actually life is seen to only arise from life - big difference between creating life from base components and fiddling with the dna of an already existing life form
Again that is not what was done, DNA was CREATED, and entire genome in facts was printed out from a DNA synthesizing machine and inserted and booted up in a dead cell striped of its own DNA, there was no "fiddling with" existing DNA.
don't be daft - people with good income in a stable economy and a full tummy still suffer like hell - in fact they are probably the number one demographic client of psychiatrists and counsellors
Ha! two points, in poor countries they can't afford psychiatrics and I would take the need for psychiatric help any day over starving to death as a child because my parents died of AIDS. You can't argue that the amount of suffering is the same, your being dishonest in doing so.
if you mess with it to the point of death you can't do any more messing - that's the point
No I don't see the point, elaborate, are you saying that consciousness exist after death, if so then yes that concept is just like god: unprovable, immaterial.
I am suggesting that even if we want to run with your assumptions, you still can't approach the problem of reducing consciousness to its essential components (and instead would prefer to talk about affecting consciousness in different environments as a solution to the problem)
And I'm saying that is irrelevant, reducing god or consciousness or what ever to "essential components" is irrelevant, it has no baring on being able to determine the existence of the subject!
Once placed in a cell it becomes alive, that what was proven. The argument was not that DNA was alive, it was that life could be made from the dead, that if we assemble the components we can make life. A cell filled with only proteins, sugars and lipids is not alive, it does not reproduce, it quickly decays into nothing, but pop in a genome, even one manufacture artificially and it becomes alive, this is what was done.
so if someone is missing a big toe or an eyebrow they have significantly less being to say hello to?
Depends on how we interact, you could be a brain in a jar or a computer simulation for all I know now. As a person others know you by whom they interact with, an ensemble of physical and mental characteristic which make up you or more accurately make up your interact with them, certainly if we remove something like an eyebrow they will notice, but I don't think that would be a significant reduction in physical presents you provide, if anything it might make your physical presents more impressive through comic relief.
whatever you (imagine) you can do,
I imagine I'm eating dinosaur meat on a planet in another galaxy... how can I do that?
you cannot invest life in something that essentially has no life (from base components or whatever)
This is a cute sentence but I fail to understand its meaning, what do you mean by "invest life"? People blow thousands of dollars and years of their life in rebuilding antique cars for example so I really don't see how people can't "invest life" in something that has no life.
once again,according to your strict definitions the mind is also a metaphysical construct so you can't even say god exists there
no, a mind without material form is metaphysical.
the problem is you are still making a knowledge base claim (since it involves use of categories like "rain", "fall" and "down")
try again if you want (although its a futile endeavor)
why is that a problem?
right here
"you don't need knowledge to determine if its real of not"
Right you don't need knowledge of the thing to determine if it exists, you keep talking about defining the mind or life in some kind of claimed unknowable detail, the detail is irrelevant, you merely need to be able to detect or interact with something to know it exists, how ,what or why it exists in irrelevant, its details can remain mysterious.
