Five minutes of hate news

[Husky_Khan]

No one would argue a fetus isn't a person because it is a chimera. You are conducting a straw man argument here and not a very good one, a person who has two types of DNA still fits the definition of life and the whole point is that it is, scientifically speaking, a single organism. That's literally the modern definition of one.

Honestly I'm thankful that you and the Local Degenerate (et al) are actually having a semi proper discussion of substance considering what the immediately prior five or ten pages of discussion were.

 

[Morphic Tide]

1. An embryo is not the same thing as the mother. Fully dependent on the mother, yes, but not the same thing. This is a matter of basic genetics.

It's also got a huge chance of miscarriage that early, making the "potential baby" argument fall flat. You need to pass some developmental breakpoints after conception to expect a person from it.

but it is extremely clear that from the moment of conception, there is a distinct human life form that is not the mother

Definition of life typically includes homeostasis, which the moment of conception zygotes are comprehensive failures at due to lacking any mechanism for nutrient intake.

3. Chimerism is one of the edgest of edge cases.

It's important that actual living people not be fucked over by your definition interacting weirdly with them.

4. What even is this organ donation argument? If someone has experienced brain death, or other gross bodily harm leading to death, but some organs are salvageable, this is obviously grossly distinct from an embryo.

Neither has associated brain activity, and the embryo still has no small chance of never forming it.

The natural consequence of a viable pregnancy is a baby being born

And such large numbers of "pregnancies" as measured from conception are non-viable that it's a poor benchmark. For reference, in-vitro fertilization sees as little as 27% of embryos being born.

No one would argue a fetus isn't a person because it is a chimera.

The argument is that under the logic of "life begins at conception", a chimera had to have been two people at some point, and either remains two people or one of them is dead.

 

[RenegadeInterrupt]

I don't know enough about abortion to really have a strong opinion on it other than I find it icky. I will say it's generally a baaad idea to give the government the right to tell you what you can and cannot do with your own insides regardless of how you feel about the whole pro-choice vs pro-life argument.

 

[Abhorsen]

No one would argue a fetus isn't a person because it is a chimera. You are conducting a straw man argument here and not a very good one, a person who has two types of DNA still fits the definition of life and the whole point is that it is, scientifically speaking, a single organism. That's literally the modern definition of one.

I seem to not be getting my point across, or you are misunderstanding me.

First, obviously, to both you and me, a Chimera is one person. I'm also not saying that anyone thinks a Chimeric person is not a person at all. I'm saying that people that beieve "Life begins at conception" would view it as two people (or at least that it was at some point). The two person thing is my issue.

Let me go through this carefully here, with a count of how many humans exist (not counting the mother or the father here).

Event number	What just happened	Number of new humans (life at conception definition)	Number of new kids (life at brain function definition)	Number of new kids as defined normally
1	Mother releases two eggs	0	0	0
2	Sex happens	0	0	0
3	First egg gets fertilized	1	0	?
4	Second egg gets fertilized	2	0	?
5	Embryos/Zygotes combine	Either 1 or 2	0	0 or 1
6	Fetus develops brain	Either 1 or 2	1	0 or 1
7	After Birth	Either 1 or 2	1	1
8	Removal of chimeric mole	1	1	1

Notably, between events 4 and 7 (the bolded stuff) something happened that disappeared a human. But there was no cell dying that triggered this. In fact, from the POV of the cells that have the minority DNA, they just failed to grow, but instead stayed the same-ish (i.e. calling it a death is a hard sell). Given that you said combining a embryo/zygote created one human, then the question becomes: when did the death happen, with no body, no mourning, etc. The only actually damage done was at step 8, while everyone normal would consider that there was a single human at 7.


Things like that (and Identical twins separating well after conception, etc) all lead to exceptions to the neat rule of "life begins at conception". More, my definition of a human person is short, to the point, and clearly tells when a human is alive, and when a human is dead: thought. Human life is having a (human) brain that can have thoughts. Not complex thoughts, just any thoughts. When you first get thoughts, you are begin being a human. When you lose that ability to have any more thoughts (e.g. brain got squished) you are dead.

I don't know enough about abortion to really have a strong opinion on it other than I find it icky. I will say it's generally a baaad idea to give the government the right to tell you what you can and cannot do with your own insides regardless of how you feel about the whole pro-choice vs pro-life argument.

No. This is an innately pro-abortion argument pretending at being neutral, unless you are full anarcho-sociopath who believes the government should have no say over a parent murdering their baby. You've implicitly assumed when personhood happened, then snuck in a pro-choice conclusion.

 

[shangrila]

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you try to bring up a lot of edge cases to make an argument.

1. An embryo is not the same thing as the mother. Fully dependent on the mother, yes, but not the same thing. This is a matter of basic genetics.

2. Regarding the process by which identical twins form, you can have an interesting debate on if it's one person splitting into two persons, some sort of cloning, or whatever, but it is extremely clear that from the moment of conception, there is a distinct human life form that is not the mother. If I have to try to explain to you how identical twins are not the same person, there's no point in trying to have an argument past the level of pedantry at hand.

3. Chimerism is one of the edgest of edge cases. Chimerism is vanishingly rare, and in humans, last I checked, there aren't enough case studies to really form a complete picture of what does and does not go on consistently with such things. However, as a Chimeric human may have two distinct genetic codes from the mother, this makes them more distinct from the mother, not less.

4. What even is this organ donation argument? If someone has experienced brain death, or other gross bodily harm leading to death, but some organs are salvageable, this is obviously grossly distinct from an embryo. Is the decapitated corpse going to grow a new head? Is the person with the crushed rib cage going to grow a new heart and lungs? The answer to both of these questions is 'no,' as well as any number of other cases that result in post-mortality organ donation you're trying to bring up.

The natural consequence of mortal injury is death, and medical intervention is used to try to prevent that, or prevent that for others by salvaging useful biological material. The natural consequence of a viable pregnancy is a baby being born, and abortionists want to use medical intervention to prevent that.

You're talking about literally inverted situations, and acting like they have any bearing on each other.

You are missing the point, and I think Abhorsen's response may not make that entirely clear given your line of argument.

You are focusing on whether the chimeric cells, twin, etc is distinct from the mother, when the relevant question is whether the chimeric cells, twin, donated organ, are distinct from the rest of the fetus, other twin, organ recipient. Any argument merely based on human DNA genetically distinct from the mother would apply in each of these cases. No one questions the independent right to life of one twin from the other, but how can you justify that for chimeric cells from the rest or a donated organ from the recipient? Calling these edge cases merely abandons defense of your own logical position.

I'll also point out an interesting thought. In the history of Christian philosophy, the mind/body distinction often comes up. I'm not aware of a single Christian philosopher who's come down on the body being the true human. Indeed, it's quite common for Christian thought to veer to the other extreme and claim all matter is dross, leading to doctrines like scourging the body, or rejecting reproduction as forcing unwilling souls into the world of matter.

So it's somewhat odd that modern Christians are so uniformly body centric on this particular topic. Yet I have severe doubts that if you posit removing a brain from its body, and keeping the brain living in a jar and the body from life support machines, that there would be much disagreement from Christians as to which is the actual human.

 

[LordSunhawk]

That total focus on spirit is actually very heretical, being founded in gnostic thought rather than Christian thought. Christianity has always taught that the physical and the spiritual are united, and that neither is 'dross'.

Honestly, for me the entire debate hinges on when 'life' becomes 'human', and since we cannot know for certain, as we are not God, then the precautionary principle posits that we therefore treat all potentially human life, from conception, as human, as it is better by far to protect that which is not yet human from the point of conception than to murder a human life. Otherwise you are at risk of saying that some human life is less worthy of protection than other human life, when we know from scripture that God considers there to be no such gradient 'that which you do to the least of my people that you also do unto me.'

 

[Poe]

I seem to not be getting my point across, or you are misunderstanding me.

No I get what you are trying to say entirely, I just think that this:

I'm saying that people that beieve "Life begins at conception" would view it as two people (or at least that it was at some point).

Is not the actual view of those who think life begins at conception, I think its entirely a made up belief to argue against and doesn't at all follow from their beliefs. Since you've based your entire argument on people holding this view, please provide some examples because no pro-lifer I've ever met would consider a chimera to be two people and, even if they did, that wouldn't take away from the fact it was a "people" which is the core tenant of their belief in human life at conception not the number of people whose life starts at the zygote.

 

[Abhorsen]

Is not the actual view of those who think life begins at conception, I think its entirely a made up belief to argue against and doesn't at all follow from their beliefs. Since you've based your entire argument on people holding this view, please provide some examples because no pro-lifer I've ever met would consider a chimera to be two people and, even if they did, that wouldn't take away from the fact it was a "people" which is the core tenant of their belief in human life at conception not the number of people whose life starts at the zygote.

No, it absolutely is the view that people who believe life begins at conception that at some point there were two people. Remember, the zygotes do not start as a chimera, but become so after fertilization.

At some point, there were two separate zygotes, which, according to Christians, are two separate lives (as each zygote was the result of its own separate fertilization). Specifically, when the second egg cell was fertilized (while the two zygotes were separate, thus before the two eggs became a single chimera), there were two people according to christian belief.

As a side note, the bolded part is an issue with those people: their rule demands that at somepoint, someone died or ceased to be. But they don't act that way. It indicates a problem with their actions or a problem with the rule (I'd say a problem with the rule.

Anyway, evidence that Christians believe life begins at conception (which is before a zygote is created, which is before chimerism, so that still means two humans were created by their logic. I go into that more at the bottom.):

From the Creation Museum:

This question lies at the heart of some highly contentious issues in our world today. But, from a medical standpoint, there's only one logical answer: life begins at fertilization, when the chromosomes from the sperm and the egg combine, forming a genetically unique individual.

(Note the obsession with genetics here, which is typically wrong headed.)

From Focus on the Family:

Many medical professionals agree that life begins at conception. Moreover, they acknowledge that mother and preborn child are two patients. Each may be treated and diagnosed differently since their medical needs may vary. As Dr. Jérôme Lejeune, the "Father of Modern Genetics," stated, "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place, a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion … it is plain experimental evidence. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception."

(Also, note that few call Dr Lejeune the Father of Modern Genetics, instead calling another Christian that (Gregory Mendel, a friar and later abbot)).

All of them would call the two, separate, zygotes, pre-merge, to be two people, as a zygote is created as the product of fertilization completing. This is required if they believe life begins at conception/fertilization. Then, after fertilization/conception, after they've determined that there are two people, chimerism can occur, where two zygotes combine, and eventually make what nearly everyone would consider to be one person.

The issue is that somewhere in this process, people who believe that life begins at conception 'lost' a person. They need to have a concrete answer for this.

the core tenant of their belief in human life at conception not the number of people whose life starts at the zygote.

A side note here: "life begins at conception" is really just a colloquialism for the belief that "life begins at fertilization" for almost all Christians (when the sperm and egg combine to create the zygote). Conception and fertilization are used interchangeably (as shown in the quotes above). I don't have an issue with this, as that happens all the time. Anyway, once fertilization happens, you quickly afterwards have a zygote, so the difference between these two positions are minimal. Moreover, the difference is irrelevant, as what I'm claiming (the chimeric stuff) happens after the zygote is created, which is after fertilizations, and so after when Christians believe life begins.

 

[shangrila]

That total focus on spirit is actually very heretical, being founded in gnostic thought rather than Christian thought. Christianity has always taught that the physical and the spiritual are united, and that neither is 'dross'.

Honestly, for me the entire debate hinges on when 'life' becomes 'human', and since we cannot know for certain, as we are not God, then the precautionary principle posits that we therefore treat all potentially human life, from conception, as human, as it is better by far to protect that which is not yet human from the point of conception than to murder a human life. Otherwise you are at risk of saying that some human life is less worthy of protection than other human life, when we know from scripture that God considers there to be no such gradient 'that which you do to the least of my people that you also do unto me.'

Well, all Christian philosophy is derived from Greek/syncretic philosophy, of which Gnosticism is one subset. Gnostic influenced Christian thought was present from the very beginning of Christianity and stayed with it throughout. And it is very heretical in Catholicism (and Orthodoxy), but more than a few Protestant denominations veer towards it, as did many groups suppressed by the Catholic/Orthodox state church pre-Reformation. It's very clearly a general historical tendency in Christianity.

As for the precautionary principle, no Christian would claim merely having any brain activity makes one human, so pushing the cutoff beyond even that is way overcorrecting.

 

[Poe]

No, it absolutely is the view that people who believe life begins at conception that at some point there were two people. Remember, the zygotes do not start as a chimera, but become so after fertilization.

Like I've said multiple times, it being two people doesn't matter at all and doesn't invalid the belief that life begins at conception. Whether its two lives or ten is irrelevant and a point only you seem to care about. It being two souls or whatever is indeed a philosophical question, but the discussion pertained to if there is scientific backing for life starting at conception and none of your gotchas refute the fact that it is.

A chimera is considered a single person both by science and christians, but even if it wasn't that changes nothing about life starting there and only moves to an (irrelevant) derail about how many lives have began of which the answer is never zero, thus your entire series of posts and arguments are just that: an irrelevant derail.

 

[LordsFire]

You are missing the point, and I think Abhorsen's response may not make that entirely clear given your line of argument.

You are focusing on whether the chimeric cells, twin, etc is distinct from the mother, when the relevant question is whether the chimeric cells, twin, donated organ, are distinct from the rest of the fetus, other twin, organ recipient. Any argument merely based on human DNA genetically distinct from the mother would apply in each of these cases. No one questions the independent right to life of one twin from the other, but how can you justify that for chimeric cells from the rest or a donated organ from the recipient? Calling these edge cases merely abandons defense of your own logical position.

I'll also point out an interesting thought. In the history of Christian philosophy, the mind/body distinction often comes up. I'm not aware of a single Christian philosopher who's come down on the body being the true human. Indeed, it's quite common for Christian thought to veer to the other extreme and claim all matter is dross, leading to doctrines like scourging the body, or rejecting reproduction as forcing unwilling souls into the world of matter.

So it's somewhat odd that modern Christians are so uniformly body centric on this particular topic. Yet I have severe doubts that if you posit removing a brain from its body, and keeping the brain living in a jar and the body from life support machines, that there would be much disagreement from Christians as to which is the actual human.

Abbhorsen was specifically responding to my point about science telling us a fetus is a distinct life form, the post that he was replying to also addressed that 'what is personhood?' is a philosophical question.

Christians learned since the 1970's that there were a lot of people who could only be convinced with materialistic arguments, because any argument based on philosophy or theology would be summarily ejected, often earning mockery along the way. There are several posters on this forum who are a good example of the kind of contempt Berlinski talks about atheists having towards Christians.

Learning to argue purely from materialistic and scientific principles, on the other hand, allowed a number of new avenues of effective persuasion:

1. Probably the most effective, is defying the stereotype of Christians as ignorant, dim-witted, weak-minded chuds that atheists and especially abortionist atheists would build. Just defying that stereotype alone could convince a fair number of people on the abortion issue, because very clearly they'd been lied to about what pro-life activists are like, so what else might they have been lied to about?

2. Some people actually did want to engage in that kind of discussion and debate. Not many; Jonathan Haidt is correct that most people use their rational ability to justify decisions they've already made, than to make rational decisions, but it did work with some people.

3. It was also useful for very decisively being able to tell if certain kinds of people were actually interested in discussing/debating the issue, or if they just liked cloaking themselves in the cultural authority of 'science' and 'reason' to treat 'primitive religious superstition' and those believing it terribly. I think I lost track of the number of people like this I tried to debate with in my teens, certainly by my mid twenties.


Basically, when it was clear that moral and spiritual arguments meant nothing to a lot of people, many pro-lifers switched to a different type of argument. Hard-line abortionists were proven just as deceitful, spiteful, and murderous in those types of argument as any other, but there was a substantial swathe of people who were persuaded.

It's one of the reasons that the pro-life tide has continuously risen since the 1990's.

 

[Abhorsen]

Like I've said multiple times, it being two people doesn't matter at all and doesn't invalid the belief that life begins at conception. Whether its two lives or ten is irrelevant and a point only you seem to care about. It being two souls or whatever is indeed a philosophical question, but the discussion pertained to if there is scientific backing for life starting at conception and none of your gotchas refute the fact that it is.

A chimera is considered a single person both by science and christians, but even if it wasn't that changes nothing about life starting there and only moves to an (irrelevant) derail about how many lives have began of which the answer is never zero, thus your entire series of posts and arguments are just that: an irrelevant derail.

No, it  absolutely matters. Because there are two lives going around, then one just disappearing without dying makes no sense.

If a definition of human life can't tell how many human lives there are, it fails as a definition.

More, simply using DNA of a human thats different than the mother also fails for another reason: an underfertilized egg cell has different DNA than the mother. It only has one set of chromosomes, and those are mixed and matched from the woman's two pairs.

Life begins and ends with the brain, not the DNA.

Learning to argue purely from materialistic and scientific principles, on the other hand, allowed a number of new avenues of effective persuasion

And I will say, it has been very effective, as the science is on your side much more than theirs (though IMO not completely, as I view the 8 weeks as more accurate). Personally, I think it's wrong, but only slightly wrong. Because of the science, 9/10 times I'll back the anti-abortion position on policy because the alternative is backing baby murder, and weighing no baby murder vs some sexual freedom is an easy choice. In a choice between 0 weeks and 20 week abortion, I'll take 0 weeks every day and twice on Sunday.

More, politically, yours is a much easier position to hold and defend: a quick bright line rule of "No! Never!" is easier to sell than my "8-12 weeks, be safe by saying no abortions at 8 weeks" is nuanced, and would result in a 12 week compromise at best.

 

[Morphic Tide]

In a choice between 0 weeks and 20 week abortion, I'll take 0 weeks every day and twice on Sunday.

This is an especially good example for the discussion because 20 weeks is catastrophically premature to the point of not functioning as a natural birth, but if born premature or C-Sectioned at that point can be saved with technology and the vast majority of complications that would make the pregnancy non-viable or the child's quality of life intrinsically terrible can be diagnosed.

 

[Ixian]

It's also got a huge chance of miscarriage that early, making the "potential baby" argument fall flat. You need to pass some developmental breakpoints after conception to expect a person from it.

Definition of life typically includes homeostasis, which the moment of conception zygotes are comprehensive failures at due to lacking any mechanism for nutrient intake.


It's important that actual living people not be fucked over by your definition interacting weirdly with them.


Neither has associated brain activity, and the embryo still has no small chance of never forming it.


And such large numbers of "pregnancies" as measured from conception are non-viable that it's a poor benchmark. For reference, in-vitro fertilization sees as little as 27% of embryos being born.


The argument is that under the logic of "life begins at conception", a chimera had to have been two people at some point, and either remains two people or one of them is dead.

Your argument is that the Human in the earliest possible, and most vulnerable, stages of the Human lifecycle might die, therefore it isn't a person.

Well no duh the individual could die, thats the case for everyone on the planet, doesn't mean they aren't human.

 

[posh-goofiness]

I seem to not be getting my point across, or you are misunderstanding me.

First, obviously, to both you and me, a Chimera is one person. I'm also not saying that anyone thinks a Chimeric person is not a person at all. I'm saying that people that beieve "Life begins at conception" would view it as two people (or at least that it was at some point). The two person thing is my issue.

Let me go through this carefully here, with a count of how many humans exist (not counting the mother or the father here).

Event number	What just happened	Number of new humans (life at conception definition)	Number of new kids (life at brain function definition)	Number of new kids as defined normally
1	Mother releases two eggs	0	0	0
2	Sex happens	0	0	0
3	First egg gets fertilized	1	0	?
4	Second egg gets fertilized	2	0	?
5	Embryos/Zygotes combine	Either 1 or 2	0	0 or 1
6	Fetus develops brain	Either 1 or 2	1	0 or 1
7	After Birth	Either 1 or 2	1	1
8	Removal of chimeric mole	1	1	1

Notably, between events 4 and 7 (the bolded stuff) something happened that disappeared a human. But there was no cell dying that triggered this. In fact, from the POV of the cells that have the minority DNA, they just failed to grow, but instead stayed the same-ish (i.e. calling it a death is a hard sell). Given that you said combining a embryo/zygote created one human, then the question becomes: when did the death happen, with no body, no mourning, etc. The only actually damage done was at step 8, while everyone normal would consider that there was a single human at 7.


Things like that (and Identical twins separating well after conception, etc) all lead to exceptions to the neat rule of "life begins at conception". More, my definition of a human person is short, to the point, and clearly tells when a human is alive, and when a human is dead: thought. Human life is having a (human) brain that can have thoughts. Not complex thoughts, just any thoughts. When you first get thoughts, you are begin being a human. When you lose that ability to have any more thoughts (e.g. brain got squished) you are dead.


No. This is an innately pro-abortion argument pretending at being neutral, unless you are full anarcho-sociopath who believes the government should have no say over a parent murdering their baby. You've implicitly assumed when personhood happened, then snuck in a pro-choice conclusion.

Points 5, 6, and 7 are erroneous. There is only one life at those points. I know you'd like it to be "1 or 2" to keep your argument alive but no one in the life begins at conception camp believes it's one or two; it's definitely one because that's the axiomatic definition of a chimera.

The transition from 4 to 5 is just an unfortunate consequence of messy biology and complications with pregnancy for twins. This isn't a problem with the life begins at conception point of view, it's your contrived example based on your mistaken assumptions.

 

[Abhorsen]

Points 5, 6, and 7 are erroneous. There is only one life at those points. I know you'd like it to be "1 or 2" to keep your argument alive but no one in the life begins at conception camp believes it's one or two; it's definitely one because that's the axiomatic definition of a chimera.

I'm quite fine with it being 1. I'm also fine with it being 2. I just didn't want to give a definite answer for that point in a column representing an opinion I didn't agree with. The issue is that at some point it is 2, then it becomes 1. Depending on where a person decides to make it become 1, I'll point out issues.

The transition from 4 to 5 is just an unfortunate consequence of messy biology and complications with pregnancy for twins. This isn't a problem with the life begins at conception point of view, it's your contrived example based on your mistaken assumptions.

Just accepting it as a death is a completely valid approach. The issue is that nothing actually 'dies' in any biological sense. Scientifically speaking, it just goes on as effectively, a parasitic/symbiotic organism with human DNA. So calling it a scientific 'death' is the wrong term. And this goes to why 'life begins at conception' isn't science, it's philosophy. You can argue it's good philosophy, but it's still philosophy.

Also, what about that makes it one person, but makes a siamese twin with two functioning brains two people, but a siamese twin with one brain one person? Because, looking symptomatically, chimerism is simply a very small siamese twin. At what point on that scale does the saimese twin become a separate human?

See, my definition of humanity has a built in answer to this. Yours needs special handling for these contingencies.

This is an especially good example for the discussion because 20 weeks is catastrophically premature to the point of not functioning as a natural birth, but if born premature or C-Sectioned at that point can be saved with technology and the vast majority of complications that would make the pregnancy non-viable or the child's quality of life intrinsically terrible can be diagnosed.

Whether or not the child can survive, is, to my mind, almost completely irrelevant to whether an abortion is moral. The first, most important question is whether or not the embryo is an alive human person yet. Viability only impacts whether an evacuation (a very early birth + legal abandonment of the child as a replacement for abortion) is moral.

 

[Poe]

No, it  absolutely matters. Because there are two lives going around, then one just disappearing without dying makes no sense.

No it doesn't, and its pretty rude to make this post and only later add my comment in as a quote

If a definition of human life can't tell how many human lives there are, it fails as a definition.

No definition or worldview, but one you've invented in this thread for some reason, has this problem. You also continue to argue around the point, which is that human life begins at conception. Just concede that science and christians are in agreement here lol

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

If a fetus or zygote isn't a human life, destroying an endangered animal fetus/zygote cannot possibly be a crime because you've destroyed something that absolutely is not a member of the endangered species.

 

[posh-goofiness]

I'm quite fine with it being 1. I'm also fine with it being 2. I just didn't want to give a definite answer for that point in a column representing an opinion I didn't agree with. The issue is that at some point it is 2, then it becomes 1. Depending on where a person decides to make it become 1, I'll point out issues.


Just accepting it as a death is a completely valid approach.

It's not a death. From here, the only real distinction you'll be able to find is rooted in philosophical arguments. From the purely materialistic perspective, no death occurred. The dominant embryo suppressed the growth of the other embyro and grew around it.

The issue is that nothing actually 'dies' in any biological sense. Scientifically speaking, it just goes on as effectively, a parasitic/symbiotic organism with human DNA.

It's a commensal relationship, not parasitic.

So calling it a scientific 'death' is the wrong term. And this goes to why 'life begins at conception' isn't science, it's philosophy. You can argue it's good philosophy, but it's still philosophy.

I'm not calling it a death, neither do biologists. The second embryo's development is arrested by the first. It does not follow you'd need philosophy to resolve the non-issue of whether it's one or two people, biology does that just fine.

Also, what about that makes it one person, but makes a siamese twin with two functioning brains two people, but a siamese twin with one brain one person? Because, looking symptomatically, chimerism is simply a very small siamese twin. At what point on that scale does the saimese twin become a separate human?

See, my definition of humanity has a built in answer to this. Yours needs special handling for these contingencies.

In the the first and second case, they are both two people. In the first case, it's two people with two brains that don't touch. In the second case, I believe you're mistaken. There's still two brains, they're just joined at certain parts. They share and send signals back and forth but they're two separate personalities. In essence, 1 and 2 are the same situation you're breaking into two cases for the sake of your argument. They aren't equivalent with chimerism at all since one embryo didn't arrest the development of the other, they both continued developing and melded in a horrifying way. The "scale" of this false equivalency is nonsensical.

 

[Abhorsen]

It's not a death. From here, the only real distinction you'll be able to find is rooted in philosophical arguments. From the purely materialistic perspective, no death occurred. The dominant embryo suppressed the growth of the other embyro and grew around it.

If it's not a death, then you've left science and Christianity both, and there's not a future death. You have someone who was born, but never died.

Look, you are in a dilemma here. You can pick one of three: either the chimera part is alive until amputation, it died before at some point (maybe even a point I didn't list), or it was never a human. Inventing a new way for a human life to end that isn't death is neither a Christian nor scientific solution to your problem.

It's a commensal relationship, not parasitic.

See, I was thinking about changing that when I wrote that, but I think it's technically, barely, parasitic, in that the mole would need some nutrients like any other group of cells, and it provides none. It's not full on hermit crabs taking abandoned shells. Regardless, this point is minor and incidental to the point I made.

I'm not calling it a death, neither do biologists. The second embryo's development is arrested by the first. It does not follow you'd need philosophy to resolve the non-issue of whether it's one or two people, biology does that just fine.

I'm pretty sure, at some point, they do say the organism died, while keeping it as a separate organism. Really, that wouldn't be weird at all for a biologist, as every biologist knows the majority of cells in a human (by count, IDK about by weight) are not even human, but part of the internal ecosystem of the body, like gut bacteria. This would just be another organism living on the body.

In the the first and second case, they are both two people. In the first case, it's two people with two brains that don't touch. In the second case, I believe you're mistaken. There's still two brains, they're just joined at certain parts. They share and send signals back and forth but they're two separate personalities. In essence, 1 and 2 are the same situation you're breaking into two cases for the sake of your argument.

In some cases, there are two brains (the more famous examples). In others, there's actually only one head, usually in cases of parasitic or vestigial twins, where all that remains of the other twin are some excess limbs. There's not even no second brain, there's no second head, nor connection at the head.

They aren't equivalent with chimerism at all since one embryo didn't arrest the development of the other, they both continued developing and melded in a horrifying way. The "scale" of this false equivalency is nonsensical.

This is why I said 'Symptomatically' similar:

Because, looking symptomatically, chimerism is simply a very small siamese twin.

Obviously, the cause and how this happened are different, but the end result (i.e. the symptoms) is pretty similar: a naturally occurring state where a human body can have multiple different genotypes. Sorta like saying a cold and an allergy are symptomatically similar, in that I get a headache, runny nose, cough, etc, from both.

No it doesn't, and its pretty rude to make this post and only later add my comment in as a quote

Apologies to the second part. I posted intending to reply, but forgot the quote, then realized that, then added it.

No definition or worldview, but one you've invented in this thread for some reason, has this problem. You also continue to argue around the point, which is that human life begins at conception. Just concede that science and christians are in agreement here lol

Literally I pointed out that the definition that comes from "life begins at conception" has this problem, and explained how it has that problem. You are now just saying "No you didn't" and I'm not interested in continuing to reply "Yes I did" if you won't actually engage the points I've made. I've not 'argued around the point'. I've argued exactly that point, by pointing out two major flaws (chimerism and identical twins) with the point. It's absolutely not scientific