Abortion...what should be the line?

You're not gonna like this, LH. From the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the body that recommends the Uniform Acts:

This Act provides comprehensive bases for determining death in all situations.

http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/ulc/fnact99/1980s/udda80.htm

Originally posted by no1marauder
That's what it does by clear implication. I don't care about your discussion with dottewell; you're both blabbering on about formal rules for deductive logic that are inapplicable here.

So your royal highness claims.

Originally posted by no1marauder
LMAO!!! Did you bother to read the original post? It concluded thus:

no1: So how can something be a human being if it is impossible for it to die under the definitions of how a human being dies?


Yeah, that sure sounds like a deductive argument! Actually, it looks like a question to me.

You must be too busy laughing to realise you're simply proving my point for me. That you've framed your argument as a rhetorical question does not change the nature of the argument.

Here's a clue to show you why your argument is a deductive one and not an inductive one -- the word "impossible" is used (an inductive argument would've used something like "improbable" ).

Still laughing?

Originally posted by no1marauder
You're not gonna like this, LH. From the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the body that recommends the Uniform Acts:

This Act provides comprehensive bases for determining death in [b]all situations.

http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/ulc/fnact99/1980s/udda80.htm[/b]

Thanks for the link. Perhaps we should read what the NCCUSL itself has to say about the UDDA:

http://www.nccusl.org/Update/uniformact_summaries/uniformacts-s-udoda.asp

Such standards are necessary not because of death itself, but because of the effect in the law of the biological fact of death. Criminal law outlaws murder for the protection of life. Yet ironically, criminal law requires a legal determination of death upon which murder sanctions can be anchored. Determinations of death are also important in establishing the property relationships that arise through inheritance and devise. They are important in tort law to actions in wrongful death and survivor's action. The standards for determining death are not much of a problem for the deceased, but they are important to the living, who may be favored or disfavored in the law because of the biological fact.

Remember our discussion earlier on socio-legal implications?

The UDDA is intentionally not entitled the Definition of Death Act. This is because it does not contain an exclusive definition of death. It is concerned only with medical determination of biological death, and as such, complements existing and accepted definitions.

You might also want to check out medical standards for embryo death:

http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/gsas/ac_programs/Landry-J%20Clin%20Invest%20(2004).pdf

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Thanks for the link. Perhaps we should read what the NCCUSL itself has to say about the UDDA:

http://www.nccusl.org/Update/uniformact_summaries/uniformacts-s-udoda.asp

[quote]Such standards are necessary not because of death itself, but because of the effect in the law of the biological fact of death. Criminal law outlaws murder for the protecti th:

http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/gsas/ac_programs/Landry-J%20Clin%20Invest%20(2004).pdf

Are you completely illiterate?

It is concerned only with medical determination of biological death, and as such, complements existing and accepted definitions.

Yes, there could be other definitions of death, like when the soul leaves the body for example, but these definitions are the ones used by the medical community for the death of a human being. That's what the discussion is about.

EDIT: Please slowly read this passage quoted above:

This Act provides comprehensive bases for determining death in all situations.

Does "all situations" exclude "some" situations?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
You must be too busy laughing to realise you're simply proving my point for me. That you've framed your argument as a rhetorical question does not change the nature of the argument.

Here's a clue to show you why your argument is a deductive one and not an inductive one -- the word "impossible" is used (an inductive argument would've used something like "improbable" ).

Still laughing?

Yes. Your grasping at straws is always amusing. The use of the word "impossible" in a sentence does not transform an inductive argument into a deductive one; where do you come up with such nonsense? There is no doubt that it is impossible for an embyro to meet the requirements of the Act; however, the argument wasn't whether an embyro can meet the requirements of the Act but whether the fact that it cannot supports the notion that it is not a human being. And that argument is an inductive one.

Originally posted by no1marauder
That's what it does by clear implication. I don't care about your discussion with dottewell; you're both blabbering on about formal rules for deductive logic that are inapplicable here.

I was just pointing out that the structure of the argument was such that counter-examples (like dead cows) don't affect it at all.

If it's necessary for a human being to meet certain conditions in order to be dead, and if every human being dies, then anything that can't meet those conditions isn't a human being.

Sure, you can make it inductive simply by putting "We have good grounds to believe that..." at the start of the first premise. It doesn't affect the structure of the argument.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
'Act' and 'potency' refer to states of the being itself, rather than properties or powers - but that's a different question.

I'm not so certain the distinction is as clear as you say. My neurobiology is somewhat rusty but, IIRC, the operation of the human nervous system occurs through "firing" of neurons across synapses (junction points). The "firi ...[text shortened]... arent distinction is not all that clear. Personally, I hold it to be illusory.

Sorry, LH, that I haven't responded for a while. I just haven't had much time for RHP.

Indeed, it's not a stretch of the imagination to think of possible living beings whose exercise of powers involves the creation of new brain cells that die away when not needed. Would such organisms possess the capacities you mention when they are not exercising them?

Yes. Your example supposes that in this state they possess the ability to exercise [], which is the capacity for []. Here, you have structured it such that the generation of cells is part of the process of exercising []; if, on the other hand, it were structured such that the generation of cells were a precondition for having the ability to exercise [], then my answer would be no.

The rest of your post seems to me to be aimed at the general sorites paradox* charge against personhood (basically that such criteria suffer from insoluble vagueness). I am aware of these charges, but I think they largely confuse the following notions: (i) that the criterion itself suffers from vagueness (ii) that our diagnostic capabilities in reference to the criterion suffer from vagueness. The latter may very well hold for certain cases, but that is another matter.

---------------
*I'm basically referring to the 'heap' sort of argument:
1. N grains of sand constitute a heap.
2. When just 1 grain of sand is taken from a heap, you're still left with a heap.
3. So N-1 grains of sand constitute a heap.
4. Repeat general idea.