When Does Life End?

RStringfield said:
What? Your misuse of the language is now my fault? I understood what you meant even if you were not able to express it properly. It's not my problem that you have poor communication skills. And anyone that would confuse family members of the brain dead by telling them that, "some scientific definitions would say that mass over there is alive" has poor communication skills.
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Straw man silliness. You are deliberately disingenuous on this matter and, IMO, it is because you don't want to even consider that your carefree use of language might have caused the supposed "disagreement" with your lost point.

Do you even remember the point you were trying to make or are you still pretending that is what I said?
 
apple0154 said:
No one prevented the over 50% of fertilized cells that spontaneously aborted from carrying on the processes of life. No one even knew.
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if no one knew they ever existed then obviously we aren't discussing them in this thread......we are discussing the ones we know about......

by the way I noticed the carefully contrived dodge of saying "died" in your "spontaneously aborted from carrying on the processes of life".....you couldn't even discuss the issue coherently without acknowledging the fact they were alive.....
 
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apple0154 said:
Great! We're getting somewhere. I see you're using the word "alive" as meaning a human being. So, all the cells in the finger can be alive but according to your definition the finger isn't "alive" in the sense it's not a human being. Is that an accurate interpretation?

First, I did not use the word "alive" as meaning a human being. An organ is not a human being..The 'cell' is the smallest structural unit of an organism that is capable of independent functioning...mature cells are alive, they are not human beings...

If so, that's exactly what I have been trying to get across to you regarding the fertilized cell. The fertilized cell can be "alive" in the sense the cells are alive but that does not necessarily mean it is a human being.

we agree...


As I explained before people are born with defects. For example, whatever was necessary for an individual to have a "normal" heart was missing from the fertilized cell that eventually produced an individual requiring an operation immediately after birth.


Irrelevant...

Logically, it follows there must be instances where a fertilized cell is missing so many parts that it can not be considered an organism and as mentioned before it must be able to be an organism if it is to become a human being.

Use your dictionary...Fertilization (also known as conception), is fusion of gametes to produce a new organism of the same species.

Understand this? A new organism of the same species means HUMAN BEING
This new organism is in its earlist stage of development and growth...it is not mature, it is maturing but it is a human being....its undeniable....


Considering over 50% spontaneously abort within hours/days the logical conclusion is the fertilized cells in question were missing parts as it was incapable of carrying on the processes of life which is a requirement for being considered an organism.
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fertilized cells??
I assume you mean a fertilized egg....A sperm and an egg are not 'missing anything'.....there 'fusion' constitutes fertilization....SEE ABOVE DEFINITION
 
Damocles said:
I'm done pointing it out, if you want to constantly lose your point to semantics then you can. It's stupid to continue if you can't understand even the simplest of agreement with a bit of advice.
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Yep, you are done.

I am not one to bitch about words if I understand them. But after thinking about it, you really should stop using "the scientific definition." I understood what you meant, but I doubt idiots like Dixie do. That's my advice to you Damo.
 
Damocles said:
Straw man silliness. You are deliberately disingenuous on this matter and, IMO, it is because you don't want to even consider that your carefree use of language might have caused the supposed "disagreement" with your lost point.

Do you even remember the point you were trying to make or are you still pretending that is what I said?
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In a few words....

The fertilized egg meets the legal definition of brain dead. How can it be alive?
...

The fact that extra words will be spilled because you insist on dropping the context is not my fault.

Unlike your words ("the scientific definition") there is nothing misleading in mine.
 
Damocles said:
Again, you equate subjective with "bad" and then pretend that means I disagree with your point. I don't. I simply point out a more careful consideration of words could have made your point rather than lost it in argument.
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If it is not meant to belittle then why don't you add it to your poorly expressed and misleading red herring. That is, why don't you say "the subjective scientific definition of life."
 
Maybe your communication skills are so poor that you truly do not intend to demean with subjective (talk about being disingenuous) and are unaware of its effect. So here is another piece of advice for your, Damo. Throwing in the description of subjective to one definition and not the other tends to imply that the non subjective definition is objective and superior. If that is not what you intend then you should be more careful.
 
RStringfield said:
Not from my understanding. The entire organism can be recreated from any cell.

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml#whatis

Dolly's success is truly remarkable because it proved that the genetic material from a specialized adult cell, such as an udder cell programmed to express only those genes needed by udder cells, could be reprogrammed to generate an entire new organism. Before this demonstration, scientists believed that once a cell became specialized as a liver, heart, udder, bone, or any other type of cell, the change was permanent and other unneeded genes in the cell would become inactive. Some scientists believe that errors or incompleteness in the reprogramming process cause the high rates of death, deformity, and disability observed among animal clones.
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Well that's not exactly the point I was making.

Originally Posted by RStringfield
Again, you do not need specialized or specific cells to create a brain. All that is needed is genetic material containing dna.
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The DNA in any cell that isn't anuclear (like a red blood cell) can be used to clone that organism but the DNA only carries that information. To create a brain first that information has to be used to create the stem cells which ultimately develop, diferentiate and specialist into the organ we call "A Brain". So you were correct in principle but you were kind of putting the cart before the horse, as you phrased it.
 
RStringfield said:
What do I need to rephrase. The body is not considered to be a living individual for medical or legal purposes. It is the body of a dead person. Saying the body is dead would be well understood in legal and medical fields.

To call it alive, in that case, would require anyone using that term to explain themselves more fully. If you told family members of a potential organ donor "it is alive" you might create a mess with your poor choice of words and out of context usage of the word.
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Well I can't answer for the legal definition. I'm not a lawyer. As for the biological definition a complex organism, like a human, can live for a period of time with out brain function (albeit a very short time). I guess what I am saying is that it is entirely possible for an organism to die yet for the tissue and cells of that organims to still be alive and viable, for a period of time after the organism has died.
I guess what I am pointing out is that what applies to an organism may not apply to life in general.
 
RStringfield said:
Let's test it. We will have damo hang out at hospitals for someone to become brain dead. We'll dress him in doctor's gear so he looks all official. Then he can point to a body while saying to the family, "still alive." I will do the same with any group of scientist, except I will say "dead." Let's then find out who was confused. Who do you think it will be?
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What if that someone is Dixie? He's brain dead but still alive, aint he? ;)
 
RStringfield said:
Maybe your communication skills are so poor that you truly do not intend to demean with subjective (talk about being disingenuous) and are unaware of its effect. So here is another piece of advice for your, Damo. Throwing in the description of subjective to one definition and not the other tends to imply that the non subjective definition is objective and superior. If that is not what you intend then you should be more careful.
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Keep trying, it wasn't my point that was lost in this thread, it was yours.

:bdh:

As I said, this is just more evidence that I was right, you are desperately trying to keep from admitting that my advice was timely and good. It would have helped to keep your point from being lost.
 
Damocles said:
Again, deliberately disingenuous.

Again, you conveniently "forget" the difference between living person and alive. Everybody can see the body still breathes, the job of the doctor is to inform whether the person still is, not just that the organism still lives.

Scientists are careful in their language, they would say "brain-dead".
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and the politically correct Doctor would call them encepholopathically impaired.
 
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