My immediate question was, oh, then do they feel pain? But how can we know for sure, if only a few decades ago we thought human babies didn't experience pain because they don't have recall to...
My immediate question was, oh, then do they feel pain? But how can we know for sure, if only a few decades ago we thought human babies didn't experience pain because they don't have recall to earliest memories, and we just recently finally admitted octopi and lobsters feel pain, then we just now figure out what brain means, how do we know nociceptors as we understand them isn't crazy flawed?
They run away, they hide, they cover up when exposed to strong sunlight, they try to stay in water.... Jellyfish get sleepy and have slower reaction when kept awake, for heaven's sake, and they're almost entirely all water.
Anyway back to full body brain. Maybe this will have long term influence on how we can treat our own centralized nervous system issues: what if we can stem cell some new neurons and stick em around our bodies to cure, say, restless legs or phantom limbs or impotence or spine injuries ? Or enhance our reaction times or re-train trauma response etc.
I don’t know for sure but to me it’d be logical all living things feel pain. It’s too big an evolutionary advantage to feel pain that I don’t see why any species would forego or not develop it. As...
then do they feel pain?
I don’t know for sure but to me it’d be logical all living things feel pain. It’s too big an evolutionary advantage to feel pain that I don’t see why any species would forego or not develop it. As such, I feel it’s unethical to harm or eat any living being. Maybe I’m wrong but I’d rather be too cautious than not enough, imagine realizing how much pain you’ve been inflicting your whole life otherwise!
Do you count plants, fungi, or bacteria as living beings? I think if I avoided eating anything living I would subsist mainly on salty water, and I would not survive very long.
Do you count plants, fungi, or bacteria as living beings? I think if I avoided eating anything living I would subsist mainly on salty water, and I would not survive very long.
That's why some people will only eat the fruiting bodies of plants. Seeds, fruit, mushrooms, beans, a variety of vegetables... It's all part of the plant that was designed to be eaten or cast off...
That's why some people will only eat the fruiting bodies of plants. Seeds, fruit, mushrooms, beans, a variety of vegetables... It's all part of the plant that was designed to be eaten or cast off in order to propagate the plant. Humans take over spreading the plants and in turn take the produce.
I have an immediate NO to this question even though I was still pondering on bacteria and fungi from the previous comment. If it isn't organic I don't care about its supposed suffering. Edit: hmmm...
I have an immediate NO to this question even though I was still pondering on bacteria and fungi from the previous comment. If it isn't organic I don't care about its supposed suffering.
Edit: hmmm no I clearly care about fictional characters suffering as portrayed in media....likely I will begin to care about AI suffering soon, when I have more experience/comfortable seeing consciousness and awareness from them. I refuse to be rude to Google Home or Chappy, but that's for my sake not theirs. But I can see it, when we give it a body and it moves around on its own, I think that's when I'll make the switch.
I'm sure ants have an internal state that could be labeled as pain, but does it mean anything to compare that to the human experience of pain? I assume animals as simple as ants are more like...
I'm sure ants have an internal state that could be labeled as pain, but does it mean anything to compare that to the human experience of pain? I assume animals as simple as ants are more like automata than like us. Moving down the levels of complexity in the tree of life, at some point there's going to be a loss of any relatability. Yes, those simple animals have evolved to preserve themselves. They recoil from heat and avoid predators. But acting as though they go through the agony and suffering a human might as they die seems like an attempt to feel holy by granting something small the benefit of the doubt.
One man's PTSD is another animal's simple learned trauma response, eh? Where is the line where a living being retreating from things that previously hurt them is an automatic response unworthy of...
One man's PTSD is another animal's simple learned trauma response, eh? Where is the line where a living being retreating from things that previously hurt them is an automatic response unworthy of consideration?
Hard to say. It’s going to be shades of gray all the way down. I’m sure you could observe responses in bacteria and amoeba that you can try to warp into anthropomorphic analogies as well. Would...
Hard to say. It’s going to be shades of gray all the way down. I’m sure you could observe responses in bacteria and amoeba that you can try to warp into anthropomorphic analogies as well. Would you try to claim individual human cells should be empathized with? Parts of our immune system exhibit agency on a cellular level.
And even those cells learn what's dangerous and will react more strongly to prior dangers. Survival is just that baked into us all. I can try to have empathy for my body when it's having an...
And even those cells learn what's dangerous and will react more strongly to prior dangers. Survival is just that baked into us all. I can try to have empathy for my body when it's having an allergic reaction, though it's of course easier to just be irritated that it isn't working the way I want. Is empathy wrong, when most other life shows that it's going through the same challenges we are?
I still eat meat, drink milk, etc. My empathy for their situation doesn't drive me to action every time. I just recognize that my diet is predicated on immense human and animal suffering that I have little power to abate. If people want to tell themselves that the creatures they hurt aren't really in pain in order to insulate themselves from having to grapple with the cruelty of the world? I don't begrudge them that. It's a hard thing.
It makes sense that living things should feel pain in an abstract sense, but its hard to figure out a specific concrete sign. Like, plants dont have nervous systems like animals do, but they do...
It makes sense that living things should feel pain in an abstract sense, but its hard to figure out a specific concrete sign. Like, plants dont have nervous systems like animals do, but they do still respond to stimuli. So its possible they feel something analogous to animal pain, but its hard to say if thats the "same" thing. Are plants really "feeling" that, or is the experience of "feel" something specific to the nervous system?
TBH, that's precisely why if something can feel "pain" (responds aversely to negative stimuli) it isn't sufficient, in my eyes, to care about it. Bacteria, parasites, insects, and even some plants...
TBH, that's precisely why if something can feel "pain" (responds aversely to negative stimuli) it isn't sufficient, in my eyes, to care about it. Bacteria, parasites, insects, and even some plants will respond to negative stimuli, but it would be insane to totally alter ones lifestyle to avoid causing any of them pain. But if something has some level of consciousness, some level of self-awareness, and can "suffer" mental anguish as a result of experiencing pain, then that's a different story though. Then I actually do care, and would prefer to cause as little suffering in other such beings as I can, whether human or animal.
However, despite that, unfortunately there is only so much I can actually care about other beings' suffering in practical terms and still survive as a modern human. Veganism is a genuinely noble goal and lifestyle choice, but IMO it's not realistically achievable for everyone, or even the majority of people. We all only have so much time, mental bandwidth, and money to devote to goals like that, no matter how noble, especially when just surviving day-to-day is difficult enough already, and practically the whole system is designed to cater to our natural omnivorous diets.
I agree. The default stance is that pain and suffering is bad, so if something feels pain thats bad, but that stance is predicated on the human centric concept of pain. Once you start expanding...
I agree. The default stance is that pain and suffering is bad, so if something feels pain thats bad, but that stance is predicated on the human centric concept of pain. Once you start expanding the definition of pain, or any other concept, you need to reassess whether those previous stances should still apply to the new definition.
We don't even have a concrete sign to identify pain in humans, let alone other organisms. At the most basic level, the purpose of pain is to alert living organisms that something is wrong and thus...
We don't even have a concrete sign to identify pain in humans, let alone other organisms.
At the most basic level, the purpose of pain is to alert living organisms that something is wrong and thus ensure survival. It's why people born with congenital anelgesia—insensitivity to pain—tend to die young. They don't notice injuries for starters, but they also can't feel the little signs like the twinges of discomfort from a certain position putting strain on their joints and muscles. Even without getting major life-threatening injuries or infections, their bodies can break down from wear and tear far earlier than others.
To that end, some organisms may not experience pain to the extent humans do. It may be closer to the same level of discomfort from a physically stressful position rather than full-blown pain since that would still pass on the message. And for organisms that do feel "proper" pain, some species' pain tolerance as a whole might be higher than humans.
That's a safe attitude, better safe than sorry. But I'm not sure I can live knowing I am inadvertently destroying billions of bacteria every day even if I am only breathing and drinking (filtered)...
That's a safe attitude, better safe than sorry. But I'm not sure I can live knowing I am inadvertently destroying billions of bacteria every day even if I am only breathing and drinking (filtered) water.
I think I would be happy to say all living organisms respond to stimuli, but for me pain has to have one more interpretive layer of consciousness making a decision on that stimulus based on context: "this hurts I will avoid it" isn't enough; this hurts and normally I would avoid it, but today I am choosing much wanted goal X, so I will choose to continue with this hurt which leads to or is part of goal X.
I see it with my geese for example. They do NOT want to be touched, not gently, not lovingly, not casually nothing. And then it's seasonal mating time and suddenly their mutual dino savagery is totally a-okay happy consensual stimuli.
I smell another Adrian Tchaikovsky book cooking, Children of Spine.
Therefore, our data, which demonstrate the expression of several vertebrate CNS homologs in tissues throughout the sea urchin juvenile nervous system, not only support the head-like hypothesis for echinoderm axial patterning but also suggest that the nervous system of these allegedly “brainless” animals features an “all-brain” organization. Last, the conservation of these molecular fingerprints in other echinoderms suggests that the brain-like organization hypothesis may apply to the entire echinoderm clade.
I smell another Adrian Tchaikovsky book cooking, Children of Spine.
Huh...... I like that we're more clear on names, but I wonder who would ever have thought they were fish. I mentally process it categorically, like, something-fish means aquatic-related. Not even...
Huh...... I like that we're more clear on names, but I wonder who would ever have thought they were fish. I mentally process it categorically, like, something-fish means aquatic-related. Not even just old pisces class, everything wet: all mollusks and maybe even some algae or sea pens etc, to me they are all fish. Comes from classifying the world based on "is it edible if you put a lot of work into it? If yes, then where can it be found. If not it's rocks "
Apparently new fish is all vertebrates not tetrapods. And we're more closely related to goldfish than they are to sharks. Life is weird.
"Fish" used to be the term for animals that get around primarily by swimming (such as shellfish). "Bird" was likewise used for flying animals (such as bees), "beast" for walking animals (such as...
"Fish" used to be the term for animals that get around primarily by swimming (such as shellfish). "Bird" was likewise used for flying animals (such as bees), "beast" for walking animals (such as ants), and "worm" for slithering animals (such as snakes). Nice, logically consistent categories — although there were some weird edge cases (e.g., is a lizard a beast or a worm, or is a beaver a beast or a fish?).
Then they decided to redefine "fish" into a taxonomic category before they had any understanding of actual evolution, and now we've got the illogical, catch-all mess of a term we have today — where a lamprey is a fish and a lungfish is a fish, yet a cow (basically a glorified lungfish) is not a fish. Why? Because it doesn't swim. So why isn't a whale a fish? Also because cows don't swim.
Abstract
Metazoans comprise diverse tissues and cell types, each essential for the organismal survival. Most of these types are established early in embryogenesis and persist into adulthood. In indirectly developing sea urchins, however, the continuity between embryonic and adult stages is interrupted by a planktonic larval stage that undergoes complete metamorphosis. While gene regulatory networks controlling embryonic and larval lineages are well studied, the molecular and morphological identities of postmetamorphic cell types remain poorly understood. Here, we reconstructed the cell atlas of postmetamorphic Paracentrotus lividus juveniles using single-nucleus transcriptomics, revealing conservation of regulatory mechanisms. We identified signatures of eight distinct cell type groups and analyzed 29 neuronal families, including 15 unique photoreceptor types. By combining transcriptomics, spatial analysis, and ultrastructure, we identified vertebrate neuronal and opsin homologs expressed across the juvenile. These findings show that the echinoderm body plan is predominantly head-like and exhibits an “all-brain” organization.
My immediate question was, oh, then do they feel pain? But how can we know for sure, if only a few decades ago we thought human babies didn't experience pain because they don't have recall to earliest memories, and we just recently finally admitted octopi and lobsters feel pain, then we just now figure out what brain means, how do we know nociceptors as we understand them isn't crazy flawed?
They run away, they hide, they cover up when exposed to strong sunlight, they try to stay in water.... Jellyfish get sleepy and have slower reaction when kept awake, for heaven's sake, and they're almost entirely all water.
Anyway back to full body brain. Maybe this will have long term influence on how we can treat our own centralized nervous system issues: what if we can stem cell some new neurons and stick em around our bodies to cure, say, restless legs or phantom limbs or impotence or spine injuries ? Or enhance our reaction times or re-train trauma response etc.
I don’t know for sure but to me it’d be logical all living things feel pain. It’s too big an evolutionary advantage to feel pain that I don’t see why any species would forego or not develop it. As such, I feel it’s unethical to harm or eat any living being. Maybe I’m wrong but I’d rather be too cautious than not enough, imagine realizing how much pain you’ve been inflicting your whole life otherwise!
Do you count plants, fungi, or bacteria as living beings? I think if I avoided eating anything living I would subsist mainly on salty water, and I would not survive very long.
That's why some people will only eat the fruiting bodies of plants. Seeds, fruit, mushrooms, beans, a variety of vegetables... It's all part of the plant that was designed to be eaten or cast off in order to propagate the plant. Humans take over spreading the plants and in turn take the produce.
Can I continue you question: do AI feels pain? They react to stimulus (prompts), they tries to improve answer when we told them they wrong?
I have an immediate NO to this question even though I was still pondering on bacteria and fungi from the previous comment. If it isn't organic I don't care about its supposed suffering.
Edit: hmmm no I clearly care about fictional characters suffering as portrayed in media....likely I will begin to care about AI suffering soon, when I have more experience/comfortable seeing consciousness and awareness from them. I refuse to be rude to Google Home or Chappy, but that's for my sake not theirs. But I can see it, when we give it a body and it moves around on its own, I think that's when I'll make the switch.
I'm sure ants have an internal state that could be labeled as pain, but does it mean anything to compare that to the human experience of pain? I assume animals as simple as ants are more like automata than like us. Moving down the levels of complexity in the tree of life, at some point there's going to be a loss of any relatability. Yes, those simple animals have evolved to preserve themselves. They recoil from heat and avoid predators. But acting as though they go through the agony and suffering a human might as they die seems like an attempt to feel holy by granting something small the benefit of the doubt.
One man's PTSD is another animal's simple learned trauma response, eh? Where is the line where a living being retreating from things that previously hurt them is an automatic response unworthy of consideration?
Hard to say. It’s going to be shades of gray all the way down. I’m sure you could observe responses in bacteria and amoeba that you can try to warp into anthropomorphic analogies as well. Would you try to claim individual human cells should be empathized with? Parts of our immune system exhibit agency on a cellular level.
And even those cells learn what's dangerous and will react more strongly to prior dangers. Survival is just that baked into us all. I can try to have empathy for my body when it's having an allergic reaction, though it's of course easier to just be irritated that it isn't working the way I want. Is empathy wrong, when most other life shows that it's going through the same challenges we are?
I still eat meat, drink milk, etc. My empathy for their situation doesn't drive me to action every time. I just recognize that my diet is predicated on immense human and animal suffering that I have little power to abate. If people want to tell themselves that the creatures they hurt aren't really in pain in order to insulate themselves from having to grapple with the cruelty of the world? I don't begrudge them that. It's a hard thing.
It makes sense that living things should feel pain in an abstract sense, but its hard to figure out a specific concrete sign. Like, plants dont have nervous systems like animals do, but they do still respond to stimuli. So its possible they feel something analogous to animal pain, but its hard to say if thats the "same" thing. Are plants really "feeling" that, or is the experience of "feel" something specific to the nervous system?
TBH, that's precisely why if something can feel "pain" (responds aversely to negative stimuli) it isn't sufficient, in my eyes, to care about it. Bacteria, parasites, insects, and even some plants will respond to negative stimuli, but it would be insane to totally alter ones lifestyle to avoid causing any of them pain. But if something has some level of consciousness, some level of self-awareness, and can "suffer" mental anguish as a result of experiencing pain, then that's a different story though. Then I actually do care, and would prefer to cause as little suffering in other such beings as I can, whether human or animal.
However, despite that, unfortunately there is only so much I can actually care about other beings' suffering in practical terms and still survive as a modern human. Veganism is a genuinely noble goal and lifestyle choice, but IMO it's not realistically achievable for everyone, or even the majority of people. We all only have so much time, mental bandwidth, and money to devote to goals like that, no matter how noble, especially when just surviving day-to-day is difficult enough already, and practically the whole system is designed to cater to our natural omnivorous diets.
I agree. The default stance is that pain and suffering is bad, so if something feels pain thats bad, but that stance is predicated on the human centric concept of pain. Once you start expanding the definition of pain, or any other concept, you need to reassess whether those previous stances should still apply to the new definition.
We don't even have a concrete sign to identify pain in humans, let alone other organisms.
At the most basic level, the purpose of pain is to alert living organisms that something is wrong and thus ensure survival. It's why people born with congenital anelgesia—insensitivity to pain—tend to die young. They don't notice injuries for starters, but they also can't feel the little signs like the twinges of discomfort from a certain position putting strain on their joints and muscles. Even without getting major life-threatening injuries or infections, their bodies can break down from wear and tear far earlier than others.
To that end, some organisms may not experience pain to the extent humans do. It may be closer to the same level of discomfort from a physically stressful position rather than full-blown pain since that would still pass on the message. And for organisms that do feel "proper" pain, some species' pain tolerance as a whole might be higher than humans.
That's a safe attitude, better safe than sorry. But I'm not sure I can live knowing I am inadvertently destroying billions of bacteria every day even if I am only breathing and drinking (filtered) water.
I think I would be happy to say all living organisms respond to stimuli, but for me pain has to have one more interpretive layer of consciousness making a decision on that stimulus based on context: "this hurts I will avoid it" isn't enough; this hurts and normally I would avoid it, but today I am choosing much wanted goal X, so I will choose to continue with this hurt which leads to or is part of goal X.
I see it with my geese for example. They do NOT want to be touched, not gently, not lovingly, not casually nothing. And then it's seasonal mating time and suddenly their mutual dino savagery is totally a-okay happy consensual stimuli.
I smell another Adrian Tchaikovsky book cooking, Children of Spine.
Up next: Sea cucumbers!
And starfish!
Apparently now they're sea stars. I'm guessing that's meant to cut down on confusion of them being fish.
Huh...... I like that we're more clear on names, but I wonder who would ever have thought they were fish. I mentally process it categorically, like, something-fish means aquatic-related. Not even just old pisces class, everything wet: all mollusks and maybe even some algae or sea pens etc, to me they are all fish. Comes from classifying the world based on "is it edible if you put a lot of work into it? If yes, then where can it be found. If not it's rocks "
Apparently new fish is all vertebrates not tetrapods. And we're more closely related to goldfish than they are to sharks. Life is weird.
Thanks, learned more things today :)
"Fish" used to be the term for animals that get around primarily by swimming (such as shellfish). "Bird" was likewise used for flying animals (such as bees), "beast" for walking animals (such as ants), and "worm" for slithering animals (such as snakes). Nice, logically consistent categories — although there were some weird edge cases (e.g., is a lizard a beast or a worm, or is a beaver a beast or a fish?).
Then they decided to redefine "fish" into a taxonomic category before they had any understanding of actual evolution, and now we've got the illogical, catch-all mess of a term we have today — where a lamprey is a fish and a lungfish is a fish, yet a cow (basically a glorified lungfish) is not a fish. Why? Because it doesn't swim. So why isn't a whale a fish? Also because cows don't swim.
TLDR; whales are fish by any rational definition.
Beavers and Capybara are fish for the purposes of Lent
Link to paper:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx7753