If life begins at conception, why don't identical twins share consciousness?

Question

just something i started thinking about the other day...identical twins are formed when the fertilized egg splits. I've always thought that life begins at conception, and now I'm starting to wonder. What do others think about this?

Oh, and might I add a quote from my friend:

"If they found a fetus on Mars, they would sure as hell call it life!"

So it's fair to say that you can have a life without conciousness? Or a life without a soul?

I say this because everyone seems to be making a distinction between the two by saying something happens when the brain develops. This could open new arguments that there is life out there without consciousness/self awareness but are acting purely on instinct, such as animals.

Answer 1

I don't think it matters. Nobody argues that newly-formed embryos are conscious, the only question is whether they can be considered to be alive. Some people have argued that life should not be considered to have begun until the embryo has reached the point where it cannot divide into two (although you have to remember that certain species, such as starfish, can do this all their lives). But you wouldn't expect twins to share memories, much less conciousness, because their brains hadn't even started developing at the point when they split.

And to your friend: They're finding fossilized bacteria on Mars and calling it life. In the context of exploring extraterrestrial environments, "finding life" doesn't just mean "finding something that is individually alive here now," but "finding something that proves that there is or was life here." A fetus would prove that there was life there, because it came from a living being. It might not be considered life itself--not only because the scientists who found it might believe life begins at birth, but also because if you have found a fetus, and you have not found a mother, then you have found a dead fetus.

Answer 2

You can agree that biologically life begins at conception. But consciousness is a function of the brain and the brain does not begin development until a few weeks in with the development of the neural tube. Each neural tube in twins is formed seperately so they will not share consciousness. But as we know, they still have a very strong bond.

Amimals have brains. Even if they are not as developed as humans, there is still a network of nerves that react to and/or control movement. We might say they are conscious, but they lack the awareness of their relationship in the environment. their instincts work on a more base level.

There is, I believe, a small distinction that we make most of the time between being conscious and consciousness.

Consciousness is a state of having self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment.

Being conscious although it is technically defined as a noun or adjective meaning the same, has the more colloquial meaning of just being awake. We use it as a verb all the time. Think of it. When someone is in an accident and they are resuscitated, we say they are conscious the minute they breathe or open their eyes.

Answer 3

The church has been debating that for centuries now. Biologically, the egg and sperm were alive prior to conception. At conception, there are no neurons, so there can't be any consciousness. From a religious standpoint, it is just assumed that god puts two differant ones in one egg. After all, an omnipotant god can by definition do anything he or she wants .

Answer 4

I'm an comparable triplet and that i in my view have faith that our lives did start up at theory. human beings could have the comparable lives, think of roughly people who lead precisely the comparable circumstances. even although we've been all a single embryo in the commencing up we had the cells and genes that would make each individuals