn't have anything to do with abortion and should be left out of the conversation entirely.

a reply to: KatWouldKillYou

Well, you certainly have many opinions rolled into there... and many judgments... so pretty much all subjective criteria for ending a life. And what little fact-based reasoning I see would suggest that we can "abort" until about the age of 25. Makes me wonder what criteria you would use to "abort" me and pretty much anyone and everyone.

So I gotta ask, in your opinion, at what point is it NOT okay to take a life?

a reply to: KatWouldKillYou

I was conscious before I was born and quietly born paying attention instead of screaming my head off like most are (to everyone's relief).

How can you explain that?

A figment of my imagination, a memory...that didn't exist. Even though I could talk about it later at about four years old.

a reply to: KatWouldKillYou

If NASA finds a single cell organism on Mars they will claim they found life.
As for when it becomes human life...
You'll never get a straight answer on that one

It is the other 4% that makes humans different

For life to begin, the living organism under question must at some point not be alive. A sperm cell is alive, as is an egg cell. They both have the ability to reproduce, use energy, and react to their environments. Ergo, the beginning of life in the context of abortion is moot; it never begins because it has always been, at least as long as life existed on the planet).

The egg cell and sperm cells are both also human cells. Therefore, the question of when does human life begin is also moot; human life has not begun since the dawn of humanity. Instead, it simply continues.

Now, if you want to talk when that human life becomes a person, I can explain theoretically the actions of a brain... the earthworm you mention has what I call a Pavlovian intelligence. So does every other creature that has life, even plants to some degree (even though they do not have a brain per se). However, that theoretical explanation breaks down when I start to consider imagination, forethought, planning, and abstract thought. Those are beyond my ability to explain using traditional scientific principles. Ergo, those abilities are extant in some dimension of knowledge with which we are unfamiliar. They are also the phenomena which separate us as individuals in society.

Since they appear extraneous to any physical description of neural activity in the brain, there is no reason to assume they are inherent to or an integral part of the brain. It is quite possible that imagination is the result of a communications link between the physical brain and some other part of ourselves that we do not yet understand.

When discussing abortion and when the unborn child is a "person," one must take into account the possibility that the part of us that makes us, us, is not something we are familiar enough with to make a reasonable judgement call on as to viability of personhood. Ergo, it is only logical to err on the side of caution rather than making assumptions based on a lack of information. Yes, that earthworm may appear "unintelligent" to us, and I will even go so far as to say that it probably does not possess non-Pavlovian intelligence, but can you prove to me that it does not feel pain, does not experience sentience, or does not possess self-awareness?

I can't, and neither can anyone else. If anyone claims they can provide such proof, they are either a liar or have God-like knowledge exceeding that of any other human that has ever existed.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

This is just an observation on my part but I think the earthworm does posses some degree of Pavlovian intelligence, if that's what you want to call it. The closest thing I can come to proving it is when a shovel is stabbed into the ground and vigorously shook from side to side the earthworms will immediately come to the surface and out of the ground. Is that not sensing danger and reacting to it? For me, I believe that reaction requires some sort of cognitive awareness.

If you want to have a scientific reference. Go watch a video of a baby kangaroo crawl up into its mothers pouch to nurse. Scientists say that at this point it is "developmentally equivalent" to a 7 week old human embryo. At that point of development, again their words "developmentally equivalent to a 7 week human embryo", very few could watch and claim that it isn't very much alive.

Memory has little to do with anything or you would be able to claim kids aren't alive until they are 3 or 4.

originally posted by: wantsome

originally posted by: visitedbythem
It appears that you believe we are only animals.

I believe we are spirit beings in an animal body. I got out of my body after a bad motorcycle accident 10 years ago.

King David once said to God " You knew me before I was born", and I believe that too

We're no different then the rest of the animal kingdom. We share 96% the same genes as chimps. We just happen to be the top of the food chain.

If you think we are at the top of the food chain, wander on out to the mountains behind my house one day without a weapon.

As for being "merely" animals, you are quite wrong...

We have something that interconnects us all, something bigger than the sum of our parts.

As for what that is, I will let theologians fight that out amongst themselves.

VBT is correct though... we are spirit trapped in flesh at this point of our journey.

a reply to: Lumenari

100% ^^ Humans are quite unique albeit just wearing a "skin" per se. Those that wish to be 'just an animal' are unfortunate, but in general, it is just an issue timing. Noone will be left without the opportunity.

I would say when the cells start dividing. If left unharmed, they will grow to a fetus/ viable baby. To interfere in the gestation constitutes an end to that life.... left to grow, you have a human.

a reply to: KatWouldKillYou

When conscious thought and emotion exists together in the flesh.

Now when does that happen?
How do we measure it?

a reply to: CharlesT

This is just an observation on my part but I think the earthworm does posses some degree of Pavlovian intelligence, if that's what you want to call it.

Oh, I agree! Although there is also what I term Instinctive Intelligence as well. In my AI studies, I use three terms for intelligence: Instinctive, which is what all organisms are created with initially, and which requires no new neural synaptic connections to create; Pavlovian, which is the ability to learn and adjust actions based on previous inputs and results through the creation/adjustment/deletion of neural synaptic pathways; Spiritual, which comprises abstract concepts and thought, which is not learned but imagined and thus is not a consequence of neural synaptic adaption.

Any organism with a brain of some sort (even an earthworm has a rudimentary neural network) has some sort of Pavlovian intelligence, if one subscribes to the belief that nature does not waste resources (which I do). There is no need for a neural network if all responses are Instinctive and no Pavlovian responses are possible.

My mention of 'proof' was concerning sentience, which would fall under Spiritual instead of Pavlovian. I'm not sure how I could 'prove' that I am sentient, although I will concede such may be possible. [/open door for crude jokes] The difficulty with providing such proof would be a function of how similar to humans the organism under test is, and an earthworm is pretty far off. If an earthworm has sentience, how would we even know it is not observing us and thinking we're the automatons? The value systems, inherent in Spiritual Intelligence, would likely not be anywhere near identical.

TheRedneck

a reply to: KatWouldKillYou

Life doesn't begin.

Life doesn't end.

Life is eternal.

The opposite of death is not life, but birth. Anything that is born, also dies. Forms are limited, substance is eternal. Energy can't be destroyed, physical forms can.