Here's something for all you people who think its OK to kill the comatose...

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Here's something for all you people who think its OK to kill the comatose...
Tweet Topic Started: Nov 16 2012, 01:04 AM (2,661 Views)
ivorythumper	Nov 19 2012, 11:25 AM Post #126
I am so adjective that I verb nouns! Posts: 50,666 Group: Members Member #164 Joined: April 24, 2005	Moonbat Nov 19 2012, 10:36 AM Ok perhaps I've misunderstood, consider a technology that will allow us to keep arbitrary pieces of tissue alive can you answer these 4 questions. Someone gets their arm cut off and the arm is attached to a machine that pumps in oxygenated blood, regulates homeostasis, glucose levels etc. such that the arm stays alive. 1) In this instance do we have two human beings or one human being? We have one human being and one part that is being kept artificially alive. The arm is no longer part of the human being, although it was a human arm it is sort of "accidental tissue". Sort of like sowing a human ear onto the back of a mouse. It's no longer a human ear except by the accident of form. Quote: If the arm is then disconnected and 'dies' (though the rest of the chap is sitting there chatting about how much life without an arms sucks) has the human being died? Just the arm has dies -- it no longer is capable of processing the vital elements once necrosis sets in. Quote: 1) Now suppose the that the arm is kept connected and 'alive' but the chap suddenly stops chatting to you and has a massive heart attack, doctors call time of death, and he's buried. Has the 'human being' died? The human being has died -- not because the doctor called the time of death, but because there is no process in the body. (again, the arm is no longer part of the human being). Quote: Ok suppose now we swap the arm for the brain. The chap has his brain removed from his body and attached to a machine that keeps the tissues alive, translates the nerve impulses that were headed for muscles in legs and arms and voice boxes into the actions of a digital avatar and translates signals from cameras and microphones and pressure sensors into nerve impulses that would have come from eyes and skin and ears. 3) Do we have two human beings or one human being? We would presumably have one living human brain and one dead body. Incidentally, when I was in eight grade science class I used to draw mechanical apparatuses for connecting the various sensory organs to the brain suspended in a jar -- I never figured out how to deal with the sensory perception of space that skin provides us. And as I understand it, the eye retina is actually part of the brain, not sure how the other sensory organs are considered, so perhaps the eye ball could be replaced with photosensitive optical parts. Quote: So now if the body has the heart attack again is declared clinically dead and buried, but this time it has no effect on brain function and through his digital avatar he's continue to chat about how interesting it is to be a disembodied brain and how if he likes he switch his input signals from the camera that lets him see you to instead a virtual world but that the virtual sky he sees doesn't quite do justice to the real one, then in that instance has the human being die? The body would be already dead. You can experiment with this : cut off the head of a rabbit and hook up everything else to machines to try to keep the body alive (per my definition of processing nutrients, hydration and oxygen). At best all you can get is some electrostimulation through the nerves until they suffer the inevitable necrosis and the rabbit body become inert. But I like where you are going with this -- if we can manage to keep both the body and the brain alive while detached from one another, then there is massive hope for all sorts of medical breakthroughs regarding dealing with trauma, toxins, disease, death, etc. Quote: And the final case: Suppose the body doesn't have a heart attack but instead someone knocks into the jar with the chaps brain smashing it onto the floor, his avatar instantly ceases talking, brain activity ceases, all his brain cells die and nothing is ever heard from him again. 4) Is the human being dead? Apparently so, and particularly once those brain cells suffer irreversible necrosis. If you can solve for necrosis and revive the whole being at the cellular level, then get back to me.
	The dogma lives loudly within me.


ivorythumper	Nov 19 2012, 11:52 AM Post #127
I am so adjective that I verb nouns! Posts: 50,666 Group: Members Member #164 Joined: April 24, 2005	and for an interlude for the physicalists here...
	The dogma lives loudly within me.


Klaus	Nov 19 2012, 12:10 PM Post #128
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 19,403 Group: Members Member #350 Joined: May 21, 2006	ivorythumper Nov 19 2012, 09:10 AM Show me where I ever said I wouldn't be truly grateful and wouldn't express that if possible. You said 1. "It is none of my business if someone wants to off themselves and give me their kidney, anymore than if I get an inheritance from a relative who commits suicide." 2. "Do you think I would ever say that to the face of someone's family who donated the organ?" You expressed your disapproval of organ donations with 1. (I assume you disapprove suicide, right?), then said in 2. that you'd lie about that to family members of organ donors. Quote: You insisted "you should consider this a kind of assisted suicide and be totally against it!" I simply said that was their business. I don't believe in micromanaging other people's moral decisions. I didn't say that to "micromanage" you. "Should" was maybe the wrong word. My point is that this is the only position that is consistent with your general point of view on life and death. Quote: This just again shows the opportunistic inconsistency of your view, Klaus -- the supposedly tolerant liberal who winds up being the most judgmental of others. There we've got a label again, "liberal". I noted many times in discussions that you tend to put people in boxes and then discuss with the box instead of the person you put in that box. Why don't you try to discuss with individuals instead of boxes for a change? Quote: Try mercy and compassion and empathy for a change -- you know, all that stuff you preach but don't practice.... I don't believe I used these words in this thread, and probably not very often in other threads, too. If I look at your posts about god, hell, etc., I realize that I wouldn't be a very good preacher Quote: Legal positivism, Klaus. It is obvious that they define lawful death apart from natural death. That is about as clear a case of legal positivistic jurisprudence as one can imagine. Ah, "natural death". Given the positive connotation of the word "natural", of course you try to pocket that adjective for your particular definition. What makes you claim that your definition of death is "natural"? I say BS. Quote: So yes, it has everything to do with it -- death becomes defined unnaturally -- and it is utilitarian in that we see a living body and legally declare it dead, and for the purposes of either harvesting the parts, or to free up a hospital bed, or to save money, or to seek to avoid pain both for the family and supposedly for the patient. Mercy killing is a classical utilitarian position. When are you done talking with the box you put me in and start discussing with Klaus again? Quote: But tell me again why on that basis you just don't become a Christian since there are over a billion with that ethical system? Why does everyone need to reconsider their perspective, yet you don't? Tell me more about the consistency of your position, Klaus. Oh, I tried it for almost 20 years, and it didn't work. "Reconsider" doesn't mean "change". It means "reconsider". I reconsider almost everything I believe in on a regular basis. Quote: Or adopt natural law as your ethic since among atheists, Jews, Hindus, Moslems, Christians, pagans and secularists there are and have been billions of people who essentially have followed it and continue to this day? So you can move me from one box to another box? Stop talking to the box. Talk to the hand! Quote: There is nothing arbitrary about my position -- humans that no longer can process the three things I mentioned cannot (or soon and irrevocably will not) be able to smell. Nor can they talk to you. Moonbat's claim is not easily conceivable, since once the body can no longer process anything there is no possibility for speech or thought. Speech requires voluntary moving parts, which is lacking in bodies than cannot oxygenate the cells in those muscles. Did you really not think through this? I guess what we have here is usually called "argument from incredulity". Stephen Hawking gives speeches in front of full lecture rooms without using his speech muscles. In fact, the example with which you started this thread originally is about communication without any moving parts. Did you already forget about that? Quote: And why don't you answer why is it that we don't cremate a self breathing patient in PVS. Surely if you have a consistent, coherent and cogent position, that should be readily answerable. Why do you avoid it? I do not know what PVS is (I take it you are not refering to the PVS proof assistant, but the reason we don't cremate a self breathing patient is because 1) it would obviously be impractical 2) for the same reason why we don't play football with human remainders: to honor the remembrance of the deceived. Quote: Quote: It is likely that we will some day be able to keep a brain alive in-vitro. Why don't you spare as the embarrassment of having to correct your ethical narrative when its failure has become blatantly obvious by reconsidering it now, when you'd probably still get away with a few frowns only And this is supposed to be an intellectual challenge to my position? Good grief, Klaus. How exactly does this brain work if the cells cannot process glucose and ketones, let alone oxygenate? Just as an arm would need to process glucose and ketones, yet you somehow don't think this is a living being.
	Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman


Klaus	Nov 19 2012, 12:24 PM Post #129
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 19,403 Group: Members Member #350 Joined: May 21, 2006	Quote: Legal positivism, Klaus. It is obvious that they define lawful death apart from natural death. That is about as clear a case of legal positivistic jurisprudence as one can imagine. So yes, it has everything to do with it -- death becomes defined unnaturally -- and it is utilitarian in that we see a living body and legally declare it dead, and for the purposes of either harvesting the parts, or to free up a hospital bed, or to save money, or to seek to avoid pain both for the family and supposedly for the patient. Mercy killing is a classical utilitarian position. I think you may have misunderstood what "natural law" is. Natural law is not "I claim my point of view to be the 'natural' one, and hence I'm right and you are wrong". Natural law means that one can make a logically coherent a priori argument for a position, and this position does not depend on people. Legal positivism, on the other hand, is not about man-made definitions of terms. All terms which we use are man-made, and given meaning by humans, including the term "death". This has nothing to do with positivism. Rather, legal positivism it is the position that "good" and "bad" are also "made up and agreed upon", to use Kenny's phrase.
	Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman


kenny	Nov 19 2012, 12:33 PM Post #130
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 35,599 Group: Members Member #27 Joined: April 19, 2005	Klaus Nov 19 2012, 12:24 PM ... Rather, legal positivism it is the position that "good" and "bad" are also "made up and agreed upon", to use Kenny's phrase. Check please.



Renauda	Nov 19 2012, 01:23 PM Post #131
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 10,507 Group: Members Member #505 Joined: September 5, 2007	Kenny, how does handing you a royalty cheque serve the greater good?



ivorythumper	Nov 19 2012, 01:36 PM Post #132
I am so adjective that I verb nouns! Posts: 50,666 Group: Members Member #164 Joined: April 24, 2005	Klaus Nov 19 2012, 12:10 PM ivorythumper Nov 19 2012, 09:10 AM Show me where I ever said I wouldn't be truly grateful and wouldn't express that if possible. You said 1. "It is none of my business if someone wants to off themselves and give me their kidney, anymore than if I get an inheritance from a relative who commits suicide." 2. "Do you think I would ever say that to the face of someone's family who donated the organ?" You expressed your disapproval of organ donations with 1. (I assume you disapprove suicide, right?), then said in 2. that you'd lie about that to family members of organ donors. You haven't shown any lie, Klaus -- at this point I am resisting the temptation to think that you are in the business of fabricating lies rather than disabusing us of them. Quote: Quote: You insisted "you should consider this a kind of assisted suicide and be totally against it!" I simply said that was their business. I don't believe in micromanaging other people's moral decisions. I didn't say that to "micromanage" you. "Should" was maybe the wrong word. My point is that this is the only position that is consistent with your general point of view on life and death. It seems obvious that you are trying to micromanage my moral sphere, or you wouldn't even think of being so intrusive, let alone just completely lying about what I actually stated to try to coerce me into silence. It just shows more of your inconsistency. Quote: Quote: This just again shows the opportunistic inconsistency of your view, Klaus -- the supposedly tolerant liberal who winds up being the most judgmental of others. There we've got a label again, "liberal". I noted many times in discussions that you tend to put people in boxes and then discuss with the box instead of the person you put in that box. Why don't you try to discuss with individuals instead of boxes for a change? You are free to argue any side you want, Klaus -- sometimes you argue like a materialist and utilitarian, sometimes you argue like a paleo-conservative natural law thinker. . Sometimes you argue for the categorical imperative, other times you deny that it is pertinent. You've already gone on record as stating that what you here is often just meant provocatively or not seriously (with a little wink, iirc). So when you argue like a liberal I take you on those terms. When you argue like a conservative I take you on those terms. Your inconsistency is not my problem -- usually by the time individuals reach their 30s or 40s they have a pretty consistent world view. It's about the only way to actually navigate reality. So it's not putting you in a box -- its just pointing out the implications of whatever ephemera you happen to be spouting at the moment. Quote: Quote: Try mercy and compassion and empathy for a change -- you know, all that stuff you preach but don't practice.... I don't believe I used these words in this thread, and probably not very often in other threads, too. If I look at your posts about god, hell, etc., I realize that I wouldn't be a very good preacher [der klausesmodus] So you don't believe or seek to practice mercy, compassion or empathy? Must be tough for the people you live with. [/der klausesmodus] Quote: Quote: Legal positivism, Klaus. It is obvious that they define lawful death apart from natural death. That is about as clear a case of legal positivistic jurisprudence as one can imagine. Ah, "natural death". Given the positive connotation of the word "natural", of course you try to pocket that adjective for your particular definition. What makes you claim that your definition of death is "natural"? I say BS. You seem to err with equivocation. Natural death is simply the process that happens when the body dies on its own, as opposed to being hastened by artificial means, or through artifice "declared" dead when these processes are still occurring and the body can continue to be sustained by continuing to supply these things that the living body metabolizes. But seriously -- when you have to start a semantical argument over what is plainly to be understood by the consistent vocabulary of your interlocutor, you might as well just concede. It is a terribly feeble way of arguing. Quote: Quote: So yes, it has everything to do with it -- death becomes defined unnaturally -- and it is utilitarian in that we see a living body and legally declare it dead, and for the purposes of either harvesting the parts, or to free up a hospital bed, or to save money, or to seek to avoid pain both for the family and supposedly for the patient. Mercy killing is a classical utilitarian position. When are you done talking with the box you put me in and start discussing with Klaus again? Which "Klaus"? The conservative one or the liberal one? The rational one or the irrational one? The serious and educated thinker or the opportunistic and juvenile tweaker? But my statement has nothing to with any of the many Klauses presented here -- you simply didn't seem to understand why I was using the terms utilitarian and legal positivism, and I explained them. You don't have to be a utilitarian or a natural law thinker or anything else to understand the way these terms are being applied. If you have an actual argument as to why they are wrongly applied, you should make that argument. Quote: Quote: But tell me again why on that basis you just don't become a Christian since there are over a billion with that ethical system? Why does everyone need to reconsider their perspective, yet you don't? Tell me more about the consistency of your position, Klaus. Oh, I tried it for almost 20 years, and it didn't work. "Reconsider" doesn't mean "change". It means "reconsider". I reconsider almost everything I believe in on a regular basis. Which is oddly why I stopped being a nihilist and became a Christian. But the advantage of being even a bad Christian is that it helps to develop the person in what seems to be healthy ways. The disadvantage of being a nihilist is that they tend to wind up either in prison or the asylum, or depressed and isolated and truncated. Unless of course they go on to become successful politicians. Quote: Quote: Or adopt natural law as your ethic since among atheists, Jews, Hindus, Moslems, Christians, pagans and secularists there are and have been billions of people who essentially have followed it and continue to this day? So you can move me from one box to another box? Stop talking to the box. Talk to the hand! Again, it has nothing to do with you -- other than you preached some line about how I should reconsider based on sheer numbers of adherents to other systems. Yet you don't seem to apply that to yourself. So much for your vaunted consistency. Quote: Quote: There is nothing arbitrary about my position -- humans that no longer can process the three things I mentioned cannot (or soon and irrevocably will not) be able to smell. Nor can they talk to you. Moonbat's claim is not easily conceivable, since once the body can no longer process anything there is no possibility for speech or thought. Speech requires voluntary moving parts, which is lacking in bodies than cannot oxygenate the cells in those muscles. Did you really not think through this? I guess what we have here is usually called "argument from incredulity". Stephen Hawking gives speeches in front of full lecture rooms without using his speech muscles. In fact, the example with which you started this thread originally is about communication without any moving parts. Did you already forget about that? Uh yeah -- that is because Hawking is a living human being. He did not "speak" without any moving parts, did he? There were no operations of neural pathways? There was no neuromuscular activity? His body was not processing food and liquid and oxygen? There was no blood pumping in his emaciated limbs? You seem to be making my argument for me, and I thank you for that. Quote: Quote: And why don't you answer why is it that we don't cremate a self breathing patient in PVS. Surely if you have a consistent, coherent and cogent position, that should be readily answerable. Why do you avoid it? I do not know what PVS is (I take it you are not refering to the PVS prove system), but the reason we don't cremate a self breathing patient is because 1) it would obviously be impractical 2) for the same reason why we don't play football with human remainders: to honor the remembrance of the deceived. Persistent Vegetative State. 1. Why is it impractical? It's not like they are going to fight you. Just wheel the gurney into the furnace. Good grief, have you NO imagination for such simple problem solving? 2. What is this "honor"? Nothing that is not reducible to an electromagnetic response to stimuli. No more meaningful than a bowel movement. You keep appealing to metaphysics, Klaus. And yet you seem to have scruples about playing football with human remainders, yet have no problem using them as inventories for spare parts. Why the inconsistency? Just think of them as spare parts inventories for public games. After all, if it could be shown that there is more pleasure to be gained for more people by kicking a corpse around than by harvesting the parts for just one person, then what would be the utilitarian argument against it? (I am not accusing you of being a utilitarian, but assume you have some insight into that question.) As far as I can tell, you are just squeamish about the topic -- and squeamishness is just another electrochemical response to stimuli that can be overridden in a biomachine. So it doesn't seem like a very robust answer to the question. Quote: Quote: Quote: It is likely that we will some day be able to keep a brain alive in-vitro. Why don't you spare as the embarrassment of having to correct your ethical narrative when its failure has become blatantly obvious by reconsidering it now, when you'd probably still get away with a few frowns only And this is supposed to be an intellectual challenge to my position? Good grief, Klaus. How exactly does this brain work if the cells cannot process glucose and ketones, let alone oxygenate? Just as an arm would need to process glucose and ketones, yet you somehow don't think this is a living being. It doesn't matter what they process if they can't process anything. Look back at your original argument. You claimed that your hypothetical somehow challenged my view of death, which is the inability to process these vital materials. The brain in vitro in order to be alive must still be capable of processing -- otherwise it is like a brain in formaldehyde to keep it from decomposing. Which is what dead tissue and dead bodies do. Did you really not think this through?
	The dogma lives loudly within me.


kenny	Nov 19 2012, 01:37 PM Post #133
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 35,599 Group: Members Member #27 Joined: April 19, 2005	Renauda Nov 19 2012, 01:23 PM Kenny, how does handing you a royalty cheque serve the greater good? Screw the greater good. I'm a Republican now.



John D'Oh	Nov 19 2012, 01:55 PM Post #134
MAMIL Posts: 53,812 Group: Members Member #276 Joined: October 19, 2005	kenny Nov 19 2012, 01:37 PM Renauda Nov 19 2012, 01:23 PM Kenny, how does handing you a royalty cheque serve the greater good? Screw the greater good. I'm a Republican now. Republicans are of course against killing the comatose. They prefer their victims to be awake.
	What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?


Dewey	Nov 19 2012, 02:02 PM Post #135
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 17,117 Group: Members Member #74 Joined: April 19, 2005	Heh, this is fun!
	"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14


John D'Oh	Nov 19 2012, 02:05 PM Post #136
MAMIL Posts: 53,812 Group: Members Member #276 Joined: October 19, 2005	Dewey Nov 19 2012, 02:02 PM Heh, this is fun! There goes another one. Pass the pillow, someone.
	What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?


Dewey	Nov 19 2012, 02:08 PM Post #137
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 17,117 Group: Members Member #74 Joined: April 19, 2005	Goose down for me, please.
	"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14


Klaus	Nov 19 2012, 02:37 PM Post #138
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 19,403 Group: Members Member #350 Joined: May 21, 2006	ivorythumper Nov 19 2012, 01:36 PM Quote: There we've got a label again, "liberal". I noted many times in discussions that you tend to put people in boxes and then discuss with the box instead of the person you put in that box. Why don't you try to discuss with individuals instead of boxes for a change? You are free to argue any side you want, Klaus -- sometimes you argue like a materialist and utilitarian, sometimes you argue like a paleo-conservative natural law thinker. . Sometimes you argue for the categorical imperative, other times you deny that it is pertinent. You've already gone on record as stating that what you here is often just meant provocatively or not seriously (with a little wink, iirc). So when you argue like a liberal I take you on those terms. When you argue like a conservative I take you on those terms. Your inconsistency is not my problem -- usually by the time individuals reach their 30s or 40s they have a pretty consistent world view. It's about the only way to actually navigate reality. So it's not putting you in a box -- its just pointing out the implications of whatever ephemera you happen to be spouting at the moment. When I say that much of what I write is with a little wink, I mean that I don't take what is written in this forum, including my own posts, too seriously. I'd be happy to drink a beer with everyone on this forum, including you, after a heated discussion. Sometimes I will challenge a point of view from different angles, particularly if it is close to my own, since it gives me more food for thought than just agreeing. I want to hear why people have a particular point of view, and how they'd defend it. If you are into German philosophy, I view this as a modern version of Hegelian Dialectic. I guess this just reflects the fact that my world view is, unlike yours, not cast in stone and subject to constant revalidation. This does not mean that it is inconsistent - it can happen, and it has happened, but that's a temporary state. It is a constant refinement process. With my "box" comment I intended to make you realize that you are very frequently applying labels to people - not just me, but almost everyone you discuss with in this forum. Just scan your last few hundred posts for labels and how you apply them to people. Maybe this helps you to "navigate" your reality, which is presumably built on this strong ontology of labels, but the problem with these labels is that they almost never fit. You cannot describe me, or anyone else, by a point in your n-dimensional space of labels. Yet you tend to extrapolate what people say to things they didn't say or mean, but which fits to your conception to the box you are currently discussing with. For instance, in your last post you accused me of a reductionism ("reducible to an electromagnetic response to stimuli") which I have never stated or implied, but which is presumably part of the box I'm in.
	Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman


Renauda	Nov 19 2012, 02:45 PM Post #139
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 10,507 Group: Members Member #505 Joined: September 5, 2007	Damnit Jim, just pull the plug.



Klaus	Nov 19 2012, 02:48 PM Post #140
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 19,403 Group: Members Member #350 Joined: May 21, 2006	Renauda Nov 19 2012, 02:45 PM Damnit Jim, just pull the plug. Oh, I'm already a philosophical zombie, hence pulling the plug has no effect on me anyway
	Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman


Dewey	Nov 19 2012, 02:49 PM Post #141
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 17,117 Group: Members Member #74 Joined: April 19, 2005	Quote: I guess this just reflects the fact that my world view is... not cast in stone and subject to constant revalidation. This does not mean that it is inconsistent - it can happen, and it has happened, but that's a temporary state. It is a constant refinement process. Klaus Reformata, Semper Reformanda.
	"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14


Renauda	Nov 19 2012, 02:58 PM Post #142
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 10,507 Group: Members Member #505 Joined: September 5, 2007	Klaus Nov 19 2012, 02:48 PM Renauda Nov 19 2012, 02:45 PM Damnit Jim, just pull the plug. Oh, I'm already a philosophical zombie, hence pulling the plug has no effect on me anyway Please state the nature of the medical emergency!



Axtremus	Nov 19 2012, 03:29 PM Post #143
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 35,700 Group: Members Member #15 Joined: April 18, 2005	Dewey Nov 19 2012, 02:49 PM Quote: I guess this just reflects the fact that my world view is... not cast in stone and subject to constant revalidation. This does not mean that it is inconsistent - it can happen, and it has happened, but that's a temporary state. It is a constant refinement process. Klaus Reformata, Semper Reformanda. A man who would say anything to suite the situation, a man with no core, Etch-a-Sketcher!



ivorythumper	Nov 19 2012, 03:55 PM Post #144
I am so adjective that I verb nouns! Posts: 50,666 Group: Members Member #164 Joined: April 24, 2005	Klaus Nov 19 2012, 12:24 PM Quote: Legal positivism, Klaus. It is obvious that they define lawful death apart from natural death. That is about as clear a case of legal positivistic jurisprudence as one can imagine. So yes, it has everything to do with it -- death becomes defined unnaturally -- and it is utilitarian in that we see a living body and legally declare it dead, and for the purposes of either harvesting the parts, or to free up a hospital bed, or to save money, or to seek to avoid pain both for the family and supposedly for the patient. Mercy killing is a classical utilitarian position. I think you may have misunderstood what "natural law" is. Natural law is not "I claim my point of view to be the 'natural' one, and hence I'm right and you are wrong". Natural law means that one can make a logically coherent a priori argument for a position, and this position does not depend on people. Legal positivism, on the other hand, is not about man-made definitions of terms. All terms which we use are man-made, and given meaning by humans, including the term "death". This has nothing to do with positivism. Rather, legal positivism it is the position that "good" and "bad" are also "made up and agreed upon", to use Kenny's phrase. Congratulations! You write about natural law and legal positivism in a way that no natural law theorist (Aristotle, the Stoics, Cicero, Augustine, Gratian, Aquinas, Suarez, Hooker, Averroes, Grotius, Rice, Finnis, MacIntyre) and presumably no legal positivist theorist (Bentham, Austin, Kelsen, Hart, Raz) -- though I am admittedly weaker on LP theory -- would even recognize! That is a rare accomplishment, and you should pat yourself on the back right now!
	The dogma lives loudly within me.


sue	Nov 19 2012, 03:58 PM Post #145
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 25,250 Group: Members Member #261 Joined: September 15, 2005	everything ok with you, IT? You seem out of sorts. And for once, I'm serious.



Renauda	Nov 19 2012, 04:11 PM Post #146
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 10,507 Group: Members Member #505 Joined: September 5, 2007	Either IT's sundowning or on the edge of acute apoplexy.



ivorythumper	Nov 19 2012, 04:13 PM Post #147
I am so adjective that I verb nouns! Posts: 50,666 Group: Members Member #164 Joined: April 24, 2005	Klaus Nov 19 2012, 02:37 PM I guess this just reflects the fact that my world view is, unlike yours, not cast in stone and subject to constant revalidation. This does not mean that it is inconsistent - it can happen, and it has happened, but that's a temporary state. It is a constant refinement process. you have labelled me a concretist by implication, which is not the least bit accurate and I don't see my position reflected in. I suppose you have to do that to navigate your mental world, rather than actually engaging living breathing human beings in all their complexity and contradiction. At least my appeal to mercy, empathy and compassion addresses that reality, but you evidently don't seem willing to allow in others what you claim for yourself. So much for your consistency, Klaus. Quote: With my "box" comment I intended to make you realize that you are very frequently applying labels to people - not just me, but almost everyone you discuss with in this forum. Just scan your last few hundred posts for labels and how you apply them to people. Maybe this helps you to "navigate" your reality, which is presumably built on this strong ontology of labels, but the problem with these labels is that they almost never fit. You cannot describe me, or anyone else, by a point in your n-dimensional space of labels. Yet you tend to extrapolate what people say to things they didn't say or mean, but which fits to your conception to the box you are currently discussing with. For instance, in your last post you accused me of a reductionism ("reducible to an electromagnetic response to stimuli") which I have never stated or implied, but which is presumably part of the box I'm in. Again, you have clearly labelled me a labelist, though I have never used the term and don't recognize myself in it. See how that works? There is no "ontology" of labels -- a label is artifice. I work assiduously and natively to not conflate you with the label, since I actually hold a metaphysical world view that does not allow for that. Besides, it is evident as I pointed out that you are pretty inconsistent with a lot of things, so you make it really easy. You may consider that "in need of constant re-validation" -- as if we all don't do exactly the same thing and that all thinking persons are not constantly doing the same thing. Does it make you feel superior to think that you are doing something your interlocutor is not doing? Or have you just not really thought this one through either? Even, for instance, the point of mentioning reductionism does not make you a reductionist -- it is just an implication of materialism that does not easily admit of anything but physics and chemistry and the like. If you do want to appeal to something other than physics and material stuff, what exactly would it be?
	The dogma lives loudly within me.


ivorythumper	Nov 19 2012, 04:16 PM Post #148
I am so adjective that I verb nouns! Posts: 50,666 Group: Members Member #164 Joined: April 24, 2005	sue Nov 19 2012, 03:58 PM everything ok with you, IT? You seem out of sorts. And for once, I'm serious. Oh, I'm fine, Sue -- thanks for asking. Some real serious crap is going on with some people who IT dearly loves -- stuff that apart from understanding everything I assert about love, relationship, faith, sin, evil, redemption, healing, spirituality, compassion, justice, mercy, and the like is completely unfathomable and unconscionable -- but IT is fine.
	The dogma lives loudly within me.


Renauda	Nov 19 2012, 04:54 PM Post #149
HOLY CARP!!! Posts: 10,507 Group: Members Member #505 Joined: September 5, 2007	ivorythumper Nov 19 2012, 04:13 PM you have labelled me a concretist by implication, which is not the least bit accurate and I don't see my position reflected in. True, I have never suspected you of being a Freemason. Not that it matters of course.



ivorythumper	Nov 19 2012, 05:07 PM Post #150
I am so adjective that I verb nouns! Posts: 50,666 Group: Members Member #164 Joined: April 24, 2005	Renauda Nov 19 2012, 04:54 PM ivorythumper Nov 19 2012, 04:13 PM you have labelled me a concretist by implication, which is not the least bit accurate and I don't see my position reflected in. True, I have never suspected you of being a Freemason. Not that it matters of course.
	The dogma lives loudly within me.

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