[Torie]

Those continuum thingies are tricky. That is what makes the issue of when life begins tricky. I think I am sentient when I am asleep, and deserve full legal protection while I am asleep. Ya, I know, it is because I have the potential to awake, just like a fetus. So many lines to draw and so little time.

[Aquinasfan]

Those continuum thingies are tricky. That is what makes the issue of when life begins tricky.

That's what makes materialism impossible. A human being is a substantial form, not a purely material entity. The purely materialistic view of human nature gives us the errors of scientific reductionism like the category error you describe above. (And others like, if a person loses his arm is he 3/4 of a human being? Should he have 3/4 of his rights?) Essentially spiritual things (like thought/consciousness) cannot be reduced to the purely material (brain waves).