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.
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.
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.
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?"
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.
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.
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?
Obviously a sarcastic question. But if you didn't know, much of the structures and chemical compositions are well known and have been repeatedly studied. At the resolution of our current understanding, there is no meaningful discontinuity anywhere during the process. That is, we understand a great deal through observation and with all we do understand, there is no reason to think there is a magical poof.
At a single point in the fertilization process, the cell wall permits one, and only one, sperm to enter
False. You still don't understand. To understand, just use your knowledge of chemistry and your general observations of the continuity of nature, then repeatedly slow time and magnify your view upon what you think is a "point". When you zoom in enough, you realize that that "point" is really a continuous region of chemical reactions over a short interval of time with no recongnizable nonarbitrary division.
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.
This does not pertain to my arguement. I am merely saying that time flows smoothly, and there is no nonarbitrary point of division at the highest resolution of our understanding.
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.
I am not claiming that! Nor am I denying cause and effect. Again, just perform the thought experiment I described above and you will realize, that in almost any observable causal chain, with the resolution of our current understanding (which falls below even the atomic level) no nonarbitrary point can be drawn.
That is what a continuum IS. That is why others refer to the "space-time continuum". Physicists who speak of the space-time continuum don't deny the existence of cause and effect, or in a significant difference between observations in remote parts of the continuum. However, to believe as YOU do, that there IS some precise point, MAY be a disruption of that continuum, unless you are arguing the discontinuity of quantum events. But then you still have to explain how you would distingish neighboring events (to show your time point is nonarbitrary).
Again, I think you are engaging in postmodernist sleight-of-hand, claiming that one chemical reaction is the same as another one.
It is not that the reactions are identical. I am not denying the law of identity. The reactions occur at different times and in different parts of space. But, there is no difference that you can identify to nonarbitrarily say "This must be the point."
I could use the same sophistry to demonstrate that there is no difference between a living person and a dead body.
No you couldn't. If you did that, then you would be contradicting my argument of continuum. You would be saying that things stay the same. WORSE than that, you would be saying that either YOU are right and there is a precise point, or else there is no difference between far ends of the causal chain. That is precisely the fallacy of the beard or continuum fallacy.
After all, it's all just chemical processes, right? Or that a person never really dies. Or that a forest can't exist.
Careful. You are committing the fallacy. You are not recognizing the existence of continua. I would say to you that (1) a living person is not the same as a dead person; and (2) there is no nonarbitrary precise dividing point between when the person is living and when the person is dead. I.e., it falls along a continuum.
I have no doubt that we could find one if we could look at the even omnisciently.
You SHOULD have doubts, since our current understanding of the process permits no such precise identification.
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.
But in fact you are drawing such a line when making a temporal statement like "life begins at conception". Because there is a time A when the gametes are separated, and there is a time B when the person is playing golf. You are saying that somewhere along the continuus time line from A to B there has been identified a precise time point. But as I have explained, that assertion is factually incorrect.
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.
Not that it bothers me. It is just that you simply making it up wholecloth. We have observations and theories to explain those observations. But nowhere (except in your imagination) is there such a precise nonarbitrary point.
I also question whether you can really imagine such a thing. If you truly do imagine it, then tell me what what you imagine the neighboring before and after "chemical vibrations" look like that permits a nonarbitrary designation.
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 are making contradictory statements. A precisely defined region (e.g. your notion of "human rights") cannot be applied without arbitrariness to a continuum (e.g. your notion of "life").
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.
Those are two suggestions, but you have a severely limitted imagination if you think those exhaust all possible explanations.
What line, exactly, are you trying to draw and why?
I frustrates me that you ask this. This is about the hundreth's post on this topic where I have stated my rather uncomplicated view and elaborated upon it ad nauseum. If you really understood my argument, you couldn't have asked the above question, because you would realize that I am instead saying that no such nonarbitrary line is even possible.
I am not drawing lines. You are drawing lines and further insisting that it is impossible that no line exists.