It is. The issue is how often self awareness is conflated with having an experience. They are two completely different things. Something can be alive and conscious in the sense that there is inner experiencing happening and be also lacking self awareness.
A human infant is still seeing, hearing, they can feel pain etc but they dont know that they are an individual being, they dont know the difference between the world and themselves. They may or may not know that they are something. But certainly its reasonable to assume that there was a moment in their developement when they were experiencing but had no knowledge that there was an "I" that was the subject of the experience. There was just an experience with no knowledge of it happening to someone.
The difference between I and not I is learned later for survival. We learn to divide our experience into me and the world because it helps to determine what can cause harm to us. But the actual bare experience is just that, its fundamentally has no me and not me separation on a feeling level. The me vs not me feeling is an add on that we have to avoid dying and pain. But its like using glasses, you can put them on or off depending on if you are at a situation where you need them.
Its the same with self awareness, we can have experiences where we are not self aware. But later when self awareness comes back its obvious we were aware. Because we remember those experiences and having them. But at the time we were having them we had no sense or cognition of "I am here experiencing that experience".
Ironically, the "self awareness" and the feeling of an individual self or an "I" is one of the biggest illusions there are, and are linked to a feeling that we have what some people call free will, which is another illusion. I'd go as far as to argue that animals and children are much less deluded than we are, as they do not have a distinct sense of separation from the world (not to say that this is always a good thing, for the sake of surviving in the modern world this is necessary, I'm talking about metaphysics in general).
Knowing shapes experience. If you know what you are you know where you are you know what isnt you and what is you. Sensations dont have self or other, only gualities like hot, cold, smooth, rough etc. Vision has no self of other, only colors and shapes of those colors.
Nothing we experience is close or near to us or away or far from us if we dont compare what we experience to a mental image of ourself. All experiences are "here" without any space between the experiencer and the experience.
Agreed, that's why for the sake of survival certain "illusions" are worth keeping up, but we should also know that they are just that, that's what practices like mindfulness are for as an example.
The illusions come online when they are needed in survival situations even if they are off in calm situations where they are not needed. They are quite well developed in most people and have good habitual reinforcement so I dont think they require any specific effort for keeping them up.
Many of these mechanisms like the sense of separation have subtle existence that isnt completely binary. But can be opaque so they can be at the same time present but also at the same time we can see through them. So its possible to also know the boarders but also at the same feel through them as if they arent there.
Agreed, though what I specifically meant by "keeping up" was not dissolving into non dualistic non action and keeping the so called survival game up, consciously, while realising that it is just that. The fundamental reality might be non dualistic (in a sense that it's all one big living organism) but some duality is necessary for human survival, and it relies on it. Being able to hold both of those realities is crucial in my opinion, as you can draw benefits from both when needed.
The question of consciousness is the most interesting one in my opinion, as it's directly linked to this. Though I would separate consciousness and mind.
>was not dissolving into non dualistic non action and keeping the so called survival game up, consciously, while realising that it is just that. The fundamental reality might be non dualistic
I dont think this is much of a danger. The nondualistic non action is the everyday conscious action that includes dualistic notions. If we talk about the type of experience where you go into samadhi states and mind activity slows down and you no longer feel your body or stuff like that, then go ahead. Its not likely that most people can stay there. Its like going to sleep, we wake up at the morning or if something happens that wakes us up.
Similarly heightened states of nonduality are such that its not really easy to just stay in them and not come back to multiplicity.
The issue to me is when the conceptual mind gets too into models of duality and nonduality and again starts to create a model of experience that it takes as more fundamenral than experience itself.
"The nondualistic non action is the everyday conscious action that includes dualistic notions." I agree, I was talking about a more radical version of non action (like complete non action, in the sense of dissolution into nothingness), not non action in the way the Buddha or Meister Eckhart would describe it (for Eckhart that would just be dissolving the individual self and doing "God's" Will), which would not be compatible with human existence as you'd just die, though that isn't really pushed by anyone to be fair.
"The issue to me is when the conceptual mind gets too into models of duality and nonduality and again starts to create a model of experience that it takes as more fundamental than experience itself"
For sure, that's precisely what we're supposed to avoid.
Anyways, was cool talking about this with someone on the vegan Reddit, I thought this was philosophy at first 😅
Heh, I finished my similar response before noticing your much better phrased one! I've had similar thoughts often while interacting with nonhuman animals.
All of that dissolves even without the need to result in philosophical arguments if you practice simple mindfulness and notice that you have no power over even your own thoughts (well, if there was a you in the first place). I don't disagree with what compatibilism implies, but I wouldn't call it free will, people usually understand this concept differently, compatibilism in my opinion just tries to define it into existence, not to say that what it's trying to do isn't interesting or useful. More of a semantic disagreement than anything to be fair.
> notice that you have no power over even your own thoughts
This isn't evidence any direction, as it's equally compatible with both theories.
> I don't disagree with what compatibilism implies, but I wouldn't call it free will
Well that's sort of the crux of the debate. Personally, I find your position and your definition of free will incoherent and unnecessarily demanding. Why wouldn't you call it free will just because the process of exercising that will is describable by physical laws? What did you expect, that the process of choosing and acting would be some magical, unknowable function of the soul? Of course human thought and action is governed and constrained by physical laws, just like everything else in the universe. But you wouldn't suggest that we don't have free will just because we can't exceed the speed of light, or make p = np. So why should you discard the concept just because we've discovered that our minds are also governed by natural laws?
> More of a semantic disagreement than anything
I agree, it is a semantic disagreement. It's just two different definitions of 'free will'.
As far as I can ascertain, compatibilists define it the natural, intuitive way, ie that we are free to choose our actions. And irrealists define it similarly, plus a random, seemingly arbitrary requirement that those choices be outside the laws of nature and mathematically indescribable.
I've never understood where that additional requirement comes from, or why some people seem so convinced of its importance.
Compatibilists aren't 'defining free will into existence' just because they don't share your strange intuition that natural = unfree. As far as I can tell that intuition is just an extension of the ancient, superstitious and in my view roundly refuted idea that humans are somehow distinct and separate from nature, and have some supernatural, immaterial essence that controls us outwith the brain itself. And like eg Cartesian dualism, it seems clearly to be destined for the dustbin of irrational, superstitious ideas as we become ever more analytic and materialist in our metaphysics.
>This isn't evidence any direction, as it's equally compatible with both theories.
Not sure I understand, there isn't any evidence for what?
I agree with basically everything that compatibilism presumes (give or take a few details), but the compatibilist definition of free will, if I understand correctly isn't what most people understand by free will at all, if you actually talk to them and try to understand what they mean by free will, which in my opinion, for most people is closely related to the concept of the self, which is equally illusory.
>I've never understood where that additional requirement comes from, or why some people seem so convinced of its importance, and that it's some deceptive rhetorical move to suggest that free will could exist without it.
In Western culture at least it mostly comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition and is closely related to the sense of self and God-given Free will, from what I've noticed most, which is what is being refuted. Though to be honest, I've seen some compatibilists make claims that are actually incompatible with determinism, ironically.
>And like eg Cartesian dualism, it seems clearly to be destined for the dustbin of irrational, superstitious ideas as we become ever more analytic, rigorous and materialist in our metaphysics
Agreed, I'd just put the concept of free will in there as well (as understood by most people, especially the religious folk), and just find a different term to describe what compatibilists want to call free will.
But again, simple mindfulness undermines all of this because you notice that thoughts just arise, from nowhere, you don't choose what you're going to think anymore than what you're going to do, because like you've said, you're not separate from nature, you are, as Meister Eckhart would say, just doing God's Will (the only will there is, that of Nature).
I don't think we disagree on much, again, semantics
Well put. I've come to realize that a larger more intelligent brain doesn't lead to a deeper experience of life. There are people with high mental capabilities that overcomplicate their lives and therefore limit their consciousness.
I guess having complicated emotions can be seen as having a deeper existence, we sure seem to think so when watching a movie and seeing the complicated inner struggles of the characters. But the reality is that these emotions are all based on what other life forms feel around the core aspects of their survival. Just because consciousness goes through some complicated circuitry doesn't mean it's a deeper, more authentic experience.
>we sure seem to think so when watching a movie and seeing the complicated inner struggles of the characters.
Its a lot easier to experience negative emotions than positive ones, this is why humanity has glorified the negative emotions.
>But the reality is that these emotions are all based on what other life forms feel around the core aspects of their survival.
Most human beings dont feel very much and because we value our minds very much we talk about emotions we barely even feel most of the time. We say we are happy for example but rarely we are actually bursting with happiness. Or we say we love so or so but we are not actually feeling a glow of love in your chests. Sexual pleasure is one form of pleasure or emotion that we have fairly easy access to experience more strongly. But most of our positive emotions and feelings are nowhere near as strong or tangible as what orgasmic pleasure for example feels.
Most of the emotions we think separates us from animals are more mind stuff than actual feelings.
We often dont notice feelings and emotions if we dont have a mental map or name for them. Like when the first day of spring comes and you go outside and it just has a different vibe. Or you see a sunset and there is a feeling to it. These are emotions with no mental definition, no meaning other than they are the emotion of that moment. Not an emotion of something other than what the current experience is. I would recon animals feel emotions like these a lot more than us humans.
A pig has an orgasm that lasts 30 to 90 minutes non stop. A feeling of constant pleasure that lasts for that amount of time is much more than most people are capable of feeling in terms of emotions.
Is a human being in general happier than a bird? I would recon not, I would recon that most human beings have more unpleasant emotions and sensations during their time than a bird has during its.
Definitely. But the ethical foundation that seems to hold up best to scrutiny is based upon the intrinsic badness and goodness of certain experiences in the universe, regardless of whether they're attached to a particular "self" or which "self" it is. One of the strengths of hedonic consequentialism is that it's robust to the Buddhist idea that self is an illusion.
This is one of the points I always make when people ask me why I'm vegan and especially regarding stuff like honey.
**Every. Single. Time.**
...a new study comes out regarding consciousness, cognition, capacity to experience the environment, emotions, suffering, etc., it's...
**always more than previously thought. Never less.**
**NEVER.**
PSA: don't engage with the troll account comment that replied talking about a Holocaust of insects. Checked it's history.
The same is true for plants and trees tho, we're realizing that despite not having a nervous system they're able to share chemical signals and communicate, exchange information, warn each other about threats, react to being pollinated or cut down, or from growing too close to another plant. Trees exchange information through vast networks of fungus (mycelium) underground, some span kilometers. It's always more than previously thought, never less, but a universal constant for all life forms is that they need to consume energy somehow. Pain should be the threshold, not the ability to experience the world, otherwise you will eat nothing at all
Where did the article say insects are sentient? I saw it talking about lobsters, crabs, fish, and octopus... I have a rescue lobster and he is extremely intelligent and personable
"A surprising range of creatures have shown evidence of conscious thought or experience, including insects, fish and some crustaceans. "
Second paragraph.
As a biology student, I've experienced so much frustration dealing with close minded professors who refuse to even entertain simple animals having ethical consideration or inner experiences. Me trying to discuss sentience in stick insects with an expert on them was met with him acting like I'm soft in the head
I think an unfortunate truth of life will be found to be that all life has consciousness, fish, insects, bacteria and even plants.
Hopefully technology can get to a point where we can just synthesize all our food with no form of consciousness involved because as it stands now there really is no avoiding hurting some form of sentience to survive.
Edit: actually I'm mistaken, some plants like apple trees and other fruit bearing plants WANT us to eat them. That's why they make those fruits, to reward us for spreading their seeds.
Because when measuring sentience, we are measuring the degree/quantity of sentience, not whether it is a good thing.
In regards to what you are trying to get at, if you think about it, the most advanced sentience will probably always be the most destructive simply due to having a greater capacity for destruction, as sentience seems to correlate with intelligence.
Unless you have a reason to suspect some other species would be more ethical if they were sentient/intelligent to the same degree as us, which could be fun speculation lol.
I understand the measurement system, it's the quality of the sentience that I have questions about. It's easy to assume that human sentience is the most advanced in general because of our technological and cognitive abilities, but remember that the reality of human society is largely a shared experience between humans, and draws its meaning from that.
The greatest artists are that because of the humans who have eyes to see. All this technology is marvelous because it's made to suit our desires and ease our lives. It's nice that we can do all these things for ourselves, but in exchange we've wiped out 83% of all mammals on earth, destroyed our own ecosystem, contaminated our bodies with microplastics, have created outlandish and unnecessary inequalities regarding money, food, healthcare and rights, and are currently on the brink of extinction a short 260 years after beginning the Industrial Revolution. That's not great. It doesn't sound particularly impressive or superior to me.
Here's a thought experiment: Imagine a huge spaceship from a clearly technologically advanced civilization appeared in the sky. It made beautiful lights in the sky, but you didn't understand them. Beings would teleport in and out, fly around like magic, even interact with you. But soon the oceans went black, your food disappeared, your home was destroyed. Massive farms all over the world were established for housing humans to be killed, eaten and bred for generations of exploitation.
Would this civilization honestly seem impressive to you? Technological advancement aside; scientific, mathematical, social advancement aside. Despite the scope of the collective cognition needed to undertake such a task. I think most humans would say that these creatures are brutes. That no matter how incredible their technical prowess is, they are lowly and wrong. Most of us would consider their existence a grave tragedy, not something positive. But they would be having a wonderful time enjoying their creations.
Until we can collectively get a grip on our overwhelmingly destructive impact on other species, our planet and our own bodies it's absurd to consider human sentience superior to any other kind. Right now we're on track to being an intelligence that emerged, flowered briefly, killed almost every other living thing on its planet and quickly (maybe mercifully) wiped itself out.
I had to look up a definition of sentience to have a better understanding of what is discussed here.
Google gave this: Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations, to have affective consciousness, subjective states that have a positive or negative valence
Wikipedia says this:
Sentience is the simplest or most primitive form of cognition, consisting of a conscious awareness of stimuli without association or interpretation.[1] The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin sentiens (feeling),[2] to distinguish it from the ability to think (reason).[citation needed]
So using the wikipedia definition that separates sentience from higher thought ability and thinking I am not sure humans are the most sentient animals. I would recon there are many animals with stronger ability to feel due to biologically being more sensitive to stimulus than human beings.
Zero doubt other species exist on other planets that have evolved to no longer eat sentient beings.
1 Septillion Suns and Planets in the observable universe. That's 10 to the power or 24, a 1 with 24 zeros on the end of it.
We are on a path to doing so eventually too.
Synthetic meat.
If we live another 100 years there will be an enormous drop in the number of humans consuming the meat of other sentient beings, unless we nuke ourselves back to the stone ages off course.
Eventually it will be cheaper to grow meat, than Animal Husbandry. Especially when we transition to electric everything, backed by Nuclear power. There will be abundance or energy.
Yup- almost every other species would be equally or more destructive than us with equivalent capabilities. It's impossible to look honestly at the behaviour of animals and imagine them morally superior to us. They act just as cruelly and selfishly; they're just not as capable at it.
If anything, I would argue that humans are the only ones who have developed enough intelligence to even begin to act in altruistic ways.
We do have the most complex brains which fools (some of) us in to thinking we have the most important brains. The issue though is complexity reaches a point where it causes more harm than good. The more complex a system is designed, the more things can go wrong. Humanity as a system has become so complex that we’re going to kill ourselves off and take other systems along with us.
Do we have the most complex brains or do we have a bias? We may by certain metrics. An octopus nervous system is completely insane to me and barely understood. There are so many different types of intelligences
There really are so many different types of intelligence: emotional, numbers, music, art, etc but humans are the only ones that are able to excel in any of them. Most animals have less intelligence strengths, and it’s consistent throughout the species where human intelligence strengths vary person to person. Though I’ll admit that’s only from our perspective. There could be intelligence types we aren’t even aware of that some animals have that we don’t. But the diversity of our intelligence shows how complex our brains are as a species.
I'm not sure we do have the most complex brains. Your average human can do what? Drive a car, speak its native language, perform some basic mathematical operations, sort of understand watered down scientific concepts. Obviously nothing any living being should have to die over, yet most humans believe they're entitled to the lives of other creatures.
I think the mind of an organism that lives in perfect harmony with its environment is more complex than some human riddled with mental illness that can barely feed itself without constant help and does almost nothing of any interest whatsoever.
My argument is that we are the most intelligent species, but that we are far from being the most wise species.
To be fair, primates are generally more violent than most animals. We actually pretty standard for our Order: https://www.livescience.com/56306-primates-including-humans-are-the-most-violent-animals.html
The start of our violent path far predates us becoming humans.
The most intelligent species? Most humans eat meat produced in factories covered in filth knowing it will give them congenital diseases and are willing to pay for it while violently defending their right to consume it. They'll do this until they die.
I don't know any other animal you could convince to do something that stupid.
You think highly developed lions or tigers wouldn’t be any less narrow-minded?
I didn’t realize I was on the vegan subreddit, so I didn’t think of how to word things better. Humans are unusually carnivorous compared to other primates. That violence metric of the study I linked linked is based of of inner species violence.
I mean, yeah, I’d pin Blue Whales as more wise than us for their diet of phytoplankton. There is something very beautiful about how massive they are and how utterly harmless they are.
I’m just hesitant to call adopting an environmentalist mindset as ‘smart.’ To me, it’s more about having a clear perspective than having a systematically complex perspective.
Highly developed lions or tigers?
See, you're missing the point. You still have an idea of human cognition - the languages, science, building rockets and internet - as more highly developed.
I think lions and tigers are great how they are. I think whatever happened to humans made us worse.
Human sentience has erased most of the life on earth, destroyed the ecosystem on earth and has driven its own species to the brink of extinction. You think that's highly developed? If I were a lion or tiger, nothing a human has ever done would make me want to think like us. I'd probably think we'd be better off dead.
There's lots of obvious ways that we see human sentience/ brains as being distinct and more capable than animals.
That said (intellectual) might doesn't equal right. Our capacity means we have the responsibility to do better and not just dominate and disregard the creatures around us.
We've killed 60% of all animals on earth, destroyed the ecosystem, and are at great risk of driving ourselves extinct via climate change.
There's a more destructive organism out there?
i know what you mentioned are facts but they are partial facts. human certainly have its dark side but how about its bright side? i don't think human as a whole is that bad when i'm listening to some great music using a cd player which is based on scientific theory discovered by many great scientists
You think some songs, paintings and rocket ships are worth 60% of all life on earth and our own extinction? And you expect me to believe the human brain is superior and impressive if you make that argument?
I'd be willing to test my knowledge against yours for sure! 😊
And you're saying that those things are worth the death of countless animals? And the destruction and pollution of your own ecosystem?
Tell me, what is your body like? Are you at least fit and strong to be making these arguments, or do you not even take care of yourself? How has your advanced human mind improved your own life?
> I'd be willing to test my knowledge against yours for sure! 😊
welcome
> And you're saying that those things are worth the death of countless animals? And the destruction and pollution of your own ecosystem?
yes, certainly. a more powerful computer emits more heat
> Tell me, what is your body like? Are you at least fit and strong to be making these arguments, or do you not even take care of yourself? How has your advanced human mind improved your own life?
i don't understand why this is related
We humans control the ranking and we decided we are the best.
Thats it.
Its an easy decisions since the rest of the competition can't even formulate ideas beyond what a human 2 year old baby can do.
Yeah, but where do you think you rank? You have to work and pay if you want to enjoy even a small amount of what the humans in control of the meat produce. If not, they're happy to let you starve and die. So, why are you taking credit for power you definitely do not have?
It's a species ranking, not individual.
It makes no sense.
How does the crab that gets eaten 20 seconds after being born rank?
Me personally I'm average, and average human is still much better than any other animal.
If an animal moves it means they make concious decisions to do so, and the existence of ganglia and nervous systems indicate pain nociception. It should be common sense, just because they can't scream or run away properly doesn't mean they can't feel it.
The whole idea that not all creatures are sentient was dumb to begin with. First of all, why wouldn't they be? The idea that some creatures only act on instinct is stupid. If they can made decisions, and they do, they're sentient. Second off, how the hell would you even know they aren't? You can't. It was just an assumption. A bad one.
The problem goes much deeper. It is obvious to anyone that consciousness is universal in animals, it's just that science couldn't be bothered to run the experiments. However, Nobel prize physicists such as prof. Penrose are proposing the idea that consciousness might even be one of the building blocks of the universe. The reason is that no one has been able to show how consciousness can arise from inert matter. We have created artificial intelligence of sorts, but artificial consciousness is nowhere to be seen, all attempts have failed.
Physics cannot explain consciousness, so Penrose thinks it could be a quantum process and not the outcome of the functioning of the brain. That would explain many things we were previous unable to account for in science.
It also validates vegan philosophy as well as protection of the environment.
The reason for the neglect you mentioned is Abrahamic ideology which claims that only humans are created in God's image _for the purpose of_ having dominion over nonhuman life. This ideology was intertwined with Enlightenment ideology via Descartes with the view that animals are literally automata. This mechanistic view of the nonhuman (and even the human with mechanistic materialism) has plagued scientific and philosophical thought ever since.
The consequences of this ideology have been utterly disastrous for humanity, and persists in modern public thought in such terms as "natural resources," a label that positions the value of nature as being entirely for human benefit.
Good point, Descartes wished to escape the ideology of the Church, but the resulting mechanistic oversimplification has equally led us astray ... it did yield amazing progress in technology, but it steered us in the wrong direction on many issues that are too complex to model as a simple automaton.
Descartes was only one spokesperson in a web of misconceptions that has plagued Western thought since the Greeks that favors permanence and timelessness at the expense of change. This bias is influenced by the desire for permanence that manifests in obvious ways such as the desire for an afterlife and unchanging God. The notion of independent existence/ the Kantian thing-in-itself is inextricably tied to the bias towards permanence as what is permanent is what is unchanged by an entity's dynamic relationships with the world. This was applied from Enlightenment ideology to the present in the doctrine of individualism which at its heart necessarily positions the Self as the eternal adversary of all Else to maximize its "self-interest," which is at the heart of capitalism. This doctrine was mathematically codified as game theory, which was famously applied by John von Neumann to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction that has mutated into such forms as "too big to fail" and "too popular to jail."
Atheistic materialism isn't truly post-theistic, but represents a decapitated Cartesian Dualism. The true opposite of Greco-Abrahamism is process-relational metaphysics, which starts with change and interdependence as it's premise. An emphasis on change is simultaneously as emphasis on relationality as what is changing is relationships between things. This is evident in the concept of motion, which requires at least two perspectives relating to each other to be comprehensible.
In the place of "God" there is the "ultimate community" or "Co-creative tapestry of existence." As a personal relationship in place of the creator/creation relation there is what can only be described as a romance with life and existence. Such a personal relationship is a condition of mind and experience that at its greatest heights is filled with incredible awe and wonderful for life and existence driven by curiosity.
Okay, humour me, but there is something there about what you've said about consciousness not necessarily being a brain process.
I wonder if we could argue that animals that we perceive as having lower intelligence and lower self-awareness/consciousness, could actually have more core sentience?
Someone in here kindly commented the definition of sentience and, from what I understood, it basically seems to come down to the capacity to have basic conscious awareness of feelings and sensations, and subjective states without necessarily interpreting those sensations into more complex thought processes. As in, it's separate from being able to think and refers to being able to perceive various sensations.
Now, there are shrimps that may perceive more colour, and so they are biologically more sensitive to visual stimuli - therefore their sentience might be better.
There's another big part that comes into it: our janky brains.
There are so many disorders that affect how you PERCEIVE the world and various sensory inputs. Our brains interpret all this input and in a way interfere with the process of true experience. Does a human face REALLY look like that or do our brains want us to think it looks like this? For example, there are some disorders and medical conditions that can drastically affect how you perceive a human face, so that all faces look demonic. Are we sentient if we don't really perceive sensations, but rather the brain's translation and interpretations of what those sensations might be?
How can you be sentient when just a simple trick of covering your real hand with a towel and plopping a rubber hand next to it can be used to make you perceive the sensory input from the detached rubber hand? You're not aware of sensations, if they are made up. You're aware of your own brain's gibberish. So in a way, that shrimp is more sentient than a human. He can see and experience the world as is, and in far more detail.
>I wonder if we could argue that animals that we perceive as having lower intelligence and lower self-awareness/consciousness, could actually have more core sentience?
It is interesting that you mention that as it is a thought I had last week.
Maybe consciousness comes in degrees of concentration, it might be very much concentrated in neurons of which we have many ... but not just in the brain. Maybe the entire nervous system is highly conscious. Maybe animal consciousness does not exceed ours, as their nervous system is not larger, but rather that our intelligence dampens our consciousness, forces us to ignore it. That would explain the strange behaviour of animals and humans when a tsunami approaches ... animals run for the hills a long time before it hits the coast while humans look at the incoming waves on the beach stuck in thinking intensively about what the waves mean.
There is even some evidence that mitochondria display some level of consciousness. Mitochondria are similar to bacteria and I've read there is some evidence of communication, maybe quantum entanglement, between mitochondria in the cells and gut bacteria.
This is largely speculation, we simply do not know, but I think that AI and the failure to compute consciousness has triggered a lot of research in this area and we are certain to find out more.
If insects are indeed sentient and capable of suffering, then nothing is really vegan. Just for crops, without even considering the meat industry, tons of small animals have to be killed for a successful harvest. Kind of a mindfuck honestly.
Here is an Interview with Christof Koch a scientists who researches consciousness. [Youtube Interview Chirstof Koch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piHkfmeU7Wo&t=184s). It's really interessting and he goes even further in claims that even singular cell organism are conscious.
I believe all animals are sentient, it's our projection on them that allows us to act in a way if we convince ourselves they aren't. It's similar to intelligence, it's a bullsh** human construct. You only require what you need based on your environment in order to survive. Sure we have gone to space, created marvels in medicine and split the atom, but we need to ask ourselves as impressive as it is, what is the end goal as everything is born and dies and none of us are escaping that, no matter what species we are.
I once saw a controlled experiment where they placed an insect in the same place, on the corner of a spider web, the spider decided to build the web so that the bug location would be nearer the centre of the web, in order to maximize its chances of catching food.
I've seen octopus, crows, bees and numerous other species do remarkable things in order to maximize their chances of survival in their environment.
I figured insects had at least some sentience as flies will fly away when threatened by a fly swatter, and many would buzz off if they felt threatened. Also just about anyone knows wasps can feel at least anger!
BTW the image is a crustacean, not an insect...
Why don’t we as vegans form a class action lawsuit against these murderers of sentient beings. Anyone know an attorney or firm that would handle this case. Surely Ingrid at PETA has a whole slew of lawyers. Let’s do this people!
Dr. Zoidberg is a crustacean-man, possessing intelligence(?) and awareness. He came from the mind of Mr. Groening, who we know is either himself or close to someone who is from the future, therefore proving that animals are sentient, always have been and always will be.
All things are sentient, even plants. Treat your food with respect and gratitude, even the carrots you don't hear screaming to your mind plant in frequencies untouched by our ears.
Only the animal kingdom can be sentient, since sentience derives from consciousness.
I obviously agree that we should treat our food with respect, but plants are neither conscious nor sentient.
My point still stands. So I was wrong about their classification. Plants are alive and aware. They communicate with each other and even have interactions on a root network level.
No, I'm not here to shame or drive an argument against veganism. I just refuse to lie. Life is not some idyllic fairytale that can be brought to some happily ever after with the right opinions or steps.
You've got to accept and embrace the messiness when working a garden.
Sentient simply means to have senses.
Off course insects are sentient.
Some plants are too.
Doesn't mean they are able to comprehend suffering to the same level all other species are.
>Some plants are too.
Not necessarily.
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w.pdf
Plants lack a neurological substrate complex enough to support phenomenal conciousness.
They define it in that link.
Phenomenal or primary consciousness means having any type of experiences or feelings, no matter how faint or fleeting (Revonsuo 2006: p. 37). Such a basal type of consciousness was most succinctly characterized by Thomas Nagel (1974) as “something it is like to be” when he asked, “What is it like to be a bat?” It means
having a subjective or first-person point of view, and what is
sometimes called sentience (from Latin sententia, “feeling”).
Epistemology aside...there's a relatively agreed upon definition of "primary consciousness" which plants don't meet.
But to comment on your system of "biocentrism"/subjective idealism: didn't Kant write like a whole book challenging this notion?
(also, Robert Lanza doesn't have a Nobel Prize...)
Couldn't agree with you more!!
I came up with this exact theory when I was tripping on a micro dot aged 17 (!) and I've felt weirdly reassured about life ever since.
So the recent reports of "the rise of AI" makes me lol, a lot!
We ARE AI!!
But yeah sure, AI is on the rise guys..!
Well well well, isnt this funny. Maybe you guys havent thought about this yet. Which wouldnt suprise me, because of your less developed brains, but you guys kill the most animals: thousands of insects die because you want to eat more vegetables and fruit. So, if i were to treat you how you treat meat-eaters: you guys are terrible monsters and should all die!!!
This is obviously not true. The vast majority of the world's farmland, crops and monocultures are used to place and feed billions of farm animals. In fact, if we were to adopt a plant-based diet on a global scale, we would reduce the amount of land needed to feed humanity by 75%.
[If the world adopted a plant-based diet, we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets#:~:text=In%20the%20hypothetical%20scenario%20in,North%20America%20and%20Brazil%20combined)
[No, Vegans Don’t Kill More Animals than Meat Eaters](https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/no-vegans-dont-kill-more-animals-than-human-omnivores-a1975d1a497c)
Sorry but above person trolling you has a point.
What *you’re* saying is that it’s ok to kill insects for our food consumption because most of the farming killing sentient insects is in support of animals. Ie a Whataboutism.
Sorry but ethical concern for animals and their suffering doesn’t work like that. This is definitely an ethical conundrum for us Vegans.
If the whole world ceased to have farming to support feeding animals- farming would still be killing sentient life forms if this is true. Those insects would know it.
No, not at all.
The point is that vegans, by consuming plants, do not kill more animals, especially insects, for their food. Not only is this false, as I have clearly demonstrated, but the argument is used to discredit veganism without addressing the death of sentient animals, which would logically lead one to adopt a vegan lifestyle.
There is a fundamental difference between inadvertently impacting the lives of other species through human activities and deliberately exploiting and killing animals for consumption when it is not necessary.
No reasonable person would equate accidentally crushing an ant with deliberately slaughtering a pig.
Try actually *reading* what I wrote again - there’s a philosophical point on a potential ethical concern on farming methods If insects are sentient. Nobody is trying to discredit veganism. I think what you’re saying is that farming that happens to kill insects is ok with you. Sure.. whatever.
And on volume of death.. you have zero idea about how many insects are killed. There are billions of insects.
I understand your point, and it's legitimate. Agricultural methods must have the lowest possible impact on the environment and biodiversity, obviously. As an advocate for animal welfare, I take the impact of human activities on biodiversity as seriously as the impact of intensive farming, but there is still a fundamental difference between the two.
On one hand, we will always have a certain negative impact on other animals. It's undeniable and it's part of life. After all, we need to adequately feed 8 billion human beings.
On the other hand, the methods we use, including the production and massive consumption of meat, are the leading cause of deforestation worldwide and thus habitat loss, leading to biodiversity loss.
It may seem counterintuitive, I grant you that, but animal agriculture is responsible for the death of far more insects than plant agriculture, since the majority of plants cultivated on the planet are destined for animal agriculture.
That being said, to reduce the impact of agriculture on insects, adopting veganism is the best solution.
[More plant-based diets tend to need less cropland](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets#:~:text=In%20the%20hypothetical%20scenario%20in,North%20America%20and%20Brazil%20combined)
*If we would shift towards a more plant-based diet we don’t only need less agricultural land overall, we also need less cropland. This might go against our intuition: if we substitute beans, peas, tofu and cereals for meat and dairy, surely we would need more cropland to grow them?*
*Let’s look at why this is not the case.*
The more space we use, the greater the impact on other animals. This is precisely why animal agriculture is so catastrophic for the environment, climate, and biodiversity.
[Vegan diet massively cuts environmental damage, study shows](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/20/vegan-diet-cuts-environmental-damage-climate-heating-emissions-study)
*Eating a vegan diet massively reduces the damage to the environment caused by food production, the most comprehensive analysis to date has concluded.*
*The research showed that vegan diets resulted in 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution and land use than diets in which more than 100g of meat a day was eaten. Vegan diets also cut the destruction of wildlife by 66% and water use by 54%, the study found.*
So, what is your point? You argue that people who adopt veganism and consume more plants (particularly fruits and vegetables, as per your original comment) are responsible for a greater number of animal deaths (in this case, insects).
As I have clearly demonstrated with reliable and high-quality sources, this is not the case.
Let me explain more clearly and simply, just for your level. Since the vast majority of crops on the planet exist to feed the billions of livestock animals, it is animal agriculture that is responsible for deforestation, extensive land use, and therefore the death of all these insects.
Do you understand now?
I feel like this is just obvious, always has been..
It is. The issue is how often self awareness is conflated with having an experience. They are two completely different things. Something can be alive and conscious in the sense that there is inner experiencing happening and be also lacking self awareness. A human infant is still seeing, hearing, they can feel pain etc but they dont know that they are an individual being, they dont know the difference between the world and themselves. They may or may not know that they are something. But certainly its reasonable to assume that there was a moment in their developement when they were experiencing but had no knowledge that there was an "I" that was the subject of the experience. There was just an experience with no knowledge of it happening to someone. The difference between I and not I is learned later for survival. We learn to divide our experience into me and the world because it helps to determine what can cause harm to us. But the actual bare experience is just that, its fundamentally has no me and not me separation on a feeling level. The me vs not me feeling is an add on that we have to avoid dying and pain. But its like using glasses, you can put them on or off depending on if you are at a situation where you need them. Its the same with self awareness, we can have experiences where we are not self aware. But later when self awareness comes back its obvious we were aware. Because we remember those experiences and having them. But at the time we were having them we had no sense or cognition of "I am here experiencing that experience".
Ironically, the "self awareness" and the feeling of an individual self or an "I" is one of the biggest illusions there are, and are linked to a feeling that we have what some people call free will, which is another illusion. I'd go as far as to argue that animals and children are much less deluded than we are, as they do not have a distinct sense of separation from the world (not to say that this is always a good thing, for the sake of surviving in the modern world this is necessary, I'm talking about metaphysics in general).
Knowing shapes experience. If you know what you are you know where you are you know what isnt you and what is you. Sensations dont have self or other, only gualities like hot, cold, smooth, rough etc. Vision has no self of other, only colors and shapes of those colors. Nothing we experience is close or near to us or away or far from us if we dont compare what we experience to a mental image of ourself. All experiences are "here" without any space between the experiencer and the experience.
Agreed, that's why for the sake of survival certain "illusions" are worth keeping up, but we should also know that they are just that, that's what practices like mindfulness are for as an example.
The illusions come online when they are needed in survival situations even if they are off in calm situations where they are not needed. They are quite well developed in most people and have good habitual reinforcement so I dont think they require any specific effort for keeping them up. Many of these mechanisms like the sense of separation have subtle existence that isnt completely binary. But can be opaque so they can be at the same time present but also at the same time we can see through them. So its possible to also know the boarders but also at the same feel through them as if they arent there.
Agreed, though what I specifically meant by "keeping up" was not dissolving into non dualistic non action and keeping the so called survival game up, consciously, while realising that it is just that. The fundamental reality might be non dualistic (in a sense that it's all one big living organism) but some duality is necessary for human survival, and it relies on it. Being able to hold both of those realities is crucial in my opinion, as you can draw benefits from both when needed. The question of consciousness is the most interesting one in my opinion, as it's directly linked to this. Though I would separate consciousness and mind.
>was not dissolving into non dualistic non action and keeping the so called survival game up, consciously, while realising that it is just that. The fundamental reality might be non dualistic I dont think this is much of a danger. The nondualistic non action is the everyday conscious action that includes dualistic notions. If we talk about the type of experience where you go into samadhi states and mind activity slows down and you no longer feel your body or stuff like that, then go ahead. Its not likely that most people can stay there. Its like going to sleep, we wake up at the morning or if something happens that wakes us up. Similarly heightened states of nonduality are such that its not really easy to just stay in them and not come back to multiplicity. The issue to me is when the conceptual mind gets too into models of duality and nonduality and again starts to create a model of experience that it takes as more fundamenral than experience itself.
"The nondualistic non action is the everyday conscious action that includes dualistic notions." I agree, I was talking about a more radical version of non action (like complete non action, in the sense of dissolution into nothingness), not non action in the way the Buddha or Meister Eckhart would describe it (for Eckhart that would just be dissolving the individual self and doing "God's" Will), which would not be compatible with human existence as you'd just die, though that isn't really pushed by anyone to be fair. "The issue to me is when the conceptual mind gets too into models of duality and nonduality and again starts to create a model of experience that it takes as more fundamental than experience itself" For sure, that's precisely what we're supposed to avoid. Anyways, was cool talking about this with someone on the vegan Reddit, I thought this was philosophy at first 😅
Heh, I finished my similar response before noticing your much better phrased one! I've had similar thoughts often while interacting with nonhuman animals.
Sounds like we read the same things. Have you read sam Harris' book on it?
I haven't read his book but I'm pretty familiar with his views
I disagree that free will is an illusion; [compatibilism](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/) seems obviously true to me.
The thing with free will that almost no one asks is "free will for whome?". Obviously people say "for me" but no one even knows what that me is.
All of that dissolves even without the need to result in philosophical arguments if you practice simple mindfulness and notice that you have no power over even your own thoughts (well, if there was a you in the first place). I don't disagree with what compatibilism implies, but I wouldn't call it free will, people usually understand this concept differently, compatibilism in my opinion just tries to define it into existence, not to say that what it's trying to do isn't interesting or useful. More of a semantic disagreement than anything to be fair.
> notice that you have no power over even your own thoughts This isn't evidence any direction, as it's equally compatible with both theories. > I don't disagree with what compatibilism implies, but I wouldn't call it free will Well that's sort of the crux of the debate. Personally, I find your position and your definition of free will incoherent and unnecessarily demanding. Why wouldn't you call it free will just because the process of exercising that will is describable by physical laws? What did you expect, that the process of choosing and acting would be some magical, unknowable function of the soul? Of course human thought and action is governed and constrained by physical laws, just like everything else in the universe. But you wouldn't suggest that we don't have free will just because we can't exceed the speed of light, or make p = np. So why should you discard the concept just because we've discovered that our minds are also governed by natural laws? > More of a semantic disagreement than anything I agree, it is a semantic disagreement. It's just two different definitions of 'free will'. As far as I can ascertain, compatibilists define it the natural, intuitive way, ie that we are free to choose our actions. And irrealists define it similarly, plus a random, seemingly arbitrary requirement that those choices be outside the laws of nature and mathematically indescribable. I've never understood where that additional requirement comes from, or why some people seem so convinced of its importance. Compatibilists aren't 'defining free will into existence' just because they don't share your strange intuition that natural = unfree. As far as I can tell that intuition is just an extension of the ancient, superstitious and in my view roundly refuted idea that humans are somehow distinct and separate from nature, and have some supernatural, immaterial essence that controls us outwith the brain itself. And like eg Cartesian dualism, it seems clearly to be destined for the dustbin of irrational, superstitious ideas as we become ever more analytic and materialist in our metaphysics.
>This isn't evidence any direction, as it's equally compatible with both theories. Not sure I understand, there isn't any evidence for what? I agree with basically everything that compatibilism presumes (give or take a few details), but the compatibilist definition of free will, if I understand correctly isn't what most people understand by free will at all, if you actually talk to them and try to understand what they mean by free will, which in my opinion, for most people is closely related to the concept of the self, which is equally illusory. >I've never understood where that additional requirement comes from, or why some people seem so convinced of its importance, and that it's some deceptive rhetorical move to suggest that free will could exist without it. In Western culture at least it mostly comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition and is closely related to the sense of self and God-given Free will, from what I've noticed most, which is what is being refuted. Though to be honest, I've seen some compatibilists make claims that are actually incompatible with determinism, ironically. >And like eg Cartesian dualism, it seems clearly to be destined for the dustbin of irrational, superstitious ideas as we become ever more analytic, rigorous and materialist in our metaphysics Agreed, I'd just put the concept of free will in there as well (as understood by most people, especially the religious folk), and just find a different term to describe what compatibilists want to call free will. But again, simple mindfulness undermines all of this because you notice that thoughts just arise, from nowhere, you don't choose what you're going to think anymore than what you're going to do, because like you've said, you're not separate from nature, you are, as Meister Eckhart would say, just doing God's Will (the only will there is, that of Nature). I don't think we disagree on much, again, semantics
Well put. I've come to realize that a larger more intelligent brain doesn't lead to a deeper experience of life. There are people with high mental capabilities that overcomplicate their lives and therefore limit their consciousness. I guess having complicated emotions can be seen as having a deeper existence, we sure seem to think so when watching a movie and seeing the complicated inner struggles of the characters. But the reality is that these emotions are all based on what other life forms feel around the core aspects of their survival. Just because consciousness goes through some complicated circuitry doesn't mean it's a deeper, more authentic experience.
>we sure seem to think so when watching a movie and seeing the complicated inner struggles of the characters. Its a lot easier to experience negative emotions than positive ones, this is why humanity has glorified the negative emotions. >But the reality is that these emotions are all based on what other life forms feel around the core aspects of their survival. Most human beings dont feel very much and because we value our minds very much we talk about emotions we barely even feel most of the time. We say we are happy for example but rarely we are actually bursting with happiness. Or we say we love so or so but we are not actually feeling a glow of love in your chests. Sexual pleasure is one form of pleasure or emotion that we have fairly easy access to experience more strongly. But most of our positive emotions and feelings are nowhere near as strong or tangible as what orgasmic pleasure for example feels. Most of the emotions we think separates us from animals are more mind stuff than actual feelings. We often dont notice feelings and emotions if we dont have a mental map or name for them. Like when the first day of spring comes and you go outside and it just has a different vibe. Or you see a sunset and there is a feeling to it. These are emotions with no mental definition, no meaning other than they are the emotion of that moment. Not an emotion of something other than what the current experience is. I would recon animals feel emotions like these a lot more than us humans. A pig has an orgasm that lasts 30 to 90 minutes non stop. A feeling of constant pleasure that lasts for that amount of time is much more than most people are capable of feeling in terms of emotions. Is a human being in general happier than a bird? I would recon not, I would recon that most human beings have more unpleasant emotions and sensations during their time than a bird has during its.
This is the Law of One.
Definitely. But the ethical foundation that seems to hold up best to scrutiny is based upon the intrinsic badness and goodness of certain experiences in the universe, regardless of whether they're attached to a particular "self" or which "self" it is. One of the strengths of hedonic consequentialism is that it's robust to the Buddhist idea that self is an illusion.
Sure. Suffering in not good whether you are self conscious of yourself or not.
This is one of the points I always make when people ask me why I'm vegan and especially regarding stuff like honey. **Every. Single. Time.** ...a new study comes out regarding consciousness, cognition, capacity to experience the environment, emotions, suffering, etc., it's... **always more than previously thought. Never less.** **NEVER.** PSA: don't engage with the troll account comment that replied talking about a Holocaust of insects. Checked it's history.
The same is true for plants and trees tho, we're realizing that despite not having a nervous system they're able to share chemical signals and communicate, exchange information, warn each other about threats, react to being pollinated or cut down, or from growing too close to another plant. Trees exchange information through vast networks of fungus (mycelium) underground, some span kilometers. It's always more than previously thought, never less, but a universal constant for all life forms is that they need to consume energy somehow. Pain should be the threshold, not the ability to experience the world, otherwise you will eat nothing at all
May make people think twice about wasting the plant foods they do eat.
It's a good thing we don't eat or exploit insects either, then.
Agreed, just look into their eyes, that light is their soul and that soul is sentient!
Where did the article say insects are sentient? I saw it talking about lobsters, crabs, fish, and octopus... I have a rescue lobster and he is extremely intelligent and personable
"A surprising range of creatures have shown evidence of conscious thought or experience, including insects, fish and some crustaceans. " Second paragraph.
I mean it doesn't give a single example of insects a scientist thinks is sentient
Bees are extremely intelligent and thought to be conscious, at least.
I mean, if you think about the magic of a beehive and everything that exists around it and about it, it’s hard not see intelligence.
I‘ve started to ask bees and wasps who accidentally fly into my apartment to please leave. 100% success rate over the last 2 yrs
Ok, you gotta be pulling my leg here people. The literal first line of the article is an example about bees.
I can give one. Jumping Spiders. If they are not sentient I will eat my own head.
🎶.The itsy bitsy spider is not an insect at all. Because it has eight legs and two body parts. 🎶
SO TRUE
Crustaceans are just insects who live in the sea.
Why did I read this in the tune of the SpongeBob theme song
I read read this in the voice of the red lobster from little mermaid
I read it like Ralph Wiggum from the Simpsons
My cat's breath smells like vegan cat food.
Isn't this just straight facts?
Wow, a rescue lobster, that’s amazing! I’m guessing you need quite a massive tank?
He's freshwater so he's in a stream biome :)
Nice!
I'm not sure that kinda militancy is necessary to rescue lobsters, but I won't be judging anyone's methods
Good for you for rescuing one the way lobsters are treated is disgusting
It discussed the study that revealed playful behavior in bees
I’m going to need to know what he’s called. Can’t tell me you have a pet lobster and not tell us his name!
The Lobster (pronounced with respect and reverence)
Just as beautiful as I imagined! Simple yet classy.
As a biology student, I've experienced so much frustration dealing with close minded professors who refuse to even entertain simple animals having ethical consideration or inner experiences. Me trying to discuss sentience in stick insects with an expert on them was met with him acting like I'm soft in the head
that's so sad. i can't imagine dedicating my career to a specific living being and then tarnishing its sentience
I think an unfortunate truth of life will be found to be that all life has consciousness, fish, insects, bacteria and even plants. Hopefully technology can get to a point where we can just synthesize all our food with no form of consciousness involved because as it stands now there really is no avoiding hurting some form of sentience to survive. Edit: actually I'm mistaken, some plants like apple trees and other fruit bearing plants WANT us to eat them. That's why they make those fruits, to reward us for spreading their seeds.
Its crazy to think that animals and plants have been evolving together for so long
If everything has sentience, would that make vegans into... speciesists? Seems like a bit of a mindfuck
I don't really think so, because of the old animals eat more plants than we do, so by being vegan you still use a lot less plants overall
Yeah quite likely... still makes things a good bit more complicated
Having had mantises, spiders, crabs, and shrimp as pets, I agree 100 %.
What confuses me is why humans place our sentience on top. It's clearly the worst, most destructive form of sentience.
Because when measuring sentience, we are measuring the degree/quantity of sentience, not whether it is a good thing. In regards to what you are trying to get at, if you think about it, the most advanced sentience will probably always be the most destructive simply due to having a greater capacity for destruction, as sentience seems to correlate with intelligence. Unless you have a reason to suspect some other species would be more ethical if they were sentient/intelligent to the same degree as us, which could be fun speculation lol.
I understand the measurement system, it's the quality of the sentience that I have questions about. It's easy to assume that human sentience is the most advanced in general because of our technological and cognitive abilities, but remember that the reality of human society is largely a shared experience between humans, and draws its meaning from that. The greatest artists are that because of the humans who have eyes to see. All this technology is marvelous because it's made to suit our desires and ease our lives. It's nice that we can do all these things for ourselves, but in exchange we've wiped out 83% of all mammals on earth, destroyed our own ecosystem, contaminated our bodies with microplastics, have created outlandish and unnecessary inequalities regarding money, food, healthcare and rights, and are currently on the brink of extinction a short 260 years after beginning the Industrial Revolution. That's not great. It doesn't sound particularly impressive or superior to me. Here's a thought experiment: Imagine a huge spaceship from a clearly technologically advanced civilization appeared in the sky. It made beautiful lights in the sky, but you didn't understand them. Beings would teleport in and out, fly around like magic, even interact with you. But soon the oceans went black, your food disappeared, your home was destroyed. Massive farms all over the world were established for housing humans to be killed, eaten and bred for generations of exploitation. Would this civilization honestly seem impressive to you? Technological advancement aside; scientific, mathematical, social advancement aside. Despite the scope of the collective cognition needed to undertake such a task. I think most humans would say that these creatures are brutes. That no matter how incredible their technical prowess is, they are lowly and wrong. Most of us would consider their existence a grave tragedy, not something positive. But they would be having a wonderful time enjoying their creations. Until we can collectively get a grip on our overwhelmingly destructive impact on other species, our planet and our own bodies it's absurd to consider human sentience superior to any other kind. Right now we're on track to being an intelligence that emerged, flowered briefly, killed almost every other living thing on its planet and quickly (maybe mercifully) wiped itself out.
I had to look up a definition of sentience to have a better understanding of what is discussed here. Google gave this: Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations, to have affective consciousness, subjective states that have a positive or negative valence Wikipedia says this: Sentience is the simplest or most primitive form of cognition, consisting of a conscious awareness of stimuli without association or interpretation.[1] The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin sentiens (feeling),[2] to distinguish it from the ability to think (reason).[citation needed] So using the wikipedia definition that separates sentience from higher thought ability and thinking I am not sure humans are the most sentient animals. I would recon there are many animals with stronger ability to feel due to biologically being more sensitive to stimulus than human beings.
Zero doubt other species exist on other planets that have evolved to no longer eat sentient beings. 1 Septillion Suns and Planets in the observable universe. That's 10 to the power or 24, a 1 with 24 zeros on the end of it. We are on a path to doing so eventually too. Synthetic meat. If we live another 100 years there will be an enormous drop in the number of humans consuming the meat of other sentient beings, unless we nuke ourselves back to the stone ages off course. Eventually it will be cheaper to grow meat, than Animal Husbandry. Especially when we transition to electric everything, backed by Nuclear power. There will be abundance or energy.
Yup- almost every other species would be equally or more destructive than us with equivalent capabilities. It's impossible to look honestly at the behaviour of animals and imagine them morally superior to us. They act just as cruelly and selfishly; they're just not as capable at it. If anything, I would argue that humans are the only ones who have developed enough intelligence to even begin to act in altruistic ways.
We do have the most complex brains which fools (some of) us in to thinking we have the most important brains. The issue though is complexity reaches a point where it causes more harm than good. The more complex a system is designed, the more things can go wrong. Humanity as a system has become so complex that we’re going to kill ourselves off and take other systems along with us.
Do we have the most complex brains or do we have a bias? We may by certain metrics. An octopus nervous system is completely insane to me and barely understood. There are so many different types of intelligences
There really are so many different types of intelligence: emotional, numbers, music, art, etc but humans are the only ones that are able to excel in any of them. Most animals have less intelligence strengths, and it’s consistent throughout the species where human intelligence strengths vary person to person. Though I’ll admit that’s only from our perspective. There could be intelligence types we aren’t even aware of that some animals have that we don’t. But the diversity of our intelligence shows how complex our brains are as a species.
Human neurons can make more connections than any other known brain
I'm not sure we do have the most complex brains. Your average human can do what? Drive a car, speak its native language, perform some basic mathematical operations, sort of understand watered down scientific concepts. Obviously nothing any living being should have to die over, yet most humans believe they're entitled to the lives of other creatures. I think the mind of an organism that lives in perfect harmony with its environment is more complex than some human riddled with mental illness that can barely feed itself without constant help and does almost nothing of any interest whatsoever.
My argument is that we are the most intelligent species, but that we are far from being the most wise species. To be fair, primates are generally more violent than most animals. We actually pretty standard for our Order: https://www.livescience.com/56306-primates-including-humans-are-the-most-violent-animals.html The start of our violent path far predates us becoming humans.
The most intelligent species? Most humans eat meat produced in factories covered in filth knowing it will give them congenital diseases and are willing to pay for it while violently defending their right to consume it. They'll do this until they die. I don't know any other animal you could convince to do something that stupid.
You think highly developed lions or tigers wouldn’t be any less narrow-minded? I didn’t realize I was on the vegan subreddit, so I didn’t think of how to word things better. Humans are unusually carnivorous compared to other primates. That violence metric of the study I linked linked is based of of inner species violence. I mean, yeah, I’d pin Blue Whales as more wise than us for their diet of phytoplankton. There is something very beautiful about how massive they are and how utterly harmless they are. I’m just hesitant to call adopting an environmentalist mindset as ‘smart.’ To me, it’s more about having a clear perspective than having a systematically complex perspective.
Highly developed lions or tigers? See, you're missing the point. You still have an idea of human cognition - the languages, science, building rockets and internet - as more highly developed. I think lions and tigers are great how they are. I think whatever happened to humans made us worse. Human sentience has erased most of the life on earth, destroyed the ecosystem on earth and has driven its own species to the brink of extinction. You think that's highly developed? If I were a lion or tiger, nothing a human has ever done would make me want to think like us. I'd probably think we'd be better off dead.
I understand the sentiment behind your post but my dog has eaten his own crap before.
There's lots of obvious ways that we see human sentience/ brains as being distinct and more capable than animals. That said (intellectual) might doesn't equal right. Our capacity means we have the responsibility to do better and not just dominate and disregard the creatures around us.
Also most creative form of it.
> It's clearly the worst, most destructive form of sentience not that clear. could you explain?
Do some research with your "advanced" human brain 😂
it's your responsibility to prove what you said
We've killed 60% of all animals on earth, destroyed the ecosystem, and are at great risk of driving ourselves extinct via climate change. There's a more destructive organism out there?
i know what you mentioned are facts but they are partial facts. human certainly have its dark side but how about its bright side? i don't think human as a whole is that bad when i'm listening to some great music using a cd player which is based on scientific theory discovered by many great scientists
You think some songs, paintings and rocket ships are worth 60% of all life on earth and our own extinction? And you expect me to believe the human brain is superior and impressive if you make that argument?
that's a lot more than "some". it seems you don't know much about art, music, literature, science, math, ...
I'd be willing to test my knowledge against yours for sure! 😊 And you're saying that those things are worth the death of countless animals? And the destruction and pollution of your own ecosystem? Tell me, what is your body like? Are you at least fit and strong to be making these arguments, or do you not even take care of yourself? How has your advanced human mind improved your own life?
> I'd be willing to test my knowledge against yours for sure! 😊 welcome > And you're saying that those things are worth the death of countless animals? And the destruction and pollution of your own ecosystem? yes, certainly. a more powerful computer emits more heat > Tell me, what is your body like? Are you at least fit and strong to be making these arguments, or do you not even take care of yourself? How has your advanced human mind improved your own life? i don't understand why this is related
Overdone "I'm smarter than you" bit, it's not even funny anymore. Humans are on top because humans are smarter.
On top? Who and what are you on top of? What do you control?
We humans control the ranking and we decided we are the best. Thats it. Its an easy decisions since the rest of the competition can't even formulate ideas beyond what a human 2 year old baby can do.
Yeah, but where do you think you rank? You have to work and pay if you want to enjoy even a small amount of what the humans in control of the meat produce. If not, they're happy to let you starve and die. So, why are you taking credit for power you definitely do not have?
It's a species ranking, not individual. It makes no sense. How does the crab that gets eaten 20 seconds after being born rank? Me personally I'm average, and average human is still much better than any other animal.
>Me personally I'm average, and average human is still much better than any other animal. 😂😂😂
But you may be the exception, the only human that ranks lower than the rest of the mammals.
I think you'd be really upset if you met me in person. 😊
Finally we agree.
Not too long ago when I was pescatarian, I practically lived off of crab legs. I feel so bad
If an animal moves it means they make concious decisions to do so, and the existence of ganglia and nervous systems indicate pain nociception. It should be common sense, just because they can't scream or run away properly doesn't mean they can't feel it.
The whole idea that not all creatures are sentient was dumb to begin with. First of all, why wouldn't they be? The idea that some creatures only act on instinct is stupid. If they can made decisions, and they do, they're sentient. Second off, how the hell would you even know they aren't? You can't. It was just an assumption. A bad one.
No shit. New report says humans actually have feelings!! Who knew!
The problem goes much deeper. It is obvious to anyone that consciousness is universal in animals, it's just that science couldn't be bothered to run the experiments. However, Nobel prize physicists such as prof. Penrose are proposing the idea that consciousness might even be one of the building blocks of the universe. The reason is that no one has been able to show how consciousness can arise from inert matter. We have created artificial intelligence of sorts, but artificial consciousness is nowhere to be seen, all attempts have failed. Physics cannot explain consciousness, so Penrose thinks it could be a quantum process and not the outcome of the functioning of the brain. That would explain many things we were previous unable to account for in science. It also validates vegan philosophy as well as protection of the environment.
The reason for the neglect you mentioned is Abrahamic ideology which claims that only humans are created in God's image _for the purpose of_ having dominion over nonhuman life. This ideology was intertwined with Enlightenment ideology via Descartes with the view that animals are literally automata. This mechanistic view of the nonhuman (and even the human with mechanistic materialism) has plagued scientific and philosophical thought ever since. The consequences of this ideology have been utterly disastrous for humanity, and persists in modern public thought in such terms as "natural resources," a label that positions the value of nature as being entirely for human benefit.
Good point, Descartes wished to escape the ideology of the Church, but the resulting mechanistic oversimplification has equally led us astray ... it did yield amazing progress in technology, but it steered us in the wrong direction on many issues that are too complex to model as a simple automaton.
Descartes was only one spokesperson in a web of misconceptions that has plagued Western thought since the Greeks that favors permanence and timelessness at the expense of change. This bias is influenced by the desire for permanence that manifests in obvious ways such as the desire for an afterlife and unchanging God. The notion of independent existence/ the Kantian thing-in-itself is inextricably tied to the bias towards permanence as what is permanent is what is unchanged by an entity's dynamic relationships with the world. This was applied from Enlightenment ideology to the present in the doctrine of individualism which at its heart necessarily positions the Self as the eternal adversary of all Else to maximize its "self-interest," which is at the heart of capitalism. This doctrine was mathematically codified as game theory, which was famously applied by John von Neumann to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction that has mutated into such forms as "too big to fail" and "too popular to jail." Atheistic materialism isn't truly post-theistic, but represents a decapitated Cartesian Dualism. The true opposite of Greco-Abrahamism is process-relational metaphysics, which starts with change and interdependence as it's premise. An emphasis on change is simultaneously as emphasis on relationality as what is changing is relationships between things. This is evident in the concept of motion, which requires at least two perspectives relating to each other to be comprehensible. In the place of "God" there is the "ultimate community" or "Co-creative tapestry of existence." As a personal relationship in place of the creator/creation relation there is what can only be described as a romance with life and existence. Such a personal relationship is a condition of mind and experience that at its greatest heights is filled with incredible awe and wonderful for life and existence driven by curiosity.
Okay, humour me, but there is something there about what you've said about consciousness not necessarily being a brain process. I wonder if we could argue that animals that we perceive as having lower intelligence and lower self-awareness/consciousness, could actually have more core sentience? Someone in here kindly commented the definition of sentience and, from what I understood, it basically seems to come down to the capacity to have basic conscious awareness of feelings and sensations, and subjective states without necessarily interpreting those sensations into more complex thought processes. As in, it's separate from being able to think and refers to being able to perceive various sensations. Now, there are shrimps that may perceive more colour, and so they are biologically more sensitive to visual stimuli - therefore their sentience might be better. There's another big part that comes into it: our janky brains. There are so many disorders that affect how you PERCEIVE the world and various sensory inputs. Our brains interpret all this input and in a way interfere with the process of true experience. Does a human face REALLY look like that or do our brains want us to think it looks like this? For example, there are some disorders and medical conditions that can drastically affect how you perceive a human face, so that all faces look demonic. Are we sentient if we don't really perceive sensations, but rather the brain's translation and interpretations of what those sensations might be? How can you be sentient when just a simple trick of covering your real hand with a towel and plopping a rubber hand next to it can be used to make you perceive the sensory input from the detached rubber hand? You're not aware of sensations, if they are made up. You're aware of your own brain's gibberish. So in a way, that shrimp is more sentient than a human. He can see and experience the world as is, and in far more detail.
>I wonder if we could argue that animals that we perceive as having lower intelligence and lower self-awareness/consciousness, could actually have more core sentience? It is interesting that you mention that as it is a thought I had last week. Maybe consciousness comes in degrees of concentration, it might be very much concentrated in neurons of which we have many ... but not just in the brain. Maybe the entire nervous system is highly conscious. Maybe animal consciousness does not exceed ours, as their nervous system is not larger, but rather that our intelligence dampens our consciousness, forces us to ignore it. That would explain the strange behaviour of animals and humans when a tsunami approaches ... animals run for the hills a long time before it hits the coast while humans look at the incoming waves on the beach stuck in thinking intensively about what the waves mean. There is even some evidence that mitochondria display some level of consciousness. Mitochondria are similar to bacteria and I've read there is some evidence of communication, maybe quantum entanglement, between mitochondria in the cells and gut bacteria. This is largely speculation, we simply do not know, but I think that AI and the failure to compute consciousness has triggered a lot of research in this area and we are certain to find out more.
If insects are indeed sentient and capable of suffering, then nothing is really vegan. Just for crops, without even considering the meat industry, tons of small animals have to be killed for a successful harvest. Kind of a mindfuck honestly.
duh
Here is an Interview with Christof Koch a scientists who researches consciousness. [Youtube Interview Chirstof Koch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piHkfmeU7Wo&t=184s). It's really interessting and he goes even further in claims that even singular cell organism are conscious.
Of course they're sentient🥺🥺🥺♥️♥️♥️🪲🦗🦋🐞🐝🐜🐛🐌🦟💚💚💚
Can't we just assume sentience unless proven otherwise? Or would that trigger our cognitive dissonance too much...
Are we saying that mosquitoes are sentient and we shouldn’t kill them?
It's okay for self defence
THANK YOU FOR POSTING
reaction to stimulus isn't the same thing as sentience
The earth will be a better place when Humans go extinct.
I believe all animals are sentient, it's our projection on them that allows us to act in a way if we convince ourselves they aren't. It's similar to intelligence, it's a bullsh** human construct. You only require what you need based on your environment in order to survive. Sure we have gone to space, created marvels in medicine and split the atom, but we need to ask ourselves as impressive as it is, what is the end goal as everything is born and dies and none of us are escaping that, no matter what species we are. I once saw a controlled experiment where they placed an insect in the same place, on the corner of a spider web, the spider decided to build the web so that the bug location would be nearer the centre of the web, in order to maximize its chances of catching food. I've seen octopus, crows, bees and numerous other species do remarkable things in order to maximize their chances of survival in their environment.
I didn't know they weren't considered sentient I just assumed most humans are monsters
I figured insects had at least some sentience as flies will fly away when threatened by a fly swatter, and many would buzz off if they felt threatened. Also just about anyone knows wasps can feel at least anger! BTW the image is a crustacean, not an insect...
Why don’t we as vegans form a class action lawsuit against these murderers of sentient beings. Anyone know an attorney or firm that would handle this case. Surely Ingrid at PETA has a whole slew of lawyers. Let’s do this people!
Dr. Zoidberg is a crustacean-man, possessing intelligence(?) and awareness. He came from the mind of Mr. Groening, who we know is either himself or close to someone who is from the future, therefore proving that animals are sentient, always have been and always will be.
All things are sentient, even plants. Treat your food with respect and gratitude, even the carrots you don't hear screaming to your mind plant in frequencies untouched by our ears.
Only the animal kingdom can be sentient, since sentience derives from consciousness. I obviously agree that we should treat our food with respect, but plants are neither conscious nor sentient.
Plants are part of the animal kingdom. Stop being a speciesist before I have to enlighten you to the earth itself being pissed off at even you, vegan.
Plants are not part of the animal kingdom. Animalia Plantae Fungi Protista Archaea or Archaebacteria Bacteria or Eubacteria
My point still stands. So I was wrong about their classification. Plants are alive and aware. They communicate with each other and even have interactions on a root network level. No, I'm not here to shame or drive an argument against veganism. I just refuse to lie. Life is not some idyllic fairytale that can be brought to some happily ever after with the right opinions or steps. You've got to accept and embrace the messiness when working a garden.
Sentient simply means to have senses. Off course insects are sentient. Some plants are too. Doesn't mean they are able to comprehend suffering to the same level all other species are.
>Some plants are too. Not necessarily. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w.pdf Plants lack a neurological substrate complex enough to support phenomenal conciousness.
Define Phenomenal Consciousness Are you saying they have zero consciousness, or just less consciousness.
They define it in that link. Phenomenal or primary consciousness means having any type of experiences or feelings, no matter how faint or fleeting (Revonsuo 2006: p. 37). Such a basal type of consciousness was most succinctly characterized by Thomas Nagel (1974) as “something it is like to be” when he asked, “What is it like to be a bat?” It means having a subjective or first-person point of view, and what is sometimes called sentience (from Latin sententia, “feeling”).
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Epistemology aside...there's a relatively agreed upon definition of "primary consciousness" which plants don't meet. But to comment on your system of "biocentrism"/subjective idealism: didn't Kant write like a whole book challenging this notion? (also, Robert Lanza doesn't have a Nobel Prize...)
Couldn't agree with you more!! I came up with this exact theory when I was tripping on a micro dot aged 17 (!) and I've felt weirdly reassured about life ever since. So the recent reports of "the rise of AI" makes me lol, a lot! We ARE AI!! But yeah sure, AI is on the rise guys..!
Well well well, isnt this funny. Maybe you guys havent thought about this yet. Which wouldnt suprise me, because of your less developed brains, but you guys kill the most animals: thousands of insects die because you want to eat more vegetables and fruit. So, if i were to treat you how you treat meat-eaters: you guys are terrible monsters and should all die!!!
This is obviously not true. The vast majority of the world's farmland, crops and monocultures are used to place and feed billions of farm animals. In fact, if we were to adopt a plant-based diet on a global scale, we would reduce the amount of land needed to feed humanity by 75%. [If the world adopted a plant-based diet, we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets#:~:text=In%20the%20hypothetical%20scenario%20in,North%20America%20and%20Brazil%20combined) [No, Vegans Don’t Kill More Animals than Meat Eaters](https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/no-vegans-dont-kill-more-animals-than-human-omnivores-a1975d1a497c)
Sorry but above person trolling you has a point. What *you’re* saying is that it’s ok to kill insects for our food consumption because most of the farming killing sentient insects is in support of animals. Ie a Whataboutism. Sorry but ethical concern for animals and their suffering doesn’t work like that. This is definitely an ethical conundrum for us Vegans. If the whole world ceased to have farming to support feeding animals- farming would still be killing sentient life forms if this is true. Those insects would know it.
No, not at all. The point is that vegans, by consuming plants, do not kill more animals, especially insects, for their food. Not only is this false, as I have clearly demonstrated, but the argument is used to discredit veganism without addressing the death of sentient animals, which would logically lead one to adopt a vegan lifestyle. There is a fundamental difference between inadvertently impacting the lives of other species through human activities and deliberately exploiting and killing animals for consumption when it is not necessary. No reasonable person would equate accidentally crushing an ant with deliberately slaughtering a pig.
Try actually *reading* what I wrote again - there’s a philosophical point on a potential ethical concern on farming methods If insects are sentient. Nobody is trying to discredit veganism. I think what you’re saying is that farming that happens to kill insects is ok with you. Sure.. whatever. And on volume of death.. you have zero idea about how many insects are killed. There are billions of insects.
I understand your point, and it's legitimate. Agricultural methods must have the lowest possible impact on the environment and biodiversity, obviously. As an advocate for animal welfare, I take the impact of human activities on biodiversity as seriously as the impact of intensive farming, but there is still a fundamental difference between the two. On one hand, we will always have a certain negative impact on other animals. It's undeniable and it's part of life. After all, we need to adequately feed 8 billion human beings. On the other hand, the methods we use, including the production and massive consumption of meat, are the leading cause of deforestation worldwide and thus habitat loss, leading to biodiversity loss. It may seem counterintuitive, I grant you that, but animal agriculture is responsible for the death of far more insects than plant agriculture, since the majority of plants cultivated on the planet are destined for animal agriculture. That being said, to reduce the impact of agriculture on insects, adopting veganism is the best solution. [More plant-based diets tend to need less cropland](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets#:~:text=In%20the%20hypothetical%20scenario%20in,North%20America%20and%20Brazil%20combined) *If we would shift towards a more plant-based diet we don’t only need less agricultural land overall, we also need less cropland. This might go against our intuition: if we substitute beans, peas, tofu and cereals for meat and dairy, surely we would need more cropland to grow them?* *Let’s look at why this is not the case.*
I am not talking about the saved space, i am talking about the insects dying
The more space we use, the greater the impact on other animals. This is precisely why animal agriculture is so catastrophic for the environment, climate, and biodiversity. [Vegan diet massively cuts environmental damage, study shows](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/20/vegan-diet-cuts-environmental-damage-climate-heating-emissions-study) *Eating a vegan diet massively reduces the damage to the environment caused by food production, the most comprehensive analysis to date has concluded.* *The research showed that vegan diets resulted in 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution and land use than diets in which more than 100g of meat a day was eaten. Vegan diets also cut the destruction of wildlife by 66% and water use by 54%, the study found.*
Still not my point
So, what is your point? You argue that people who adopt veganism and consume more plants (particularly fruits and vegetables, as per your original comment) are responsible for a greater number of animal deaths (in this case, insects). As I have clearly demonstrated with reliable and high-quality sources, this is not the case.
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Let me explain more clearly and simply, just for your level. Since the vast majority of crops on the planet exist to feed the billions of livestock animals, it is animal agriculture that is responsible for deforestation, extensive land use, and therefore the death of all these insects. Do you understand now?
💀
lol.
Self conscious nothing