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FOTO feeding Nep. TRUNCATA with FISH !!!

  • #61
They are saying its ok, just as long as its not thrown in by you...

I guess youre right with the stress thing... The whole Color changing?
Insects do to you would think, rationalizng pain as a thought prosces wehre youre brain tells you to get away can be interperated as a FEeling, or interpreated as a need to get away, so In this they can their for feel pain its just not pain as we feel but it certainly is a pain.

Cheers
 
  • #62
I don't think insects would feel pain, many other organisms respond without feeling pain, its natural stimulus-response. The 'need to get away' evolved from - those which didn't react and get away would get eaten, killed etc.

I think the colour changing is more to do with warning away predators and attracting mates than stress. The stress I'm talking about is the concious (as opposed to colour-change which may be unconcious) stress and 'emotion' almost which can be likened to humans feeling stress from work. Need to clarify this, do we have any octi experts?
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  • #63
I think youre preceiving it as pain as we feel it, i am talking about the "run away" signal after their brain tells them to, it just isnt painlike we feel it.

Cheers
 
  • #64
[b said:
Quote[/b] (neps @ April 08 2006,1:15)]I hate to break it to you, buddy, but you're naive.
There is considerable evidence that fish do, in fact, feel
pain.  Pain is a fairly basic stimulus, and given its very
fundamental nature and function, it's highly
improbable that organisms as complex as fish do not
experience it.  The links below support my assertion.

See the following:
BBC News
Fishing Hurts
Cruelty of Fishing
I've read some of the articles you posted in previous research (and some others you won't be posting). They tended to just ignore the whole consciousness issue, which is amazing because it's the cornerstone of the entire debate. Or at least it should be.

Actually I think the first article might agree with me more than it does with you:
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]However, it is an entirely different matter to draw conclusions about the ability of fish to feel pain, a psychological experience for which they literally do not have the brains," he said.

He quoted from a study by Professor James Rose of the University of Wyoming, US, in which it was found fish did not possess the necessary and specific regions of the brain, the neocortex.
... which is basically my point.

The second article brings up one interesting thing about the endorphins, which I'll look into further. Though assuming that this implies a psychological experience as they do would be a heck of a stretch. There are a number of things going on where endorphins would be useful that have nothing to do with psychology.

The third article is pretty much the typical load of anthropomorphization.

Again I think the use of the term 'pain' rather than 'nociception' is causing both us and some of these authors some confusion... it's a very loaded word that's very hard to mentally separate from the implication of consciousness.

You're welcome to explain to me "who" exactly is experiencing this pain. That little fish brain just doesn't have the hardware for this sort of awareness... we just assume it does because it's alive and we're alive and our perception starts with us. Top-down thinking.

I'm very much against animal cruelty, but I'm also against letting knee-jerk reactions decide how and why I'm against it.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Need to clarify this, do we have any octi experts?
I'm not an octi expert, but I think cephalopods have at least a sort of proto-consciousness. I'd definitely bet on them reaching sapience first if mammals weren't in the picture.
 
  • #65
What exactly has consciousness got to do with pain? Pain as I understand it is hard wired into any organism with a complex nerve system as part of its survival mechanism. It lets the organism know it's being damaged. If your being damaged (hurt) then your life is at risk. So can fish feel pain? I think so. Does the fluid in a nep pitcher have some the same narcotic characteristics of the necter on the pitcher lips? I don't know. If it does then the fish was to out of it to feel any discomfort.
 
  • #66
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Actually I think the first article might agree with me more than it does with you

Actually, NOT. You basically quoted the only line in the document which supports your assertion. Nor did you mention the second document, which features statements like this:

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Indeed, neurobiologists have long recognized that fish have nervous systems that comprehend and respond to pain, and anyone who made it through Biology 101 knows that fish have nerves and brains that sense pain, just like all animals. Indeed, scientists tell us that fish brains and nervous systems closely resemble our own. For example, fish (like “higher vertebrates”) have neurotransmitters like endorphins that relieve suffering—of course, the only reason for their nervous systems to produce pain killers is to relieve pain. Claiming that fish do not suffer is as intellectually and scientifically sound as arguing that the Earth is flat.

Interestingly, scientists have created a detailed map of pain receptors in fish’s mouths and all over their bodies. A team of researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada recently surveyed the scientific literature on fish pain and intelligence. They concluded that fish feel pain and that “the welfare of fish requires consideration.” Dr. Lynne Sneddon, a scientist of fish biology in the United Kingdom, explains, “Really, it’s kind of a moral question. Is your angling more important than the pain to the fish?”

Scientists at Edinburgh University and the Roslin Institute in the United Kingdom report that in response to pain, fish also feel emotional stress and engage in “a ‘rocking’ motion strikingly similar to the kind of motion seen in stressed higher vertebrates like mammals.” The research team concluded that fish clearly experience pain in the same way as mammals, both physically and psychologically.

Look, as far as I'm concerned, you can believe whatever you want. What I took issue with was the authoritative tone of your assertion that fish don't feel pain. My point is that there are people out there who really have investigated this issue, and perhaps it is worth listening to what some of these people have to say rather than making one's own pronouncements and relentlessly insisting, despite some amount of evidence to the contrary, that those pronouncements are correct.

I simply feel that it is at best naive to assert that an animal as complex as a fish does not feel pain. The truth is, we will likely never know what fish experience because they cannot tell us, and because we are not able to experience existence as fish. However, I for one will not arrogantly claim that I know that another life form does not feel pain, nor euphemistically bandy use of the term "nociception" to obfuscate the matter further.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]You're welcome to explain to me "who" exactly is experiencing this pain. That little fish brain just doesn't have the hardware for this sort of awareness... we just assume it does because it's alive and we're alive and our perception starts with us. Top-down thinking.

Really? How do you know? Are you an expert on comparative neuroanatomy? How about consciousness? What are your credentials?
 
  • #67
Here it is, simple as: Use a fish that won't suffer whatever little fishy hell fishies suffer when they're slowly smothering for 30 hours.
Don't maim if you can cleanly kill. Don't prolong if you can make it quick. That's just a basic carry-over of decentcy.

I don't much care if fish possess consciousness, meta-consciousness, or full blown emotions and inner feelings. We don't have a fest when someone kills for food, we shouldn't have a fest about it for our plants... but we -should- do it quickly, because otherwise there is the question of whether or not the animal has the -opportunity- to suffer. Remove that opportunity and all's well.
 
  • #68
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Actually, NOT.  You basically quoted the only line in the document which supports your assertion.
I took the entire article into consideration. All of it is moot if there is not a consciousness there to experience the trauma.

If we built a robot that had the same involuntary self-preservation behaviors... we could talk all we wanted to about all the elaborate circuitry involved and the amazing complexity of the programming, etc etc... but there'd still be "nobody home", no matter how much we started to empathize with it.

We've built incredibly elaborate, sophisticated, sometimes eerily intelligent-seeming machines that don't need consciousness to accomplish their tasks just fine. We know they don't have it because we didn't put the necessary hardware in to facilitate it... didn't need to.

But the notion that nature appears to have done the same thing... I dunno, it seems to make people uncomfortable.

I did just read the first article over again however, and I was mistaken that the paragraph I quoted was the stance of the author of the article. I missed that it was someone else's counterpoint. So I apologize for that. It would have been nice if they'd gone into it further. I wondered why it seemed so much like just an afterthought when it was an extremely important point.

As for the second document, I did mention it, and did find the endorphin part interesting. I'm going to look into that further. That article sounded somewhat tainted by the tendency to project our own emotions onto other creatures' behaviors. I'm sure the scientists in Edinburgh did more than conclude that "rocking = emotion", so I'm wishing they'd used the scientists own words more than they did.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Look, as far as I'm concerned, you can believe whatever you want.  What I took issue with was the authoritative tone of your assertion that fish don't feel pain.  My point is that there are people out there who really have investigated this issue, and perhaps it is worth listening to what some of these people have to say rather than making one's own pronouncements and relentlessly insisting, despite some amount of evidence to the contrary, that those pronouncements are correct.

We have the exact same tone... maybe that's what bothers you.
laugh.gif


I came to these conclusions after reading the writings of people investigating the issue. I've done nothing but listen. I didn't just make these "pronouncements" up because I thought they sounded good or something... I'm relaying what I've learned. I actually got interested in this specific topic a few years ago when I started keeping fish and really wanted to know what sickness or injury was like for them.

Your sources didn't impress me much because they largely ignored the one factor that really matters. If there are sources that really address that factor I'd love to learn more from them. How a non-conscious entity has an experience is something I want to know, and if it's somehow actually possible, then I stand corrected. But the research I've done into that side of the issue tends to agree with what I've said -- "it doesn't."

So then the question is whether fish are conscious or not. We can't find the hardware for it. They don't take in the level of nutrients that would be required to supply energy for it. It seems silly to assume until proven otherwise that it's there just because they're organic like we are.

Maybe I tend to be too matter-of-fact... but my entries get long enough without filling them with in-my-opinion-s and for-what-it's-worth-s too... I may be wrongly assuming that people will actually take everything others say with a grain of salt and try to verify things for themselves.

I don't know how to go further into the actual issue because you haven't really addressed the content of what I've said... more me and my tone. So all I can do is repeat myself (or "relentlessly insist", as you put it). If there's something about the content that you find illogical I'm all ears.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]However, I for one will not arrogantly claim that I know that another life form does not feel pain, nor euphemistically bandy use of the term "nociception" to obfuscate the matter further.
How can I obfuscate the argument with the argument? "Pain" vs "nociception" (suffering vs. mere electrical events) is the argument, as far as I could tell.

Do you think bacterium feel pain? Would you feel comfortable proclaiming in public that they don't? Do you know what it's like to be a bacterium? Where does the line get drawn on who has the hardware and who doesn't? I think we just see that line (it's not a hard-edged line, but you know what I mean) in different places on the ladder (or tree, more accurately).

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Really?  How do you know?  Are you an expert on comparative neuroanatomy?  How about consciousness?  What are your credentials?
Philosophy of mind coupled with cognitive science are my #1 passion. I don't have credentials on them. It's perfectly fine with me if that somehow renders my input worthless in your mind. No harm done.

EDIT: Man oh man this entry got long. If anyone actually got to this line I'm both flattered and apologetic.
smile.gif
 
  • #69
[b said:
Quote[/b] (EntwinedScylla @ April 08 2006,4:02)]I don't much care if fish possess consciousness, meta-consciousness, or full blown emotions and inner feelings. We don't have a fest when someone kills for food, we shouldn't have a fest about it for our plants... but we -should- do it quickly, because otherwise there is the question of whether or not the animal has the -opportunity- to suffer. Remove that opportunity and all's well.
I think I'm with you on that. What's creepy is when I say things like what I've said, sometimes the first thing out of some people's mouths is, "So you're saying we can go out and kill all the lower lifeforms we want to?"

Those serial killers you hear about are popping into my head... the ones who started with animals when they were children. Even if we knew with absolute certainty that something didn't feel pain, I'd never advocate killing it on a whim. It seems like if one enjoys destroying something as miraculous as a lifeform, there's something very very wrong inside them.

Cruelty is circular in the damage it does... even if one participant doesn't actually feel it.

And it's about respecting the big picture. The world doesn't need one animal (or one human of course... actually the world needs that even less)... but it does need populations of them to keep that wonderful balance...

You know what, I'm tired of typing.
smile.gif


Sorry about all this Mr. Aga...
 
  • #70
Apologies to anyone else who finds this topic to be of little interest....

Endparenthesis,

I appreciate you taking time to thoughtfully and rationally explain your position on this issue. You are clearly intelligent and articulate, and I respect both of those qualities highly.

The main issue I had was simply that you seemed ready to assure others that fish don't feel pain. My point is simply that we really don't know that with what seems (at least to me) any great degree of certainty. Certainly, there is reason to assert that fish don't have the neurocircuitry to subjectively experience pain as we do. On the other hand, however, there does also appear to be evidence which contradicts that, and ultimately, given that we still don't fully understand the workings of the brain of any living creature, including fish, it seems presently impossible to definitively answer this question. So, what I am really trying to do is to refute your confident assertion that fish don't feel pain, or, to put it more specifically, that they do not experience something akin to our subjective sense of discomfort in response to what we would characterize as painful stimuli. I simply don't believe that we can say this with any reasonable degree of certainty. So, yes, when you said I really disagree more with your tone, rather than your message per se, you are right! I simply wish to put forth that there are counter arguments!

I am also impressed that you are interested in issues of consciousness. This is something which has fascinated me for a long time, and for that reason I followed a graduate course of study in the psychology of perception, and have also spent time studying neuroanatomy, though both were long ago. My real expertise lies in theoretical physics and, to some extent, in mathematics and software.

If you're interested, I would like to suggest a couple of books which you might find interesting regarding these issues. And, if you have any sources you would care to recommend, I would be most grateful to hear of them, as well.

Again, thanks for making the effort to present your thoughts.
 
  • #71
Neps, I agree with you. I'm well aware my tone gets in my own way sometimes and I appreciate you helping me get back on course.
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I'd like to concede and let whatever ideas I've presented mean whatever they mean to people, and take back the actual conclusion itself. Whether what I brought to the table leads people to that same conclusion or not isn't a big deal... the fact that they weighed it was enough for me.

I'd definitely like to know what books you'd recommend. They could be the same ones I would, but it sounds like you have more exposure so hopefully your list is much longer.
smile.gif
 
  • #72
Hi,

EP, you brought up some good points, and again, thanks for sharing them!

Insofar as books are concerned, one of the current issues which is near and dear to my heart is the matter of machine intelligence and artificial consciousness. My personal belief is that sometime within the next fifty years or so, two very singular human achievements will be realized. The first of these is the creation of true artificial intelligence. This event will, I believe, rapidly result in the development of non-human intellects immeasurably superior to man's. The second achievement will be the creation of true artificial life, and/or true nanotechnology.

Two books which deal with these topics which I really enjoy are by Ray Kurzweil. The first is called The Age of Spiritual Machines, and the second is The Singularity is Near. Both are relatively light reading, yet highly informative.

In addition, available online is a great work about nanotechnology, entitled Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler. You can download it here. This is a very eye-opening look at the future of such technologies, even though it was written in the eighties.

Personally, I strongly suspect that most humans living one hundred years hence (if any are left) will be fundamentally different than those of us alive today, if for no other reason than that we will have had to modify ourselves to keep up with the machines, and to survive in the harsher global environment due to global warming. However, it will likely be alright, for I think we can make ourselves much better than we currently are.

Finally, another work relating to consciousness, though a bit older, is Roger Penrose's book The Emperor's New Mind, which concerns itself with issues of artificial consciousness and intelligence. I've not read it in about 15 years, and it is a bit deeper than the others.

Those are a few titles. If you have some to suggest, I'd love to hear about them!
 
  • #73
Seems like this should be private... but these are good books for everyone to know about.
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Again, sorry Mr. Aga.

Got the Kurzweil books. Although the first is The Age of Intelligent Machines... but you probably meant the first you'd recommend, not the first in the series.

I knew about the Drexler book but didn't know it could be downloaded, very cool.

I think I've heard of the Penrose book. I'll add it to my list.

A few on my shelf:

"The Mind's I" by Douglas Hofstadter & Daniel Dennett (it's a compilation, so it points to all sorts of other great books)

"Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter (or anything else by him, or by Dennett)

"Society of Mind" by Marvin Minsky

"Emergence" by Steven Johnson (about how unintelligent microbehaviors develop without direction into intelligent or intelligent-seeming macrobehaviors, including neural activity)

And being into the psychology of perception you'd probably like this one:

"Sight Unseen" by Bryan Magee & Martin Milligan

It's a series of letters between a sighted philosopher and a blind philosopher discussing what it really means to see. Also it gives us sighted people some insight into the possibility that we may not get as much information as we think we do from our environment (only we don't have people with those extra senses around to try to explain to us what it's like). A little rough because it's in philosopher-speak... using four times as many words necessary in order to be extra-thorough.
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http://www.edge.org is also a great place to go. It pains me that they can produce new writings faster than I can read them... it'll take me forever to get through it all...
 
  • #74
nepenthes_ak: I have established ant colonies in my Nepenthes pots before. I only needed a couple of queens and about a dozen workers. I captured them all during the season in which the young queens fight for dominance and got a nice little colony going in my classic terra. I've also established a colony in a ventrata pot before.

I was actually just out looking for the kind of ants that I used last time to establish another colony in one of my pots. It's really useful and kind of cool not to have to feed your plants but just to peer into the tank to see little ants getting drunk on peri nectar!

-D. Lybrand

EDIT: I am probably using a different kind of ant than you are talking about. However, these ants do need dormancy and that may explain why their numbers dropped after awhile before beginning to rise again.

I also think that you thought that maybe all or most of the ants would be eaten by the plant? Because I'm not actually sticking them in the pitchers, only a couple get caught in each trap.
 
  • #75
Jason Wong,
thanks for the picture of the lizard.
As somebody as you has written that there is no sense to let "suffer" or just "to maintain in life" an animal for 30 hours....
But you have to consider this first :

1) I didn't know for how many time the fish could stay alive because the experiment was made for the first time in my life to let come to the true all what heard about nepenthes.

2) Feeding the plant with a fish could let me realize soon in realtime of the plant was able to kill soon and to check if the liquid itselfs kills or not.
I will not anymore try with a "living" fish because it was online a ONE TIME curiosity.

With all fishes that dies in a very stupid way I have no problem of what I did.
And also the species that I did use to feed my truncata was also not at risk of extinction. So...no problems for me.

I love my truncata and I am growing it from more than 2 yeas. All was done for love and with the rule that : "the most strongest win and the most weakest dies". The natures does this with all animals and also plants of the world.

I fave also the fish because I hardly can feed my truncata with a lizard ( I would like it...or better..I would be very proud if my truncata would have the chance to catch alone a such big prey) because I live in a center of a big city in an appartment.Having frogs and lizards aroud the house would also not be a good idea.

I have myself informed if a animal shop sells dead frozen mouses and tha answer was YES. they have them also of various sizes! Fine! Good news!
Maybe in one year I could try to feed the pitcher with one frozen dead mouse.
Have any ideas how to give it to my plant? I have it first to "warm it " a little? how? ahahaha! ;)

See ya!

Mr_Aga
Milan - ITALY
 
  • #76
How about simply putting a live mouse in a pitcher? i think the thawing prosces should be done outside the pitcher... It could damage the pitcher due to suden change in temps... Probably let it cool off to where its not to much cooler than the Area around the pitcher... (go by touch in a plastic baggie).

I honestly think whats the difrence in giving a Boaconstricter or a tarantual or scorpian an pinkie or rabbit or mouse? A fish is no difrent and one isnt going to be hurt as much as a fish spending time in a tank that the owner has no clue on what to do.. IT wouldnt be the first time a fish has died...

Neat experiment though, glad some one ealse did it and not me.. ill go as afar as putting chocolate on my D. capensis!

cheers
 
  • #77
Hi all:

it'd be nice to vote for the percentage of carnivorous plant owners that would not mind to put a large size roach into the pitchers or a nepenthes and

the percentage of cp owners that would not mind putting a mouse into the pitchers of the same plant. What would you vote for?

confused.gif


Gus
 
  • #78
We could try to create a poll about this.

Mr_Aga
Milan - ITALY
 
  • #79
A roach wouldn't smell as bad as a mouse for one.
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  • #80
well, the point i am trying to make is that a roach is a pest and we have millions if not billions around.
A mouse may be considered a pest in some countries but it looks cuter than a roach. I'd bet more people would be inclined to put the roach instead of the mouse.

Anyway there are people in Africa dying of hunger every day and nobody does anything but yet we worry about mice and roaches.
confused.gif


As much as we like to avoid cruelty, it's all around us, we see what we want to see!. please let's be more honest and realistic with ourselves and others!

Gus
 
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