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Actually, I think that if you had an omniscient perspective of an avalanche and could understand the effect that each particle or event has on the process, that you could identify the one single event that makes the avalanche a foregone conclusion, perhaps the breaking of a single chemical bond or the addition of a minute amount of kinetic energy to a single particle. Similarly, I think that if you had an omniscient perspective of the fertilization process, you could identify the single chemical reaction that makes the rest a foregone conclusion. A chain reaction always starts somewhere. Identify the start and you've identified where the entire chain became a foregone conclusion. That we don't have either the perspective or knowledge to identify that event does not mean that it doesn't exist.

That isn't an unreasonable thought. However, if you actually consider all the chemical events involved in the process of fertilization, and pick (or the sake of argument) any one of them, you will see that there is nothing about it that distinguishes itself from neighboring events in any meaningful way. There are very similar events occuring not only before and after, but also concurrently or nearly concurrently.

And then of course, it doesn't stop with a single chemical reaction, even if one could be selected. One reaction involves molecular movements, atomic vibrations, continuous forces, electron cloud configuration changes. Some of these shaky states proceed, and then reverse again.

Finally, not only can any point not be found, but when considering all this detail you can't help but ask yourself, "Wait a minute. Do I really think that human rights comes down to some particular atomic vibration?"

There really is no dilemma here when you realize that the properties that you value most--those pertaining e.g. to human rights or religion--are not reducible as such, but are derived from less valuable processes, typically developed along continua.

Remember, A may develop continuously to B, but that doesn't mean B isn't completely different and infinitely more valuable to you than A. That is the nature of a continuum. People hold a discrete concept of A, and of B, and perhaps that is why they insist on imagining a precise dividing line. However, to that I would ask you to consider just what a continuum is, if not as I've described?

Out of curiosity, have you actually looked at each and every chemical event involved in the process of fertilization?

At a single point in the fertilization process, the cell wall permits one, and only one, sperm to enter and then changes so that no other sperm can enter. There is a single trigger point in that process, whether it's a single electrical or chemical process or a series of them, where it becomes a foregone conclusion that a particular sperm is going to enter the egg and no others will. In the rare case where a second sperm might enter the egg, too, because the process isn't instantaneous at a molecular level, the resulting set of chromosomes with not produce a viable fertilized egg, thus it's a non-issue. For all intents and purposes, the process is a single logical XOR gate.

Again, I think you are engaging in postmodernist sleight-of-hand, claiming that one chemical reaction is the same as another one. I could use the same sophistry to demonstrate that there is no difference between a living person and a dead body. After all, it's all just chemical processes, right? Or that a person never really dies. Or that a forest can't exist.

Consider the concepts of "trigger" and "cascade". At some point, things will not reverse. Yes, in theory all chemical and physical reactions are reversible but there is a reason why avalanches don't fall back into place, corpses don't normally spring back to life, and particles in an explosion don't reassemble back into a bomb by themselves. Look into the Second Law of Thermodynamics and organic chemistry. Chemical reactions, particularly those that happen within cells, are not so random and arbitrary as you seem to be claiming they are.

You said that my avalance was a good one. I look at an avalance and can see that there is a single trigger point in the processes that makes the rest of the avalanche a foregone conclusion. If it were important to identify the single sub-atomic process at the very beginning of an avalanche, I have no doubt that we could find one if we could look at the even omnisciently. I honestly don't see why you can't.

You keep making the assertion that one point cannot be found and I keep not believing you. Yes, I do think that all human rights can all come down to starting with a single atomic vibration or chemical process just as I think the start of an avalance could and honestly can't understand why that bothers you. It's the same line whether I talk about it as a large-scale process or a single subatomic event. No, it's not the event, itself, that matters, but what the event signifies or defines.

I don't see a dilemma either way. The properties are the product of the process. You'll get the same answer whether you look at the properties or the process because one is tied to the other. I can figure out whether you are alive or not by taking your pulse or by taking an omniscient look at the chemical processes going on at a subatomic level in your body. The answer will be the same either way.

As I've said earlier, I totally agree that life is a continuum. But that doesn't mean that I can't draw lines along that continuum based on stages of the process or broader characteristics tied to those stages of the process. You are trying to detach the properties from the process by claiming that you can't draw distinctions along the process. Since the process creates the distinctions in properties, you can most certainly trace those distinctions back down to the processes that produce those properties.

Remember, A may develop continuously to B, but that doesn't mean B isn't completely different and infinitely more valuable to you than A.

It also doesn't mean that there isn't a line between A and B. But that's also now what we are doing here. We aren't drawing a line between A or B. We are deciding whether an organism is B or not.

That is the nature of a continuum. People hold a discrete concept of A, and of B, and perhaps that is why they insist on imagining a precise dividing line. However, to that I would ask you to consider just what a continuum is, if not as I've described?

I agree that life is a continuum. The absence or presence of human rights is a boolean characteristic. You either do or do not have human rights. The continuum of life crosses that line at one end and crosses back over it at the other end. But the line is there.

You can try to cloud that all you want by talking about developing properties that generate human rights, because that's where I suspect you are going with this. But, to cut to the chase, I'll point out that there are really only two rational places to draw that line for human rights--at fertilization and at around two years of age when a child brain develops sufficiently that the light of distinctly human though turns on. Any other line is arbitrary. Several pro-abortion philosphers like Michael Tooley and Peter Singer realize this, which is why they both support infanticide to at least some degree.

What line, exactly, are you trying to draw and why?