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Wikenigma - an Encyclopedia of Unknowns Wikenigma - an Encyclopedia of the Unknown

Personhood

Personhood continues to be a topic of international debate and has been questioned critically during the abolition of human and nonhuman slavery, in debates about abortion and in fetal rights and/or reproductive rights, in animal rights activism, in theology and ontology, in ethical theory, and in debates about corporate personhood and the beginning of human personhood."

Source : Wikipedia

The philosophical question as to when (during the course of biological development) a growing human fertilised egg become a 'person' has been debated for at least 2,000 years.

It's complicated by the lack of a generally agreed philosophical answer for the definition of a 'person'.

The question is an example of the Sorites paradoxplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigSorites paradox

The Sorites paradox is a philosophical problem dating from the time of Ancient Greece.

It relates to the problem of defining groups - specifically large groups. It has implications for the definitions of 'vagueness' 'fuzziness' 'blurriness' etc etc. Which in turn have implications for mathematics, modern computing systems (search algorithms, quantum computers, etc etc )
which points to the inherent vagueness associated with judging 'categories' - e.g. When does a 'heap' of rice cease to be a 'heap' if one removes one grain at a time?

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