From: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (J H Woodyatt)
Subject: Re: A couple of agnostics chewing the fat...
Reply-To: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com
Organization: Abiogenesis 4 Less
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 22:00:57 GMT

frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
# bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com writes:
# >I had a friend once, in college, who was shot through the head with a
# >.38 revolver at close range.  The shell passed through his left eye
# >and emerged behind his right ear.  He survived.  Strangely, he was
# >mostly functional afterward, if quite epileptic.  He retained much of
# >his memory.  However, his personality, mannerisms, idiosyncracies,
# >etc. changed remarkably -- much more so than one would expect from,
# >say, psychological treatment.  It was night and day.
# 
# I don't mean to trivialise your friend's experience - but personhood is not
# necessarily personality either.  A substantial number of world religions
# believe in something similar to 'spirit' or 'soul' - that's a whole heck of a
# lot of people who apparently have a day to day concept of 'person' which has
# nothing to do with intelligence.  Who's to say they're wrong?  

It's my observation that devout theists who believe in the concept
we're talking about here tend to associate personality traits like
memory, emotional reactions, mannerisms with souls so as to
distinguish souls from one another.  In these religious belief
systems, what is it about my soul that distinguishes it from yours, if
not my memories, my emotional reactions, my skills, my personality?

I believe all of these things are immanent in the brain and its
electrochemical state, for reasons I explained previously.  For me to
believe in the concept of a soul, I have to either decide there are no
significant distinguishing features of souls that make them unique and
rare, or I have to disregard the convincing evidence that personality
resides in the state of the brain.  What path do you recommend?

# >genetics, but environment as well.  Zygotes have no memory.  They have
# >not learned emotional responses.  They have no analytical skills.  I
# 
# You're fine up to here.  You mean they cannot _demonstrate_ memory or
# emotional responses.  That they can't prove it to a doubting thomas like you
# doesn't mean they don't have it.  Maybe they don't _want_ to show you because
# they think you wouldn't understand.  Maybe it's _you_ who are lacking.

No.  They don't have memory.  If by some weird mystical mechanism they
*do* have some kind of memory, it is certainly not human memory.
Human memory has limitations and qualities that make it very different
from, say, a computer's memory.  These limitations and qualities
directly stem from the physical nature of the brain.  Observe how diet
and drugs can alter memory.

# And given a fair chance, zygotes implant - do they love mommy or what?

What's the nature of love?

# >see nothing remarkable about a zygote that tells me I should expect to
# >see such things in them.  To believe otherwise means I have to adjust
# 
# I do see something remarkable about a zygote.  Many of them turn into
# children.  Two of them turned into _my_ children.  One zygote went on to
# found Christianity, another went on to discover America, another wrote the
# works of Shakespeare, and another started world war II.  Not good or bad, but
# certainly remarkable.

And two out of every three zygotes never implant.  I say they aren't
any more remarkable than sperm and ova until after they turn into
blastocytes -- and even then, they're nowhere near as a remarkable to
me as embryos, let alone adult human beings.  Sexual reproduction is a
wonderful process -- but it happens way way way too often for me to be
upset because an unwelcome zygote here and there goes the way of every
two out of three others.

# >my entire reality to suit it, thus making it into a reality I don't
# >find very useful.  Do you see why I challenge your argument?
# 
# Yes.  Do you see why I challenge yours?

No.  Not yet.  I suppose I haven't seen what it is about my arguments
you find troubling.  What element of your reality does my argument
poke at that leads you to challenge it (the argument)?

# ># Maybe I intended to imply that to _unnecessarily_ call something into 
# ># existence and then destroy it is wantonly destructive, and stupid.  Who
# ># knows what I intended?
# >
# >Finish your vegetables -- there are starving children in Somalia who
# >would be grateful for half of what you're throwing away.
# 
# Fine. Finish your vegetables, save somalia, write to your mother, and
# then what?  Zygote canopes?

(What's a `canope?'  Is that a U.K./Irish spelling of `canopy?'  I'm
confused.)

# >I don't know about `wanton' destruction -- nor do I leap to the
# >judgement that its stupid.  Sometimes it simply makes more sense to
# >create and destroy, rather than reuse -- though I would agree that we
# >humans tend to reuse less than we should.
# 
# Unnecessary destruction is always stupid, because it's unnecessary.

Fine.  I suppose unnecessary *anything* is stupid, because it's
unnecessary.  Feh.  I refuse to give up the frivolous.  Let me pose a
koan to you...

One day the initiate came upon the roshi in the field.  The roshi was
blowing dandelion bulbs and watching the seeds drift away.  The
initiate asked the roshi, ``Why do you spend your time in such
unnecessary pursuits?  Is it not a waste of precious time?''  The
roshi handed a dandelion bulb to the initiate and said, ``Ask the
dandelion if it is a waste of time.''

-----

# >I dispute your claim that a zygote is `certainly' more valuable than a
# >sperm or an ovum regardless of what one thinks of its personhood.  In
# >fact, I might argue that it is *less* valuable by analogy to chicken
# >eggs -- which are more valuable when they are *not* fertilized.
# 
# Let me see if I have you right.  A zygote which has perhaps 30-75% chance of
# becoming a child is _less_ valuable than an ovum, which rarely amounts to
# anything.  Well don't let _me_ stop you.

Indeed.  An ovum can be moved outside a woman's body, fertilized and
implanted in (perhaps another) woman's womb.  An implanted zygote's only
value is in its potential.  An ovum has real value as well as
potential.  That's the argument that could be made.  I hope I have
satisfactorily backed up my dispute.

# >Furthermore, I notice that contraceptives A and B have to be equally
# >effective, save, convenient, cheap (and presumably available), before
# >the question of vandalism in the case of the abortifacient seems to
# >enter the picture.  Is this an admission of the trivial nature of the
# >argument we're engaged in?
# 
# Compassion is not always this trivial.  I have two kids.

I don't understand.  Non-sequitur?


-- 
+---------------------------+  ``Democracy is the theory that the common 
| J H Woodyatt              |  people know what they want, and deserve to
| bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com |  get it good and hard.''
+---------------------------+                              -- H L Mencken

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