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being pro life outside the political arena
Topic Started: Nov 12 2008, 06:24 AM (4,734 Views)
Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Axtremus
Nov 15 2008, 05:25 AM
AlbertaCrude
Nov 14 2008, 10:38 PM
You know very well what I am saying.
Don't bet on it. ;)

IT, a friendly suggestion: perhaps you can considering reading up more about IVF practices and procedures before continuing down this path of discussion.

As a matter of practice, and with good practical and medically sound reasons given the state of the art, most (if not all) IVF procedures produce more fertilized eggs than what gets implanted into women's wombs. If one holds that "life begins at conception" and equate "conception" with the fertilization of an ovum, then it logically follows that IVF is, in effect, a procedure that deliberately creates and then kills lives.

The way to get out of that is to define "conception" as something that begins at "implantation" (i.e., attachment to the uterine wall), not at "fertilization". The consequence down this path is that
(1) Uniting one sperm and one egg is not "creating life" by itself. A "zygote" is "not life," "not human." A blastocyst is "not life", "not human," until it is implanted in the womb.
(2) The use of some types of morning-after pills (the types that prevent the implantation of fertilized ovum) cannot be equated as "abortion" or "termination of life", while some other types of pills that terminates the development of an implanted blastocyst can still be equated with "abortion" or "termination of life."

So, IT (and Luke's Dad, and M&M, and Copper, and Dewey, and who ever likes to claim that "life begins at conception), what's your view on this?

Can you accept that uniting one sperm and one egg is not "creating life" by itself, that a "zygote" is "not life," "not human," that a blastocyst is "not life", "not human," until it is implanted in the womb?

If you cannot accept the above, would you still allow IVF as practiced today knowing such procedures routinely create and destroy "human lives" intentionally and deliberately?
*bump* for IT.

I get it that you stick to life begins at fertilization.

What's your view on the second question? Would you still allow IVF as practiced today knowing such procedures routinely create and destroy "human lives" intentionally and deliberately?
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
AlbertaCrude
Nov 16 2008, 10:34 AM
bachophile
Nov 15 2008, 08:57 PM
...all i will say is this...

the difference between fetal life and human life is not determined by the biologist or the physician but by the metaphysician. it's the determination of the culture or the religion that declares not when life begins but when life begins to be human.

At last the voice of reason. If indeed human life begins at the moment of conception let's work towards rendering the practice of abortion obsolete not only through education but through technology as well. Let's augment education and outreach by bringing together private and public policy and funding to enable engineers, biologists and physicians to create the techonological means to take a human zygote and nurture it to full term in an artficial womb. the resulting infants can then be adopted out to suitable families and couples.

A great opportunity for international public/private partnering and tax dollars well spent.
Oh brave new world.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Axtremus
Nov 16 2008, 11:23 AM

What's your view on the second question? Would you still allow IVF as practiced today knowing such procedures routinely create and destroy "human lives" intentionally and deliberately?
No. -- can you read it if it isn't color coded?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Jolly
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kathyk
Nov 16 2008, 06:52 AM
Good for you, IT. Now why don't you take the next logical step and reconcile yourself with the notion (as supported by the law) that the government should stay out of it and leave women alone to make their own reproductive choices based on their own spiritual belief systems.
Why not?

Abortion, not to mention infanticide, is certainly popular among the women of some cultures. If you can't kill them in the womb, it's easy enough to grab a baby by the heels and dash their head against a convenient wall a time or two.

After that, the only problem becomes what day trash pick-up is scheduled.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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AlbertaCrude
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Exactly and that is yet another reason why in this day and age of cultural diversity and multiculturalism I proposed the state run mandatory birthing hospice for all mothers under the age of majority and mothers who are deemed to put their unborn child at risk. These minors and women would receive full medical, psychological and rehabilatory care and attention for full term of their pregnancy with full understanding and acceptance that their child at birth will become a ward of the state and adopted out to suitable families and couples as closed adoptions.
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Moonbat
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So I have a question:

What is so special about human beings? Why should we give human beings special treatment/rights/etc. and not mice or bacteria or other organisms? What criteria mark us out?

The way I see it any attempt to explain the basis for discriminating between the treatment of a human adult (or child) and some other animal (or indeed non-animals for that matter) either massively reduces the ethical significance of early term abortion or it invokes religious ideas of soul or other scientific errors (e.g. the notions of 'qualities' in potentia).
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Copper
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Moonbat
Nov 16 2008, 03:27 PM
So I have a question:

What is so special about human beings? Why should we give human beings special treatment/rights/etc. and not mice or bacteria or other organisms? What criteria mark us out?

The way I see it any attempt to explain the basis for discriminating between the treatment of a human adult (or child) and some other animal (or indeed non-animals for that matter) either massively reduces the ethical significance of early term abortion or it invokes religious ideas of soul or other scientific errors (e.g. the notions of 'qualities' in potentia).

Next you'll want bacteria to have the right to vote.

The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
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QuirtEvans
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Moonbat
Nov 16 2008, 03:27 PM
So I have a question:

What is so special about human beings? Why should we give human beings special treatment/rights/etc. and not mice or bacteria or other organisms? What criteria mark us out?

The way I see it any attempt to explain the basis for discriminating between the treatment of a human adult (or child) and some other animal (or indeed non-animals for that matter) either massively reduces the ethical significance of early term abortion or it invokes religious ideas of soul or other scientific errors (e.g. the notions of 'qualities' in potentia).
The thing that makes humans special is that we are human beings.

Therefore, our laws apply to us. A bear or a cougar might kill a human, and there might be consequences for that, but it isn't against the law, because laws don't apply to anything other than humans. (They may say what a human may permit an animal to do, but that's a different thing entirely.)
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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AlbertaCrude
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John D'Oh
 
Oh brave new world.
Indeed good fellow, brave and new: commiting global material and technological resources in servicing the common good.
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Moonbat
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Quote:
 

The thing that makes humans special is that we are human beings.

Therefore, our laws apply to us. A bear or a cougar might kill a human, and there might be consequences for that, but it isn't against the law, because laws don't apply to anything other than humans. (They may say what a human may permit an animal to do, but that's a different thing entirely.)


We are humans, but we are also mammals - so then could we not claim that mammals are special because we are mammals and therefore extend some of the protection we offer human beings to other mammals? And you and I are Caucasian so could we not claim that Caucasians are special because we are Caucasians and that we (being Caucasian) therefore think that the protection offered to other human beings should be restricted to just Caucasians?

I mean I of course agree that it only makes sense to have laws governing the behaviour of organisms that are able to follow those laws (making it illegal for bears to do stuff would seem fairly pointless) but for organisms able to follow laws (like us) both in the legal sense and in people's personal ethics they give humans a very special kind of status - if ethical consideration applies to animals at all (and some people here e.g. IT don't seem to think they do) then it is a given that it is of much much less significance than humans.

But why - what is it about humans that justifies this special status? I think one must appeal to a greater degree of awareness, a richer kind of experience, a much greater variation in quality of life, etc. and that such appeals implicitly knock out the hardline pro-life position (which equates the ethical significance of fertilised eggs and TNCR members).
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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CTPianotech
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Moonbat
Nov 17 2008, 02:09 AM
Quote:
 

The thing that makes humans special is that we are human beings.

Therefore, our laws apply to us. A bear or a cougar might kill a human, and there might be consequences for that, but it isn't against the law, because laws don't apply to anything other than humans. (They may say what a human may permit an animal to do, but that's a different thing entirely.)


We are humans, but we are also mammals - so then could we not claim that mammals are special because we are mammals and therefore extend some of the protection we offer human beings to other mammals? And you and I are Caucasian so could we not claim that Caucasians are special because we are Caucasians and that we (being Caucasian) therefore think that the protection offered to other human beings should be restricted to just Caucasians?

I mean I of course agree that it only makes sense to have laws governing the behaviour of organisms that are able to follow those laws (making it illegal for bears to do stuff would seem fairly pointless) but for organisms able to follow laws (like us) both in the legal sense and in people's personal ethics they give humans a very special kind of status - if ethical consideration applies to animals at all (and some people here e.g. IT don't seem to think they do) then it is a given that it is of much much less significance than humans.

But why - what is it about humans that justifies this special status? I think one must appeal to a greater degree of awareness, a richer kind of experience, a much greater variation in quality of life, etc. and that such appeals implicitly knock out the hardline pro-life position (which equates the ethical significance of fertilised eggs and TNCR members).
By that line of reasoning, a human infant wouldn't yet be deserving of any special kind of status. All they know is scream, eat, and crap. (ok, they whizz and puke too)

Early on, they have no more awareness, richness of experience than any other mammal. In fact, human infants are amongst the most helpless and unaware of all mammals--born only with the ability to eat, and scream, and some basic involuntary body functions. (crap, whizz, puke, etc) The potential is there though for much more....just as it was while it was still in the womb.
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Luke's Dad
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QuirtEvans
Nov 15 2008, 05:16 PM
That's like saying that an acorn is an oak tree. It's in there, just give it time.

Do you really think an acorn and an oak tree are the same thing?
Wrong. If the acorn is in the ground, with roots sprouting, then it's an oak tree given time.
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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Luke's Dad
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ivorythumper
Nov 15 2008, 05:49 PM
QuirtEvans
Nov 15 2008, 05:16 PM
That's like saying that an acorn is an oak tree. It's in there, just give it time.

Do you really think an acorn and an oak tree are the same thing?
They are both specimens of Quercus. An acorn that has not been germinated is not in any sense an oak tree -- just like a lone spermatozoan or unfertilized human ovum is in no sense a human being. It is a nut containing the seed. Once the acorn has been germinated and starts growing it is no longer properly an acorn, but a seedling. But it is still a specimen of Quercus.

I really thought you would have learned this in grade school biology.
Ahhh, I should have read further.
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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Luke's Dad
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John D'Oh
Nov 15 2008, 03:23 PM
Before you ask, I cannot answer the question 'when does it become a human', because I really don't know. I don't believe third trimester abortions should be permitted except under exceptional circumstances, but at what point the cut-off should be, I'm not sure.

In all fairness, isn't this the one area to err on the side of life?

Quote:
 
I think that the fact that 50 million abortions have taken place is highly regrettable, and I'm sure there has been untold suffering to many people who have been through the procedure. It also indicates that something is clearly wrong with our society. My gut feel is that we need to tackle what is wrong with society, rather than simply attempting to ban abortions, since even if the symptom is removed, the underlying disease will likely remain, as will very large numbers of unwanted babies.


I agree. I just don't feel you'll be able to tackle the problem and solve it as long as the "easy fix" is available.
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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Moonbat
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Quote:
 

By that line of reasoning, a human infant wouldn't yet be deserving of any special kind of status. All they know is scream, eat, and crap. (ok, they whizz and puke too)

Early on, they have no more awareness, richness of experience than any other mammal. In fact, human infants are amongst the most helpless and unaware of all mammals--born only with the ability to eat, and scream, and some basic involuntary body functions. (crap, whizz, puke, etc) The potential is there though for much more....just as it was while it was still in the womb.


Well if it is the 'potential' for rich awareness that is what you think matters then that applies to a sperm/egg pair or to a skin cell (and indeed if you really explore that idea of 'potential' in the context of what we've managed to uncover about the world around us then you realise that it applies to just about anything)

In terms of human infants vs. other animals, I think that's a reasonable point - what is it about human infants that marks them out for preferential treatment over say adult Great Apes?
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Moonbat
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Wrong. If the acorn is in the ground, with roots sprouting, then it's an oak tree given time.


Errr...

Given time and water, and nitrates and phosphates and sunlight and carbon dioxide and space and the right temperature and pressure and ph and about zillion other conditions then it has a decent chance of being an oak tree given time (of course there's still no guarantee, it might self terminate due a mutation of some kind, it might catch a disease, it might get eaten, etc. etc.)
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Moonbat
Nov 17 2008, 08:01 AM
Quote:
 

Wrong. If the acorn is in the ground, with roots sprouting, then it's an oak tree given time.


Errr...

Given time and water, and nitrates and phosphates and sunlight and carbon dioxide and space and the right temperature and pressure and ph and about zillion other conditions then it has a decent chance of being an oak tree given time (of course there's still no guarantee, it might self terminate due a mutation of some kind, it might catch a disease, it might get eaten, etc. etc.)
The acorn is the ungerminated nut of the oak tree. With roots sprouting it is no longer an acorn but a seedling. The chemical processes have already begun with germination. It is most accurate to call it an oak tree, or the seedling stage of development of an oak tree, rather than an acorn.

Which is why that parallel of acorn to embryo is so bad.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Moonbat
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Quote:
 

he acorn is the ungerminated nut of the oak tree. With roots sprouting it is no longer an acorn but a seedling. The chemical processes have already begun with germination. It is most accurate to call it an oak tree, or the seedling stage of development of an oak tree, rather than an acorn.

Which is why that parallel of acorn to embryo is so bad.


Well it's up to us what we call things, whether we call it an acorn sprouting roots or the seedling stage of development of an oak tree is just semantics (likewise we could call an acrorn the acorn stage of development of an oak tree if we so wished).

What's of significance to me is always the reality rather than the semantics i.e. what's actually there - the properties of the actual system rather than what words we choose to use.
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AlbertaCrude
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Moonbat
Nov 17 2008, 07:57 AM
what is it about human infants that marks them out for preferential treatment over say adult Great Apes?
According a recent Nova documentary on Homo floresiensis it's all to do with wrist morphology.

read more: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/317/5845/1743

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3209/01.html


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Moonbat
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How interesting - I'd hadn't heard of Homo floresiensis before.
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ivorythumper
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Moonbat
Nov 17 2008, 01:33 PM
Quote:
 

he acorn is the ungerminated nut of the oak tree. With roots sprouting it is no longer an acorn but a seedling. The chemical processes have already begun with germination. It is most accurate to call it an oak tree, or the seedling stage of development of an oak tree, rather than an acorn.

Which is why that parallel of acorn to embryo is so bad.


Well it's up to us what we call things, whether we call it an acorn sprouting roots or the seedling stage of development of an oak tree is just semantics (likewise we could call an acrorn the acorn stage of development of an oak tree if we so wished).

What's of significance to me is always the reality rather than the semantics i.e. what's actually there - the properties of the actual system rather than what words we choose to use.
Yes Moonbat, it is not at all about semantics. Calling you an oven doesn't get my pie baked.

Focus on the reality that is really there: there really is a chemical change that occurred at germination which is why we call it something other than an acorn, like a seedling.

So yes, we can and do call an acorn the "acorn stage" or more conventionally "the fruit" *of* the oak tree. But the point is that a germinated seed that is in the ground and rooting is no longer a seed, it is a neophyte oak tree or a seedling oak tree or something other than merely a nut or an acorn *of* an oak tree.

Likewise, the human zygote is something more than the unfertilized egg *of* a human being or the unfulfilled sperm *of* a human being, but rather a "human being" proper. Fertilization has occurred and a different thing is going on chemically. Those sorts of chemical processes that are part of embryonic development continue throughout the life and maturation of the human being, varying only according to the stage of development. But the "thing" remains the same.

If we were talking about cats, would you say that the cat embryo is not a cat in an early stage of feline development? Is the born kitten a different thing (item) from the feline zygote whence it developed?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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John D'Oh
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AlbertaCrude
Nov 17 2008, 02:00 PM
Moonbat
Nov 17 2008, 07:57 AM
what is it about human infants that marks them out for preferential treatment over say adult Great Apes?
According a recent Nova documentary on Homo floresiensis it's all to do with wrist morphology.

read more: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/317/5845/1743

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3209/01.html


That and the fact that we're created in God's image.

Well, some of us are:

Posted Image

This guy actually looks a lot more like John the Baptist.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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QuirtEvans
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ivorythumper
Nov 17 2008, 03:21 PM
Yes Moonbat, it is not at all about semantics. Calling you an oven doesn't get my pie baked.

Is that some kind of homosexual code I've never heard of before?

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

"Honey, I'm coming home early, get ready, I want to get my pie baked."
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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ivorythumper
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:lol2: Not to worry, MS is the only one who bakes my pie.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Moonbat
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Quote:
 

Yes Moonbat, it is not at all about semantics. Calling you an oven doesn't get my pie baked.

Focus on the reality that is really there: there really is a chemical change that occurred at germination which is why we call it something other than an acorn, like a seedling.


Well there are changes that occur at germination but there are constant chemical changes, both before and after germination. But I'm not objecting to breaking up reality into manageable chunks and using different words to refer to those chunks, only to the confusion between our semantic choices and the actual world.

Quote:
 

So yes, we can and do call an acorn the "acorn stage" or more conventionally "the fruit" *of* the oak tree. But the point is that a germinated seed that is in the ground and rooting is no longer a seed, it is a neophyte oak tree or a seedling oak tree or something other than merely a nut or an acorn *of* an oak tree.


Well if one defines the term "seed" not to include rooting then by definition a system that is rooting is not defined as belonging to the category "seed" but again that's just semantics. If we wanted to we can invent a term that encompasses both a rooting acorn and a non-rooting acorn but not a mature oak (using for instance the criteria of sexual maturity).

Quote:
 

Likewise, the human zygote is something more than the unfertilized egg *of* a human being or the unfulfilled sperm *of* a human being, but rather a "human being" proper.


Well if you want to think of a fertilised egg as "something more" than an unfertilised egg and sperm then... ok, but equally the system following a cellular division where one now has two cells rather than one can be claimed to be "something more" than the newly fertilised egg and indeed every step in time can be thought of as "something more". It's a fairly uninformative statement though and more accurate would be "something different".

Of course again to me it's doesn't matter whether we call the collection of nucleic acids and carbohydrates etc. that makes up a fertilised egg a zygote or anything else any question that interests me is a question about the system itself.

Quote:
 

Fertilization has occurred and a different thing is going on chemically. Those sorts of chemical processes that are part of embryonic development continue throughout the life and maturation of the human being, varying only according to the stage of development. But the "thing" remains the same.


Sure fertilisation has occurred but 'a different thing' is going on chemically after say one cellular division of the fertilised egg, indeed 'a different thing' is going on chemically one nanosecond to the other. It really doesn't mean anything to say the "thing" remains the same, that's part of this confusion between semantics and reality.

Suppose we consider a glass that gets shattered and we think about the original unshattered glass and it's evolution through to fragments of glass. Now if we consider catagorising the system by chemical composition then the shattering event is of no significance the system remains the with respect to that category thus with respect to that category "it is the same thing", if we consider categorising by shape as observed at the scale we normally think when looking at everday object or according to the of spacially disjoint pieces then those categories do change with the respect the shattering event and thus with respect to those category it is not "the same thing".

So you see in order to answer any question that asks "is it same thing" i must first know the category that you have in mind when you ask questio since whether we consider some subset of the physical world to be "the same thing" after some period of time depends on categories we choose to use.

Quote:
 

If we were talking about cats, would you say that the cat embryo is not a cat in an early stage of feline development? Is the born kitten a different thing (item) from the feline zygote whence it developed?


If you define the term "cat" to include fluffy meowing things and fleshy lumps of stuff that can gradually change into fluffy meowing things, then the embryo is a cat, if you define the term "cat" to only include the fluffy meowing things then the embryo is not a cat.

When you ask is the born kitten "a different thing" from a zygote as i allude to above - the question has no meaning. A zygote is distinguishable from a kitten whether one considers them the "same thing" or a "different thing" depends on which criteria are chosen as the basis for classification.
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