Stem cells...AGAIN!

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I have to contradict you, dmc. The limitations of the thought experiment are not weird. They are absolutely necessary to get any result.

To understand why a) the limitations are necessary and b) why the experiment doesn't have to resemble reality you have to realize the following:

Nature (even that of man) is close-fisted with her secrets. She doesn't present them on a silver tablet, we have to snatch them away from her. In a natural environment it is either all or nothing. All possible influences are presented at the same time; you, however, may just be interested in one little aspect of nature. Observing the complex matter doesn't yield any insight, hence you are forced to create an artificial environment in which you strip away everything that is not essential to the aspect you're interested in. You remain with as little controllable variables as possible. No one could possibly say "it is weird to build an electron synchrotron since this is an artificial environment that has nothing in common with everyday life."

The process of stripping away and limiting is essential part of any experiment.

The same applies here.

That said, it is not even my thought experiment, I only felt that it didn't do to water down the question posed by RuneQuester, which is what Gnarfflinger did.

By the way, I certainly didn't say that Gnarfflinger's first answer ("Theologically, the right answer is...") wasn't good enough. Quite the contrary. I remember me saying: Aha! How can you live with your beliefs being inconsistent to your actions? To which Gnarfflinger responded with squirming around and introducing answers to questions no one had really asked.

Overall, I'm not too interested in Gnarfflinger's response anyway (since it was only to be expected), I'm more interested in seeing whether or not he realizes the inconsistency of his self-perception I pointed to. Whether he thinks that this is a chance to test himself and his beliefs or whether he chooses the easy way out: defining the inconsistency as consistent and going back to normal.

All this clearly has nothing to do with stem cell research anymore, so I for one will leave it at that. Gnarfflinger has not to prove anything to anyone, to me in the least, that's for sure. I just had hoped that he would think of the problem as an invitation to gain knowledge about himself.

Darkthrone over and out.

 

The point was that theology is farther from your mind when crowded by emotion. I felt that I was under attack for admitting that I was human. I lived many years where I didn't care about right and wrong, only about what I wanted. What do I have to show for it? Almost nothing but a ton of regrets. It is important to recognize what's expected and what's right, even though we may be inadquate (or believe ourselves to be such). I never claimed to be perfect. God doesn't expect this either...