Watching The Dominion

[Something Funny]

@Marcel another point. Why is it that every meat product that has an animal on its packaging show a happy, healthy, animal, often drawn in cartoonish cute way? Why not show them bloody, tortured, and abused?

Because the vast majority of people would be repulsed by it and not by the product. This tells me that most people see animal suffering as a bad thing when confronted with it face to face.

[Scholar]

5 hours ago, Marcel said:

What if it’s exactly like that for them too, when they are harvested, uprooted etc. ? 

 

It's not. The function of pain is to have an immediate reactivity to a stimulus, namely to move away from it.

There is no point in an experience of suffering or torment if an organism does not interact with the world in an immediate, decision based way. An animal is reactive to dozens of stimulus as it navigates the world. There is one decision center which must at any given point decide which action is best to be taken on the basis of several feeds of information: Temperature, location, pain, hunger, social dynamics, threat recognition etc

All of these feeds have to, at all points, be taken into account to evaluate what action you should take. For example, you might feel pain and hunger at the same time. Maybe you need to do something painful to be able to clench your hunger? How do you know which one of those actions is appropriate to take? Well, it depends on the amount of pain you feel. Damaging the body, by falling down a cliff or eating yourself, is not worth it to eat something that does not provide you a lot of calories.

This kind of balancing act is what individuated consciousness is. Plants have absolutely zero necessity for such an individuated consciousness. They do not have to make complex decisions in real time that are contextually sensitive. Rather, they can simply act according to basic reactivity to immediate stimulus.

 

In simple ways, there is no reason for a plant to feel pain when you cut it, because it cannot take any action to avoid that stimulus. The reason why you feel pain when you put your hand on a hot stove is because you can instantly pull back your hand.

 

 

There is a profound ignorance in people who compare plant consciousness to animal consciousness, as the above described things should be immediately obvious if you think about the topic for more than a few seconds.

[Marcel]

18 hours ago, Scholar said:

There is a profound ignorance in people who compare plant consciousness to animal consciousness, as the above described things should be immediately obvious if you think about the topic for more than a few seconds.

Animal and plant consciousness, if such a thing as plant consciousness even exists, would or could be completely different. 

To quote Leo: “Nothing is obvious” 

I wouldn’t be so quick to say that I understand something on a deep level just because I have thought about for a few seconds like you seem to do.

Everything you listed is not a proof of anything. It’s a bunch of assumptions. 

What if there was more to pain then “the impulse of moving away from it” ? How can you definitively know a plant couldn’t be “suffering” or experiencing some version of pain? Would pain, if plants do experience it,  work the same way as in humans or animals?  What if it works entirely different and does not serve the function you described and fulfils a completely different one?

Just because a plant cannot take or  “does not have the necessity” to take action does not mean it couldn’t be conscious. Very faulty logic. 

Why does consciousness necessitate action?

Why does consciousness necessitate reactivity?

Why does consciousness necessitate decision making? 

If plants are conscious or not, experience pain or not, is not nearly as obvious as you make it out be. 

 

 

Edited Monday at 12:34 PM by Marcel

[Marcel]

20 hours ago, Something Funny said:

@Marcel another point. Why is it that every meat product that has an animal on its packaging show a happy, healthy, animal, often drawn in cartoonish cute way? Why not show them bloody, tortured, and abused?

Because the vast majority of people would be repulsed by it and not by the product. This tells me that most people see animal suffering as a bad thing when confronted with it face to face.

Well if it would be changed over night people would have a reaction for sure. 

But I bet the reaction would be an outcry to change the images back to happy, healthy, maybe cartoonishly animals and not actually about doing something about animal cruelty.

Also. If the images would be replaced at a slow enough rate, from status quo, to maybe having a tiny bit of blood on them to eventually completely bloody, tortured and abused, over a long enough time horizon it would be the new status quo and a lot of people wouldn’t bat an eye.

Edited Monday at 12:39 PM by Marcel

[Scholar]

On 18.11.2024 at 1:29 PM, Marcel said:

Animal and plant consciousness, if such a thing as plant consciousness even exists, would or could be completely different. 

To quote Leo: “Nothing is obvious” 

I wouldn’t be so quick to say that I understand something on a deep level just because I have thought about for a few seconds like you seem to do.

Everything you listed is not a proof of anything. It’s a bunch of assumptions. 

What if there was more to pain then “the impulse of moving away from it” ? How can you definitively know a plant couldn’t be “suffering” or experiencing some version of pain? Would pain, if plants do experience it,  work the same way as in humans or animals?  What if it works entirely different and does not serve the function you described and fulfils a completely different one?

Just because a plant cannot take or  “does not have the necessity” to take action does not mean it couldn’t be conscious. Very faulty logic. 

Why does consciousness necessitate action?

Why does consciousness necessitate reactivity?

Why does consciousness necessitate decision making? 

If plants are conscious or not, experience pain or not, is not nearly as obvious as you make it out be. 

 

 

I explained to you why the reasoning is laughable. Anything could be the case. Maybe each one of your skin cells suffers when they die. Maybe your liver is having a depression. Maybe different parts of your brain have their own conscious experience.

All of these would make more sense than plants feeling pain and fear in response to being uprooted.

 

You are conflating existence with pain. Pain is a very particular substance with a very particular function. To remove substances of mind from their function simply shows how naive your view of consciousness is.

Edited Tuesday at 09:38 PM by Scholar

[dddddddddd33]

@Something Funny I agree that the vast majority of people already value animal life over plant life instinctively. I always use the example that if faced with saving an animal or houseplant from a burning building, there would be no question for most people (unless it was an insect or something like that). Those types of situations are easy though because they don’t involve having to give up anything. People will readily agree that suffering is bad and should be minimized. When the prospects of pleasure, comfort and convenience come in, all of a sudden animal suffering and abuse is more ‘complicated’. That’s when you start to see all sorts of excuses and mental gymnastics like plants could feel pain or crop deaths. So yes people recognize animal suffering as bad when they do not benefit from it but pleasure and self-interest are often much more powerful drivers of choice. It’s hard to overstate how much pleasure some people get from a cheeseburger lol

[Marcel]

7 hours ago, Scholar said:

Anything could be the case

Well that’s the thing, how can you definitively know what’s the case? 

Look. I’m not naive. I just don’t pretend I know stuff, when I truly don’t. All I’m doing is staying radically open minded. 

It’s not like I subscribe to everything I wrote.

I’m just open to actually question it and not have completely stuck and inflexible conclusions.

You are ignorant and think you have everything figured out. Ultimately you don’t know and assume. 

 

Edited Wednesday at 04:56 AM by Marcel

[Scholar]

13 hours ago, Marcel said:

Well that’s the thing, how can you definitively know what’s the case? 

Look. I’m not naive. I just don’t pretend I know stuff, when I truly don’t. All I’m doing is staying radically open minded. 

It’s not like I subscribe to everything I wrote.

I’m just open to actually question it and not have completely stuck and inflexible conclusions.

You are ignorant and think you have everything figured out. Ultimately you don’t know and assume. 

 

You have to have some sort of reasonable underlying causal theory for why things are the way they are. We don't randomly feel pain. Pain obviously has an evolutionary function. It's not like these things are just inherent to actions.

You don't understand how naive this understanding of experience is. Cutting a human will cause them pain, and then you think because cutting causes pain, therefore cutting any living being will cause pain. But it's not the cutting that causes the pain, but the brain that creates the experience of pain as a result of the cutting, to motivate an individuated consciousness to act a certain way.

 

Also, guess what every animal that humans eat, eats? They all eat plants. cows eat so many grass-blades, or other foods. This is all an absurd argument, given that animal agriculture causes more plant death than agriculture would if we simply ate the plants in the first place.

[Nemra]

@Scholar, do you think we shouldn't eat meat because animals feel pain when being killed?

I mean, imagining the pain could be a reason not to eat them, but why do you think people even like meat? Why is it delicious?

I don't know if people do it, but can't they be made unconscious and then be killed? What would you say about that?

Edited Wednesday at 06:44 PM by Nemra

[Scholar]

25 minutes ago, Nemra said:

@Scholar, do you think we shouldn't eat meat because animals feel pain when being killed?

I mean, imagining the pain could be a reason not to eat them, but why do you think people even like meat? Why is it delicious?

I don't know if people do it, but can't they be made unconscious and then be killed? What would you say about that?

No, it's not just the pain. I think we shouldn't kill animals for food for the same reasons we shouldn't kill humans for food.

It's delicious because it provides nutrients that are not easy to come by otherwise in a natural scenarios.

[Nemra]

11 minutes ago, Scholar said:

No, it's not just the pain.

What else?

11 minutes ago, Scholar said:

I think we shouldn't kill animals for food for the same reasons we shouldn't kill humans for food.

Because of some moral reasons?

Edited Wednesday at 07:05 PM by Nemra

[Scholar]

2 minutes ago, Nemra said:

Because of some moral reasons?

Obviously? Why do we not have a special race of humans that we breed and kill for food?

[Nemra]

43 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Obviously? Why do we not have a special race of humans that we breed and kill for food?

So, you are essentially saying that only the things that don't fight, or we don't perceive it fighting for its life, would rather be killed?

I wouldn't like it if humans started eating each other, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't eat a non-human thing.

But I also wouldn't like if we wiped out some species just because we could.

Edited Wednesday at 07:54 PM by Nemra

[Scholar]

2 hours ago, Nemra said:

So, you are essentially saying that only the things that don't fight, or we don't perceive it fighting for its life, would rather be killed?

I wouldn't like it if humans started eating each other, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't eat a non-human thing.

But I also wouldn't like if we wiped out some species just because we could.

Well, I think you need to work on your basic compassion.

Most plants we kill are killed by the animals that we then kill to consume. Less plants have to die if you simply eat the plants. But yes, plants most likely don't have individuated consciousness.

[Nemra]

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

Well, I think you need to work on your basic compassion.

That advice should be given to the abusers.

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

Most plants we kill are killed by the animals that we then kill to consume.

Animals can and will eat what they want.

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

Less plants have to die if you simply eat the plants.

Could you expand on that?

I'm not even saying that I shouldn't kill plants. I'll eat plants and animals.

It's another matter to think about which ones a person should eat to not unnecessary kill them.

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

But yes, plants most likely don't have individuated consciousness.

If they become self-aware to the degree like I am and be more like a human, then I wouldn't eat them unless I'm cannibalistic, I guess.

It's not that I have to necessarily eat animals to relate to them. I can "befriend" them, but I probably won't be able to do the same with the animals that I will eat. It will also be difficult for me.

I'm guessing that you would say that animals have individuated consciousness. Then why do some of them eat meat and not plants?

Edited Wednesday at 11:37 PM by Nemra

[Scholar]

25 minutes ago, Nemra said:

That advice should be given to the abusers.

It's not only abusers who must increase their compassion.

 

26 minutes ago, Nemra said:

Animals can and will eat what they want.

No, they eat what we feed them.

 

26 minutes ago, Nemra said:

Could you expand on that?

I'm not even saying that I shouldn't kill plants. I'll eat plants and animals.

It's another matter to think about which ones a person should eat to not unnecessary kill them.

You are attempting to relativize your killing of animals by comparing them to plants. As if killing a human was the same as pulling a blade of grass.

 

28 minutes ago, Nemra said:

If they become self-aware to the degree like I am and be more like a human, then I wouldn't eat them unless I'm cannibalistic, I guess.

It's not that I have to necessarily eat animals to relate to them. I can "befriend" them, but I probably won't be able to do the same with the animals that I will eat. It will also be difficult for me.

I'm guessing that you would say that animals have individuated consciousness. Then why do some of them eat meat and not plants?

Conversely, you would deem it permissible to kill and eat humans who are not as self-aware as you are. You don't have to be a friend of someone to not pay for their enslavement and death.

 

Some animals eat meat because they evolved to.

[Nemra]

37 minutes ago, Scholar said:

You are attempting to relativize your killing of animals by comparing them to plants.

I wouldn't kill a human unless they try to threaten me. But to survive I'll have to directly or indirectly kill non-human things. It doesn't matter if you don't like that.

However, I would like to fill my hunger without ever killing anything, but that's not possible, at least in this decade.

37 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Conversely, you would deem it permissible to kill and eat humans who are not as self-aware as you are. You don't have to be a friend of someone to not pay for their enslavement and death

I don't like eating humans. Also, people have emotional connections with each other. I think you can also have emotional connections with plants and animals.

37 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Some animals eat meat because they evolved to.

Are you saying animals were eating plants in the beginning?

That's doesn't make any sense.

37 minutes ago, Scholar said:

It's not only abusers who must increase their compassion.

Yeah, all of the people who don't treat them well before killing.

Increasing your compassion doesn't mean you'll be able to survive without ever killing anything.

Edited Thursday at 12:29 AM by Nemra

[Scholar]

36 minutes ago, Nemra said:

I wouldn't kill a human unless they try to threaten me. But to survive I'll have to directly or indirectly kill non-human things. It doesn't matter if you don't like that.

However, I would like to fill my hunger without ever killing anything, but that's not possible, at least in this decade.

Why does it matter if they are human or not?

 

36 minutes ago, Nemra said:

I don't like eating humans. Also, people have emotional connections with each other. I think you can also have emotional connections with plants and animals.

We could have a class of humans we don't care about that we breed and dehumanize, like we do with animals.

 

37 minutes ago, Nemra said:

Yeah, all of the people who don't treat them well before killing.

Increasing your compassion doesn't mean you'll be able to survive without ever killing anything.

That's all animals, because all of them are slaves whose children are stolen. 

Why do you kill more than you need to? If you kill an animal, you kill the animal and all the plants that had to die to feed it. If you only eat plants, you will kill no animal, and far less plants than the animal would have eaten, to get the same nutrients.

[Nemra]

10 hours ago, Scholar said:

Why does it matter if they are human or not?

Because we are emotionally connected. Although, people still kill each other for other reasons.

We can also emotionally connect with everything. But as you can see you'll have problems with surviving unless you figure out a way to survive without ever killing.

10 hours ago, Scholar said:

That's all animals, because all of them are slaves whose children are stolen. 

I know.

I don't like the animal abuse before killing though.

10 hours ago, Scholar said:

If you only eat plants, you will kill no animal, and far less plants than the animal would have eaten, to get the same nutrients.

I don't know if by only eating plants I would lessen the killings.

If it lessens, I don't know if I can fully survive on plants.

However, I'm open-minded to that.

Edited Thursday at 11:47 AM by Nemra

[Marcel]

On 20.11.2024 at 6:51 PM, Scholar said:

You don't understand how naive this understanding of experience is

Underlying theory well and good. Still. I wouldn’t be so quick to say I actually understand something just „because I have thought about it for a few seconds“ as you suggested to me in the very beginning. 

Nothing is obvious. Everything needs to be questioned to death and beyond rigorously, especially what we are „certain“ of.

How often in human history were people dead sure about something, just for it to turn out to be completely false, not the whole truth or a distorted interpretation, to fit a pre-existing narrative / paradigm. 

And on top of that.

New findings often being vehemently denied and suppressed, leading to people being killed or even tortured for just thinking differently in the past. 

I never said that my position is xyz.

Again. I’m merely actually questioning the „baseline theory“ as you call it.

And ta da you call me naive for even attempting to do so. 

 

Edited Friday at 04:45 AM by Marcel