16,32, 64, 128: I don't know how many cells make up a blastocysts, but Pinker points out that one can be removed to form an identical twin. So far so good. But he doesn't note that there is something orderly about these stages of life in a human: when there is 4 cells, for example, there is some difference in the material. There is, as it were, a top and a bottom. Not just a messy bunchacells: rather, a non-obvious structural unity. Yes, you can take one away and grow a new human. But you may be able to do that with iPSCs some day.
Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...
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