Life at Conception - Wrong.

What is Life?

Before we can debate its conception, we must first ask, what is life. This is a fascinating topic with various different angles of attack, for the sake of this essay, let us start with two. Biological and Philosophical. I am sensitive to the fact that there are more, however in the interests of time we shall address only these two for the time being.

Addressing the first, we can put our memory back to High School Biology, MRS GREN is an acronym designed to identify life, and demonstrates the seven pre-requisites for something to be considered alive. It is basic, but it is a good place to start. MRS GREN's constituent parts are the following; Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion and Nutrition. This is a fairly good checklist to compare certain examples to, albeit imperfect, and will be our first port of call if we are to ask this question. Of course, the problems of this definition rest on the breadth, which is a wider problem within biology, but for now it works.

Our second definition is philosophical, and is one that doesn't have a set in stone answer. Even intuitively we understand that a computer program, or true Artificial Intelligence, in spite of being separate from the conceptions of the above, may be alive, thus is is an important characteristic to consider -arguably one of greater importance than the above. Thus, to answer this, breadth is our friend, which is why I suggest the following definition; to be alive, something must have the capacity to think and engage in new experiences.

I understand that this philosophical definition is without much elaboration, but for our devices it is sufficient. There is further room for discussion here, but our focus must shift otherwise this essay will remain on this one topic, rather than answering the central question.

If we assume that life is under the above two definitions, there is a fixed point wherein life must begin. Much as a house begins operating as a house upon its feasible use as a shelter -a house on a piece of paper is just a drawing after-all- there is a point along the biological track where life has to be declared in the biological and philosophical sense. First however, we shall consider a parallel, but separate of example, to demonstrate how these definitions may be applied.

Is a cancer cell alive?

Cancer Cells are Biologically alive, at least under the definition we suggested above, because Cells are alive under the biological definition. They move, they respire through blood, they can understand sensations such as light, they reproduce, they excrete excess chemicals as other cells do and in the same manner as respiration, do consume chemicals for the above purposes. Cancer cells have a biological basis of life.

However few people would earnestly argue that that biological life extends to Philosophical life. Cancer cells have no capacity for thought or feeling derived from the sensations they receive, and much in the same way, they have no capacity to retain or develop upon new experiences. Thus, whilst Cancer cells can be declared alive in the Biological sense, Philosophically they are not alive, and thus must be declared to not be alive.

This then suggests that a being must fulfill both forms of life to be considered alive for our discussion. A modern car may have capacity to think and engage in new experiences through electrical signals and memory -no matter how basic- but it is still incompatible with biological conceptions of life as we understand them -for a car has no sensitivity to their environment nor can they grow. This then suggests a clear condition, for life to begin at conception, conception must offer both the philosophical and biological bases of life.

Does Conception Cause Life?

Now we understand where life can be identified, we can now answer the core question above. To shorten this essay, we shall assume Socrateases definition of conception, offered in their essay. Which focuses on the merging of the male and female reproductive cells. -we shall ignore asexual reproduction as Socratease does.

Thus, reframing our question, it asks us, is a Zygote alive? Biologically, yes. Its a cell, thus it has to remain alive as a cancer cell does. So, we then ask, is a zygote philosophically alive? Which would depend on who you ask. Under the above philosophical definition though, the answer is no.

This then lends us down a rabbit hole of checking in every day or week, as the zygote develops through its stages, to determine when it becomes philosophically alive, However, that goes beyond the question. My answer would suggest Around the 23 weeks mark, as it is then we can definitively say that independent thought is occurring. But it is worth noting that I am squarely answering when something is philosophically alive, not a separate question, which we will ask now.

Why Does Socratease Disagree?

The question I am about to ask ultimately explains where the disagreement between myself and Socratease comes up. Because I don't believe Socratease is answering their own question. I believe they are answering a separate question, no less important, but distinct. They are asking, whether a distinct person is formed at conception. Which their commentary on DNA answers;

At conception, a unique human begins their journey.

Now whilst the question changing is an important commentary, it is worth noting that I believe their answer to be wrong regardless. Which is why I shall now spend the remainder of this essay answering, their other question.

When Is a unique Person formed?

Lets imagine, as Socratease does, building a house. You draft up the architectural blueprints, entitle the depicted home "John Housington" and send multiple copies to multiple separate builders who then begin laying foundations to ensure that the foundation of each house is the same, and then they start constructing these houses using the same methods, and the same tools in a similar order. Are each of these Unique Buildings, John Housington? Or, is each unique building, a unique house with a distinct name? If the answer is the first, conception is where their unique identifier is found, if not, it is not from conception, but from construction if it is post construction, it is an environmental experience that makes a unique home.

The answer, if you asked the architect, might be something to the effect of "what?" but, it is an important question to ask, because we have distinct persons, who follow the above examples. Identical twins, are not genetically the same. They are genetically distinct, but their unique genetic markers are developed beyond the zygote stage, throughout the long course of their time in the womb as mutations effect what was, at the zygote stage, the exact same DNA molecules.

At what point do these twins become distinct people? At conception? No, because at that stage the cells hadn't been split yet. When the cells split? No, because at that stage they are still using the same DNA. When the first mutation occurs? Potentially. However that then undermines the argument that conception leads to a unique person, these mutations are not unique to identical twins, they occur in every zygote as it develops into an Embryo. Thus, if we suggest that the unique person starts upon the first mutation, that must be the case for all zygotes and Embryos. Thus suggesting that unique personhood is not arrived at during conception, but instead, later on, either at the earliest genetic mutation, or upon the accumulation of a great number of mutations such that there are clear distinctions between two separate Zygotes.

It is not a definitive responsive answer -as it could be anywhere from days to fortnights - but it is an answer beyond conception.

Before I end off, I want to ask a hypothetical. Assuming two people are created with the exact same genetic makeup, at what point are they considered distinct people? Upon the first difference in their environment -which would lead to interesting connotations among twins in the womb? Upon the first unique thought -At which point the 23 week minimum returns? Or something else? Do let me know your thoughts.