Is Contraception Murder? - Page 8 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14868577
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Your opinion of the matter is irrelevant. You added content to a definition being actively used in a debate, which is also the fallacy of equivocation. The nature of claims are dependent on definitions, you cannot change or add to them at will.


Really? I just did.

(Actually, I mentioned it before, as have others, but this is still a cop-out).

No, because possibility was defined earlier in comparison to potentiality. You have equated them again, which is just as erroneous now as it was before.


And still ignoring my point about identity.

And they do, they likewise are connected and correspond to specific physical referents in a specific temporal-physical circumstance. When was this ever denied?

So whether your potential son has brown hair and a bad-temper (identity) is dependent on your subjective thoughts of such? If you you had an idea of your child with red hair and fair skin, would that modify the logical concept of the potential person to have such once actualized?


Again, you have misunderstood.

I am not saying that their identity is dependent on subjective thought.

I am saying that any identity for a potential person is subjective, and makes that potential person subjective.

This matter cannot be subject to a yes or no question (as I just demonstrated) and is not relevant to the present topic at hand. I cannot answer the question as you request, it is too simplistic. Unless you demonstrate otherwise given what I just posted as to why it should be a simple yes or no.


If you are arguing that potential people have identities and objectively exist, then it must be that people who will be born five centuries from now already have intact identities that objectively exist, despite the fact that the genetics and environment which will create these identities does not exist.

When did you answer the question before?

Why wouldn't John Connor have a future identity if this occurred? if such an identity was not preemptively eliminated (because you claim no identity exists in potential persons); then, when his existence as a potential person was eliminated via sterilization, no identity was eliminated (because none existed) and there is therefore no reason it could not still actualize even though the person himself did not actualize.


Again, you are ignoring the biological fact that identity is partly biological.

If Sarah is sterilised, John will never exist.

This is true even if John’s identity never exists in the 80s.

If this seems ridiculous it is because your claim is ridiculous. Just as the actual person is dependent on the objective logical concept of a potential person, so likewise is his identity. John Connor's identity is only explicit in his actual person; whereas its existence in his potential person was implicit, but existed nonetheless. This is the same sense as how a butterfly's characteristics (identity) existed implicitly, and as a potentiality, in the caterpillar. The distinction is only of implicit and explicit, not objective and subjective as you claim. You are in error.


...except the caterpillar objectively exists as a concrete thing and the genetic material that will create the butterfly is likewise concrete and objectively real.

The same cannot be said for the identity of an actual person before they are conceived.

The proof of this is that, if a caterpillar is killed, the characteristics (identity) of the butterfly cannot become manifest (explicit) in actuality. This is because, those characteristics (identity) are implicit in the caterpillar and so if the potential butterfly being destroyed destroys the corresponding actual butterfly that would otherwise exist, likewise the corresponding actual identity of the butterfly is destroyed because the identity as it existed in potentiality was also destroyed. Identity is not only independent, but also inseparable from the objective logical concept of potential butterfly and therefore cannot be, in-and-of-itself, subjective as you claim.

This is consistent to our agreed-to definition of "identity."


The identity does not need to exist in the potential person in order for it to exist in the actual person.

It can come about when the actual person is conceived and even later.
#14868581
This is meaningless pie in the sky bullshit. If you want to relegate yourself to a lifetime of economic servitude, keep cranking out the babies. If you prefer economic freedom and peace of mind, keep those troublesome eggs and sperms away from each other ............ :hmm: .
#14868596
Pants-of-dog wrote:Really? I just did.


Yes, you committed a fallacy. Very common, but not a cop-out to point out. We had an accepted definition in this debate, I have not deviated from it.

Pants-of-dog wrote:I am saying that any identity for a potential person is subjective, and makes that potential person subjective.


You just contradicted yourself, you stated that potential persons were objective logical concepts and only identities were subjective, now you are saying that potential persons subjective, which is a contradiction, your quotes below:

they exist objectively....but not as identifiable people..... Logical concepts such as potential people can objectively exist, but a specific person with a specific identity cannot objectively exist as that is a different thing.


So which is it, are potential persons objective logical concepts, or subjective ideas?

Pants-of-dog wrote:If you are arguing that potential people have identities and objectively exist, then it must be that people who will be born five centuries from now already have intact identities that objectively exist, despite the fact that the genetics and environment which will create these identities does not exist.


Why? The potential people in my OP have specific physical referents in temporal-physical circumstances of actualization, so if such do not exist for the potential people you are mentioning how can they be the same? Logically speaking? That also seems like a potential for equivocation....keep it up.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Again, you are ignoring the biological fact that identity is partly biological.


That was not in the definition of identity you gave me and which I conditionally accepted, which was, and I am paraphrasing, "a unique persona that remained constant despite temporal changes", this definition I accepted as necessary to potential persons: "as a potentiality and an implicit existence."

Shall I quote the relevant texts from our conversation on this?

If identity was necessarily defined as biological, while would I have accepted such for a logical concept? I wouldn't have and the evidence shows that I did not, you are sneaking in premises to a definition that were not agreed to and are therefore equivocating.

Pants-of-dog wrote:...except the caterpillar objectively exists as a concrete thing and the genetic material that will create the butterfly is likewise concrete and objectively real.

The same cannot be said for the identity of an actual person before they are conceived.


In that analogy, the caterpillar is the physical referent for the non-physical logical concept of "potential-butterfly" that exists objectively, as you admitted previously. Caterpillars and "Potential Butterflies" cannot be merely equated and this is demonstrated by the fact that the proposition "All Caterpillars are Potential Butterflies" is not a tautology. Thus sperm and egg at any given moment of time cannot be equated with a potential person, and yet, at certain times, it can be said that sperm and egg in the circumstance of actualization is, logically, "A potential Person."

Thus, the analogy stands as a demonstration of the existence of identity implicit in potential beings and explicit in the corresponding actual beings. Thus potential persons have identities.

Pants-of-dog wrote:The identity does not need to exist in the potential person in order for it to exist in the actual person.


My argument proves otherwise, unless you can demonstrate how an identity can exist independently when the potential person is made to cease.

Otherwise, the identity exists implicitly in the potential person, thus explaining why when a potential person is eliminated, the actual person with his identity cannot likewise exist. When you destroy a potential person you destroy what they would otherwise become (which includes their identity). You cannot logically separate the two as my analogy demonstrates.

Pants-of-dog wrote:It can come about when the actual person is conceived and even later.


No, the identity only became explicit then, it existed implicitly in the corresponding potential person.
#14868610
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Yes, you committed a fallacy. Very common, but not a cop-out to point out. We had an accepted definition in this debate, I have not deviated from it.


This would be like debating dogs, and getting mad when someone pounted out that they were quadriped omnivores, becuase they originally just saud they were mammals.

Apparently saying dogs are quadriped omnivores is a fallacy.

You just contradicted yourself, you stated that potential persons were objective logical concepts and only identities were subjective, now you are saying that potential persons subjective, which is a contradiction, your quotes below:


Again, the logical concpet of potential people may objectively exist, but a specific potential person with an identity would be subjective.

Why? The potential people in my OP have specific physical referents in temporal-physical circumstances of actualization, so if such do not exist for the potential people you are mentioning how can they be the same? Logically speaking? That also seems like a potential for equivocation....keep it up.


So are there different types of potential peole now?

That was not in the definition of identity you gave me and which I conditionally accepted, which was, and I am paraphrasing, "a unique persona that remained constant despite temporal changes", this definition I accepted as necessary to potential persons: "as a potentiality and an implicit existence."

Shall I quote the relevant texts from our conversation on this?

If identity was necessarily defined as biological, while would I have accepted such for a logical concept? I wouldn't have and the evidence shows that I did not, you are sneaking in premises to a definition that were not agreed to and are therefore equivocating.


And dogs are not quadriped omnivores, i guess.

In that analogy, the caterpillar is the physical referent for the non-physical logical concept of "potential-butterfly" that exists objectively, as you admitted previously. Caterpillars and "Potential Butterflies" cannot be merely equated and this is demonstrated by the fact that the proposition "All Caterpillars are Potential Butterflies" is not a tautology. Thus sperm and egg at any given moment of time cannot be equated with a potential person, and yet, at certain times, it can be said that sperm and egg in the circumstance of actualization is, logically, "A potential Person."

Thus, the analogy stands as a demonstration of the existence of identity implicit in potential beings and explicit in the corresponding actual beings. Thus potential persons have identities.


So now sperm and eggs are potential persons? I thought they were concepts.

My argument proves otherwise, unless you can demonstrate how an identity can exist independently when the potential person is made to cease.

Otherwise, the identity exists implicitly in the potential person, thus explaining why when a potential person is eliminated, the actual person with his identity cannot likewise exist. When you destroy a potential person you destroy what they would otherwise become (which includes their identity). You cannot logically separate the two as my analogy demonstrates.


I never said that. I said that an identity can come about in the actual person even if the potential person has no identity.

No, the identity only became explicit then, it existed implicitly in the corresponding potential person.


Yes, this is your claim. You should support this argument with something.
#14868705
Victoribus Spolia wrote: If this seems ridiculous it is because your claim is ridiculous. Just as the actual person is dependent on the objective logical concept of a potential person, so likewise is his identity. John Connor's identity is only explicit in his actual person; whereas its existence in his potential person was implicit, but existed nonetheless. This is the same sense as how a butterfly's characteristics (identity) existed implicitly, and as a potentiality, in the caterpillar. The distinction is only of implicit and explicit, not objective and subjective as you claim. You are in error.

This is consistent to our agreed-to definition of "identity."

I don't usually agree with Pants-of-dog on much, but I think he makes more sense than you do now. Anyway, I believe God ensures that any person that he wishes to exist will exist, no matter what man attempts to do to stop his people from existing. The people just might not exist until a later time and place. Examples are baby Moses and Jesus, whom Satan's influence over evil man could not stop from existing and even Jesus from rising from the grave. God is waiting for the fulfilling of a certain number of gentiles, according the scripture. Praise the Lord.

For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery-- so that you will not be wise in your own estimation-- that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;
(Romans 11:25 NASB)
#14868835
Hindsite wrote:I don't usually agree with Pants-of-dog on much, but I think he makes more sense than you do now. Anyway, I believe God ensures that any person that he wishes to exist will exist, no matter what man attempts to do to stop his people from existing. The people just might not exist until a later time and place. Examples are baby Moses and Jesus, whom Satan's influence over evil man could not stop from existing and even Jesus from rising from the grave. God is waiting for the fulfilling of a certain number of gentiles, according the scripture. Praise the Lord.


Almost no one agrees with this position, except the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, and The Reformers. So that is no surprise, but to publicly take a stand against a Brother, that is a surprising.

I would also believe that whoever God wants to exist will exist, but that would not negate God's moral commandment: "Do Not Murder." For, I am discussing moral matters (the prescriptive will of God), not the providential decrees of God (descriptive will). God obviously, in His sovereignty, did not have Abel continue to exist when Cain murdered him, does that imply that Cain was morally pleasing to God? Of course not. Such would confuse the revealed and secret things of God.

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Likewise, stating your disagreement with a brother publicly before heathen is inappropriate. If you disagree with my position it should be done in private or on a thread where scriptural views are being discussed, but taking a position against a brother in this thread is the same as bringing shame to the body of Christ before the godless:

Paul uses this principle in his rebuke of Christian who bring lawsuits against each other before the face of unbelievers:

"When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?....Instead, one brother goes to law against another, and this in front of unbelievers! The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you are thoroughly defeated already." (1 Corinthians 6:1, 6-7)

Pants-of-dog wrote:This would be like debating dogs, and getting mad when someone pounted out that they were quadriped omnivores, becuase they originally just saud they were mammals.

Apparently saying dogs are quadriped omnivores is a fallacy.


It is only a fallacy if it introduced an equivocation in the original definition, the example you presented would likely not.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Again, the logical concept of potential people may objectively exist, but a specific potential person with an identity would be subjective.


This is an arbitrary distinction because of the given connection between actual identity and potential existence being inseparable, even using you own definitions.

Also, I really don't see what you think you could achieve with this tactic. For, even if it were admitted that no specific identity existed in the potential person (which it does), but that such a potential person is still an objective logical concept (which you have conceded), once you destroyed such a potential person, the actual identity that would otherwise have existed, would still have been eliminated preemptively (which you admitted in my examination of you).

That is, even without a specific identity attributed to the potential person, the force of the syllogism would still be in effect and if having moral consequences, would still be the logical equivalent of destroying an actual life.

Pants-of-dog wrote:So are there different types of potential peole now?


Quite Possibly yes, but like I said, this would require some in-depth logical analysis that I do not have time to do at this time and is not necessary for me to do since it is not immediately relevant to the point of my syllogism.

I can say, that I am very sympathetic of admitting them as potential persons as the ones I am presently discussing, for it would strengthen some of my arguments regarding fecundity and ethno-cultural nationalism.

Pants-of-dog wrote:So now sperm and eggs are potential persons? I thought they were concepts.


I have never said they were exactly the same, but I have always affirmed them as physical referents during the time of the circumstance of actualization, with emphasis being on the sperm due to the active v. passive distinction between insemination and ovulation. This was discussed with Ingliz earlier in the thread.

Pants-of-dog wrote:I never said that. I said that an identity can come about in the actual person even if the potential person has no identity.


That "coming about" is nothing more than those attributes of identity being manifest explicitly, because just as the person has an objective, logical, and potential existence that is not the same as, though inseparably connected to, the actual existence of the person, so likewise the actual identity of the person exists in potential and implicit form in the logical and objective concept of the potential person.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Yes, this is your claim. You should support this argument with something.


I have, by demonstrating the inseparability of the notions. For if an objective actual person corresponds to the objective logical concept of a potential person (thus both being objective) and the identity of the actual person is likewise objective, there is no reason to believe the corresponding identity of the potential person is now somehow subjective (one of these things is not like the other, in your claims).

All that I have to do, logically, is demonstrate that there is no reason to create this artificial distinction by showing that just as the objective physical existence of an actual person cannot be separated from the objectively existing logical concept of a potential person, so likewise there is no reason to believe that when it comes to the identity of the actual person corresponding to the identity in the corresponding potential person, that this identity is now somehow subjective rather than objective. I have shown the inseparability. If you can demonstrate how you can separate identity (as subjective) from the potential person (as objective) in light of the fact that the actual person is both objective in existence and objective in identity, I will yield, and I will do so willfully.

However, even if you could prove such, I don't see how it would help you achieve whatever you are after in the argument, because after thinking of the possible implications, I don't see how it would affect the force of my OP.
#14868843
This whole thing hinges on the potential person having the same identity as the actual person, but since identity does not even begin to exist until conception, this is impossible.
#14868880
Pants-of-dog wrote:This whole thing hinges on the potential person having the same identity as the actual person, but since identity does not even begin to exist until conception, this is impossible.


You have not demonstrated this claim, and I responded to your points, line by line above. Likewise, even if there were no identity attributed to a potential person, I don't see how it would imply any substantial critique of my syllogism or its implications.

Please address my responses.
#14868887
Pants-of-dog wrote:This whole thing hinges on the potential person having the same identity as the actual person

A human person is constructed through myriad relationships to other people, institutions, activities, etc. Your self, your specific personhood, “happens” through all of these connections that co-constitute you as who you are. It does not exist as some self-subsistent reality all unto itself. It is the ever dynamic product of your interactions with other people and things. So to try to extract the self from the world and conceive of a person as “just existing”, independent of all these relationships, is to do violence to reality. It’s to talk about an empty and impossible abstraction.

Dr. Daniel Fincke, Teaching Fellow, at Fordham University
#14868891
Victoribus Spolia wrote:You have not demonstrated this claim, and I responded to your points, line by line above. Likewise, even if there were no identity attributed to a potential person, I don't see how it would imply any substantial critique of my syllogism or its implications.

Please address my responses.


Well, identity involves gender identity, and in another thread you argued that it was a social construct. So we already agree that identity is at least partly social (and ingliz also pointed this out more than once). Also, if you have kids, you would know that they are born with certain aspects of their personality. They are not blank slates. Thus, part of identity must also be genetic.

Potential people may exist as logical concepts, but that does not mean that there is a specific potential person for each actual person. If there were, identity would tie them together. Since identity does not exist before conception, identity cannot tie them together.
#14868899
Pants-of-dog wrote:ell, identity involves gender identity, and in another thread you argued that it was a social construct. So we already agree that identity is at least partly social (and ingliz also pointed this out more than once). Also, if you have kids, you would know that they are born with certain aspects of their personality. They are not blank slates. Thus, part of identity must also be genetic.

Potential people may exist as logical concepts, but that does not mean that there is a specific potential person for each actual person. If there were, identity would tie them together. Since identity does not exist before conception, identity cannot tie them together.


This does not demonstrate how you can separate the two. Once again, if you eliminate the potential person (the objective logical concept), the actual person with their specific identity would not exist (which you already conceded). This would be true regardless of whether the content of that specific identity was social, genetic, both, or neither.

This shows that the specific identity in the actual person that would otherwise exist, is still logically dependent on, and inseparable from, the fate of the potential person that logically and objectively exists when conception was possible.

So either show me how from these FACTS, that no identity can obtain, in any sense, in the potential person, or MORE IMPORTANT, show how it matters to the point above?

For it seems, that whether or not an identity is claimed to exist in the objective logical concept of the potential person, if that potential person is destroyed, the specific identity of the actual person that would otherwise exist would still be destroyed.

So either you are wrong, or, if you are right your position would not change or challenge the force of my OP in the least.

If this is not true, please demonstrate otherwise.
#14868904
Victoribus Spolia wrote:if that potential person is destroyed, the specific identity of the actual person that would otherwise exist would still be destroyed.

If an actual human being has any just, prior claim to anything at all, he/she has a just, prior claim to his/her own body.

Even if for the sake of argument we concede a potential person (zygote, embryo, or fetus) has a right to life, that doesn’t automatically give it the right to implant itself in someone else’s body in order to exercise that right to life.


:)
Last edited by ingliz on 07 Dec 2017 18:48, edited 5 times in total.
#14868905
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Almost no one agrees with this position, except the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, and The Reformers. So that is no surprise, but to publicly take a stand against a Brother, that is a surprising.

I would also believe that whoever God wants to exist will exist, but that would not negate God's moral commandment: "Do Not Murder." For, I am discussing moral matters (the prescriptive will of God), not the providential decrees of God (descriptive will). God obviously, in His sovereignty, did not have Abel continue to exist when Cain murdered him, does that imply that Cain was morally pleasing to God? Of course not. Such would confuse the revealed and secret things of God.

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Likewise, stating your disagreement with a brother publicly before heathen is inappropriate. If you disagree with my position it should be done in private or on a thread where scriptural views are being discussed, but taking a position against a brother in this thread is the same as bringing shame to the body of Christ before the godless:

Paul uses this principle in his rebuke of Christian who bring lawsuits against each other before the face of unbelievers:

"When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?....Instead, one brother goes to law against another, and this in front of unbelievers! The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you are thoroughly defeated already." (1 Corinthians 6:1, 6-7)

I don't consider myself as going to law against you for this is not a court of law, but a public discussion forum, which you have volunteered to enter at your own risk. Christians often have disagreements and is probably why there are so many denominations. So please don't take my comments so personal.

I am just not aware of the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, and The Reformers that clearly establishes that contraception is murder. I have already told you that I agree that abortion after the sperm has fertilized the egg and it is developing within the womb as a human being is murder. However, I don't see how the mere prevention of the fertilization process can be considered murder, since there is no human being in the womb to murder.

Your idea of a potential person being murdered does not make sense to me, because there is no human being to murder until after the fertilization process and the baby is developing in the womb.

You might could argue that contraception wastes our seed and could be immoral, since God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply. But that is different from arguing that it is murder of an imaginary human being.

I certainly did not intent to bring shame to the body of Christ before the godless, nor did I intend to insult you as a brother in Christ. I only intend to speak the truth as a weaker brother in Christ. So I hope you will forgive me.
#14868909
Hindsite wrote:I certainly did not intent to bring shame to the body of Christ before the godless, nor did I intend to insult you as a brother in Christ. I only intend to speak the truth as a weaker brother in Christ. So I hope you will forgive me.


I, of course, forgive you and I appreciate the sincere response that was made in a legitimate Christian spirit.

I am confident of my ability to demonstrate the scriptural veracity of my claim that contraception is murder according to Scripture via a careful exegesis of the Hebrew and Greek texts (I wrote on this topic extensively at seminary) as well as the opinions of the church fathers (St. John Chrysostom, and St. Augustine especially), and of the reformers (John Calvin, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, Martin Luther, Johann Gerhard, etc, etc.).

I will gladly post a thread in the religion section, where we can debate as brothers on the truth of the teachings of the scriptures as they pertain to these matters.

For now though, I don't think this would be the appropriate place and time for us to dispute our disagreements on the scriptures and to potentially take sides with heathen one and against the other. That does not seem to me to be edifying to the Body of Christ or to the Glory of God Almighty.

I have no problem disagreeing with you on PoFo on non-religious threads over non-religious non-biblical matters as long as we are always civil with each other as brothers. But if we need to have an intermural debate on scripture I think we should take that debate elsewhere and avoid taking sides with heathen against one another (even if we disagree). That is why I addressed you as I did and please forgive me if I was too harsh.

Let all of this be water under the bridge for us, I will post something in the religion section in the near future for us to discuss further. Godspeed.
#14868913
Victoribus Spolia wrote:This does not demonstrate how you can separate the two. Once again, if you eliminate the potential person (the objective logical concept), the actual person with their specific identity would not exist (which you already conceded). This would be true regardless of whether the content of that specific identity was social, genetic, both, or neither.

This shows that the specific identity in the actual person that would otherwise exist, is still logically dependent on, and inseparable from, the fate of the potential person that logically and objectively exists when conception was possible.

So either show me how from these FACTS, that no identity can obtain, in any sense, in the potential person, or MORE IMPORTANT, show how it matters to the point above?

For it seems, that whether or not an identity is claimed to exist in the objective logical concept of the potential person, if that potential person is destroyed, the specific identity of the actual person that would otherwise exist would still be destroyed.

So either you are wrong, or, if you are right your position would not change or challenge the force of my OP in the least.

If this is not true, please demonstrate otherwise.


No. If potential people are logical concepts, then you do not need to have a specific one tied to a specific actual person for that actual person to exist.

All you need is the circumstances associated with potential people, i.e. two people sexing it up, etc., for an actual person to happen.

There is no specific, identifiable potential person tied to an actual person to be destroyed. So you cannot destroy it.
#14868923
Victoribus Spolia wrote:St. Augustine especially

Until the 19th Century, Catholics didn’t believe life began at conception but held to Aristotle’s view that there was "mediate animation" by which boys got souls 40 days after conception and girls got them 90 days after conception.

Decretum Gratiani wrote:he is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body.



:)
#14869150
Pants-of-dog wrote:No. If potential people are logical concepts, then you do not need to have a specific one tied to a specific actual person for that actual person to exist.

All you need is the circumstances associated with potential people, i.e. two people sexing it up, etc., for an actual person to happen.

There is no specific, identifiable potential person tied to an actual person to be destroyed. So you cannot destroy it.


That doesn't make sense, if a potential person arises, its potentiality being eliminated results in the actual person not being conceived. Period. You have already conceded this regarding to discussions of scenarios applying to John Connor being killed by a common criminal after you had already claimed no identity being applied to a potential person. What John Connor would otherwise become, was destroyed by the criminal.

Even on your claims above, if a potentiality does not have a specific identity, as we defined (which still needs to be proven as even possible, which you have failed to do), the specific actual identity would still be affected because the potential person still corresponds to a specific potential outcome. This is why it is called a "potential" person, it corresponds to a specific reality that would otherwise exist. That every actual person was once only a potential person, is logically undeniable.

If you are "sexing it up" (the circumstance of actualization) there exists the potential to have a child and so long as you do not interrupt the process and nothing odd happens, an actual person will come about, this potentiality is the objective logical concept of a potential person. All actuals were once potentials, this is a logical fact, this is not an opinion and this is not negotiable, all people, animals, etc., once existed merely as a potentiality. You eliminate that potentiality, the actuality cannot, by definition, occur.

You cannot "squirm" your way out of that fact. In the circumstance of "Sexing it up" the potentiality is there, if you use contraception, you eliminate that potentiality and the corresponding actuality that would otherwise obtain, is caused to cease.

You can say that this potentiality has no "identity," but that claim is essentially meaningless as it would not effect that facts as I just stated above even if it could be proven (which it cannot), for identity and personhood cannot be separated in an actual person and the claim that they would therefore be separable in the objective logical concept of the potential person is either arbitrary or yet to be proven by you.

ingliz wrote:Until the 19th Century, Catholics didn’t believe life began at conception but held to Aristotle’s view that there was "mediate animation" by which boys got souls 40 days after conception and girls got them 90 days after conception.


1. I'm not a papist, so there is that. Neither was St. Augustine for that matter.

2. St. Augustine argued that a man who uses contraception in marriage: "makes his wife both a whore and a murderer."

3. Is there any other relevant information you would like to add?
#14869168
Victoribus Spolia wrote:That doesn't make sense, if a potential person arises, its potentiality being eliminated results in the actual person not being conceived. Period.


No. You are making the mistake that an actual person needs a potential person to come from. This is not true.

Actual people come from the circumstances that allow for the logical concept of potential people, i.e. procreative sex.

You have already conceded this regarding to discussions of scenarios applying to John Connor being killed by a common criminal after you had already claimed no identity being applied to a potential person. What John Connor would otherwise become, was destroyed by the criminal.


Then I was wrong to concede it.

Even on your claims above, if a potentiality does not have a specific identity, as we defined (which still needs to be proven as even possible, which you have failed to do), the specific actual identity would still be affected because the potential person still corresponds to a specific potential outcome. This is why it is called a "potential" person, it corresponds to a specific reality that would otherwise exist. That every actual person was once only a potential person, is logically undeniable.


No. Just because potential people correspond to a specific reality, it does not mean that the actual person needs to be a potential person first. A potential person is a logical concept. Human beings do not magically first become logical concepts and then become actual people.

Actual people were never potential people.

If you are "sexing it up" (the circumstance of actualization) there exists the potential to have a child and so long as you do not interrupt the process and nothing odd happens, an actual person will come about, this potentiality is the objective logical concept of a potential person. All actuals were once potentials, this is a logical fact, this is not an opinion and this is not negotiable, all people, animals, etc., once existed merely as a potentiality. You eliminate that potentiality, the actuality cannot, by definition, occur.

You cannot "squirm" your way out of that fact. In the circumstance of "Sexing it up" the potentiality is there, if you use contraception, you eliminate that potentiality and the corresponding actuality that would otherwise obtain, is caused to cease.

You can say that this potentiality has no "identity," but that claim is essentially meaningless as it would not effect that facts as I just stated above even if it could be proven (which it cannot), for identity and personhood cannot be separated in an actual person and the claim that they would therefore be separable in the objective logical concept of the potential person is either arbitrary or yet to be proven by you.


You can use contraception and that would destroy the potential perosn, and make ot impossible for the actual person to exist, but you are not making the actual person not exist by destroying the potential person.

To clarify:

You think that contraception kills the potential person, which in turns makes it impossible for the actual person to exist.

I think using contraception makes it impossible for the actual person to exist and makes it impossible for any potential people to exist, but the “demise” of the potential people has no effect on the simultaneously prevented actual person.
#14869197
Pants-of-dog wrote:No. You are making the mistake that an actual person needs a potential person to come from. This is not true.

Actual people come from the circumstances that allow for the logical concept of potential people, i.e. procreative sex.


Logically the connection is absolute, if there is not a potential person as an objective logical concept, then no actual person can arise. It is a logical impossibility to say otherwise. A Potential person as an objective logical concept is not an empty concept that exists just for the sake of existing.

This is even precluded by the very word "potential." This objective logical concept corresponds to something, it corresponds to that actual person that would otherwise exist, by definition, and yes such a potential person arises in certain circumstances of actualization, but the reason they arise under such conditions is because the natural transition into an actual person ordinarily occurs under such conditions.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Then I was wrong to concede it.


I am going to take a pic of this. :lol:

Pants-of-dog wrote:No. Just because potential people correspond to a specific reality, it does not mean that the actual person needs to be a potential person first. A potential person is a logical concept. Human beings do not magically first become logical concepts and then become actual people.

Actual people were never potential people.


You use the word "need" as if this is something I am arguing for that needs to be proven. This is not a philosophical contention by anyone, it is a logical fact, that all that exists in actuality was once potential, that is, when it did not exist in actuality, the conditions of its future existence were present, at which point, likewise existed the thing-in-question's corresponding potentiality. Potentiality exists in the conditions wherein actuality is possible, all that exists presently originated from such and must have by definition.

The only way this could be otherwise is if they are eternal in their actuality or entirely random and divorced from all conditions in their spontaneous origination. None of which, is claimed about human actuality; thus, all present human actuality had logical potentiality at some point in time, to say otherwise is to deny that the conditions of any present human's existence ever existed and that their present existence is a metaphysical and biological mystery being outside possible explanation.


Pants-of-dog wrote:You can use contraception and that would destroy the potential perosn, and make ot impossible for the actual person to exist, but you are not making the actual person not exist by destroying the potential person.


Let us analyze your statement with our favorite analogy, you make two claims, they will be translated below:

1. If you made Sarah Connor intentionally sterile ( a form of contraception) you would have intentionally destroyed the potential person and intentionally made it impossible for John Connor to exist in actuality (We are agreed here)

2. If you made Sarah Connor intentionally sterile ( a form of contraception), you are not intentionally making it impossible for John Connor to exist in actuality by intentionally destroying the potential person. ( :eh: WTF?)

It appears that your first claim contradicts the second; however, you have attempted an explanation below, lets see if it helps.

Pants-of-dog wrote:You think that contraception kills the potential person, which in turns makes it impossible for the actual person to exist.


1. Correct, but to clarify, You cannot kill something that is not alive. I argued that the potential person is destroyed (see definition in OP) when contraception is intentionally used for the ends of preventing an actual person from existing. Due to this relationship, if you destroy a potential person (which you concede as possible), you make it impossible for the actual person to exist (which you also, concede as possible).

Pants-of-dog wrote:I think using contraception makes it impossible for the actual person to exist and makes it impossible for any potential people to exist, but the “demise” of the potential people has no effect on the simultaneously prevented actual person.


This is what I do not understand.

So, you are saying that:

1. Contraception prevents the existence of actual people that would otherwise come into existence. (Cool, I Agree).

and that

2. Contraception eliminates the existence of any potential people that would arise in those circumstances. (Sounds, About Right).

BUT

3. The elimination of the potential existence of a person, via contraception, has no bearing on the making-impossible of the existence of the corresponding actual person, which is made impossible in that same usage of contraception that eliminates the potential person.

Did you proof-read this?

What do you think potential people are? Ghosts? :lol:

You are acting like contraception kills the ghosts and prevents the actual people, but actual people and these ghosts are unrelated. That would be true if we were talking about some etheral disconnected notions.

We are not.

Potential persons, are potentials of something, they are potentially-actual people, they are transitional concepts, they correspond to states of affairs that would otherwise come about. They are not independent of all these considerations.

Do you understand that? We are not talking about phantasms here. You above explanation of your position is either (1) a serious contradiction, or (2) you are denying that potential persons are potentials in any sense of the word whatsoever and that actual people never had a corresponding potential existence given certain biological conditions (which is incredibly absurd, as I showed above).
#14869203
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Logically the connection is absolute, if there is not a potential person as an objective logical concept, then no actual person can arise. It is a logical impossibility to say otherwise. A Potential person as an objective logical concept is not an empty concept that exists just for the sake of existing.


Nope. Biological organisms do not require an existence as a logical concept before becoming biological organisms.

This is even precluded by the very word "potential." This objective logical concept corresponds to something, it corresponds to that actual person that would otherwise exist, by definition, and yes such a potential person arises in certain circumstances of actualization, but the reason they arise under such conditions is because the natural transition into an actual person ordinarily occurs under such conditions.

I am going to take a pic of this. :lol:

You use the word "need" as if this is something I am arguing for that needs to be proven. This is not a philosophical contention by anyone, it is a logical fact, that all that exists in actuality was once potential, that is, when it did not exist in actuality, the conditions of its future existence were present, at which point, likewise existed the thing-in-question's corresponding potentiality. Potentiality exists in the conditions wherein actuality is possible, all that exists presently originated from such and must have by definition.


If we are now defining potential people as the circumstances that can lead to actual people, then John Connor would have had to been the sex between his biological parents before being a fetus.

The only way this could be otherwise is if they are eternal in their actuality or entirely random and divorced from all conditions in their spontaneous origination. None of which, is claimed about human actuality; thus, all present human actuality had logical potentiality at some point in time, to say otherwise is to deny that the conditions of any present human's existence ever existed and that their present existence is a metaphysical and biological mystery being outside possible explanation.


No. I already described how actual people come about without being potential people first.

They come about through procreative sex. This is also the context by which potential people exist. The circumstances cause actual beings and allow for potential people to “exist”.

No need for any eternal beings or entirely random ones.

Let us analyze your statement with our favorite analogy, you make two claims, they will be translated below:

1. If you made Sarah Connor intentionally sterile ( a form of contraception) you would have intentionally destroyed the potential person and intentionally made it impossible for John Connor to exist in actuality (We are agreed here)


Not quite.

First of all, there is no potential person called John Connor. Potential people exist as a logical concept, but not as discrete people with separate identities, etc.

If you make Sarah sterile, then you are intentionally making it impossible for potential people to be associated with her. You also make it impossible for ger to have actual kids.

2. If you made Sarah Connor intentionally sterile ( a form of contraception), you are not intentionally making it impossible for John Connor to exist in actuality by intentionally destroying the potential person. ( :eh: WTF?)

It appears that your first claim contradicts the second; however, you have attempted an explanation below, lets see if it helps.


Almost.

If you made Sarah Connor intentionally sterile ( a form of contraception), you are intentionally making it impossible for John Connor to exist in actuality but not by intentionally destroying the potential person, because there is no potential person called John Connor who will lead a rebellion against Skynet, (unless there is time travel).

1. Correct, but to clarify, You cannot kill something that is not alive. I argued that the potential person is destroyed (see definition in OP) when contraception is intentionally used for the ends of preventing an actual person from existing. Due to this relationship, if you destroy a potential person (which you concede as possible), you make it impossible for the actual person to exist (which you also, concede as possible).


Again, you cannot kill a specific potential person with an identity because there is no such thing.

Nor can you kill potential people. They are a logical concept. At best, you can disassociate potential people from someone by sterilizing that person.

This relationship that you keep talking about (that if you kill the potential, you kill the actual) is not true. It would be more correct to say that using contraception does two things: it prevents actual beings from coming about, and it disassociates the person from the logical concept of potential people.

This is what I do not understand.

So, you are saying that:

1. Contraception prevents the existence of actual people that would otherwise come into existence. (Cool, I Agree).

and that

2. Contraception eliminates the existence of any potential people that would arise in those circumstances. (Sounds, About Right).

BUT

3. The elimination of the potential existence of a person, via contraception, has no bearing on the making-impossible of the existence of the corresponding actual person, which is made impossible in that same usage of contraception that eliminates the potential person.

Did you proof-read this?

What do you think potential people are? Ghosts? :lol:

You are acting like contraception kills the ghosts and prevents the actual people, but actual people and these ghosts are unrelated. That would be true if we were talking about some etheral disconnected notions.

We are not.

Potential persons, are potentials of something, they are potentially-actual people, they are transitional concepts, they correspond to states of affairs that would otherwise come about. They are not independent of all these considerations.

Do you understand that? We are not talking about phantasms here. You above explanation of your position is either (1) a serious contradiction, or (2) you are denying that potential persons are potentials in any sense of the word whatsoever and that actual people never had a corresponding potential existence given certain biological conditions (which is incredibly absurd, as I showed above).


Potential people are logical concepts, so they are dependent on those circumstances that bring them about, in a sense. Sarah’s potential people are dependent on her fertility. At the same time, potential people still exist as a logical concept. So it would be more correct to say that the logcial concept no longer applies to Sarah.

And potential people are related to actual people, but not in the way you think. They are not proto-people with specific identities who have to exist in order for some corresponding actual person with the same identity to exist. It would be more correct to say that potential people and actual people both come into a parent’s life when he or she has sex.
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