Circumcision - a serious discussion

[BrothaBill]

yes.

i think your saying it is just a programmed response, at this point learned in the womb.

but i think we need to still define what pain is. right. at what point does an infant begin to feel pain the way that i feel it today?

and would it be difficult to do a foreskin removal procedure in the womb. probably stupid and really not neccesary but im curious.

Yes, we can perform micro open heart surgery in the womb without anesthesia, you certainly can perform a simple procedure as circumcision in the womb and their is no scarring from surgeries when performed in the womb.

Developmental cognitive psychological stages define how consciousness develops in classic accepted literature and research. I dont have off the top of my head when "theories" of consciousness of pain as we might interpret it form but I do know that it doesnt exist in classic thought at the time a circumcision is performed. Arguing with that is arguing against the body of validated research, people can throw out a single opinion against it but peer accepted studies can throw water on those claims. The act of one person screaming into the woods their opinion does not mean that it is true, but Im sure some will do that with junk science to back it up.

Defining pain, how do you define what a color looks like? What exactly is it? What is color in the mind of a colorblind person. What is the pain of the electrical signals sent from leg trauma to a paralyzed person from birth. You see if the person has never felt sensory information, it doesnt exist in their reality. They have no reference, no attachment to it, it simply doesnt exist, never did, a person looking at injured leg can say that looks painful, but if that leg is attached to a paralyzed person with no sensory information moving up the spinal cord to the brain then that is incorrect, it is not painful, it is not true in reality except in the mind of the person who attributes the notion of pain to what an injured leg looks like. All of this is created by the mind, sensory information is just an interface with this ooze that surrounds us, there are no such things as color, corners, right angles, all of it is just a fabrication of the mind. Its simple sensory and perception of electrical impulses that we assign certain meanings to. At birth you come in with a Tabula Rasa or a blank slate. The empty mind has not yet defined the variables as to what to assign the base electrical impulses, that comes later. The most traumatic experience in that period is the process of being born. All of the sensory information relays is activated as it is suddenly thrust into a completely new environment. One could argue that the act of being born scars the psyche. In fact, all experiences good or bad scar the psyche, each experience in life leaves an indelible impression. You see, it boils down to how you define things. If you look at screaming of a baby, the definition of what the baby is going through is created in your mind, not the baby's mind. Thats why when people try and measure the babys' perception of pain what they are actually measuring is the researcher's perception of the infant's level of pain. That is why we conduct double blind studies, so that the bias and perception of the researcher isnt measured. IT simply Cannot be done with an infant so stating the level of pain an infant feels and what it exists in their mind is an impossibility. Anyone that puts up a junk science study that says it can, I can easily pick apart, it quite simply is impossible to do so. Pain as we know it does not exist in the mind of an infant yet, the attachments and references havent been formed yet, they are still just base electrical impulses generated by biochemical reactions along biological structures. Dont get me started on figures of light playing out in our minds.

Do you remember what happened to Socrates?

 

[scriptfactory]

Yes, we can perform micro open heart surgery in the womb without anesthesia, you certainly can perform a simple procedure as circumcision in the womb and their is no scarring from surgeries when performed in the womb.

Developmental cognitive psychological stages define how consciousness develops in classic accepted literature and research. I dont have off the top of my head when "theories" of consciousness of pain as we might interpret it form but I do know that it doesnt exist in classic thought at the time a circumcision is performed. Arguing with that is arguing against the body of validated research, people can throw out a single opinion against it but peer accepted studies can throw water on those claims. The act of one person screaming into the woods their opinion does not mean that it is true, but Im sure some will do that with junk science to back it up.

Defining pain, how do you define what a color looks like? What exactly is it? What is color in the mind of a colorblind person. What is the pain of the electrical signals sent from leg trauma to a paralyzed person from birth. You see if the person has never felt sensory information, it doesnt exist in their reality. They have no reference, no attachment to it, it simply doesnt exist, never did, a person looking at injured leg can say that looks painful, but if that leg is attached to a paralyzed person with no sensory information moving up the spinal cord to the brain then that is incorrect, it is not painful, it is not true in reality except in the mind of the person who attributes the notion of pain to what an injured leg looks like. All of this is created by the mind, sensory information is just an interface with this ooze that surrounds us, there are no such things as color, corners, right angles, all of it is just a fabrication of the mind. Its simple sensory and perception of electrical impulses that we assign certain meanings to. At birth you come in with a Tabula Rasa or a blank slate. The empty mind has not yet defined the variables as to what to assign the base electrical impulses, that comes later. The most traumatic experience in that period is the process of being born. All of the sensory information relays is activated as it is suddenly thrust into a completely new environment. One could argue that the act of being born scars the psyche. In fact, all experiences good or bad scar the psyche, each experience in life leaves an indelible impression. You see, it boils down to how you define things. If you look at screaming of a baby, the definition of what the baby is going through is created in your mind, not the baby's mind. Thats why when people try and measure the babys' perception of pain what they are actually measuring is the researcher's perception of the infant's level of pain. That is why we conduct double blind studies, so that the bias and perception of the researcher isnt measured. IT simply Cannot be done with an infant so stating the level of pain an infant feels and what it exists in their mind is an impossibility. Anyone that puts up a junk science study that says it can, I can easily pick apart, it quite simply is impossible to do so. Pain as we know it does not exist in the mind of an infant yet, the attachments and references havent been formed yet, they are still just base electrical impulses generated by biochemical reactions along biological structures. Dont get me started on figures of light playing out in our minds.

Do you remember what happened to Socrates?

Awesome post, man.

 

[BrothaBill]

from your explanation the following can be concluded.

You can no more say that it does NOT permanently scar the baby's psyche anymore then I can say it does, since you said yourself it cannot be studied or measures.

Therefor, I would error on the side of caution with my child, and NOT go slicing off pieces of living tissue from my newborn.

You are correct, and that is my point, only its up to the parent to decide. But making a stand against society alone is the parent's issue in their own mind and making a decision to make them different b/c they want to make change in the world is a selfserving act. WHen making stands against societal norms, lets leave the children out of it. If you approach it from the perspective that you have stated as to not wanting to cause the unnecessary injury or pain then that makes more sense. But, one can deduce that the infant does not feel pain through deductive reasoning and thought which ultimately can be dismissed as well. Like Ive stated previously in Descartes discourse on method, you can doubt everything except for the fact that there is a doubter, then you discover the innate ideas that are there. What are innate ideas, things that are present and real in the mind without ever observing them. Things like a perfect circle, its never been seen but yet we know what it is innately, a straight line, we know what it is but have never seen one, perfect justice etc...The ultimate innate idea is God, something present in every single human no matter where they are born or what they are exposed to. SO God is universal. The definition of Rationalism flows from that. Im not going to go into the antithesis of rationalism with British Empiricist Locke but self is the only truth that can be had.

The truth of the reality of pain can thusly be stated that it exists as yes, no, always, never and both by deductive reasoning. It is the idea of what is the truth and the philosophies of life that one adheres to.

The question was raised: "If a man alone in the woods speaks, and his
wife cannot hear him, is he still wrong?"
I have considered this question in light of the principles of Modern
Physics and offer my thesis.
In the year 1900 Max Planck discovered that the energy of light is
quantified. In 1905 Albert Einstein used Planck's Constant to write the
theory of the Photoelectric Effect, that light behaves as a particle
when it comes to energy transfer. Louis de Broglie proposed that
particles can have a wave nature and this fact was later verified.
These discoveries led Neils Bohr to propose a radical theory of the
atom, which was partially successful in explaining the emission spectra
of the hydrogen atom. Neils Bohr was compelled to introduce the
Principle of "Complementarity," that light is both a particle and a
wave.
The modern theories were extended when Max Born showed that the
distribution of energy was a function of probability. Further, Warner
Heisenberg wrote the Principle of Uncertainty, which says that it is
impossible to determine the exact location of an electron and the vector
direction of its momentum at the same time.
This was followed with the master stroke penned by Erwin Schrodinger.
Using the "Psi function" of Quantum Mechanics, Schrodinger could map the
"wave field" of any particle, thus giving us a theoretical explanation
for the structure of an atom and the entire periodic table of the
elements.
The Quantum mechanics predicts that a wave of a single frequency would
stretch out to infinite proportions, the superposition of a narrow range
of frequencies produces a standing wave function which can be localized
to a much more precise location. Thus the electron and its position
within an atom becomes a cloud of probability.
From this I infer that there are such states as being right and being
wrong, within certain parameters of uncertainty. Applying the Psi
function, the more vague the statement of the man the greater the
probability of him being correct. The narrower and more specific his
utterance the greater the likelihood of his being wrong.
Also, the Principle of Complementarity assures us that if a man alone in
the woods speaks, and his wife can not hear him, he is BOTH right and
wrong until he comes out of the woods.
In the analogy of Schrodinger's Cat, the cat in the box is both dead and
alive until someone opens the lid. The act of observing the phenomenon
determines the outcome.
Thus, the inevitable conclusion is that it doesn't matter what the man
says only his wife can determine whether or not he is correct.



FOR THOSE WHO dont know the Famous Schrodinger's cat in the box thought experiment paradox.
Schrödinger's cat is a famous illustration of the principle in quantum theory of superposition, proposed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. Schrödinger's cat serves to demonstrate the apparent conflict between what quantum theory tells us is true about the nature and behavior of matter on the microscopic level and what we observe to be true about the nature and behavior of matter on the macroscopic level.
Here's Schrödinger's (theoretical) experiment: We place a living cat into a steel chamber, along with a device containing a vial of hydrocyanic acid. There is, in the chamber, a very small amount of a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill the cat. The observer cannot know whether or not an atom of the substance has decayed, and consequently, cannot know whether the vial has been broken, the hydrocyanic acid released, and the cat killed. Since we cannot know, the cat is both dead and alive according to quantum law, in a superposition of states. It is only when we break open the box and learn the condition of the cat that the superposition is lost, and the cat becomes one or the other (dead or alive). This situation is sometimes called quantum indeterminacy or the observer's paradox: the observation or measurement itself affects an outcome, so that it can never be known what the outcome would have been if it were not observed.

We know that superposition actually occurs at the subatomic level, because there are observable effects of interference, in which a single particle is demonstrated to be in multiple locations simultaneously. What that fact implies about the nature of reality on the observable level (cats, for example, as opposed to electrons) is one of the stickiest areas of quantum physics. Schrödinger himself is rumored to have said, later in life, that he wished he had never met that cat

 

[Ulcasterdropout]

So ,when can the infant feel pain?
Even if it can be done painlessly, doesn't mean it should be lopped off.

 

[BrothaBill]

Awesome post, man.

Thanks, but less not be too obvious that you are me as Im logged in as you in Mozilla as you and internet explorer as Brothabill. LOL

 

[scriptfactory]

Thanks, but less not be too obvious that you are me as Im logged in as you in Mozilla as you and internet explorer as Brothabill. LOL

Sorry. I forgot we have to keep it on the downlow...

 

[BrothaBill]

So ,when can the infant feel pain?
Even if it can be done painlessly, doesn't mean it should be lopped off.

Exactly, thats why Ive stated that I have no position on circumcision, I simply dont care. Its up to the parent and what they decide for their child. That simple as Ive stated, its done for aesthetic reasons only, there is nothing more to this argument. Any arguments that pro or con should be limited to societal norms but people kept throwing words such as barbaric, Im just trying to keep the discussion honest, thats all. An exercise in thought is all this thread is. Im actually surprised how well in turned out. Props to Lestat. It boils down to parents rights and what they decide for their child

 

[Lestat]

these last few posts remind me of the BrothaBill of old. Good work man.

 

[spongebob]

Do you remember what happened to Socrates?

history records him dead.

 

[Lestat]

threads like this are what internet message boards are all about!