Article: Be kind to your seafood

[Garson007]

React does not equal pain, or anything else. It simply means they react. Reaction isn't necessarily negative, so I'm really struggling to understand what it is either of you are getting at...

It's reacting to bad stimuli, as in trying to avoid it. Something must tell the creature "OH **** IT'S HOT". I don't know if lobsters have heat receptors, but if they do and the receptors functions like they would under an alien environment and the lobster does try to leave then that is a direct reaction to bad stimuli.

Is that you Saul Barnard?

I have no great love for the environment.

 

[FlatspinZA]

React does not equal pain, or anything else. It simply means they react. Reaction isn't necessarily negative, so I'm really struggling to understand what it is either of you are getting at...

Pain IS a reaction?

 

[Techne]

It's not possible to know if the lobster is suffering because it's not possible for the lobster to tell us that it is suffering. We can at best see a certain area of the brain light up i.e. receive more blood on functional MRI but that need not mean the lobster is suffering. Suffering is an internal state and only the lobster can know if it's suffering, only the lobster itself is privy to that information. We simply can't get it from outside. Likewise moving of the legs/body need also not indicate an animal is suffering but could just as easily be trying to get away from an undesirable situation.

It's similar to the Searle's Chinese Room experiment. A philosophical zombie may look like it's thinking consciously, but what it really is doing is calculating like a PC. It has no self awareness. It derives no meaning from what it does. It's an automaton, probably like the lobster.

I agree. Thomas Nagel's paper "What does it feel like to be a bat?" also comes to mind. What this research demonstrates is that crabs are capable of learned behaviour. Nothing controversial really, an argument can be made that plants are also able of learned behaviour.

Whether they actually feel pain or suffering is not something that can be empirically determined, unless they tell you. Consider the scenario where a crab is shocked and it's physiology reacts to avoid it and learns to avoid it, but the crab feels euphoria or ticklish or sad or in love or happy whenever it gets shocked. It may entirely be possible that its feelings towards stimuli and its physiological reactions are disconnected. Or that it does not feel anything and that the physiological responses are "automated" analogously to our autonomous nervous system.

 

[Space_Chief]

So your hypothesis is that we cannot hypothesise?

Or that we can't know the precise level of pain?

If 1, then :wtf:

If 2, then, well, yeah, so what?

I'm not saying people can't theorise, but they have no way to understand what sensation, if any, the "suffering" animal is experiencing, from knowing that it has a central nervous system and is behaving in a certain way when stimulated with a noxious stimulus. Because we can never know what that animal feels, in the same way we can never know what another human being is experiencing. But with humans at least we can correlate, and relate our own experiences of qualia (and this is not just for pain) but for all sensory experiences and their interpretations.

So one can't even say it's PAIN and one can't even say what level or whether the pain is bothersome or not. fMRI can't READ an animals' thoughts, nor even human thoughts.

 

[Space_Chief]

I do not care how it feels, only that it reacts. I've already stated this.

And as people have already told you that how it reacts does not tell you whether it is suffering or not, and even if it were suffering you could not know what it perceives the suffering as. You are just making a big assumption.

Your entire argument is maybe too much into solipsism to really be of much use in this case.

It's not solipsism at all. It's just rationally drawing inferences.

 

[Space_Chief]

I agree. Thomas Nagel's paper "What does it feel like to be a bat?" also comes to mind. What this research demonstrates is that crabs are capable of learned behaviour. Nothing controversial really, an argument can be made that plants are also able of learned behaviour.

Whether they actually feel pain or suffering is not something that can be empirically determined, unless they tell you. Consider the scenario where a crab is shocked and it's physiology reacts to avoid it and learns to avoid it, but the crab feels euphoria or ticklish or sad or in love or happy whenever it gets shocked. It may entirely be possible that its feelings towards stimuli and its physiological reactions are disconnected.

Very true, I considered that article too. Thank you.

 

[Space_Chief]

It's reacting to bad stimuli, as in trying to avoid it. Something must tell the creature "OH **** IT'S HOT". I don't know if lobsters have heat receptors, but if they do and the receptors functions like they would under an alien environment and the lobster does try to leave then that is a direct reaction to bad stimuli.

You're giving animals, human properties. The animal need not know that the HOTNESS is PAINFUL. It only needs to know that it needs to avoid it, and it need not even know that consciously, but subconsciously will do. When a fast moving object crosses your field of vision you don't feel pain yet more likely than not you will spontaneously look towards that object and react. There is no pain or suffering involved. You can see that there are ways in which advanced minds such as our own can react to non-noxious stimuli without pain having to be there to trigger the reaction.

Likewise the urge to copulate is not painful, and it does affect behaviour. There need not be pain to avoid bad situations. The pain need also not lead to suffering.

 

[Techne]

It's reacting to bad stimuli, as in trying to avoid it. Something must tell the creature "OH **** IT'S HOT". I don't know if lobsters have heat receptors, but if they do and the receptors functions like they would under an alien environment and the lobster does try to leave then that is a direct reaction to bad stimuli.

Actually, the lobsters are reacting to stimuli, and after a while "learn" from these stimuli. Stimuli and feelings are not the same. A stimuli as a result of heat may cause a feeling of itchiness or "oh look, a tiger with wings or love or nothing at all. Its reaction to stimuli and it feelings may be disconnected and the learned behaviour only accidently correlate (i.e. no real essentially causal correlation) with its feelings.

 

[DJ...]

Actually, the lobsters are reacting to stimuli, and after a while "learn" from these stimuli. Stimuli and feelings are not the same. A stimuli as a result of heat may cause a feeling of itchiness or "oh look, a tiger with wings or love or nothing at all. Its reaction to stimuli and it feelings may be disconnected and the learned behaviour only accidently correlate (i.e. no real essentially causal correlation) with its feelings.

I'm agreeing with Phrony again?

The sky! She is poised to fall...

 

[Garson007]

You're giving animals, human properties.

I am not. Please read what I am writing. You are the one pre-occupied with human feelings. I attributed nothing to lobsters in this thread. Nothing.

What I am doing, is arguing against your justification that you have for putting them in hot water. I don't actually give a **** that you do it. It's just that I hate people justifying **** with hopeful or incorrect reasoning.

Actually, the lobsters are reacting to stimuli, and after a while "learn" from these stimuli. Stimuli and feelings are not the same. A stimuli as a result of heat may cause a feeling of itchiness or "oh look, a tiger with wings or love or nothing at all. Its reaction to stimuli and it feelings may be disconnected and the learned behaviour only accidently correlate (i.e. no real essentially causal correlation) with its feelings.

Lobsters don't learn. They're ****ing stupid. They're called the cockroaches of the sea for a reason.

 

[FlatspinZA]

I'm not saying people can't theorise, but they have no way to understand what sensation, if any, the "suffering" animal is experiencing, from knowing that it has a central nervous system and is behaving in a certain way when stimulated with a noxious stimulus. Because we can never know what that animal feels, in the same way we can never know what another human being is experiencing. But with humans at least we can correlate, and relate our own experiences of qualia (and this is not just for pain) but for all sensory experiences and their interpretations.

So one can't even say it's PAIN and one can't even say what level or whether the pain is bothersome or not. fMRI can't READ an animals' thoughts, nor even human thoughts.

Bollocks! "...we can never know what another human is experiencing..."

You just killed your line of thought right there!

I do know what you're feeling when your girl friend dumps you, and I do know what you feel when one of your parents die, and I do know how you feel when everything goes for a ball of ****!

Don't assume because you're so blind to empathy that other people don't experience it.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter - beings suffer when injured, you, me, the fish, it's all the same.

Just because creatures can't express their dissatisfaction with their treatment, doesn't mean it is pleasurable!

I know when someone else if suffering, I don't need to be a rocket scientist to realise this. I'd have to be stupid not to!

Your theoretical BS is getting on my tit. "I don't know for certain, therefore it can't be!"

Horse****!

 

[Velenoso]

Firstly, chuck it in the freezer for an hour beforehand. It pretty much puts them to sleep. You then cut through the head, between the eyes. Done.

Although this is really all nonsense, because lobsters/crayfish/shellfish in entirety have no central nervous system. The experiment these guys performed is silly because the electric shock will jolt them, and this is unexpected. It doesn't mean pain was felt, and everything points there being no possible way that pain could be felt...

Knife only if feeling really kind. The freezer is enough, it doesn't move, it's sleeping. Then just chuck in the water. By the time it would wake up its already on my plate.

 

[Space_Chief]

Bollocks! "...we can never know what another human is experiencing..."

You just killed your line of thought right there!

I do know what you're feeling when your girl friend dumps you, and I do know what you feel when one of your parents die, and I do know how you feel when everything goes for a ball of ****!

No you don't. There is NO WAY you can have access to my sensory and inner experiences. ONLY I am privy to those. You can ask me and because we communicate and we seem to agree on things broadly by convention agreed on some of these experiences. But our experiences of other people are indirect. We can see that a depressed person has an apathetic expression, but we can't know what HE (that person) feels unless we were HIM.

But and this is important, you gotta read what I say and there is simply no way for one person to feel the pain of another. The typical feel good BS you hear from people "I feel your pain" is NOT a direct experience of the said pain because that person is not the person who is in pain. This is even worse for animals who are different to us and who cannot convey feelings or even understand their own feelings. And even if a chimp says something is sore, we don't know whether he experiences the pain the same way that you and I do. And that's a chimp, something with a very advanced nervous system SIMILAR to ours.

Don't assume because you're so blind to empathy that other people don't experience it.

This is not about empathy. This is about experiencing one's qualia. Google the word. ONLY you can experience what the piece of silk in your hand feels like, even if I were to hold another piece of the same silk, my own experience would not be yours. It's not about empathy at all. I'm empathetic even to say that I cannot feel the pain of the person who just lost his child, it would be a narcissistic thing to say so. I can't know it, even if I were to lose a child myself, I still would not have experience of his inner mental state.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter - beings suffer when injured, you, me, the fish, it's all the same.

That's a flat out assertion. You need to prove that beings suffer if you want to make pronouncements which carry any weight as a scientist.

Just because creatures can't express their dissatisfaction with their treatment, doesn't mean it is pleasurable!

You then have to say WE DON'T KNOW HOW A LOBSTER EXPERIENCES THE WORLD. Simple. You can't say it suffers based on external behaviour because such behaviour need not a reaction to pain at all, in the way an approaching rock causing you to shield your eyes is not based on pain either. I already spoke about this many times. Also even if it were a reaction to pay, you simply don't know how bad or how distressing this suffering is to the lobster. A lobster could very well not have a signficant experience of the world, he could just be about stimulus - response with some instinctive learning. It need not feel pain to learn.

I know when someone else if suffering, I don't need to be a rocket scientist to realise this. I'd have to be stupid not to!

SOMEONE ELSE, not SOMETHING ELSE. This is crucial.

Your theoretical BS is getting on my tit. "I don't know for certain, therefore it can't be!"

You can think what you want. But when it's SCIENTIST SAYS.... it better be for certain.

You're funny guy, all compassionate and all, yet you throw these expletives around. Doctor, heal thyself.

 

[Space_Chief]

I am not. Please read what I am writing. You are the one pre-occupied with human feelings. I attributed nothing to lobsters in this thread. Nothing.

What I am doing, is arguing against your justification that you have for putting them in hot water. I don't actually give a **** that you do it. It's just that I hate people justifying **** with hopeful or incorrect reasoning.

You gotta learn to not see things politically sometimes. I don't put lobsters in hot water. I don't eat lobster. I think I had a lobster 15 years ago. And I'm not defending putting lobsters in hot water. All I want is for scientists and journalists to be precise and to follow the logic where it leads. I want to know the truth and not politics or ideology.

You attributed feelings of suffering to the lobster because there is simply no way to know if the lobster is suffering or not, and if it is suffering how bad this suffering is. That's why in medicine people use pain scales 1-10 and even those are unreliable, because you can have someone with psychogenic pain screaming and recoiling from pain with a 10 and you can have someone in a mystical trance set on fire like a Buddhist monk with a pain score much lower. And these are people with whom we can communicate and of whose experience we have some form of approximation, although not exact. When it comes to lobsters, sorry, we just can't say.

Even if the lobster had a similar brain and we found the C fibers carrying pain to the thalamus and then onto the limbic system for emotional processing we still would not know what the inner experience of that animal is of the stimulus. We can only know this for human beings and even then it's an approximation based on peoples' accounts and our own experiences which are unique for everyone. We only see the secondary effects. We can't directly access another person's experiences.

 

[Space_Chief]

I'm agreeing with Phrony again?

The sky! She is poised to fall...

Twice a day, even a broken (analog) clock is correct. (just kidding)

 

[Techne]

I'm agreeing with Phrony again?

The sky! She is poised to fall...

No no no, this has to stop .

Bollocks! "...we can never know what another human is experiencing..."

You just killed your line of thought right there!

I do know what you're feeling when your girl friend dumps you, and I do know what you feel when one of your parents die, and I do know how you feel when everything goes for a ball of ****!

Don't assume because you're so blind to empathy that other people don't experience it.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter - beings suffer when injured, you, me, the fish, it's all the same.

Just because creatures can't express their dissatisfaction with their treatment, doesn't mean it is pleasurable!

I know when someone else if suffering, I don't need to be a rocket scientist to realise this. I'd have to be stupid not to!

Your theoretical BS is getting on my tit. "I don't know for certain, therefore it can't be!"

Horse****!

It is a simple fact that we cannot experience what other people are experiencing. Reason being is that you are not another person so you don't ever have access to another person's first hand experience. This of course does not imply that you cannot have empathy. Empathy is just your brain's way of trying to understand what another person is experiencing. It is an approximation. Nothing controversial really.

You don't know what other people are experiencing, your brain generates an approximation of what other people feel based on your previous experiences and this involves communicating with others what you and they feel.

In the case of lobsters, well, you just cannot know what it is experiencing and your brain's approximation of its feelings is based on your experience with other humans. I.e. you would be anthropomorphizing. None of this implies that the lobster find it pleasurable, it just means you cannot know what it feels, whether good or bad.