[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.
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.