It is more related to the philosophy of science.
P.S. I'm not implying his grandfather was Gimli even if Gimli theoretically had two grandfathers.
The philosophy of science is something that has only existed since the practice of science became widespread.
It seems to me that the alternative to people being alive quite quickly reduces to nothing is alive by way of information theory.
Since all humans were just 2 cells at one point. It seems to follow that the entirely of the code for what a human is, is contained in just those 2 cells. Not just code for a finger. But even code for our deeply ingrained fear of snakes. Was just at one point contained in those 2 cells. Kind of blows your mind.
If they are separate living organisms, then there seems something recursive about humans if they can be just 2 cells at one point.
No, that's not true. Those two cells require a lot of care and nurturing and education before they become a person.
Have you heard of HeLa cells?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa
They have a full compliment of human DNA, but no one in their right mind would argue that they are a person.
"Potentiality" - this view argues that regardless of whether the fetus is a person, it has the potential to become a person, and thus inherits some moral consideration.
"Value of Human Life" - the argument that human life - at any stage of development - has intrinsic value and thus should be protected.
We do not totally understand how it works, but there are heritable traits not passed via DNA - the one often in the news is women with emotional trauma pass that trauma on to their children, and those children show those symptoms even if raised in a happy home with 0 contact with the mother.
It is a philosophical argument, not a scientific one. One which if we try and reason based on how special nature treats embryos quickly falls apart anyways...
"Here, we propose a new analogy, inspired by recent work in machine learning and neuroscience: that the genome encodes a generative model of the organism. In this scheme, by analogy with variational autoencoders, the genome does not encode either organismal form or developmental processes directly, but comprises a compressed space of latent variables."
1. https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.15908 2. discussion with the authors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QaMnUBkmz4
The potential for a new person exists. Just as the potential for new people exist in a collection of sperm and egg cells.
The only difference, which you seem to be latching onto, is that now that potential has been turned into a more specific one. Why do you think that makes any real difference? It seems like an arbitrary and abstract argument that depends on an almost mystical perspective.
> This is a strong argument against abortion.
It really isn't. In fact, it's fallacious, because to accept the argument, you have to accept premises that produce the desired conclusion - i.e. it's question-begging, assuming its conclusion.
Being a person involves some level of thought, not just existing. If you ripped my brain completely out, and kept my body alive, most would consider the brain removal the time of death. That's when the person they knew died.
The cognitive dissonance is too strong, this entire subject should honestly be banned from HN.
Otherwise you're in the same camp that believes a sky daddy breathes a soul into your baby at conception and that IVF is the work of Satan.
To reframe it: what you’re really doing is arguing about the definition of alive. In this case my opinion is: who cares. I fail to see how expanding the definition or being precise here adds anything.
Refining the definition of something often helps provoke new understanding and tests of the limit of that refinement. It seems like a critical requirement in the "form a hypothesis" step of the scientific method.
What if we do it all on the Moon, or Mars? How does Gaia feel about it? We already know that it's theoretically possible, if not yet achievable in practice, to create artificial environments capable of supporting human life indefinitely - or, on a long enough timescale, bootstrap an independent, self-sufficient biosphere. The two are, in the limit, the same thing anyway.
Or are we going to argue that human technology is, by extension through causality, a part of life on Earth, and therefore a part of Gaia itself? Is Gaia in all of us, and will it persist after Earth dies if humanity is still around somewhere else?
All in all, I suppose the correct definitions of terms are the ones that are most useful in a given context :). "Categories were made for man, not man for the categories", and all that.
At which point we could say that the "supporting infrastructure" of the rest of a human body isn't necessary for the heart to be independently alive
This accurately describes much of science...
> My heart can exist independently of me, and be transplanted into other people, but does it mean that it is alive?
The cells that comprise your heart are very much alive, but they will die without support infrastructure. They live, they replicate, they die -- like every cell in your body. If I relocate you to the moon without support infrastructure, you would die too -- and yet (I think?) you are probably alive.