“Half” only exists in the sense of the DNA molecules of that new human. That’s why I didn’t say that past humans didn’t recognize any similarity; I said that they weren’t aware of a particularly salient sense in which the child is a “half-copy” (or quarter copy or any fractional copy).
It may be easy for you, someone familiar with recent human biological discoveries, to say that the child is obviously a “part copy” of the parent, because you know about DNA. To the typical historical human, the child is simply a good, independent human, with features in common with the parent. Similarly, when I make a paperclip, I see it as having features in common with me (like the presence of bendy metal wires), but I don’t see it as being a “part copy” of me.
So, in short, I don’t deny that they wanted “children”. What I deny is that they thought of the child-making process in terms of “making a half-copy of myself”. The fact that the referents of two kinds of desires is the same, does not mean the two kinds of desires are the same.
“Half” only exists in the sense of the DNA molecules of that new human. That’s why I didn’t say that past humans didn’t recognize any similarity; I said that they weren’t aware of a particularly salient sense in which the child is a “half-copy” (or quarter copy or any fractional copy).
It may be easy for you, someone familiar with recent human biological discoveries, to say that the child is obviously a “part copy” of the parent, because you know about DNA. To the typical historical human, the child is simply a good, independent human, with features in common with the parent. Similarly, when I make a paperclip, I see it as having features in common with me (like the presence of bendy metal wires), but I don’t see it as being a “part copy” of me.
So, in short, I don’t deny that they wanted “children”. What I deny is that they thought of the child-making process in terms of “making a half-copy of myself”. The fact that the referents of two kinds of desires is the same, does not mean the two kinds of desires are the same.