Abortion...what should be the line?

Originally posted by no1marauder
By saying I "misrepresented" anything. That is a lie.

You're just repeating your (false) opinion. My post clearly broke down your statement and the actual wording of the UDDA into logical propositions and shows you misrepresented it. If you want to show me wrong, go back and demonstrate the flaw in my analysis instead of simply saying the same thing over and over.

Never mind. It is Lent, after all.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
You're just repeating your (false) opinion. My post clearly broke down your statement and the actual wording of the UDDA into logical propositions and shows you misrepresented it. If you want to show me wrong, go back and demonstrate the flaw in my analysis instead of simply saying the same thing over and over.

Screw you.

First, your claim that I misrepresented ANYTHING is clearly false and a deliberately so. I'll expect an insincere apology immediately.

Second, only a moron would think that a law placed in the statute books of all 50 states regarding what death is and referring to individuals might not be referring to "human beings". Who do you think it's referring to, chowderhead?

Third, only an idiot would claim that the law isn't defining death.

You've made a complete fool of yourself AGAIN.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
[b]The article differentiates between those categories and miscarriages.

Really? Where?

You're being deliberately misleading (again).

LOL! The irony of it ...

How many funerals for miscarriages have you attended, LH?

None of your business.[/b]

In the first section:

1. 1. Should we baptize infants who have died or are stillborn?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
[b]Link #1 nowhere claims that funeral rites for miscarriages are routinely performed by Catholic clergy. A "Order for Blessing of Parents after Miscarriage (Book of Blessings IX p. 86" isn't a funeral.

Try out your own advice once in a while -- learn to read:

[quote]3. How should parishes and hospital ministers respond when parents of still ...[text shortened]... miscarriage is treated in the same way as the death of a child under about 2 1/2 years.[/b]

Pathetic. You left out these rather important immediately following sentences:

After the death of such infant, bathing cleanses the family. No Sutak and no ceremony are required. If child dies before milk teeth come out, then there is no Sutak. After death of such a child, feed milk and rice to children. When a child of 5-to 12 years dies, then ten days ceremony is done with ten pindas.

So, no funeral rites just like I said. Thanks for playing.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Screw you.

First, your claim that I misrepresented ANYTHING is clearly false and a deliberately so. I'll expect an insincere apology immediately.

Second, only a moron would think that a law placed in the statute books of all 50 states regarding what death is and referring to individuals might not be referring to "human beings". ...[text shortened]... the law isn't defining death.

You've made a complete fool of yourself AGAIN.

First, your claim that I misrepresented ANYTHING is clearly false and a deliberately so. I'll expect an insincere apology immediately.

You did misrepresent it. I'm not going to apologise for saying the truth.

And I did not "claim" that it was a deliberate misrepresentation. I said I cannot see how how an [experienced] lawyer like you could get it completely upside down if it wasn't deliberate. I'm not going to apologise for that either.

Second, only a moron would think that a law placed in the statute books of all 50 states regarding what death is and referring to individuals might not be referring to "human beings". Who do you think it's referring to, chowderhead?

I dealt with that in my post as well. Even if one assumes it is talking about human beings, your fallacious conclusion about the non-humanity of zygotes doesn't follow.

Third, only an idiot would claim that the law isn't defining death.

Use all the abusive terms from your playground namebook as you wish. Doesn't change the fact that the law is only providing sufficient conditions for death, not necessary ones. Ergo, it's not a definition.

You've made a complete fool of yourself AGAIN.

You've shown yourself unwilling (if not incapable) of entering into a civil debate where the argument has been translated to strictly logical terms. One would think you'd be only too happy to point out flaws in your opponent's position in this situation. Instead, all you've done is play the thesaurus and provide synonyms for 'fool' beside repeating yourself.

Originally posted by no1marauder
In the first section:

1. 1. Should we baptize infants who have died or are stillborn?

And how, exactly, does that show that the Church treats them differently?

Originally posted by no1marauder
Pathetic. You left out these rather important immediately following sentences:

After the death of such infant, bathing cleanses the family. No Sutak and [b]no ceremony are required. If child dies before milk teeth come out, then there is no Sutak. After death of such a child, feed milk and rice to children. When a child of 5-to 12 years dies, then ...[text shortened]... is done with ten pindas.

So, no funeral rites just like I said. Thanks for playing.[/b]

He's talking about the shraddha (or shraadh) ceremony, not the funeral itself. The shraddha takes place about 10-14 days after the cremation/burial. The Western equivalent would be something like a memorial mass or memorial service.

Also, note that no shraddha is performed for children under 27 months of age either.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Even if you want to assume (from context) that the UDDA is talking exclusively of human beings, we have:

(1''😉 If (H and (A or B)) then D

It's a relatively simple matter to see that nothing can be inferred about the humanity of the zygote from the UDDA.

As an aside, if the UDDA did actually define what a "dead human being" was (as you fal ...[text shortened]... ficient[/i] condition for being a dead human being. So my dead-cows rebuttal would still stand.

Actually this is a bit of a logical sleight of hand.

If the UDDA is a definition about human beings at all, it is not a definition of a dead human being but of death for a human being. The two scenarios in the UDDA might not together provide a necessary and sufficient condition for something to be a dead human being (else we might indeed have to say a dead cow was a dead human being), but they might still provide a necessary and sufficient condition of death in a human being, i.e. define what it means for us to say of a human being that he/she is dead.

It works better if we use quantifiers:

(Ax) (Hx) then (Dx) iff (UDDA1x v UDDA2x).

Roughly: For any x, if x is a human being, then x is dead if and only if x has suffered irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or x has suffered irreversible cessation of the functions of the entire brain, including brain-stem death.

Then it seems you do have a problem classifying a zygote as a human being, and cow-related counter-examples are avoided.

Of course you are right that this assumes that by "individual" the UDDA means "individual human being". And the UDDA should really have an extra sentence saying: "Any individual that hasn't sustained (1) or (2) isn't dead." (Arguably that is implied. I doubt the UDDA was drafted by Frege...)

Originally posted by dottewell
Actually this is a bit of a logical sleight of hand.

If the UDDA is a definition about human beings at all, it is not a definition of a dead human being but of death for a human being. The two scenarios in the UDDA might not together provide a necessary and sufficient condition for something to be a dead human being (else we might indeed h or (2) isn't dead." (Arguably that is implied. I doubt the UDDA was drafted by Frege...)

1. (Ax) (Hx) then (Dx) iff (UDDA1x v UDDA2x)

Just putting some parantheses in for clarity (based on your paraphrase) and so that it's a WFF:

Ax: if Hx then ( Dx iff (UDDA1x or UDDA2x) )

Are you claiming that this is what UDDA says?

EDIT: I'll jump ahead a bit and assume that this was what no1 meant. For a dead zygote/embryo De is true while UDDA1e and UDDA2e are false; therefore the biconditional is false; therefore He is false and the zygote is not a human being.

For a dead cow, the biconditional is true and nothing can be determined about the humanity of the cow, i.e. Hc can be either true or false.

The dead cow refuses to go away.

2. I don't agree that the "extra sentence" in UDDA is implied. Frege may not have drafted the UDDA, but lawyers certainly did.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Ax: if Hx then ( Dx iff (UDDA1x or UDDA2x) )

Are you claiming that this is what UDDA says?

Yes, that formulation is clear.

Look, this isn't my argument. I'm saying merely that if we take the UDDA as the basis of a definition relating to human beings, it can only sensibly be as a definition of death for a human being rather than a definition of a dead human being.

You were prepared to grant, for the sake of argument, that the UDDA could be taken as a definition relating to human beings.

But when we formulate the argument like this, (a) your cow counter-example has no force, and (b) it seems zygotes are not human beings, since they can evidently be dead without satisfying UDDA1 or UDDA2.

Originally posted by dottewell
Yes, that formulation is clear.

Look, this isn't my argument. I'm saying merely that if we take the UDDA as the basis of a definition relating to human beings, it can only sensibly be as a definition of death for a human being rather than a definition of a dead human being.

You were prepared to grant, for the sake of argument, that the UDDA could be ...[text shortened]... otes are not human beings, since they can evidently be dead without satisfying UDDA1 or UDDA2.

I would dispute (a); this formulation of the UDDA still says that it is logically possible for a cow (dead or alive) to be a human being.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
I would dispute (a); this formulation of the UDDA still says that it is logically possible for a cow (dead or alive) to be a human being.

That's wrong; (a) simply says that the cow example has no force, and it doesn't.

All the UDDA is defining in this formulation is what death means for a human being. A cow is not a human being, so the case is irrelevant.

What of the zygote?

Originally posted by dottewell
That's wrong; (a) simply says that the cow example has no force, and it doesn't.

All the UDDA is defining in this formulation is what death means for a human being. A cow is not a human being, so the case is irrelevant.

What of the zygote?

You're just repeating what you said in your previous post. Why do you say the cow counter-example has no force? It would be fair to say that the average guy would think I was crazy if I said that, according to the UDDA, it is logically possible for a cow to be a human being but not an embryo.

You cannot say that the case is irrelevant because that would be begging the question -- we are trying to determine what Hx is (whether x is a zygote or a cow).

In any case, the biconditional isn't actually in the UDDA. As you say, one has to assume it's implied. So what the UDDA actually says would be (in your formulation):

Ax: if Hx then ( if (U1x or U2x) then Dx)

which is equivalent to my earlier formulation (1''😉 (now expressed in FOL):

Ax: if ( Hx and (U1x or U2x) ) then Dx

So the actual text of the UDDA doesn't presume what a human being is; it's implied (and here it is actually implied) that what a human being is would be clear in the larger context (either of other laws or more on-the-ground factors).

Originally posted by lucifershammer
You're just repeating what you said in your previous post. Why do you say the cow counter-example has no force? It would be fair to say that the average guy would think I was crazy if I said that, according to the UDDA, it is logically possible for a cow to be a human being but not an embryo.

You cannot say that the case is irrelevant because that ould be clear in the larger context (either of other laws or more on-the-ground factors).

It's irrelevant because this is an argument of the form:

It is a NECESSARY condition of being X's being a human being that X is dead if and only if UDDA1 or UDDA2 applies to X.

In other words the argument does not mention SUFFICIENT conditions for "being a human being" at all. And it doesn't have to. It isn't proposing a comprehensive definition of "human being". Its intended use is simply to exlude a particular subset of all things (zygotes) from another subset (human beings) on the grounds that they lack a NECESSARY condition.

So the fact this particular argument doesn't exclude cows from the subset of human beings is irrelevant: we aren't constructing an argument to exclude cows, we are constructing an argument to exclude zygotes. (UDDAs not udders.)

Of course we can simply reject the argument completely and say that being-dead-if-and-only-if-the-UDDA-criteria-apply is NOT a necessary condition for being human.

But when you suggested the argument was of the form:

(1a) If and only if (D and H) then (A or B)

...well, that's just plain wrong. No one in their right mind would argue that.