Destiny vs Trent Horn: Does Consciousness Define Personhood? Abortion Debate

[00:00:00]That would be a protected experience, yeah.

[00:00:01]>> And so, even if so, that's where I can't understand it. A newborn stuck at that level forever.

[00:00:07]>> Mhm.

[00:00:07]>> Newborn infant disabled.

[00:00:09]Person deserves legal protection.

[00:00:11]>> Mhm. Okay.

[00:00:12]>> Because it's all under that bucket of human conscious experience, yes.

[00:00:15]>> Because it is a human No, your argument seems to be because it is a human who is conscious.

[00:00:22]>> I think humans that are conscious are always having a human conscious experience, correct. If you want to give me an analogy, you take a human and you implant a dog brain into it, then maybe we're having a different conversation, but >> When a human speaks, do they always utter human speech?

[00:00:37]>> Y- that We're It's We're getting definitionally, but when a human speaks, it's always a human speaking.

[00:00:44]>> Right. Your what The argument you're making is a bit circular here. What makes human speech unique would be grammar, syntax, uh abstract concepts, idea, language, or that kind of human speech. A human could utter all different kinds of sounds or >> But it's always going to be a human speaking.

[00:01:02]>> Right, but what someone would say is, "Why does it matter that Why does a newborn The fact that uh you would say, "Look, a human and someone who's stuck at the newborn level, okay? They are a human who is conscious, even min- They are a human who is minimally conscious. Therefore, they deserve legal protection."

[00:01:24]>> For which For what?

[00:01:25]>> The newborn. Someone stuck at a newborn, they are a human who is minimally conscious.

[00:01:29]>> Mhm.

[00:01:30]>> But an animal who is more conscious does not have rights because they're not >> I don't Yeah, I I reject that comparison that like an animal is more conscious.

[00:01:40]They're having an animal conscious experience. It doesn't resemble a human conscious experience.

[00:01:45]>> Well, what You say you reject it, but then you can't tell me like what is that newborn infant's experience so that you know that they >> A fully formed conscious experience of any animal doesn't reach the level of sapiens or sophistication of of a human conscious experience.

[00:02:00]>> Like you of a human conscious experience like you or I are having.

[00:02:03]>> Correct.

[00:02:03]>> But a newborn, what kind of experiences do they have?

[00:02:06]>> I I I don't know if you take a newborn and stick it there and then train it for a while. I imagine that even their subjective conscious experience could be closer to ours than a lizard or a monkey.

[00:02:15]>> So you think that a human newborn is more intelligent than let's say like a chimpanzee?

[00:02:21]>> Intelligent is not the right word.

[00:02:23]>> more aware of the world?

[00:02:25]>> More having a human conscious experience than yes, than the >> All you're saying is it's more of a genetic human being. That's true, but so what? If that's what makes it If that's what makes you valuable, then all genetic human beings need to be valuable.

[00:02:39]>> Well, a a human conscious experience >> all the work in your argument.

[00:02:42]>> course, because I value humans and human life.

[00:02:45]>> Yeah. So it's doing a lot for both of our arguments. And genetics is our definition of human is a certain genetic code. So of course, the human conscious experience is necessarily going to be deployed by a genetic human, right?

[00:02:56]>> Right. It's Humans will have various levels of conscious experience through their lives. They'll start very minimally, it'll grow, and they might lose it. And maybe even temporarily lose it or permanently lose it. And I do think your position is going to be inconsistent here if someone temporarily loses it and has to regrow parts of their brain to get it back. Cuz at that point they're no longer a person anymore. But most of us would give them medicine and care to help them.

[00:03:24]Um >> Yeah, probably.

[00:03:26]>> But then >> Here's a question. Let's Let's look at that analogy from another angle, cuz I I don't think that analogy is doing as much work as you want it to be. Let's say that there's a person who gets their head chopped off, but we can keep their body alive. Would you say that the person is still alive if the body is still alive, but the head is chopped off?

[00:03:40]>> I would say that as an organism, so their their head is probably decomposing now, right?

[00:03:45]>> Yeah.

[00:03:45]>> And then >> Toss in the trash. It's It's dead, yeah.

[00:03:49]>> Yeah, I would say that them as an organism, uh they have died, or uh we are keeping them we are keeping the organism alive through artificial life support like a heart-lung machine.

[00:04:01]>> the organism, so my head Steven's head gets cut off, but my body is still alive.

[00:04:06]>> Okay, you're dead.

[00:04:07]>> What if there was a surgery where we had developed we could create new human heads and then put it back on with like a new brain and everything?

[00:04:14]Would you say that you have an obligation to keep the body alive so that you can reattach a new head in the future?

[00:04:20]>> Uh the obligation to keep a headless trunk alive to put a >> Because that's the equivalent to you talking about the child being born without the brain, but you can give it a drug to grow back the brain in the future.

[00:04:29]>> off somebody's head and you have their trunk there, uh the organism may be alive. I would say the organism probably isn't alive.

[00:04:36]You're keeping all of the organs alive.

[00:04:38]Like if you keep someone who's brain dead on a heart-lung machine, they're not going to stay alive indefinitely.

[00:04:43]They're only going to stay alive maybe for two to five days uh to in order to harvest organs. They're still going to decompose.

[00:04:49]>> feed them, right?

[00:04:50]>> No, not if somebody is brain dead.

[00:04:52]>> stem isn't true, but persistent vegetative state can be fed with a tube indefinitely, right?

[00:04:57]>> That's different. Someone with a persistent vegetative state is a disabled human being. Uh so they're they are uh >> There's brain stem activity.

[00:05:04]>> Yeah, there's brain stem activity.

[00:05:06]They're they're wakeful. They can digest food. They can >> Well, I don't believe so. I think they need um they need to be fed with a tube and everything, right?

[00:05:13]>> digest it.

[00:05:14]>> Oh, oh, okay, sure.

[00:05:15]>> They can't like masticate it.

[00:05:17]>> dead person cannot do that. It's just going to sit in the gullet.

[00:05:20]>> So they're going to decompose.

[00:05:21]>> Okay.

[00:05:21]>> But they're a person still.

[00:05:23]>> Okay.

[00:05:23]>> They're I'll be it they're a disabled person.

[00:05:26]>> Do you think that people in persistent vegetative states, assuming you know they're never going to wake up, should they be kept alive indefinitely as well?

[00:05:31]>> I think they should be I think that they should be given food, uh water, um they should be given comfort care.

[00:05:40]Uh they should be >> indefinitely.

[00:05:42]>> No, not necessarily kept alive indefinitely because there might be interventions that um aren't as aren't as helpful for them. I think there's a difference between I think that we should never dehydrate anyone to death.

[00:05:54]>> Sure. So, a person who was 22 years old, persistent vegetative state, they could live to 75. They're always going to be in bed. Should that person be cared for for the remainder of their life?

[00:06:01]>> we we don't know that they'll live to 75. The prognosis is poor.

[00:06:05]>> Well, no, you shut down a lot of my hypotheticals all day.

[00:06:07]>> I answered every single hypothetical you gave me.

[00:06:08]>> No, you complained about a lot of them.

[00:06:10]>> complain. No, no, I complained cuz they're intuition pumps, but tell me one of those I didn't answer.

[00:06:14]>> No, you Well, no, no, no, tell me one of those hypotheticals >> about You put a I watched you put a check mark next to every single one I answered. I saw you do it, so I know I answered it.

[00:06:21]>> about a toddler, for example, who was >> but I answered it. So, you can complain about mine, but you have to answer it. A 20-year-old can be kept alive till 75.

[00:06:28]Do we have a moral obligation to keep feeding them for for 55 years in a hospital bed? And you can complain about it, but you should answer the >> There's two ways that I could respond to this. One would be my view, and two would be another pro-life view.

[00:06:39]>> I want to know your view, cuz I'm talking to you.

[00:06:41]>> That's Well, someone could defend a position might say, "You know what?"

[00:06:44]>> I don't care about someone. I want Trent's answer.

[00:06:46]>> No, because I want people to be pro-life even if they don't agree with everything I believe.

[00:06:49]>> Okay. But I'm asking you, right now.

[00:06:51]>> I think I think we should never start I think we should not starve somebody to death. I think that in some cases, food will not help someone because they can't digest it anyway.

[00:06:59]>> those cases. I'm just saying we could keep somebody alive from 25 to 75, 50 years in a bed if we feed them and water them.

[00:07:05]>> Yeah, I I I don't think we should starve disabled people to death. That's my answer to that. But number two, if you don't agree with that intuition, you could just have the view that I laid out earlier, which is that you are no longer a person if it is impossible for you to be conscious in the future.

[00:07:18]So, that means you are a person whenever it is possible for you to be conscious in the future, and that would apply for nearly all unborn human beings from fertilization onward. So, even if someone didn't agree with me about PVS, they could still agree with you about withholding care for PVS, but it's different because there's a difference between someone who will never again be conscious and someone who will be conscious at some point. There's a difference there.

[00:07:44]>> True. But I mean like a sperm given the right conditions like being in environment with an egg will also at some point exhibit consciousness the same way that a single cell organism connected to a mother cuz a single cell organism will never develop on its own.

[00:07:55]>> never becomes conscious. In order for >> Neither is a single cell thing. It has to be connected to a mom. On its own never does.

[00:08:00]>> organism that was once one cell does become conscious because there's continuity there. The sperm and egg >> There's no continuity between a sperm and a zygo?

[00:08:10]>> Were you Were you ever once a newborn?

[00:08:13]>> Yeah.

[00:08:15]>> Well, how could let me I mean ask you this like if you took a car and replace 90% of its parts or added 90% new parts is it the same car?

[00:08:22]>> I don't know. That's a ship of Theseus question. I'm not sure.

[00:08:24]>> Right, but you might have 90% new parts from being a newborn.

[00:08:27]>> Mhm.

[00:08:28]>> But you're still the same newborn.

[00:08:29]You're still that same person.

[00:08:31]>> Sure. Why though? That's a really interesting question.

[00:08:33]>> It is.

[00:08:34]>> It's probably because of the continuity of the conscious experience.

[00:08:36]>> I would say it's cuz you're the same organism.

[00:08:38]>> No.

[00:08:39]>> Yeah.

[00:08:39]>> No, it's the It's the continuity of the conscious experience.

[00:08:42]>> being a newborn?

[00:08:43]>> Nope.

[00:08:44]>> Not a lot of continuity there.

[00:08:45]>> Because I don't remember there's no continuity?

[00:08:47]>> It's >> Am I not a person when I'm blackout drunk?

[00:08:50]>> Well, you might you might not remember things, but it seems like >> But >> you are you're lacking uh some of these elements. It's It seems very very weak that that's the continuity. And also >> with Alzheimer's are no longer people or?

[00:09:03]>> No, I believe that they they are persons. They're the They are the same living being. My problem is if you're going to want to say oh well, having the same psychological experiences, that's what makes you the same person over time, well, then you get really like you wanted to cut off heads and put them on other bodies. Well, what if we take your brain and split it in two and then put it into two corpses and they both have your psychological connections. Are they both you?

[00:09:31]>> It's a really tough one. Maybe you split into two yous, but >> that seems like a contradiction that you could do two contradictory things at the same time. They can't both be you. You can't be identical to more than one thing.

[00:09:42]>> Well, if you want to if you want to fight there, we're not fighting over human conscious experience. Now we're getting into the nitty-gritty of human identity. What you are as a conscious experience might not even be one coherent conscious experience. There might be 10 or 15 different things running under the hood. If you've taken enough drugs, you can visit all of those parts, but >> me ask you this.

[00:09:57]>> doesn't get us any farther or closer to like abortion or something like that.

[00:10:00]>> Is it possible for the brain to have more than one person in it, more than one conscious experience?

[00:10:04]>> Um it seems like there's some research exploring that. Maybe it's possible, but I don't think we perceive it that way.

[00:10:10]Right? Because there are a split brain or what's it called? Like the corpsum corpus callosum corpus callosum that one if that's divided or split for some reason, you could do a split brain experiment with different halves of your brain seem to be aware of different things. So, potentially it could be.

[00:10:21]We're just not aware of it, I guess.

[00:10:23]>> Right. So, I was going back to the beginning here. I'm rejecting your view that sperm and egg are us. Uh those are things that became us and there's an explanation for that. My explanation relies in the fact that you are the same living organism that that organisms maintain their identity over time in spite of many changes. You are the same biological human being who was born of your mother decades ago, even though you have radically different parts and abilities now. Because you're that same living being. But I would say that you are that also that same living being existed 9 months prior to the birth as well. And you were >> I understand what you're saying. I'm just saying that ontologically what what your position demands is that you believe that a single cell organism is of a kind that is similar to a 99-year-old human being and that those things belong to the same category, but the single cell organism is entirely different from a sperm or egg.

[00:11:14]>> Are they both human Are is the Is the Is the zygote >> Mhm.

[00:11:19]>> and the 99-year-old, are they both human organisms?

[00:11:21]>> Definitionally so.

[00:11:23]>> So, they are the same >> corpse is also a human organism.

[00:11:25]>> the No, that's not true.

[00:11:26]>> It is. Of course it is. What do you mean? What is a human organism? I don't know. We can bring up the dictionary we want, but >> And I would say an organism is a is a collection of parts that work together for the good of the whole. A corpse no longer has that property.

[00:11:40]>> Okay, but I mean neither does a single-celled organism. It can't work to do anything absent nutrients.

[00:11:43]>> How How does it grow in the womb?

[00:11:45]>> By getting nutrients from the mother.

[00:11:46]The mother's body is probably doing more at that point than a >> the same as you and I when we go when we go to In-N-Out and we eat food, we we got to do that to keep growing and developing. It doesn't have to be In-N-Out, but we need nutrients and environment to continue developing also.

[00:11:57]>> I think there's a bit of a difference.

[00:11:58]When I eat a cheeseburger, my body doesn't become a cheeseburger, but a single-celled organism is literally one single cell. The nutrients coming in from the mother are more than even the sum of everything existing in the mother.

[00:12:07]>> into sugar or glucose. It creates [clears throat] new cells and it creates new elements of its organism.

[00:12:13]>> of the nutrients that are coming in, but there's more For a single-celled organism, there's more nutrients being pumped into it than there even is an organism.

[00:12:20]>> Right? It's pretty amazing, but that doesn't mean that it's not a a biological human being, and it doesn't mean that it has less value than you or I have just because it goes has much more developing it needs to do.

[00:12:31]>> Sure, I just don't think that a single-celled organism is more different than a sperm or an egg than it is similar to a 50-year-old developed person.

[00:12:39]>> think we both agree it at least scientifically they're very different.

[00:12:42]It belongs to a different biological category than sperm or egg. Sperm and egg are body parts. They're gametes. An embryo is a human organism. And so when we talk about whether persons or rights need to be given, we don't even talk about whether uh tissue has human rights. We only talk about whether human organisms do.

[00:13:03]>> Mhm.

[00:13:04]I guess using your definition of organism, but I still think we talk because even if you're talking about rights, if we look at people that are brain dead or people in persistent vegetative states, legally they're afforded different rights than people who are fully cognizant, conscious of their surroundings, right? Like it would never be legal to kill a person or deprive a person of food that's like a normal thinking, ordinary, conscious human being, but it would be for people in PVS or people who are brain dead, right?

[00:13:28]>> people debate about whether whether food that is given to someone in a persistent vegetative state is medicine or whether it's food.

[00:13:38]People I think that people will try to define being permanently unconscious as death instead of disability. And honestly, many people who are disabled notice this in trying to redefine disability so we don't have to care for those who are disabled.

[00:13:55]>> Okay. I think that's a fundamentally different argument, but >> No, because there's a distinction