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Mr Jenko

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Posts posted by Mr Jenko

  1. 42 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

    The offspring isn't developing itself until after its born, after which it's physically separated from the mother and must rely on its own processes for further development.

    Its consciousness is developing as a self-act within the mother? Nobody can force a consciousness through physical means. Neither in or out of utero.

    The entity involved during development of a fetus is a conjoined entity? Fetus-pregnant 'host'.

    What is your concept of 'mother' during gestation if you prefer this term over others?  I view this term as primarily relational in conception. Physical connectedness being a type of relation, but not exhaustive. To have a relational concept would imply two entities being in some relation. Contextually the term implies relationship between personhoods, parent-child?

    48 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

    The fetus would not become anything were it unconnected to the mother via the umbilical cord.

    It would become a new physical entity. Its quality of 'connectedness' (or similar) would be different pre/post separation.

     

    Re: conception of someone:

    1 hour ago, MisterSwig said:

    I don't. You could imagine (or conceive) the fetus apart from the mother but that's strictly imaginary. Being within the mother's body is essential to the valid concept of a "fetus." It is a pregnant mammal's unborn offspring

    What is your conceptual hierarchy here? Is a '[human] fetus' a subcategory of 'human'? A type of human? Implying personhood, if one accepts sub-categories subsumes all the characteristics of the referent?

    One first perceives living adult humans and abstracts to [human] fetuses when forming the concept [human] fetus? Maybe I've got this wrong here.

    1 hour ago, MisterSwig said:

    Consciousness itself is not life. Life is a process that might or might not include consciousness.

    How do you define "life"?

    I prefer Rand's definition: process of self-supporting, self-generating action. At some point the entity processes values from various sources, its heart beats, its brain fires etc. The primary source here is its mother. The entity acts in the only way open to it. If the flow of values stops it no longer processes that flow of values.

    Thanks for the reply. I'm gaining a lot from the discussion. 

  2. 9 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

    What is the "one" you refer to here? There is a fetus and there is a newborn. These things are very different, not just in terms of "connectedness," but in terms of processes.

    The entity physically changes becoming a new physical entity as a consequence of the birth process. From unborn to born. I appreciate this.

    Similarly the entity changes when it develops its consciousness in utero. When it becomes aware of existence as part of its development process. This is also a very big difference. At some point in utero the unborn becomes a someone rather than simply a something?  Despite its ongoing physical relationship to its host.

    The fetus acts in the only way open to it. This includes taking in life-sustaining values and processing these. My understanding is the fetus processes these values, automatically, supplied by the mother at some point during its development. Its heart beats, its brain 'fires' etc. Its an active entity not merely a passive one. 

    Conceptually, we isolate the entity apart from the mother despite it remaining physically conjoined.

    Conceptually its individuated, physically it remains 'connected'. Mind and body is a unity, either aspect can only be isolated conceptually but not physically separated.

    The consciousness of the fetus doesn't form a part of the mother. There is no collective consciousness. Despite its locus being nested within her. The 'body' containing the consciousness of the fetus is shared with the mother in a conjoined way. Life begins in a conjoined arrangement?

     

  3. On 2/19/2022 at 11:53 PM, whYNOT said:

    And of course, any self-value by the fetus-child will be a long time coming.

    Or, and for an objective regard of the developed fetus, is not: "Man's life" the *standard* of value?

    Life as such is a value, the fetus simply doesn't have the level of cognition to consciously seek or gain it as a self-value, albeit his level of development entrails the seeking of values because it is purpose driven? At least that's how I understand it.

    W.r.t 'man's life', man hasn't a volitional conscious capable of making value evaluation until well after birth from what I gather, raising the question as to whether the life of his mind begins at birth. 

    Sorry for the late reply, you got me thinking.

     

  4. 2 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

    To this, I'd have to ask whose life or death, and presume you are to pick one life or death over the life or death of the other.

    I'm unsure whether there is a conflict here if the parties involved act reasonably and honestly, taking into account long term interests of both the supposed aware unborn entity (whose life has begun) and its host.

    If a host values life and has gone through the motions of creating & gaining that value then nobodies life would necessarily be in jeopardy. If the host reasonably reevaluates their value hierarchy because of some changed context then they must accept that a decision to terminate an aware and living human entity is an action they must carry with them for the remainder of their adult life. A decision that has possibility of long term negative impacts to their life, at a minimum psychological affects. Such affects maybe different if it is such that the entity terminated is not considered aware and its life has begun. There maybe real impacts to the host's life if it is recognized fact that the unborn entity to be terminated is aware and its life begun. Destruction of a value of greater potential over lessor potential may be more or less psychologically harmful for the host.

    From the point of the unborn the decision of the host has real ramifications - the continuation of its life or its death, despite it being unware of what is at stake.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  5. 1 hour ago, Boydstun said:

    However, you wrote "identity is existence", and that is not a proposition she would ever accede to. Her view was the reverse, which is perhaps what you intended: existence is identity.

    Yep, i got it back to front there.

    1 hour ago, Boydstun said:

    If a new-born human baby were left with a bunch of chimps in the wild, and they were protective of it and were able to make it survive, I wonder if it would mature into a human? What do you think?

    To survive means to meet the requirements of survival by some objective standard. Survival requires particular external inputs out of ones control- language and its symbolic coding probably playing a big part here. Concepts rely on language formation (and language formation relies on concepts). An alphabet representing words consisting of hundreds for example may make concept formation and various cognitive functions (like recall) more cumbersome than one that is condensed. Perhaps accounting for why certain languages (and number systems) rise in popularity over the years. Language and their alphabets, like all abstractions, are tied to survivability. As we become more technologically advanced I find it interesting that the compression of these systems is becoming common - computer technology adopted hexadecimal and contractions of phrases is becoming widespread. Buying us back (life) time.

    W.r.t consciousness - I can't even imagine a form of consciousness that doesn't differentiate as a primary function. 

    Nice article.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  6. 14 hours ago, Boydstun said:

    She interpreted the baby as having not yet grasped that A is A. This is the stage “when a consciousness acquires its initial sensory perceptions and has not learned to distinguish solid objects.” To a baby at this stage, “the world appears as a blur of motion, without things that move—and the birth of his mind is the day when he grasps that the streak that keeps flickering past him is his mother and the whirl beyond her is the curtain, that the two are solid entities and neither can turn into the other . . .” (AS 1040–41)

    This is a really interesting quote from Rand. Thanks for finding this one.

    I always understood what is essential about human's is the rational faculty. That capacity to identify A is A. By this quote man isn't human until well after birth, raising why human life begins at biological birth? So in some sense my question still arises, but the timeseries has shifted. 

    Rand appears to make some distinction between 'is' vs 'is-of'? Identity is existence vs Identification of existence?

    I still struggle to understand how awareness of 'a whirl of chaos' isn't some identification of existence done by a consciousness of particular nature in a particular context.  Some application of measurement would need to be applied (outward extrospection) differentiating 'whirl of chaos' from 'whirl of lesser/greater chaos' wouldn't it? Or is she saying the whirl of a moment cant even be differentiated from the next moment? It consciously experiences nothing, which seems contradictory?

     

  7. 2 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

    Perhaps Ayn Rand should have said something more like "Life as an actual human being begins at birth." or "The acquisition of rights occurs at birth.".

    I understand her statement to have been made with a focus towards the socio-political context. I'm unsure whether it was meant at all to be taken as a definitive biological statement at all, considering she was no biologist.

    The potential human is of the actual unborn entity. "Human-ness" is a quality of the actual unborn entity? Its built in and provides the goal for the beings development.

     

     

  8. 6 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

    A house (being progressively developed) that is lacking a roof is not very usable as a house.  If a person or organization undertakes a legal obligation to provide a house, and they provide one that is lacking a roof, they can not legitimately claim to have fulfilled the obligation.

    Usability maybe what is considered under law, but this concept doesn't apply to development of a human fetus.

    I use this  metaphor of a house development here because Aristotle used a similar example when discussing purposefulness & knowledge in processes.

    The fetus has its own purpose - to develop. It self-generates actions to achieve this goal. Somewhat meeting the definition posted earlier for 'life', repeated below. It may not be fully conscious, but it is alive, albeit connected to its mother. 

    "Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action" - AR.

    Thanks for your reply.

  9. 5 hours ago, Boydstun said:

    The fetus comes to discriminate his or her mother’s voice from other sounds in utero. But that is no cognizance of what the thing discriminated is, and so, no consciousness rightly conceived.

    Is it not fair to say something like 'the fetus has discriminated something from nothing'? Much like one does when you see the monitor in front of you, but then close your eyes? The fetus has identified an entity, sensory material? It is aware.

    "A sensation is a sensation of something, as distinguished from the nothing of the preceding and succeeding moments. A sensation does not tell man what exists, but only that it exists." - Intro to OE

    As far as I can see, the pro-life crowd have a point when they say abortion kills something that has awareness.

    I agree that the authors of the paper have a broad definition of what consciousness is.

    If life is considered a process I can accept that development occurs throughout its continuum, before and after birth. There appears to be litte debate as to when this process completes (death) and much to its beginning? Breaking it down into stages is helpful for discussion. Thankyou.

    In some sense the unborn entity (whatever its stage of pre-birth development) is taking some goal-directed action isn't it - development. 

    Thanks for your reply.

  10. 5 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

    Maybe the point is that human life begins at birth.

    I would argue that it begins even later, although it might be necessary to grant rights legally before they exist morally.

     

    Is the unborn entity not a human entity that is lacking some parts? The entity is 'incomplete', it is lacking physical independence and volition for example. To be an entity is to be one with a specific nature, human nature in this case?

    A house (being progressively developed) that is lacking a roof is still a house (being progressively developed)?

    Does an unborn entity experience anything material?

    If it experiences something material then it has processed sensory material. It is aware of existence. To be aware of existence it must be alive. Therefor the unborn is alive pre-birth. Its life (and so the life of the human into which it develops) must begin before the process of birth completes?

    I'm still very confused.

     

     

  11. Please see abstract for conlcusion: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929321000554

    "On the whole, our results support the assumption that fetuses in the last weeks of gestation are capable of consciously processing stimuli that reach them from outside the womb."

    One could imagine the moments before umbilical separation from a mother the unborn entity is able to process sensory material, providing an upper limit time on pre-birth awareness of existence. 

    Life can be either dependent or independent. Rand provides a great definition for independent life-"Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action."

    An unborn is alive, despite being dependent. Just like many organisms. Birth is not necessary for life. 

     

  12. My question was more about life per say than any socio-political topic. Though i've searched a few of the threads but i think my question seems a little different (although related somewhat).

    My point in essence is that if one concedes that an unborn entity (even if not physically separate to a host) is aware of existence to some degree then that entity is necessarily alive. Alive pre-birth. That is, its life has started prior to its birth and so biologically its life did not begin at birth?

    I can see why from a practicality perspective Rand may have selected birth to demarcate when the issue of rights are applied, but this is a separate issue. 

    Thanks for the reply.

     

  13. Hey all - this is my first post. Please help me with the below (probably novice question).
     
    Consciousness is that faculty of an entity which perceives existence. One must exist (and be living) to perceive existence. The unborn processes sensory material - perceiving existence- during some stage in its development. This is measurable by various technology from what I gather. Individuation of the unborn entity from the entity of the mother must therefor occur prior to its physical separation from the mother? The unborn entity maintains some relational quality (eg physical connectedness) to its host mother until its separation?
     
    I don't see why a change in some qualities of an already living entity (say connectedness to its host) indicates the beginning of a new process for that entity- life. It is already alive prior to its birth is it not? Hence the use of the phrase 'stillbirth' to indicate when the the opposite occurs?
     
    Why then does Rand say life begins at birth? Rather than birth being some stage one passes through during ones life which has already begun prior?
     
    Thanks. Any recommended additional reading on this topic would be much appreciated. 
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