I’d say that the embryo and the placenta are each their own thing, albeit connected by the umbilical cord. I wouldn’t consider any of these three things to individually be “the human”, and nor would I consider all three of them to collectively be “the human”.
But we can even drop consideration of “the human” here and just consider the embryo. A zygote develops into a blastocyst, and then some of its cells develop into a placenta and some into an embryo.
To say that the placenta is part of the embryo rather than that the embryo is part of the placenta is special pleading.
A placenta is an organ. A featus is not an organ. It has a substantial unity. — Count Timothy von Icarus
and are capable of sustaining their own form — Count Timothy von Icarus
What does it mean to be a member of the human species? Is the placenta a human being? It has human DNA, is a living organism, and develops from the blastocyst. Is the heart a human being?
If a blastocyst separates into twins, is that one human being becoming two?
Do you mean that it can survive on its own? Because a (young) foetus certainly can't
A placenta isn't a living organism. It's an organ. — NOS4A2
But yes, an individual zygote can split into two individuals. It's why identical twins are identical, or mirror images of each other. In any case, both can trace their history and existence to the one zygote. — NOS4A2
If not, then what is it? — NOS4A2
What do you think a living organism is?
Yes, but importantly each twin is not the same individual as the other and so they cannot both be the same individual as the zygote. Therefore either just one of them is the same individual as the zygote (special pleading) or neither is.
The fact that they can "trace their history and existence" to the zygote does not entail that they and the zygote are the same individual.
A eukaryotic cell containing 24 distinct chromosomes.
Basically any living thing. — NOS4A2
Sure it does. The facts indicate that they were both the same zygote. — NOS4A2
And no human being was every a eukaryotic cell containing 24 distinct chromosomes? — NOS4A2
It just means that something is a proper whole with proper parts. — Count Timothy von Icarus
No lifeform is capable of sustaining itself in isolation, but obviously plants and animals are self-organizing and self-sustaining in ways that rocks, storm systems, stars, etc. are not. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Why does a placenta not count as a "proper whole with proper parts"?
Yes, but let's take different forms of living organism; bacteria, zygote, placenta, foetus
A placenta is a living thing.
The zygote grew into them, but they are not the same thing, as proven by the fact that each twin is not the same thing as the other.
As it stands you're saying that A is the same individual as C, that B is the same individual as C, but that A is not the same individual as B. That's a contradiction.
This is such an ambiguous question. Glass used to be sand, but sand isn't glass. Butterflies used to be caterpillars, but caterpillars aren't butterflies. My house used to be a pile of bricks, but that pile of bricks wasn't my house.
Your reasoning that "A used to be B, therefore A and B are the same individual" is fallacious. Identity doesn't work that way.
A placenta is an organ of a living thing. — NOS4A2
They were the same thing at an earlier stage in their development. It is no contradiction if C splits into A and B.
...
A used to be A, is my reasoning. It’s a continuum. A doesn’t switch identities at some arbitrary point. You’re the one positing B. — NOS4A2
One of these is not like the others; a placenta is an organ not an organism. A liver is likewise not an organism. — Count Timothy von Icarus
And it is a living thing.
If twin A is the same individual as the zygote and if twin B is the same individual as the zygote then twin A is the same individual as twin B.
Twin A is not the same individual as twin B.
Therefore twin A is not the same individual as the zygote and/or twin B is not the same individual as the zygote.
Banno, my position is that a blastocyst is a human being, not that it is a person. Can you please critique that instead of a straw man? I want to hear why you don't think that the blastocyst is alive, a separate alive entity than the mother, and is a member of the human species. It is really weird, to me, to say that it is not a new member of the human species. — Bob Ross
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