cause I’m a prom night dumpster baby!
[quote]NickViar wrote:
What if we define a human as a being produced by two humans’ genes?[/quote]
Go right ahead.
But we are defining a “person”, not a “human”.
[quote]orion wrote:
I think they owe it more to tying the strong sexual urges of young men and the need for security in whatever form of older women into a neat package, calling it “marriage”.
This frees men from competition over the most fertile females and makes them cooperate to further the prospects of their offspring.
Furthermore, it shortens the courtship period which is now prolonged to 30 by some women and therefore leaves room to raise your offspring right, which is somewhat at odds with fucking everything that moves.
This all made so much sense, we had to scrap it.
[/quote]
So many parallels between the origins of marriage and the origins of animal husbandry (even the terminology is the same), I can’t help but think they developed at the same time.
Paleolithic men used to hunt in packs, corner their quarry, then take turns penetrating the poor creature with their spears. It was hard to tell who dealt the winning blow, and if the weather or fortune was against you, you might go home without getting lucky.
Neolithic man, on the other hand, kept his livestock enclosed, protecting it from other predators, and ate well year round as a result. There was also no question of ownership: if he owned the nanny goat, the kids were probably his, too.
“Take your son, your only son, yes, Isaac, whom you love so much?and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”
Does this end with God saying Jesus Christ you idiots will do anything “for” me won’t you?
Oh we’re talking about different killing babies?
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]NickViar wrote:
What if we define a human as a being produced by two humans’ genes?[/quote]
Go right ahead.
But we are defining a “person”, not a “human”.[/quote]
My mistake.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Paleolithic men used to hunt in packs, corner their quarry, then take turns penetrating the poor creature with their spears. It was hard to tell who dealt the winning blow, and if the weather or fortune was against you, you might go home without getting lucky.
[/quote]
You don’t know what Paleolithic men used to do. You honestly don’t.[/quote]
How would you hunt a large animal if all you had was a bunch of friends and some pointy sticks?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Paleolithic men used to hunt in packs, corner their quarry, then take turns penetrating the poor creature with their spears. It was hard to tell who dealt the winning blow, and if the weather or fortune was against you, you might go home without getting lucky.
[/quote]
You don’t know what Paleolithic men used to do. You honestly don’t.[/quote]
And you do realize, I hope, that my paragraph above was a metaphor for gang rape.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Kanzi says, “nobody makes a monkey out of me!”
The problem with defining personhood is that depending on how broadly you define the term, you start including a lot more members into the club of “personhood” that aren’t necessarily human, and start to exclude a lot of humans.
A corporation is legally a “person”, but it isn’t human. Is dissolution of a corporation on par with homicide?
And how about dolphins and chimpanzees? Undoubtedly some of them are more intelligent and literate than a lot of humans.
Should they be considered persons, with equivalent rights as human persons? If not, why not? Should personhood be dependent entirely on chromosome count? Before you answer yes, understand that you risk excluding people with Down’s Syndrome. We’ll get back to that.
Pictured above is Kanzi, a male bonobo with a command of pictogram vocabulary of about 450 words. He can communicate intelligently with scientists and reporters, which is more than one can say for many politicians. He can also craft stone knives using ancient flint-knapping techniques, build a fire and toast food on it, without the use of lighter fluid, match-light briquettes or compressed propane gas. These are skills that I have observed to be lacking in many supposedly intelligent humans.
I would say that Kanzi is a person, and that all chimps, bonobos and other great apes are at least as much potential persons as the least intelligent members of our species. A normal human has forty-six chromosomes. A chimpanzee has forty-eight. A person with Down’s syndrome splits the difference, with forty-seven. Notably, 98 percent of our 21st chromosome is identical to that of a chimp. The 21st chromosome is the one that is duplicated in Down’s Syndrome humans. Genetically and behaviorally, a Down’s Syndrome person has at least as much in common with a chimp as with a human. Maybe more.
I mean no offense to Down’s Syndrome people. This is just the way it is. Severely disabled Down’s Syndrome people could not compete with Kanzi in terms of manual dexterity, reasoning or communication.
Either a chimp is a person, or a Down’s Syndrome person is not. My money is on the former.
[/quote]
How’s about we define person as a living entity belonging to the genus/species Homo sapien?
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
How’s about we define person as a living entity belonging to the genus/species Homo sapien?[/quote]
Because all you’ve done is say, using more words, that “a person is a living human”
Assume that we know what a human is, physiologically, taxonomically and genetically. What defines a person, philosophically, psychologically, and legally?
And remember that we already give legal rights of personhood to corporations, which are non-human, non-living entities.
What defines a person? Any definition you give that is broad enough to encompass all humans is probably inclusive enough to hold a few other species as well.
Perhaps you disagree. If so, I will ask you to define the word “human”. Whatever definition you give, we can probably find quite a few people who don’t belong in the club.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
How’s about we define person as a living entity belonging to the genus/species Homo sapien?[/quote]
Because all you’ve done is say, using more words, that “a person is a living human”
Assume that we know what a human is, physiologically, taxonomically and genetically. What defines a person, philosophically, psychologically, and legally?
And remember that we already give legal rights of personhood to corporations, which are non-human, non-living entities.
What defines a person? Any definition you give that is broad enough to encompass all humans is probably inclusive enough to hold a few other species as well.
Perhaps you disagree. If so, I will ask you to define the word “human”. Whatever definition you give, we can probably find quite a few people who don’t belong in the club.
[/quote]
First off, they were given some of the same rights as a person. And the corporation itself is merely defined as a person because they are in actuality a collective of people. That’s why 5th amendment rights do not apply to a corporation. Also 1st amendment rights are limited, as companies cannot make false claims without facing litigation. SO the corporations are equivalents to a person argument is invalid as they are only given the rights of personhood because they are essentially collectives of people.
Now, to define person, then yes I believe a person is a living human and should be defined as such legally. Nothing more, nothing less.
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
How’s about we define person as a living entity belonging to the genus/species Homo sapien?[/quote]
Because all you’ve done is say, using more words, that “a person is a living human”
Assume that we know what a human is, physiologically, taxonomically and genetically. What defines a person, philosophically, psychologically, and legally?
And remember that we already give legal rights of personhood to corporations, which are non-human, non-living entities.
What defines a person? Any definition you give that is broad enough to encompass all humans is probably inclusive enough to hold a few other species as well.
Perhaps you disagree. If so, I will ask you to define the word “human”. Whatever definition you give, we can probably find quite a few people who don’t belong in the club.
[/quote]
First off, they were given some of the same rights as a person. And the corporation itself is merely defined as a person because they are in actuality a collective of people. That’s why 5th amendment rights do not apply to a corporation. Also 1st amendment rights are limited, as companies cannot make false claims without facing litigation. SO the corporations are equivalents to a person argument is invalid as they are only given the rights of personhood because they are essentially collectives of people.
Now, to define person, then yes I believe a person is a living human and should be defined as such legally. Nothing more, nothing less.[/quote]
Then define “human”.
While you’re at it, define “living”.
Well, the embryo is an organism, which is living. As organisms do. It is an individual. That is, it’s already living its OWN life cycle, with it’s OWN DNA. And a human embryo is…well…human. The parents being human, and the DNA being human. Living human. I mean, science already answers this whenever it refers to the HUMAN embryo.
Life------living matter and, as such, matter that shows certain attributes that include responsiveness, growth, metabolism, energy transformation, and reproduction. Although a noun, as with other defined entities, the word life might be better cast as a verb to reflect its essential status as a process. Life comprises individuals, living beings, assignable to groups (taxa). Each individual is composed of one or more minimal living units, called cells, and is capable of transformation of carbon-based and other compounds (metabolism), growth, and participation in reproductive acts.
Definition
noun, plural: humans
A bipedal primate belonging to the genus Homo, especially Homo sapiens.
adjective
Of, pertaining to, having the attributes of, a being belonging to the species of the Homo sapiens.
Do fetuses have the ability to think, and feel pain? If so, when does it start? When is it possible for the fetus to survive with life support? I haven’t seen it mentioned, and I am genuinely curious.
[quote]DSSG wrote:
Do fetuses have the ability to think, and feel pain?
[/quote]
I know people in their 40’s that can’t do either of those.
Sloth, just to save us both some energy, I’ll point out that I consider an embryo to be both living and human.
But the problem with the definition of both human and life is that it we find it difficult to give a simple, concise answer without resorting to tautology. “Life is the state of being alive”, or "a human is an member of the species Homo sapiens. Calling something by a synonym is not the same as defining the thing.
Your definition included bipedality. Lets drop that right now, or exclude from the Human Club anyone born without both legs.
Primate is fine, as we are indeed primates. Of course, a chimp is also a bipedal primate (a lot more bipedal than Stephen Hawking, anyway), that missed out on being included in the species by virtue of two lousy chromosomes. Chimpanzees are in the same taxonomic family as we are, Hominidae. If we followed proper taxonomic and genetic convention, bonobos and chimpanzees really belong in the genus Homo, the one we are currently monopolizing. Anything you can say about the genus Homo, you can say about a chimp. Coyotes, jackals and wolves and they are more genetically dissimilar than chimps and humans, and yet they all share a genus.
So. H. troglodytes, H. bonoboensis, and H. sapiens. One genus, three species. All that separates us is behavior, morphology, language, intelligence (and all these are pretty insignificant, when taken as an aggregate). Oh, and two lousy chromosomes.
Or one, if we’re talking about people with Down’s Syndrome.
(You are probably getting irritated, wondering why I keep gnawing on the Down’s Syndrome bone. It is relevant.)
Back to the three species of the genus Homo. Which means human, but we’ll ignore that for now. Only one of the three species gets to be the “sapiens” designator, and thus be considered a “real” human.
What does it mean, though, to be sapient? I see plenty of non-sapient individuals walking around every day. Hell, I’ve even run into a few on this site! The point is, if the only measure by which we segregate ourselves from the other species in our genus is intelligence, then we’re definitely going to have to kick a bunch of people down the taxonomic totem pole and let a few chimps up.
By any definition of personhood that doesn’t include “a member of the species H. sapiens”, chimps and bonobos are people. After all, any definition of “human” that does not include “having 23 pairs of chromosomes” must allow at least some members of the other hominid species a place at the human table.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Sloth, just to save us both some energy, I’ll point out that I consider an embryo to be both living and human.
But the problem with the definition of both human and life is that it we find it difficult to give a simple, concise answer without resorting to tautology. “Life is the state of being alive”, or "a human is an member of the species Homo sapiens. Calling something by a synonym is not the same as defining the thing.
Your definition included bipedality. Lets drop that right now, or exclude from the Human Club anyone born without both legs.
Primate is fine, as we are indeed primates. Of course, a chimp is also a bipedal primate (a lot more bipedal than Stephen Hawking, anyway), that missed out on being included in the species by virtue of two lousy chromosomes. Chimpanzees are in the same taxonomic family as we are, Hominidae. If we followed proper taxonomic and genetic convention, bonobos and chimpanzees really belong in the genus Homo, the one we are currently monopolizing. Anything you can say about the genus Homo, you can say about a chimp. Coyotes, jackals and wolves and they are more genetically dissimilar than chimps and humans, and yet they all share a genus.
So. H. troglodytes, H. bonoboensis, and H. sapiens. One genus, three species. All that separates us is behavior, morphology, language, intelligence (and all these are pretty insignificant, when taken as an aggregate). Oh, and two lousy chromosomes.
Or one, if we’re talking about people with Down’s Syndrome.
(You are probably getting irritated, wondering why I keep gnawing on the Down’s Syndrome bone. It is relevant.)
Back to the three species of the genus Homo. Which means human, but we’ll ignore that for now. Only one of the three species gets to be the “sapiens” designator, and thus be considered a “real” human.
What does it mean, though, to be sapient? I see plenty of non-sapient individuals walking around every day. Hell, I’ve even run into a few on this site! The point is, if the only measure by which we segregate ourselves from the other species in our genus is intelligence, then we’re definitely going to have to kick a bunch of people down the taxonomic totem pole and let a few chimps up.
By any definition of personhood that doesn’t include “a member of the species H. sapiens”, chimps and bonobos are people. After all, any definition of “human” that does not include “having 23 pairs of chromosomes” must allow at least some members of the other hominid species a place at the human table.
[/quote]
That’s why all definitions of person should include “a member of the species H. sapiens”. Include that, define life as biologically beginning at the point of conception because that is when it becomes a separate organism with a set of dna separate from its host, and there you go. A person is a living organism classified as member species H. sapien.
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
That’s why all definitions of person should include “a member of the species H. sapiens”. Include that, define life as biologically beginning at the point of conception because that is when it becomes a separate organism with a set of dna separate from its host, and there you go. A person is a living organism classified as member species H. sapien.[/quote]
Okay. I don’t agree, given the reasons I listed in my previous posts, that some members of the H. bonoboensis species demonstrate greater verbal aptitude, use of tools, cognitive ability, and overall manual dexterity than many members of the H. sapiens species: they are more “human” than some humans, in other words, not to mention the fact that some members of our species are more similar to H. troglodytes genetically and behaviorally (particularly in the infantile stage of development) than to H. sapiens.
But let us accept your premise for the sake of argument. A “person” is a living human of the species sapiens sapiens, with 46 or 47 chromosomes, in any stage of maturity between zygote (fusion of sperm and egg) and the instant before cessation of life. Is this your definition?
I 'll wait until you answer before continuing.