(May 25, 2012 at 12:01 pm)Shell B Wrote: What?! I didn't say brain tissue was destroyed. The child was born without it.

I also said nothing about whether the child was a person or not. I made no comments on its personhood. Why are you pretending I did?

Where did I say you said that?

@ RaphielDrake..... your 'laughing' condition is part of cataplexy, I have it too. Also if I belly-laugh, my muscles collapse and I find myself literally rolling on the floor laughing. Its a genetic rare flaw

(May 25, 2012 at 10:58 am)Mosrhun Wrote: I found the video incredibly repulsive. The baby was used like a fucking doll, I couldn't even watch most of it. Why would anyone want to see their child like that in the first place? He should have never been born.

Well, I don't think that the birth of the child was the real issue. In all, it was a zero sum game. The only thing she should be worried about is that she had to go through childbirth only to bring forth a potential stillborn child.
On the other hand, people just want to see even a stillborn child after giving birth to it. I don't know what's really so damn weird about it. Hey, would I give birth to a child if I knew it would live about a few hours or so? I would. For abortion has certain risks attached to it. But would I give birth to a child that I know that would be born mentally retarded or physically handicapped? Certainly not. Doing so would produce a minus-sum game.
She on the other hand lost nothing, really.
She could have aborted the child. Well, why really go through a procedure like abortion if you can just give birth to it?

(May 25, 2012 at 11:27 am)Phil Wrote:

(May 25, 2012 at 11:17 am)Chuck Wrote: Someone in a persistent vegetative state resulting from evident excessive brain tissue destruction, and thus manifestly lacking the mechanism to even theoretically regain faculty for more than reflexive action, is considered human only out of courtesy to the relatives.

So your first statement that an ability to respond is now being modified to include the destruction of brain tissue? I'm confused, how was any brain tissue destroyed in a baby born with anencephaly? Defining a human person isn't too easy is it?

Defining a human person is very easy, provided one is making the definition with definite clarity of purpose. It only become not so much difficult as futile, when one attempts to define human person with an eye towards satisfying multiple non-overlapping sets of often contradictory purposes.

Ability to respond, or reasonable expectation of eventually acquiring the ability to response, to stimulus in a more than simply reflexive way is necessary, but not sufficient, component of what makes the product of human reproduction a person. Having the appropriate brain tissues is in turn a necessary, but insufficient condition for the ability to so respond, or to eventually acquire the ability to so respond.

So brain tissue is the foundation. No brain tissue, no possibility of personhood.

Quote:Is any baby a few days out of womb capable of abstract thought?

Some learn...the rest become theists.

(May 25, 2012 at 11:03 am)Chuck Wrote:

(May 25, 2012 at 3:42 am)Annik Wrote: Sadly, it's true. These children only respond to stimuli and are incapable of abstract thought.

Is any baby a few days out of womb capable of abstract thought?

[...]

I was referring the the ability to acquire abstract thought later on in life. Without the rest of the brain, the "baby" is just a bag of organs. It's not a thing I like to think about, but it's true.

(May 25, 2012 at 4:20 pm)Annik Wrote:

(May 25, 2012 at 11:03 am)Chuck Wrote: Is any baby a few days out of womb capable of abstract thought?

[...]

I was referring the the ability to acquire abstract thought later on in life. Without the rest of the brain, the "baby" is just a bag of organs. It's not a thing I like to think about, but it's true.

Even with a brain we are all bags of organs.

(May 25, 2012 at 5:01 pm)Phil Wrote:

(May 25, 2012 at 4:20 pm)Annik Wrote: I was referring the the ability to acquire abstract thought later on in life. Without the rest of the brain, the "baby" is just a bag of organs. It's not a thing I like to think about, but it's true.

Even with a brain we are all bags of organs.

Bags of organs capable of contemplating the universe. Without our brains, we are truly nothing. And all the wonderful, thinking, yearning, learning parts of the brain... That child would not have.

(May 25, 2012 at 5:18 pm)Annik Wrote:

(May 25, 2012 at 5:01 pm)Phil Wrote: Even with a brain we are all bags of organs.

Bags of organs capable of contemplating the universe. Without our brains, we are truly nothing. And all the wonderful, thinking, yearning, learning parts of the brain... That child would not have.

The thoughts in our brains are about something? How so, they are only neural circuits?

(May 25, 2012 at 7:51 pm)Phil Wrote:

(May 25, 2012 at 5:18 pm)Annik Wrote: Bags of organs capable of contemplating the universe. Without our brains, we are truly nothing. And all the wonderful, thinking, yearning, learning parts of the brain... That child would not have.

The thoughts in our brains are about something? How so, they are only neural circuits?

Can we agree that the brain is responsible for abstract thought and that thoughts are something we experience every second of the day?