>This depends on whether or not the entity is conscious, and has functioning
>systems to provide pain to that consciousness. I personally doubt that
>embryos are conscious, but this is merely a hunch, as the truth is we just
>don't know yet.
So are you saying that we should hold off experimenting with human embryos because we don't know if they're conscious or not? What about other animal embryos? Is it ok to experiment on them because their not human? Why?
>The fear of death as a concept is a primal instinct - as with the vast
>majority of concepts humans come into contact with, there is an associated
>emotional response. This is not built on logical thought - and as such is
>knowledge independent. Again, the question is does an embryo have the
>necessary systems?
It has occurred to me that all emotions are varying degrees of fear, and pleasure. I assume that hate must be developed after fear because you hate someone that can do you harm. To recognize that you must fear the thing you hate. A baby learns that it is happy when it feels good and its parents reinforce that feeling. Later it learns the word for happy. I'm not sure how it learns fear. Why is a baby scared when no one is around? Is it because it is feeling uncomfortable, looks around for its parents that usually make it feel comfortable, can't find them and starts to fear that it will always be uncomfortable? It seems to me that this infant would eventually associate situations with varying degrees of comfort. Sounds pretty logical to me. What do you think?
>Identity? What is it? Ny name? How is this relevant to the fear and pain of
>death?
This is a mistake on my part with wording. I was trying to say that it doesn't have a personality. I realize that it doesn't relate though so I take it back.
>we're still animals after all. We don't use logic to create emotions
Above I think I showed how an animal (an infant anyways) creates emotions based on fear and comfort. I have taught myself to control my emotions by picturing certain situations or changing my thoughts to create desired emotional responses. So you can use logic to create emotions. Whether or not you'd want to do this is a different story.