Think [the box] ing discussion

Some people believe a person becomes a person at conception, some believe at the first heart beat, others believe this happens at birth, and yet others believe that a person is not a person until the age of three depending on if this being was properly raised up to the age of three or not. What is your personal opinion?

I can't recall the moment I realized I was a person, so I don't have a date. 'First self awareness' is when I would say someone becomes a person. Since science dictates that awareness is in the brain, hypothalamus I think, but I'm not 100%, but definitely midbrain. Then my opinion is a person is a person when the midbrain has developed and has neurons that depolarize.

That is amazingly interesting.
My personal philosophy is that a person becomes a person at conception. This is because once the gametes are united, they begin developing... into a person. It doesn't develop into anything other than a person, regardless of what stage of development it is in.

Person is not quite the correct term for mine but in terms of the existence of a consistent sentient being I'd say after twelve weeks or the sufficient time for the natural occurrence of twinning to happen and finish. It is only after this that one can know if it is one being or two. (If it's one it reforms back to one).

I think personhood to be emphatically a social phenomenon. Each person comes into being physically through the social and physical interaction of parents, and through the process of a mother giving birth. We then depend physically for many years for our survival on the rather one-sided intervention of others. And then much later we earn our living by interacting with others. Our actions - smiling, walking, talking - are put together in part from random and instinctual movement, but mostly through imitating the movements of others. This involves a discovery that we resemble other people, but then that we differ from them too. Our self-consciousness, which presupposes all of the above, arises largely because we see ourselves with the eyes of others. Sartre calls it "Being for Others", and he is right. Even then, we see ourselves - who we are - not as isolated individuals, but in relation to others.
A sense of our own individuality is of course massively important, but it is largely a socially constructed phenomenon. And our image of ourselves is in relation to the world and in relation to the people we know.

Anthony D wrote: "Our self-consciousness, which presupposes all of the above, arises largely because we see ourselves with the eyes of others. Sartre calls it "Being for Others", and he is right. Even then, we see ourselves - who we are - not as isolated individuals, but in relation to others."

That's interesting. Does he say what happens when a person does see themselves as isolated individuals and not in relation to others?

Michael wrote: "Anthony D wrote: "Does he say what happens when a person does see themselves as isolated individuals and not in relation to others? ..." Sartre famously insists that, through our actions, we choose who we are to be. Nevertheless, our choices are circumscribed by the view that others will have of us (or by our self-conscious view of ourself which is derived from our interactions with others).
More generally, surely who we are is always situated in some pocket of the world? Even to be alone in a garret or homeless on the street is to be "cast out", which is a rather unpleasant kind of relationship with others. We sometimes say of somebody, "She is her own woman", which is to say, she makes her own decisions and does not defer unduly to others. But again this is a particular manner - perhaps rather admirable - of relating to others. We cannot escape others; and if we could approximate to such a state, we wouldn't like it.

It all starts at fertilization since the physiology and the mind are related. A person becomes a person when the gametes join forming a diploid zygote. Having a complete genome and all the necessary biological components, together with the proper environment initiates the whole thing due to the fact that no one becomes a human with a rat's genome (or any other living organism's DNA). Also, there is no further steps without the first step (fertilization), only afterwards comes cellular proliferation, specification and differentiation. Neural tube formation, during gastrulation, initiates the nervous system where the mind begins, etc. Anthony; I agree with you on your comments and would only mention that individuality relies on the uniqueness of how each person experiences the stimuli around them. There is no me without others since we are social animals, I agree, yet I am a product of my memories, past and present which are mine alone.