2010:warmest year ever since records began

[Diogenes]

Yet you're still not explaining to me how using a narcotic to interfere with your normal judgment constitutes a sapient decision.

Sorry, don't get your point here.

You have a complex control system. Let's say it's a computer. Let's say it is able to process data and output results. Let's say it works very well and is virtually foolproof. This represents cognizant sapience.


Now let's say you introduce randomizing code into the program, or a virus that erases or moves data while it's being processed. You no longer have any cognizant sapience. What's more, you've damaged the programming in such a way that it now has a much higher error rate and is not longer trustworthy.


Why should you trust it's decisions?

[Diogenes]

In any case, i'm not sure i'm following you. I think you are saying it's okay for mental patients (people who are mentally ill) to play in the street or something.

Define "ok".
If you define it as "good" then heck no its not good, don't be silly!
If you define it as "right", (ignoring for this sub-thread the wrong-doing to the drivers) then yes.
So, you tell me what you mean by "ok" and the answer will be one of those two. Define it differently and who knows!

Edited in an attempt to clarify the two choises.

It didn't help.

It has long been a principle of law that people who are "Non compos mentis" cannot make decisions in their own best interest, and it is common nowadays for the court to appoint a guardian for them. Your thinking would overturn this practice, and very likely result in a lot of misery for mentally ill people.

Actually, it would not. Your first statement explains the situation. You still don't get my thinking so you can't think things thru clearly. The point I have been trying to make to you is the distinction between good, and right. Just because an activity is bad for someone doesn't mean they are doing wrong if they partake. It is not WRONG for the "non compos mentis" person to "play in traffic" per-se (again ignoring the involuntary involvement of the drivers). Certainly that NCM person should not be put into jail for it! Should they? "Playing in traffic" (being used as a notion of dangerous to SELF and not others) is potentially bad, but not wrong.

I suppose we could save a lot of trouble by giving them access to a room with a pull cord that releases poison gas on them if they should choose to pull it. Give them enough time and exposure to such a thing, and it would be nearly a certainty. After all, if they pull the cord (not knowing what it will do) that's still "free will" isn't it? (at least the way I think you and others are defining it.)

So now you WANT to be bad to these poor unfortunates? I didn't think you were THAT cruel. And no, it is not "free will". An action is voluntary if in the absense of force, fraud, or coersion, the person responsibly chooses to participate and accept the consequences. Placing a NCM in such a place would constitute fraud against them, as they are due good and righteous guidance from their guardian but not recieving it.[/quote]

I use a simple example for expedience. Substitute knives, stairs, water, power saws, poisons, electrical wiring, cliffs, traffic, or any other lethal thing which a NCM person might come in contact with if permitted to do whatever they wanted, and the point is essentially the same.

In other words, I am simplifying the real world in summary through the pull cord.

[Diogenes]

So is college and the armed forces. Should we ban them?

Those are positive transformations. Becoming an addict is a negative transformation, making these people into parasites on the productive members of society.

As stated by a previous poster, their use of drugs was a POSITIVE transformational activity. And many folks wash out of the armed forces or flunk out of college to their detriment for having tried, quite negative.

At this point your argument appears to be "it is wrong because I don't like it". Something of a solipsist are you?

This is an assertion i've heard all my life. Here is my canned response.

No, it's not "wrong" because I don't like it. I don't like it because it's wrong.

It is objectively wrong.

[Diogenes]

Kiteman,

I like to get my politics from engineers. Engineers are schooled in "What can possibly go wrong? In truth just about everything." While the general electorate dreams of "Laws? We just pass them and the words (and government guns) will give us what we are dreaming of." You can't bust that kind of thinking with reason. It is pure faith.

There are many who think that if you put the word "prohibited" in a law that it actually prohibits. The MAGIC power of words. Once the words have filled your head reality can't intrude. Which is why notorious junkie William Burroughs suggests "cutting the word lines."

* Cut word lines — Cut music lines — Smash the control images — Smash the control machine — Burn the books — Kill the priests — Kill! Kill! Kill!
o The Soft Machine (1961)

But cutting the word lines is hard. You have to want to do it because our nature militates in the other direction. Religion takes advantage if this. Scientism works this game. Political movements do this. One of my favorites on the right is "abortion is murder". Until you dig down and find that most folks who mouth this don't actually believe it. What I came up with that the righties actually agree on is: misdemeanor manslaughter for the doctor and the woman goes free. Hardly the pre-meditated murder with the infliction of pain that is screamed so loudly on street corners.

As to the drug war we are at the Soviet Union end times. About 75% say it isn't working and 65% say we should keep at it.

Fine. Name an Engineer that would inject the equivalent of drugs into one of his control systems. You know, muck about randomly with the original design.

[Diogenes]

A lot of people think that abortion and drug usage are philosophically the same. They have this slogan. "My body, my choice."

In both cases, they ignore the harm they cause others.

Wrt drugs, they are correct. Wrt abortion, there is still a technical, scientific, question to be answered. When does sapience begin? Because "SAPIENT beings have the right to voluntary action".

Oh yes please! Let us split this hair!

[Diogenes]

The "Law" is the officially defined morality. It is those list of things which are prohibited because the government says so.

Actually, now we get to another usurpation by the "lawyers" of language in their own interest. Natural Law is the way that the universe works. "Legislation" is an attempt to codify "natural law" wrt interpersonal relations. The fact that "legislation" has defined something in a particular way does not make it correct (right). The Pope defined (legislated) the universe in a certain way that Galeleo disagreed with. Galeleo broke the legislation to accurately describe the LAW. He was jailed for it. They did him wrong.

It is quite amazing how lawyers have distorted the thought processes in our civilization by usurping the language; getting people to misunderstand, or confuse the words.

The meaning of "Natural Law" is highly dependent upon which version you are talking about. If you are talking about the evolved philosophy of Locke , Rousseau, et al, the rights of man and all that stuff, then you mean one thing. If you are referring to the Kill or be killed, the strong survive, and might makes right, then you are talking about another.

Don't forget that at base nature, man is a beast.


Still.

[Diogenes]

A lot of people think that abortion and drug usage are philosophically the same. They have this slogan. "My body, my choice."

In both cases, they ignore the harm they cause others.

Wrt drugs, they are correct. Wrt abortion, there is still a technical, scientific, question to be answered. When does sapience begin? Because "SAPIENT beings have the right to voluntary action".

Jewish law holds that abortion before day 40 of gestation is discouraged but allowed. After that the health (including psychological) of the mother determines. And for purposes of law a growth inside the mother was not considered an independent person until 1/2 the head was outside the mother.

Now of course this conflicts with Catholic Law. And Protestants are all over the board. I'm not conversant with Islamic, Hindu, or other rules.

So is the "baby" the property of the mother or of the State?

I think the criteria should be independent action for personhood. All in all I think the rules laid down in Roe are a fair compromise and eliminate a medical black market.

That is why it is so hard to make law in this area. There is very little agreement as compared to murder, robbery, or theft.

There was pretty massive agreement before 1973. Any disagreement nowadays is the result of legal tampering and liberal propaganda.

[Diogenes]

I would charge the woman as an accessory. You don't want to be pregnant, don't make that choice!

To the degree that she made the choice or continued in the condition WELL after the cellular stage, I would tend to agree with you.

But then I tend to be on the inclusive "better safe than sorry" end of the spectrum in deciding when sapience starts. My estimation is fairly early in the gestation process but I have absolutely no data to back me up.

Why would you presume to designate "sapience" as the defining criteria? I know adults with less sapience than a zygote. I argue with them all the time.


The value is inherent in the pattern.

Years ago, they used to ship software compressed on disks. You had to load disk after disk (sometimes as many as 12) and they would be read onto the hard drive, and when it had acquired all of the data off the disks, the software would "decompress" to it's full size, often many times larger than the size of the disks. (Autodesk's autocad comes to mind.)

As I pointed out to a man twenty years ago, The value of the software is not inherent in it's packaging, but in it's finished structure.

The same is true with a human. An embryo is just a human in the process of decompression. Pointing at a particular stage of the decompression process and saying "At this stage it can do "X" so NOW it's valuable!" is simply overlooking the point.


"Human code" is written in molecules. It requires additional molecules to decompress. That's all the processes is after conception. A long slow decompression.

[AcesHigh]

holy shit Diogenes... ever heard of multi-quote or editing your posts and adding quotes and such????

you made 14 posts in a row... this must be a new world wide record. In most forums, you would be brigged for spam/flooding.

[Diogenes]

Wrt drugs, they are correct. Wrt abortion, there is still a technical, scientific, question to be answered. When does sapience begin? Because "SAPIENT beings have the right to voluntary action".

Jewish law holds that abortion before day 40 of gestation is discouraged but allowed.

This is about the time called "quickening" which seems a reasonable dividing line between "is not", and "is" sapient. It also seems a good place to say "beyond this point, you have had time to decide, so continuation shall be taken as constituting your agreement (volunteering) to carry the now sapient being to term".

Now see, this is where exactitude dies. You misspeak. You have already chosen. Tampering with a previous choice is choosing twice. You ought to say, "you have had time to change your decision. "

After that the health (including psychological) of the mother determines.

As with any interpersonal relationship, a person can protect themselves from an aggressor, even to the point of killing the aggressor if it is to defend against imminent deadly threat.

Sure. The baby gonna kill you? You need to get rid of it. Simple.

But that psychobabble crap? Not buying it. You can argue it's more damaging psychologically to abort a child then it is to have one. There are plenty of examples of women haunted forever by what they've done. They know instinctively that it was unnatural and abhorrent to good. For psychopath women? (like that one recently who bragged about aborting 12 or so children in her short life.) They're already psychologically damaged.

And for purposes of law a growth inside the mother was not considered an independent person until 1/2 the head was outside the mother.

Well, that is one ancient definition. Not one I subscribe to but I have no data to deny it.

That's some pretty primitive reasoning. Obviously the difference between a person in this case would be based on location. If you are "Here" then you are a person. If you are "There", then you are not. It is simplistic, Ignorant, and primitive. Fortunately, we no better nowadays. Modern science has explained a lot of mysteries in life.

In any case, this overlooks the fact that they demanded an accounting if the child was injured by someone else prior to birth. Sometimes quite serious.

I think the criteria should be independent action for personhood.

Could you clarify this for me? I could take this to be:
* First fetal motion, i.e. quickening (concur)
* First motion AFTER the umbilical cord is cut (way to late (IMHO)
* First action when moved out of the parent's home. Sorry, this is adulthood, not personhood.

By the way, just to clarify, I am using "personhood" to mean "sapience". If you mean differently, please clarify that too.

You two should sail your teacup over gumdrop falls.

[Diogenes]

Personhood is a matter of law.

What are the odds that 8 1/2 month old little Johnny inside his mother is going to kick hard enough to injure some one? Nonexistent unless the mother gets close enough. Sapient? Yes. Person? No.

Once he gets on the outside little Johnny can kick you where it really hurts, bite your thumb, and the parents would still be responsible - depending. Why depending? Because little Johnny is an independent person with a free will.

And what is an egg? A chicken egg for example. What is that?

[Diogenes]

A little anecdote re: sapience. I remember being in my mother and thinking "how cozy, but I have to get out ASAP, I have things to do". I was born 6 weeks premature. On the edge of life and death in those days (1944).

But in terms of law my story means nothing. That is decided on practical matters: i.e. spontaneous abortion, visibility, the state of medical science, religious pressure, secular pressure, etc.

The problem in essence is deciding when an acorn becomes a tree? There is no obvious hard dividing line. The beginning is definite. The end point is definite. The transition - not so definite.

There is an obvious hard dividing line. The problem is, it inconveniences some people, and so they absolutely refuse to acknowledge it. It's very much like the issue of slavery in that regard.

From my recollection of evolutionary history, life began as single cells that reproduced through division. Eventually, sex was developed, and individual creatures could express their reproductive components in the form of egg and sperm.

Initially the eggs were ejected from the mother and combined with the sperm ejected from the father (swimming in the vicinity) and allowed to grow on the ocean bottom. Later on, as land creatures developed, the male would deposit his genetic component directly into the female, to be combined with the egg before the shell formed.

This process further evolved into the mammals, which carried their young live in them until the young had matured sufficiently to be able to survive outside the mother.


Okay, the boundary lines are sharp and distinct. When male and female genetic material is combined, it is a new unique genetic pattern that is created from the fusion. For the vast majority of the history of LIFE, it was unique and independent from it's parents, and only a fool would argue that it's later evolved modern equivalent is not, simply because the woman carries the internal "Egg" around with her throughout the gestation process.

It used to lie there on the ground.


Again, it's the perception of artificial boundaries where there are none, and the refusal to see REAL boundaries where they exist.

[Diogenes]

That's it for me today. I can only take so much of trying to explain simple and obvious stuff to people intent on missing it. I can't wait till tomorrow to see what kind of possible answer anyone can make to my fusion of life through eggs argument. I shall be shocked if it is not some form of bullshit.

[WizWom]

That's it for me today. I can only take so much of trying to explain simple and obvious stuff to people intent on missing it. I can't wait till tomorrow to see what kind of possible answer anyone can make to my fusion of life through eggs argument. I shall be shocked if it is not some form of bullshit.

You could start by using words the same way the rest of us do. That would aid communication. Another would be not to consider us all stupid.

Like thinking "criminal" does not mean "breaking the law." And calling positions of disagreement "simple and obvious stuff."

As for the egg: when the chick inside is viable, it's alive. That's almost exactly when it hatches. Before that, it is nascent life.

In any case, you don't debate so much as spew and froth.

[KitemanSA]

I have harped remorsely about how I define words so that you can have a chance of understanding my clarity of thought on this matter.

Unfortunately for you, the task of defining words is left to consensus.

Which may be why your thoughts are a muddled as the "concensus" on non-meaning. If you don't want to seek clarity of thought, fine, go your idipotic way. But don't complain if some drug warrior kills one of your family.

End of Discussion