[extropy-chat] Re: Famous author self destructs in public! Film at eleven.

[John-C-Wright at sff.net]

Mr. Paatsch writes:

"I am willing to tolerate your not finding you first look at the extropy
list after a few months to be less than pleasant if it means that people
like John C Wright and Russell Wallace will look through the damn
microscope and see what it is that is the actual substance of the 
matter."

Sir, where do you get the impression that I have not studied this matter?

I have looked at your pictures: they don't show me anything I didn't learn in
High School biology. I know the difference between the animal and vegetable pole
of a developing organism. I even know the name of the glycoprotein, created at
the two-cell stage, which aids the compaction process at the 8-cell stage (the
process by which the blastomeres glue themselves together, flattening and
defining their inside-outside. This is the earliest move from totipotency to
multipotency). It is called Uvomorulin.  

The scientific question here is merely whether you picture shows an organism
(living, self-regulating, unity) and whether is it of the species homo sapiens.

The scientific question is settled. The metaphysical dimension of the question
comes in only when we attempt to differentiate the metaphysical properties of
homo sapien (his right to be protected by laws, his "personhood") from the
biological characteristics.

No matter how long I stare at a picture, I will not see a metaphysical property
like 'personhood'. It is not as if the 'right to life' were a cluster of
molecules we can detect with a microscope forming in the notocord. 
 
The idea that this debate can be settled by looking at a photograph is a
mischaracterization as to what the debate is about.  

You greatly underestimate your opposition if you assume his position cannot be
held by anyone save the ignorant and the willfully ignorant. 

John C. Wright