I would like someone to explain to me when "life begins"

[Impulsivity]

vlad321 said:

I think people are forgetting what brain waves actually are. Brain waves are a way to look at the activity of your neurons. More accurately brain waves represent pattern of electrical signals from one neuron to another. Just as the sperm and the egg are already alive but are not considered alive humans so too are the neurons just simple cells, they just happen to connect and when they connect they do what they are meant to do, that is send out electrical signals to other such cells. A sperm swims an egg floats, they all do what they are meant to do, but that doesn't make them living humans. Just because a brain wave exists it really does not signify anything other than the fact that neurons are getting fired off. My computer is sending out astronomical amounts of electrical signals, just like neurons, but do you want to call it alive as well?

Another point is the whole response to stimuli. In cells the general response to stimuli is actually very basic. If you push a hammer off a ledge and it hits a plank which flies off, you've basically simulated basic response to stimuli. Just because a cell or a clump of cells responds that doesn't actually mean that they thought about it. For instance, you push on something, the pressure inside the cell increases, which sets off a chemical reaction, and voila it moves away from the push so that it can rebalance its pressure back to normal.

 

For me human life begins when there's evidence of conscious thought, anything else and it's just a lump of cells doing what they do with potential to become a living human. Potential is the magic word there. Potentially the ceiling will fall on me and I won't finish this post, potentially we will get hit by a meteor tomorrow and we will all die, potentially the clock will fall off my desk and I won't wake up in time for my test tomorrow. Just because it is potential it does not mean that it is. It is when it is, and what makes a person a person or any other animal an animal, is a conscious brain, not just some electricity and basic cells working together at the most basic levels.

 

Now back to studying so that maybe I can get an hour of sleep before said test.

 

   That's more or less what I meant with the ant thing ;) I had just already gone on so long I didn't want to get into neuroscience fully.