wow Darla has the cutest voice ever

Hasa Diga Eebowai said:
If they are brain dead then they are dead, for legal and medical purposes.
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If they are brain dead, you are correct. But not everyone on life support is brain dead. What about the others?


It does determine if someone is dead or alive for the purposes relevant to the state.
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I know you are smart enough to realize that not everyone on life support is brain dead. People who suffer traumatic injury are sometimes on life support and others sometimes put into induced coma's in order to recover.

So what about the others that are not brain dead, but are on life support? Are they also dead?
 
Superfreak said:
Again... you are drifting away from hard science and into the soft science of philosophy. Philosophically, you are correct... there is argument about the definition of life.

But the HARD science... the biology and the genetics tells us whether something is alive or dead and what species it is.
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NO, I AM NOT. You are the one conflating philosophy with science. Science does not clearly tell us what life is. It can tell us whether an existent has this or that attribute which our philosophy may use as a condition of life. But the fact is is that there is NO clear definition of what life is.

You also repeatedly conflate the adjective with the noun. Alive and life are not the same thing. You switch back and forth quite sloppily and fail to understand how it exacerbates your confusion.

You really are quite a moron and you don't have the philosophical wherewithal to understand the limits of science and it's inability to provide a concise answer on such a complex subject.
 
Superfreak said:
If they are brain dead, you are correct. But not everyone on life support is brain dead. What about the others?




I know you are smart enough to realize that not everyone on life support is brain dead. People who suffer traumatic injury are sometimes on life support and others sometimes put into induced coma's in order to recover.

So what about the others that are not brain dead, but are on life support? Are they also dead?
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You've lost. A fetus up until very near the point of viability is not neurologically capable of sustaining the basic functions of life.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
No I am not. A zygote meets all the definition of life as it is commonly defined. Please explain to me what characteristics of life a zygote, for example, doesn't have or how it is not a uniquely new life form? A zygote forms at fertilization. It has a unique diploid set of chromosomes it has inhereted from the parents gamettes. The DNA is unique, no other organizm will have DNA exactly like this it is New DNA. No cell or ogranism like this would have ever existed before and this zygote meets all the conditions to be defined as life and would have done so at the moment of fertilization and thus life has begun.

Now you can argue that it may not be a human life, yet and that it may not be a viable life yet and you would be correct to argue that there is no consensus as to when a "human life" or a "viable life" begins but there is no argument and solid consensus that a a new life has begun at fertilization. Arguing otherwise is just plain silly and ignores the facts.
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Not even close. By your own definition, it can't reproduce. Aside from that you argument is mainly semantics.
 
Superfreak said:
You are half right, half wrong. A biologist also knows what makes a fertilized ovum, zygote, blastocyst etc... human or non-human. It is encoded in our DNA. It is basic genetics. There is NO point in time that it is non-human.

Now, if you want to talk about LEGAL rights or when a human life is 'viable'... THOSE are subjective. When a life begins, as you stated, is not. Whether or not it is human, is NOT.
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Sorry but String is right in regards to "human life'. There is no consensus that a fertilized egg/zygote is a human life. That it is living there is no dispute, that it is the beginning of a human life there is dispute. Probably 70% of zygotes do not implant into the uterus because they have abnormal DNA. DNA that is not "normally" human. So the question as to when a human life begins there is no consensus within science. When life begins, there is consensus. There is scientific consensus that life begins at fertilization but not on human life beginning at fertilization.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/When_does_life_begin?
 
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Hasa Diga Eebowai said:
You've lost. A fetus up until very near the point of viability is not neurologically capable of sustaining the basic functions of life.
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LOL... you claim I lost, but when I point out that a person who is not brain dead, but on life support is also not capable of sustaining the basic functions of life... you run away.

and yes, I did note how you shifted the goal posts to pretending that they have to be neurologically capable. Keep spinning coward.
 
Superfreak said:
I know. Which is why I clarified. But in the biological sense, we do know specifically when it is human and when it is alive. We know when the human life begins.
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No...not really. There are too many variables. Biologist see the beginning of human life as a process and not something that happens at any one given point as there are to many variables involved. By that I mean variables such as DNA, which can vary greatly, implantation of the blastocyst or miscarriage in the womb, the process of fertilization, which isn't instantaneous as most people think but takes a matter of days to occur, etc.

There is the consensus that the resulting, cells and developing embryo are "alive" but no scientific consensus that at this stage it is human life or that human life has begun
 
Superfreak said:
LOL... you claim I lost, but when I point out that a person who is not brain dead, but on life support is also not capable of sustaining the basic functions of life... you run away.

and yes, I did note how you shifted the goal posts to pretending that they have to be neurologically capable. Keep spinning coward.
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It's not analogous to the state of a fetus prior to viability. A ventilator, feeding tube, etc will not sustain the fetus prior to viability.
 
Rune said:
Not even close. By your own definition, it can't reproduce. Aside from that you argument is mainly semantics.
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Sure it does. At the cellular level it most certainly reproduces. There is no argument that a zygote is alive. There is complete consensus on this. What there is not scientific consensus on is it a life form. Is it the beginning of a human life or dog life or whale life, etc, there is no scientific consensus on. That a zygote is alive there is no argument.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
No...not really. There are too many variables. Biologist see the beginning of human life as a process and not something that happens at any one given point as there are to many variables involved. By that I mean variables such as DNA, which can vary greatly, implantation of the blastocyst or miscarriage in the womb, the process of fertilization, which isn't instantaneous as most people think but takes a matter of days to occur, etc.

There is the consensus that the resulting, cells and developing embryo are "alive" but no scientific consensus that at this stage it is human life or that human life has begun
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Except those are not variables as to when life begins. When the egg is fertilized by the sperm cell, the dna coding of a unique human life forms.

If a fertilized egg does not implant, it will die. Cease to live. At no point between fertilization and implantation does it cease to exist or die. Same thing for miscarriages. That is DEATH.

The process of fertilization is irrelevant in terms of time, because no matter the time it takes for fertilization to occur, the DNA does not combine until fertilized. Thus the unique human life does not form until the fertilization process is complete.

Again... you are using the term 'human life' in the philosophical manner, not in the scientific. There is a huge difference.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Sure it does. At the cellular level it most certainly reproduces. There is no argument that a zygote is alive. There is complete consensus on this. What there is not scientific consensus on is it a life form. Is it the beginning of a human life or dog life or whale life, etc, there is no scientific consensus on. That a zygote is alive there is no argument.
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That is complete bullshit. If two humans mate, it is the beginning of a human life. They are not going to go to their doctors to find out they are having a dog or a whale.

You really should not call yourself a scientist if you are going to spout such nonsense.
 
Superfreak said:
No, rick is not right. He is blatantly wrong.
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No he's not completely wrong. He's just not differentiating that which is alive from a life form or the beginning of a life form such as a human life. He is correct there. There is no scientific consensus as to when, for example, a human life begins. In biology the beginning of human life is viewed more as a process than beginning at some specified moment.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/When_does_life_begin?
 
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