When does mortal life really begin?

Author: fauxlaw

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#1
fauxlaw
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Does human mortal life begin at conception? At the first breath of life [post-natal]? Sometime in between? At the first heartbeat? The first brainwave? At birth? Not at all [the simulation theory]?
Or is it before all of that?
1. Consider that the two meeting gametes, female and male, are already living organisms, even before they leave their protected residences.
2. Consider that, at least for the female, her ova are created while still in fetal development. All of them she will have over her entire fertile life exist, and are living before she is ever born.
3. Does extant gamete life somehow have a pause in life until conception, even briefly? No.

I invite your theories.
#2
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@fauxlaw
Life doesn’t have a singular beginning. It’s contextual.

Does life begin when someone revives from medical death?

#3
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@fauxlaw
Day forty nine after conception. According to the book of the dead and possibly other sources.
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#4
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@Reece101
That's a great question, particularly in the sense that, although declared brain-dead, there is still life evident throughout the body, and there is for quite a  while. However, the entity that is human, directed by the brain, is, for practical matters, medically dead. Even the person who is, after a brief period declared medically dead,  brought back to life will, ultimately, die for good. By that experience, the idea of "life" appears to be a factor that is relatively immediate at its loss, even if that loss itself is brief. But, when or even if it has a "beginning" is a far more difficult matter to define to my satisfaction.
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#5
fauxlaw
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@janesix
Well, let's not get to wrapped in The Book of the Dead, or, more true to a correct translation of the "title," "Spells for Going Forth by Day." First, there is not a single, this-one-only, codified text, as first translated by E.A. Wallace Budge [whose translation I have, in English, and in Egyptian hieroglyphs - in which I am fluent] much like that called "The Holy Bible," which really exists in multiple translations, yet we consider the Bible as "codified," as if it were something like an extended "Constitution of the United States." No, not so. Further, the "Book of the Dead," was never intended to be the equivalent of a funeral ceremony of spells for the living to offer the dead, but, rather, it was written as a guidebook of a sort for the dead to travel from earth life to their afterlife, spells to be conducted as they "travelled" to successfully pass by sentinels posted to prohibit further travel by the unworthy to make that journey. As such, your "day 49" is not the life at conception preceding human birth, but day 49 following the departure of the "ka" [spirit, or soul] of the dead person.
#6
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@fauxlaw
I was referring to the Tibetan book of the dead. If the Egyptian book of the dead mentions the same 49 days(and I have not finished reading it so I do not know), then it is all the more likely that 49 days is really involved.
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#7
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@janesix
But the Tibetan Book of the Dead is also a manual for the dead, not for the living. Do not confuse "afterlife" with "pre-mortal birth."
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@fauxlaw
Maybe I am wrong, I guess it says the soul enters a new body at 49 days, not specifically that those 49 days are after  a new conception.
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#9
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@janesix
Don't quote me on the specific 49-day matter. I did not consult first [I don';t immediately recall the passage exactly, or where it is] to determine the exact timing, just that there is a time period involved in the passage of the "ka" that is a significant event. If it's not 49 days [and, after all, "day" is a subject of some dispute in Egyptian theology, much as it is biblically with respect to the creation "day," which many Christians perceive as a 24-hour period. I do not share that belief. Rather, I prefer the Hebrew concept of "day" in the creation event as being a more generic "period," or an extended length of time, as is elsewhere noted in the OT, in  Hebrew, that a "day" as we perceive it is a thousand years to God, but even that "thousand years," as translated into English, is not to be understood in Hebrew as that specific length of time, but just "a long, long time."
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#10
fauxlaw
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@janesix
the soul enters a new body at 49 days
Do you mean as a mater of reincarnation, so to speak? I'm not as familiar with Asian ancient religion as I am with ancient Egyptian.
#11
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@fauxlaw
Yes reincarnation
#12
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When you say mortal life I think of the possibility of dying which can happen any time after conception. If you mean when is one considered living, or the soul enters the body I say at birth or shortly thereafter. Medically or legally there are other criteria. 
#13
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@fauxlaw
I am unaware of any life other than the one we are living and we all would seem to be mortal so there is no real reason to use the descriptor.

This life (as in my life) would appear from my perspective as a stream of conciousness experience beginning with my first cogent memory (visiting a swimming pool with my father) and so I would argue that conscious life (a more important distinction perhaps) begins with one's earliest memories. This "starting" point may or may not change throughout ones life but in general does not start until one is at minimum a few years old.
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#14
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@secularmerlin
On the surface, I like your argument of conscious memory as a beginning, though it deviates a from biological life, which, although I have also introduced the term 'mortal,' my meaning of "life" is biological.
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@fauxlaw
Ah biological life! Well that is differe. Biological life started some three and a half billion years ago as near as we can tell. I don't think we can really be much more precise than that. 
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#16
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@secularmerlin
I don't think we can really be much more precise than that. 
All species, combined, sure, and even a single species, combined, sure. But what of a unique individual, which is clearly of a single species? Even the potential entity of issue from two separate, but biologically compatible species, that individual is unique. The individual, of course, is that individual's most important entity. So, when did my mortal life begin? Clearly, not even at conception, certainly not later, but does it extend further back than my pair of gametes, joined?  I certainly bear traits that are not common to either of my parents, but were traits of earlier living persons than my parents.
#17
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@secularmerlin
This "starting" point may or may not change throughout ones life but in general does not start until one is at minimum a few years old.

1}When the egg becomes fertilized.

....note: So just as some memories of ones life stick around, it would never be clear to me at what date they occurred. My earlist memories I can place and approximate date on, are those I can reference to events in 1st or 2nd grade, and one to my 6th birthday party.

2} cleavage [ dividing of fertilised eg/cell },

3} blastulation,

4} gastrulation { 3 germ layers --trinary set--  are formed } and the primitive streak is formed,

....note; ..."What we are actually seeing when we look at a primitive streak are moving cells. They are going from the epiblast and moving down so they end up between the original epiblast layer and the hypoblast. I’ve always imagined the motion like water falling down a waterfall. The first layer to invaginate [---inversion---] dives the deepest and ends up closest to the hypoblast – this is the endoderm. The next layers will become the mesoderm, and the cells of the epiblast that continue to border the amniotic cavity are the ectoderm.

5} neurulation  as result of inversion forms noto chord,


.....Space(>In<) i (>In<)Space........

Does the Uinverse invaginate/invert before a a BIG BANG! { patriarchal } aka the The Big Grunt { matricarchal } or as The next WOW! { non-gender specific }

The egg is biologic life as is the sperm, and together they create synergetic individual that may some day be born-out as an independent individual that takes its first in-spire-rational breath air/oxygen.

Synergy = organize { to cay i.e. to gradually form collective set of organization, sand, rock, biologic coral }

Death = decay { disintegrate /disorder }
#18
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@secularmerlin
@fauxlaw
Mortality is......Mortality is the inevitability of  life.

Rather than awareness......Conscious awareness of mortality or instinctive awareness of mortality.

I would agree that conscious awareness "really begins" only when we have downloaded the relevant information.

I would also suggest that instinctive awareness occurs, only shortly before death.....Circumstances were such, that I am convinced that my father instinctively knew the day before he died.....Something that is not an uncommonly recorded coincidence, in both human and other species.



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@fauxlaw
Either we are talking about the process of biological life and reproduction which started 3.5 billion years ago or we are talking about our stream of conciousness (you are the sum of your experiences). If you try to conflate the two you will end up in an inescapable philosophical quagmire with no rational escape. 
#20
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@secularmerlin
......stream of conciousness (you are the sum of your experiences).......
Conscious memory is not same as celluar memory and both are sum of individuals experiences.

Individual memories prior to first in-spirited breath, and,

Independent individual memories post first  In-spirited breath. (>In<).







#21
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@ebuc
I have no way of reliably inspecting my cellular memory at this time though doubtless what I am as an organism does inevitably impact my stream of conciousness. 
#22
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@fauxlaw
Does human mortal life begin at conception? At the first breath of life [post-natal]? Sometime in between? At the first heartbeat? The first brainwave? At birth? Not at all [the simulation theory]?
Or is it before all of that?
1. Consider that the two meeting gametes, female and male, are already living organisms, even before they leave their protected residences.
2. Consider that, at least for the female, her ova are created while still in fetal development. All of them she will have over her entire fertile life exist, and are living before she is ever born.
3. Does extant gamete life somehow have a pause in life until conception, even briefly? No.

I invite your theories.
I propose that "life" begins at conception because human development is defined to begin at fertilization and/or conception. Rights however begin with moral agency because rights are moral concepts.

13 days later

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#23
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@Athias
You’re taking the discussion out of the original factors first noted:
1. Human development: you ignore the extant gametes, which are already human and nothing else, and already alive, nor can or will they be otherwise prior to conception.

2.  Morality and rights have naught to do with the subject at hand.

#24
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@fauxlaw
You’re taking the discussion out of the original factors first noted:
1. Human development: you ignore the extant gametes, which are already human and nothing else, and already alive, nor can or will they be otherwise prior to conception.
I ignore the gametes because they in and of themselves do not mark the beginning of human development. That is, having sperm, and having eggs does not create "life."

2.  Morality and rights have naught to do with the subject at hand.
Fair enough.
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#25
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@Athias
That is, having sperm, and having eggs does not create "life." 
That is all they do. But, they do not create life as it is already a factor before they unite. That's the whole point; there is no interruption of life. You're trying to say they are not human. What else are they? They each represent one-half of the DNA helix. Human DNA. 
#26
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@fauxlaw
That is all they do. But, they do not create life as it is already a factor before they unite. That's the whole point; there is no interruption of life. You're trying to say they are not human. What else are they? They each represent one-half of the DNA helix. Human DNA. 
Where did I state that they weren't "human"? I stated that "life" begins at fertilization and/or conception because that's when human development is defined to begin.

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#27
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@Athias
You did not state it outright, but imply it be your stating "human development" as it it has a beginning when, clearly, the gametes are both already human, and have the seeds of that special development already in them,