quote:Of course not. That I do not know something does not mean that it cannot be known.
Ah, too many leaps for you. I'm sorry, I left out the middle steps thinking you would see them. My bad.
You also said this: "I do not see how anyone can know that since nobody knows what cognisant life is." So, regardless of what we might know in the future, right now, cognizant life is not something that is relevant to the determination of which life must be protected.
quote:I'm getting the point of the GRE analytical section more and more.
Really? Because it's hard to tell from your posts on this thread that you understand analytical thinking at all.
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quote:If cognisant life is the metric you're using, then wouldn't we be justified in harvesting organs from comatose patients? Rationally speaking (according to your definition of rationality), there should be nothing wrong with this.
quote:The problem is that I do not know how to define "cognisant". If I knew, the answer to all our problems would be simple: do not kill cognisant, otherwise do whatever you like. I would define comatose patients cognisant, at least if they have a chance to recover.
Waaait a minute...don't harvest major organs from comatose patients, because even though you can't tell if they're "cognisant," they might become so? How does this differ, ethically speaking, from embryos, except that embryos have a better chance to "recover" (i.e., grow into congnisance)? I take it you're against abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, then?
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: You also said this: "I do not see how anyone can know that since nobody knows what cognisant life is." So, regardless of what we might know in the future, right now, cognizant life is not something that is relevant to the determination of which life must be protected.
This is a crucial point: I do think that it is possible to know what cognisant life is, and it will be known to people. Only right now we do not know. Something is irrelevant in that context only if it cannot be known fundamentally. So, my comment on GRE analytical stands.
EDIT: I think you misunderstood my original statement about unknowable being irrelevant. If something cannot be known ever, it is irrelevant because it cannot affect anything, otherwise we might have learned about this something by its influence. Thus, no matter what you do about this unknowable something, you will never know the difference. This is why I think it is irrelevant. If, however, you act on assumption that something unknown at the moment is false, and it turns out to be true later, you will know that you were wrong. Knowing this, you may choose to wait till you know the unknown, while in case of unknowable there is no point in waiting. This is how I see the difference between unknown and unknowable.
quote:Originally posted by Gwen: Waaait a minute...don't harvest major organs from comatose patients, because even though you can't tell if they're "cognisant," they might become so? How does this differ, ethically speaking, from embryos, except that embryos have a better chance to "recover" (i.e., grow into congnisance)? I take it you're against abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, then?
I do not have a writ-in-stone opinion on the stem cell research and abortion, I am thinking on it. There is a difference between a comatose patient and an embryo in my opinion though. I think that the large, perhaps the defining part of a human being is a sum of information gathered from experience that it is carrying. Since an embryo carries very little experience, it may not be a human at some point. Another major difference between me and most pro-life people is that I leave room for error while they must be on the safe side. For them better not do anything that leaves even a tiny possibility that they are taking human life. I am willing to stay optimal within my current best guess. I do not think that this difference can be reconciled. Thus, I am willing to allow abortions and destroying embryos for stem cells since my current understanding is that they are not human beings. I do allow that I may be wrong though.
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quote:Of course not. That I do not know something does not mean that it cannot be known.
God cannot be known? Says your half of the worlds population.
quote:Another major difference between me and most pro-life people is that I leave room for error while they must be on the safe side. For them better not do anything that leaves even a tiny possibility that they are taking human life. I am willing to stay optimal within my current best guess. I do not think that this difference can be reconciled
I think you might have a superiority complex.
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My only point is that many of the "embryos" that they wish to use are sitting in a freezer, never to truly become a baby. Eventually those "parents" will get tired of paying to keep them cold, and they'll be flushed down the drain. I hardly think that using those cells to help us potentially fight terrible diseases is any worse than treating them like a belly up goldfish.
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You'll know if X religion was right when you're dead. If that religion has an afterlife, anyway. Pity the poor atheist...she'll never get to gloat!
What's your room for error? And to which side are you willing to err?
I *think*, if I'm understanding you correctly, that it's better to err on the side of murdering embryos if it saves adult lives that we know are actually lives, than to err on the side of letting the adults die because we were too afraid that killing the embryos would be murder, because of relative risk. (We *know* that the second choice leaves someone dead, but we're not sure if the first does.) Still, I don't see how that's ethically different than killing comatose people, except if the "experience we're assuming the comatose people have" outweighs by far the "certain chance of 'recovery' the embryos have"...does it? DDaysh: doesn't the same apply to comatose people? On a related note, do you think that cord blood donation should be mandatory? Or at least, if the patients (mother, her significant other if she died, family if she was single) don't mind, assumed? What about organ donation?
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quote:This is a crucial point: I do think that it is possible to know what cognisant life is, and it will be known to people. Only right now we do not know. Something is irrelevant in that context only if it cannot be known fundamentally. So, my comment on GRE analytical stands.
It's irrelevant now if it can't be known now. It might become relevant later. But, for the purposes of telling us how we should act now, it's still irrelevant.
What is relevant is not the thing that can't be known now, but the whether or not that thing will be knowable in the future.
FYI, I aced the analytic section on both the GRE and the LSATs, so cut the crap.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: It's irrelevant now if it can't be known now. It might become relevant later. But, for the purposes of telling us how we should act now, it's still irrelevant.
This is incorrect. I assume you can figure out why. Ironically, this statement above is very much like an essay topic from GRE analytical that one is supposed to critique. If you cannot, ask for help.
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quote:This is incorrect. I assume you can figure out why. Ironically, this statement above is very much like an essay topic from GRE analytical that one is supposed to critique. If you cannot, ask for help.
No, the quoted part is incomplete, which is why I posted more that makes my statement complete and correct.
You are being imprecise, and using your imprecision to attempt to show me to be wrong.
It will fail, because I am not wrong.
Consider two propositions:
1.) Embryos are cognizant. 2.) We will know in the future whether or not embryos are cognizant.
Call the entity embodied by #1 "the cognizance of embryos." Call the entity embodied by #2 "the knowability of the cognizance of embryos."
If # 1 is currently unknowable (that is, we can't at this time evaluate a truth value for #1), then #1 is irrelevant to the making of determinations that rely on #1 being either true or false. It will have no effect on how we make such determinations, the only usable definition of "relevant to a determination."
However, if #1 is currently unknowable but #2 is known to be true, then, according to your own standards, #2 is relevant to the determination. That is, the outcome of the determination might be different if the truth value of #2 is different.
In other words, according to the principles you put in play here, the future knowability of the cognizance is relevant to the determination being made here and now; the actual cognizance of embryos is not.
Or in other other words, I am correct.
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Of course there's that guy at Princeton who says we should be able to kill infants with treatable illnesses up to ??? in age. They are not more congizant than feti. So it can work both ways.
If you can't get a certain percentage on the GRE, could we declare you non-cognizant and use your body as we will?
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I think it's no surprise that I don't buy the cognizance of a human organism as criteria for whether that organism should be killed.
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To Dagonee: Let's take one step back, there are several misunderstandings between us.
From these two statements
quote:Originally posted by Crocobar: The problem is that I do not know how to define "cognisant".
In a strict logical sence if it cannot be known, it is irrelevant.
You have concluded that "cognizant is irrelevant".
This is incorrect. However, I believe that you have meant something different that you had written because when you begin explaining, you involve my other statements...
I have to run, I will post more tomorrow, just a quick clarification below.
1. I initially did not separate "cognizance" and "knowability of cognizance" in order to keep the discussion more understandable.
2. I agree with the statement that is A is not known, it is not relevant for the decision but its knowability is.
3. There is no such thing as "future knowability" or "present knowability", only "knowability". If something is knowable ever, it is knowable. If something is not knowable now, I do not see how it can become knowable. This was the most misleading for me.
4. The whole discussion has little relevance to the initial question of cognizance of embryons (still interesting though) because I said in the very beginning that I do not know how to define "cognizance". If something is not defined, the statement that it is known or unknown does not have a meaning.
To be continued...
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quote:However, I believe that you have meant something different that you had written because when you begin explaining, you involve my other statements...
Honestly, I thought the analysis necessary to see the relevance would be obvious to you. I'm sorry it wasn't.
quote:I initially did not separate "cognizance" and "knowability of cognizance" in order to keep the discussion more understandable.
The discussion is both incomplete and inaccurate if you don't.
quote:There is no such thing as "future knowability" or "present knowability", only "knowability". If something is knowable ever, it is knowable. If something is not knowable now, I do not see how it can become knowable. This was the most misleading for me.
I used "future knowability" to mean "capable of being known in the future" and "present knowability" to mean "capable of being known now." It's useful to have two different names for two different referents.
quote:I agree with the statement that is A is not known, it is not relevant for the decision but its knowability is.
Good, because this has been my point all along.
quote:The whole discussion has little relevance to the initial question of cognizance of embryons (still interesting though) because I said in the very beginning that I do not know how to define "cognizance". If something is not defined, the statement that it is known or unknown does not have a meaning.
The question of cognizance of embryos is irrelevant to the discussion of whether or not embryos should be used for medical experiments.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: I used "future knowability" to mean "capable of being known in the future" and "present knowability" to mean "capable of being known now." It's useful to have two different names for two different referents.
These are the same thing. If something is knowable in the future or, as you put it "capable of being known in the future", it is knowable right now.
quote: The question of cognizance of embryos is irrelevant to the discussion of whether or not embryos should be used for medical experiments.
This statement has no meaning since there is no definition of "cognizance".
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quote:These are the same thing. If something is knowable in the future or, as you put it "capable of being known in the future", it is knowable right now.
No they're not the same thing. Suppose we want to know what's on the dark side of the moon. In 1950, it was unknowable in the present but known to be knowable in the future. In 1968, it was knowable in the present.
quote:This statement has no meaning since there is no definition of "cognizance".
So cognizance is irrelevant now? Make up your mind.
The statement has plenty of meaning. Whether or not an embryo has cognizance - however it turns out to be precisely defined - is irrelevant to whether or not it is moral to use them for experiments. Why is that difficult for you to understand?
I am making a moral proposition that the mental state of a human organism does not matter to whether we should use that organism in scientific experimentation that results in harm or destruction of that organism. It has plenty of meaning, and there are millions of people who do subscribe to it as a moral proposition, just as there are millions who reject it.
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Well.. embrios are definitely NOT cognizant because they don't even have a brain. At least that's my opinion of it. To Gwen: Cord blood stem cells ONLY create blood type cells.... while that can also be useful, it won't go very far in treating neurologically damaged patients. Right now they're trying to convince parents to bank babyteeth, since the stem cells can create many different types of tooth cells, including some that MIGHT be nerve cells. That though, is still a far away hope and dream. The thing that makes embryotic stem cells so promising is that they can become ANYTHING. As far as my point about murder or killing, it's because I personally don't think it matters much if killing an embryo is murder. My point is that we kill embryos all the time, so it's hypocritical of us to say we can kill them in some ways but NOT to help better other peoples lives. Embryos the do not get used in invitro-fertilization are often just "flushed" as I mentioned. Early term abortions are still completely legal, and beyond that, many of the most popular forms of birth control do nothing to prevent the creation of an embryo. Spermacides and condoms, yes, but "the pill" in most forms simply changes the female body so that the fertalized egg cannot attatch itself to the uterine wall. There isn't even a count on how many babies are potentially "murdered" in this way. Personally my belief is that the cells aren't a "baby" until someone loves them personally (be it the mother, or a doctor, or a society, whatever), but that's getting more morally philosophic than I wanted to. My main point is that, if we allow for the "murder" of embryos in all these ways, then it's simply STUPID of us to not allow the embryos to possibly save other people.
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I thought stem cells by definition were cells with the potential to become any other type of cell, in the appropriate environment. I agree that embryos that are going to be killed anyway might as well be used for stem cell research. I understand the point about using murder victims for research, or convicted murderers--and I can see how a rational person can hold any of most of the views expressed in this thread--but I doubt a significant number of people would abort a baby just because the stem cells could be used for people suffering from otherwise untreatable conditions. Someone asked people to come up with bumper stickers that bridge the gap between the left and right, preferably in an ironic way. One person's submission: "What would Jesus do with unused embryos?"
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It seems to me that those objecting to the embryonic stem cell research for religious reasons are operating under extremely pessimistic mindsets.
Isn't religion supposed to make you hopeful...?
As to the "When does life begin" thing...
Does anyone here object to eating vegetables? Using penicillin? Eating farm-fresh eggs?
Embryonic research uses an embryo that is usually little more than a cluster of cells with no discernable brain. Does something without a brain have a soul?
Most religious people that I've spoken to don't even believe pets have souls (Something I disagree with, but that's another issue entirely) yet go all crazy about embryos which don't even have a discernable brain...and therefore, no consciousness...yes, it's alive...but so is penicillin mold, and vegetables, and for that matter, farm-fresh eggs. So what's the big deal?
As to the issue of the Veto, well…Much like the talk Bush gave at the NAACP recently (FINALLY, after giving excuse after excuse to NOT go for 5 and a half years) and the anti-gay marriage amendment, it's all about politics and mobilizing his base: desperately trying to get his approval rating up out of the low 30’s and get his friends the votes they need to keep control of the government.
That his base (and others) continues to fall for these manipulative gestures doesn't speak too highly of his base, if you ask me...
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quote:It seems to me that those objecting to the embryonic stem cell research for religious reasons are operating under extremely pessimistic mindsets.
How so?
quote:Isn't religion supposed to make you hopeful...?
Sez who?
quote:Does something without a brain have a soul?
What on earth does the one have to do with the other? Are you claiming that souls have some physical parallel? Because I don't think anyone else was claiming that.
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How so? The whole "If we allow stem cell research, then it's not hard to imagine embryos being grown/stolen/etc for these purposes" and "If we allow stem cell research, how hard is it to imagine genetic engineering and cloning in the near future?" arguments that I see in almost every instance that stem cell research is mentioned.
So believing in a just, good God and heaven doesn't make you hopeful...?
And again, we get into the discussion about "Do pets have souls?" What determines a soul? Are humans the only thing that does? DO all living things have souls? We can't even prove that souls exist at all, so why not make the assumption that a soul is in some way connected to having an awareness of self and surroundings, otherwise, we get into an unpleasant area where we can't eat veggies either, because they have souls...LOL
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Hopeful, in a general sense? Sure. About specific human actions, or the tendency of people to do things that are not in their best interest, or otherwise should be avoided? No. Why would it?
Why do you get to define who has a soul, if you don't even believe they exist?
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quote:Most religious people that I've spoken to don't even believe pets have souls (Something I disagree with, but that's another issue entirely) yet go all crazy about embryos which don't even have a discernable brain...and therefore, no consciousness...yes, it's alive...but so is penicillin mold, and vegetables, and for that matter, farm-fresh eggs. So what's the big deal?
You are responding to an incomplete version of what opponents are saying.
They are not saying, "Don't use embryos because they are alive." They are saying, "Don't use embryos because they are alive and they are human beings."
If you're going to construct a straw man, please have the courtesy to at least tie the straw together before jousting it. You've constructed a straw pile and patted yourself on the back for letting the wind blow it away.
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quote:Cognizant: aware(p): (sometimes followed by `of') having or showing knowledge or understanding or realization or perception
quote:DDDaysh Well.. embrios are definitely NOT cognizant because they don't even have a brain.
The argument that you are attempting to refute was not that embryos are cognizant. Read over the discussion again and see if you can find what is actually being discussed.
quote:Crocobar There is a difference between a comatose patient and an embryo in my opinion though. I think that the large, perhaps the defining part of a human being is a sum of information gathered from experience that it is carrying.
Convenient to add more qualifiers and change what is defining as a human being.
You keep changing your definition to support your already decided upon position. Rather than examine the issue rationally and see where your arguments lead you, you are constructing more and more arguments to support what you already believe. Perhaps you could use some of the open-minded rationality that you keep demanding others to display.
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if you don't like this webpage, there are a bunch more that cover it- this was just the first one that came up on a google search.
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quote:In the past two years alone, research has demonstrated that cord blood stem cells can differentiate into other types of cells in the body. The regenerative qualities of stem cells have been brought to the forefront in the field of cellular repair. Stem cells have been labeled an important biological resource and researchers are conducting more and more studies to unlock the potential of umbilical cord blood stem cells in future applications for diseases like Alzheimer's, diabetes, heart and liver disease, muscular dystrophy, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, and stroke.
quote:Cord-blood cell transplants are already becoming common as a therapy for diseases of the blood.
Now scientists like Low are finding that stem cells from umbilical cord blood—once thought capable only of turning into blood cells—may be able to grow into other kinds of cells as well.
(See a National Geographic magazine feature about the science of stem cells and the controversy surrounding them.)
Such advances are casting cord blood, previously regarded as medical waste left after childbirth, in a new light.
But while experts are optimistic about the future of cord blood as a source for new stem cell therapies, they disagree about how this potentially life-saving resource should be handled.
posted
Yup, those are some of the studies I recall reading about. It may have been true at one point that cord blood cells only could be used to generate blood cells, but it just isn't true any longer. In fact, scholar, even the site you linked to says as much.
Dags, I appreciate the help, but aren't you BUSY???
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rivka- sorry if I was unclear. I was not actually trying to disprove you. I was just posting a site that discussed the potential since there was a debate and you asked for a link. Also, I am right now debating whether or not to store my baby's cord so I was interested enough to do the search and read a web site or two and thought I'd share. Sorry for the confusion.
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quote:These are the same thing. If something is knowable in the future or, as you put it "capable of being known in the future", it is knowable right now.
No they're not the same thing. Suppose we want to know what's on the dark side of the moon. In 1950, it was unknowable in the present but known to be knowable in the future. In 1968, it was knowable in the present.
They are the same thing. What's on the dark side of the moon was knowable in 1950 as well as in 1968. Knowable just means possible to know. It does not depend on humankind's technical capabilities. An example of unknowable would be existence of a particle that does not interact with anything. There is know way to know if such a particle exists. Recalling our argument about relevance, the existance of such a particle is irrelevant because it is unknowable.
If, on the other hand, this particle does interact with matter but so weakly that we cannot detect it by present means, the existence of such a particle is knowable but unknown at present.
Getting back to the example about the dark side of the moon: as I explained, its contents was knowable in 1950 and in 1968 but not 8 billion years ago. 8 billion years ago both statements "knowable and "unknowable" would have been meaningless because the moon did not exist yet. This is to illustrate the point of "cognizance" being meaningless (not relevant or irrelevant) at the moment.
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quote:Crocobar There is a difference between a comatose patient and an embryo in my opinion though. I think that the large, perhaps the defining part of a human being is a sum of information gathered from experience that it is carrying.
Convenient to add more qualifiers and change what is defining as a human being.
You keep changing your definition to support your already decided upon position. Rather than examine the issue rationally and see where your arguments lead you, you are constructing more and more arguments to support what you already believe. Perhaps you could use some of the open-minded rationality that you keep demanding others to display.
You might have missed that I am not arguing any point in this thread, not yet anyway. If you read carefully from the beginning, you'll see that the purpose of this thread was to gather opinions why people think the stem cell research should or should not be allowed. I'd gotten a sum of opinions on that by the end of the second page of the thread, after which I stopped correcting the direction the thread was taking and just kept enjoying the discussion. Shortly after that we discussed with Dagonee quite an obscured but curious logical argument which bears little relevance to the initial topic. All my other posts merely either state my view on something without forcing it on others, or clarify some part of my previous statements.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: So cognizance is irrelevant now? Make up your mind.
The statement has plenty of meaning. Whether or not an embryo has cognizance - however it turns out to be precisely defined - is irrelevant to whether or not it is moral to use them for experiments. Why is that difficult for you to understand?
No, the cognizance is meaningless because undefined. This is different from being irrelevant.
We agreed that "cognizance" is irrelevant for making the decision (its knowability is relevant). This holds true only if it is unknown at present. If you do not know how to define cognizance, you do not know if it is known. Hence, we need to define cognizance first, than see if it is unknown, only then it becomes irrelevant for the immediate decision. That sums up my very initial point: I do not know how to define cognizance, and this is the main problem in the whole embryo discussion for me.
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Thanks for the info about the cord blood cells. I had not heard that they had successfully gotten anything but blood from them. If I ever have another child, that may cause me to rethink my decision on not saving it. On the other hand, a lung cell is not a nerve cell, the jump from circulatory to respiratory doesn't seem as big to me as from anything else to nerve cells. I think the question about what stem cells CAN do however is still much based on how far along in development they are. Originally we are all one cell, and that I suppose is the original STEM. The further along we go, the more steming involved, and the less maliable the cells become, or at least that's how it seems to me.
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Quote from Dagonee: They are not saying, "Don't use embryos because they are alive." They are saying, "Don't use embryos because they are alive and they are human beings."
My point is, however, that the embryos which would be experimented on are NOT human beings, any more than vegetables, pets or penicillin. They are clusters of cells which in time may become human beings...and may, in time, be miscarried, or become a threat to the life of the mother, as my aunt had occur three times before finally getting pregnant for real.
At the point around which this arguement revolves, the embryos are clumps of cells. Period. NOT human beings, any more than a sperm or an ovum is a human being. Potential to be human does NOT equal human.
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Quote from Dagonee: They are not saying, "Don't use embryos because they are alive." They are saying, "Don't use embryos because they are alive and they are human beings."
My point is, however, that the embryos which would be experimented on are NOT human beings, any more than vegetables, pets or penicillin. They are clusters of cells which in time may become human beings...and may, in time, be miscarried, or become a threat to the life of the mother, as my aunt had occur three times before finally getting pregnant for real.
At the point around which this arguement revolves, the embryos are clumps of cells. Period. NOT human beings, any more than a sperm or an ovum is a human being. Potential to be human does NOT equal human.
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