Three years of autism/schizophrenia research destroyed by

[Montrovant]

Yes, you dumbbucket , sentience does entail the ability to suffer, and has nothing to so with intelligence. The wealth of definitions you posted confirmed this, or have you forgotten what you yourself posted? Sentience is necessary for suffering. Intelligence is not.

Show me evidence that plants suffer. The fact that they send out distress calls and communicate chemically in fantastic ways does note they suffer. Now you are anthropomorphizing plants.

Is it not having intelligence that divides animals from plants? Couldn't we conclude, then, that since plants do not suffer but animals do, that it may be that intelligence is what allows for suffering?

No, it is not simply intelligence that divides animals from plants. Plants do demonstrate an "intelligence" of sorts, in the form of extremely sophisticated interaction with their surroundings, and certain animals have barely any intelligence at all. One of the biggest defining features for animals is that they are heterotrophs, and need to feed on other matter. Plants, even carnivorous ones, do not. They get it from the sun. Carnivorous plants can feed on other matter when necessary, but if they are getting enough sun, don't need it.

It is demonstrably and categoricAlly wrong that intelligence has anything to do with suffering. The two parts of the brain responsible for pain reception and intelligent thoughts are distinct. The ability to add 2+2 is handled by an entirely different region of the brain. Animals don't have neocortex like humans, but they all possess the "reptilian brain" (including us) which allows pain sensation. Evolutionary, it is completely illogical to say humans can feel pain, but no other animals before us could.

I have never claimed that no other animal before us could feel pain. I'm not sure where you're pulling that strawman from.

Your definition of intelligence is obviously different from mine. I have never seen anything resembling evidence of intelligence from plant life. Intelligence is born of the brain, and plants don't have brains.

Intelligence and suffering may come from separate parts of the brain, but they do both come from the brain. That is the link and my point; animals, which have brains (other than a select few, such as jellyfish, which do not), are able to feel pain and suffering. So consider it coincidental rather than causal.

I'd still like to hear the difference between equal respect of other species' interests and equal status.

 

[koshergrl]

I think of intelligence more as an ability to learn.

I have yet to see plants learn long division or memorize shakespeare.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Ironically, now you are philosophizing into obscurity, as you are simply misconstruing epistemic boundaries to mean that animals can not suffer. This is fallacious and highly biased. Just as you can not prove another mind exists and solipsism isn't true, neither can I prove that animals can suffer, with certainty. But so what? This isn't about certainty. This is about what is likely. I don't need to the word "sentience" to show that animals feel, and therefore can suffer. Whether you want to call them sentient is irrelevant. It's just a word to model reality. Realty shows that animals possess nerves just like we do, and a brain to process that information, just like we do. Therefore, to say they don't feel pain, is simply illogical and I am wondering is your evidence that animals don't feel pain. Further corroborating this anatomical evidence is the behavioral evidence, who show, just as humans do, visible signs of agony and suffering when in pain. Further corroborating all of this is the evolutionary necessity for any animal to need to be able to detect pain and pleasure in order to survive, In order to know what to stay away from (predators) and what to be attracted to (sex, food). You seem to want to burden me with evidence, which I have just provided. Now provide me with evidence, given the facts of our anatomical similarities with animals regarding pain-messaging pathways, that would suggest animals have no ability to feel pain.

Ironically? you have no idea what ironic means, do you?

By the way, I never once said that animals do not suffer. In fact, of you go back and read, I pointed out that plants suffer. This is a scientific fact, which means it exists completely outside your universe.

Since you say that animals are sentient, and that plants are not, you have effectively affirmed my premise that suffering is not indicative of sentience.

Thanks for agreeing with me that you are stupid.

 

[newpolitics]

Is it not having intelligence that divides animals from plants? Couldn't we conclude, then, that since plants do not suffer but animals do, that it may be that intelligence is what allows for suffering?

No, it is not simply intelligence that divides animals from plants. Plants do demonstrate an "intelligence" of sorts, in the form of extremely sophisticated interaction with their surroundings, and certain animals have barely any intelligence at all. One of the biggest defining features for animals is that they are heterotrophs, and need to feed on other matter. Plants, even carnivorous ones, do not. They get it from the sun. Carnivorous plants can feed on other matter when necessary, but if they are getting enough sun, don't need it.

It is demonstrably and categoricAlly wrong that intelligence has anything to do with suffering. The two parts of the brain responsible for pain reception and intelligent thoughts are distinct. The ability to add 2+2 is handled by an entirely different region of the brain. Animals don't have neocortex like humans, but they all possess the "reptilian brain" (including us) which allows pain sensation. Evolutionary, it is completely illogical to say humans can feel pain, but no other animals before us could.

I have never claimed that no other animal before us could feel pain. I'm not sure where you're pulling that strawman from.

Your definition of intelligence is obviously different from mine. I have never seen anything resembling evidence of intelligence from plant life. Intelligence is born of the brain, and plants don't have brains.

Intelligence and suffering may come from separate parts of the brain, but they do both come from the brain. That is the link and my point; animals, which have brains (other than a select few, such as jellyfish, which do not), are able to feel pain and suffering. So consider it coincidental rather than causal.

I'd still like to hear the difference between equal respect of other species' interests and equal status.

It is a logical implication from what you gave: that if intelligence is requisite for suffering (as you claim), and humans are the only intelligent animals, then only humans have the ability to suffer since they are the only intelligent species. Therefore, animals, not being intelligent, can not suffer, which includes all animals that came before us evolutionarily. Because this is obviously false, it shows that your premises are false via a reductio ad absurdum.

 

[newpolitics]

Ironically, now you are philosophizing into obscurity, as you are simply misconstruing epistemic boundaries to mean that animals can not suffer. This is fallacious and highly biased. Just as you can not prove another mind exists and solipsism isn't true, neither can I prove that animals can suffer, with certainty. But so what? This isn't about certainty. This is about what is likely. I don't need to the word "sentience" to show that animals feel, and therefore can suffer. Whether you want to call them sentient is irrelevant. It's just a word to model reality. Realty shows that animals possess nerves just like we do, and a brain to process that information, just like we do. Therefore, to say they don't feel pain, is simply illogical and I am wondering is your evidence that animals don't feel pain. Further corroborating this anatomical evidence is the behavioral evidence, who show, just as humans do, visible signs of agony and suffering when in pain. Further corroborating all of this is the evolutionary necessity for any animal to need to be able to detect pain and pleasure in order to survive, In order to know what to stay away from (predators) and what to be attracted to (sex, food). You seem to want to burden me with evidence, which I have just provided. Now provide me with evidence, given the facts of our anatomical similarities with animals regarding pain-messaging pathways, that would suggest animals have no ability to feel pain.

Ironically? you have no idea what ironic means, do you?

By the way, I never once said that animals do not suffer. In fact, of you go back and read, I pointed out that plants suffer. This is a scientific fact, which means it exists completely outside your universe.

Since you say that animals are sentient, and that plants are not, you have effectively affirmed my premise that suffering is not indicative of sentience.

Thanks for agreeing with me that you are stupid.

Considering that you have not demonstrated that plants suffer, you have not shown that suffering can happen without sentience. By definition, this is impossible. I don't even know how this is a point of contention.

 

[newpolitics]

Ironically, now you are philosophizing into obscurity, as you are simply misconstruing epistemic boundaries to mean that animals can not suffer. This is fallacious and highly biased. Just as you can not prove another mind exists and solipsism isn't true, neither can I prove that animals can suffer, with certainty. But so what? This isn't about certainty. This is about what is likely. I don't need to the word "sentience" to show that animals feel, and therefore can suffer. Whether you want to call them sentient is irrelevant. It's just a word to model reality. Realty shows that animals possess nerves just like we do, and a brain to process that information, just like we do. Therefore, to say they don't feel pain, is simply illogical and I am wondering is your evidence that animals don't feel pain. Further corroborating this anatomical evidence is the behavioral evidence, who show, just as humans do, visible signs of agony and suffering when in pain. Further corroborating all of this is the evolutionary necessity for any animal to need to be able to detect pain and pleasure in order to survive, In order to know what to stay away from (predators) and what to be attracted to (sex, food). You seem to want to burden me with evidence, which I have just provided. Now provide me with evidence, given the facts of our anatomical similarities with animals regarding pain-messaging pathways, that would suggest animals have no ability to feel pain.

Ironically? you have no idea what ironic means, do you?

By the way, I never once said that animals do not suffer. In fact, of you go back and read, I pointed out that plants suffer. This is a scientific fact, which means it exists completely outside your universe.

Since you say that animals are sentient, and that plants are not, you have effectively affirmed my premise that suffering is not indicative of sentience.

Thanks for agreeing with me that you are stupid.

Considering that you have not demonstrated that plants suffer, you have not shown that suffering can happen without sentience. By definition, this is impossible, since sentience logically entails the ability to suffer. I don't even know how this is a point of contention.

 

[Sunshine]

animal rights activists.

And no news about it. Amazing. The true anti-science bloc: progressive nutbags:

"
Activists occupied an animal facility at the University of Milan, Italy, at the weekend, releasing mice and rabbits and mixing up cage labels to confuse experimental protocols. Researchers at the university say that it will take years to recover their work.
Many of the animals at the facility are genetic models for psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia."

"
Michela Matteoli, a neurobiologist who works on autism and other disorders and lost most of her own research in the attack, says that she found some research students crying in the disrupted facility on Monday morning.
“It will take three people at least a year to build up the colonies we had of mouse models of different psychiatric diseases,” she says."

"...animal-rights and environmental extremists have proven to be be capable of lots of damage and widespread, documented criminal activity. Yet they rarely get the press, say, a picture of a rude sign at a Tea Party rally might get. Maybe our more mainstream animal-rights friends could muster some loud denunciations of such tactics to prevent further losses of valuable research. "

Animal-rights activists wreak havoc in Milan laboratory : Nature News & Comment
Animal-rights activists trash years of autism research in Milan lab raid « Hot Air

There is a similar place in TN that very few people know about, and for very good reason. Those people don't give a shit about people who are tortured by that horrible disease!

 

[Montrovant]

No, it is not simply intelligence that divides animals from plants. Plants do demonstrate an "intelligence" of sorts, in the form of extremely sophisticated interaction with their surroundings, and certain animals have barely any intelligence at all. One of the biggest defining features for animals is that they are heterotrophs, and need to feed on other matter. Plants, even carnivorous ones, do not. They get it from the sun. Carnivorous plants can feed on other matter when necessary, but if they are getting enough sun, don't need it.

It is demonstrably and categoricAlly wrong that intelligence has anything to do with suffering. The two parts of the brain responsible for pain reception and intelligent thoughts are distinct. The ability to add 2+2 is handled by an entirely different region of the brain. Animals don't have neocortex like humans, but they all possess the "reptilian brain" (including us) which allows pain sensation. Evolutionary, it is completely illogical to say humans can feel pain, but no other animals before us could.

I have never claimed that no other animal before us could feel pain. I'm not sure where you're pulling that strawman from.

Your definition of intelligence is obviously different from mine. I have never seen anything resembling evidence of intelligence from plant life. Intelligence is born of the brain, and plants don't have brains.

Intelligence and suffering may come from separate parts of the brain, but they do both come from the brain. That is the link and my point; animals, which have brains (other than a select few, such as jellyfish, which do not), are able to feel pain and suffering. So consider it coincidental rather than causal.

I'd still like to hear the difference between equal respect of other species' interests and equal status.

It is a logical implication from what you gave: that if intelligence is requisite for suffering (as you claim), and humans are the only intelligent animals, then only humans have the ability to suffer since they are the only intelligent species. Therefore, animals, not being intelligent, can not suffer, which includes all animals that came before us evolutionarily. Because this is obviously false, it shows that your premises are false via a reductio ad absurdum.

Except, of course, that I have never claimed animals have no intelligence. In fact, my entire premise in regards to the difference between plants and animals is that nearly all animals DO have some degree of intelligence. So this post of yours is, once again, premised on a strawman.

 

[newpolitics]

Next, I'm using the term intelligence a bit loosely. Intelligence is a requirement for sentience, at least in this context. I'm not interested in various definitions of sentience that don't have anything to do with this conversation. So yes, intelligence is relevant to moral considerations.

.

You said, "intelligence is a requirement for sentience." So my question is, do you consider animals intelligent?

Edit: okay. Sorry. You answered this... So then you admit, being that animals have some level of intelligence, also have sentience, and can therefore feel Pain and pleasure, which means they have interests to avoid pain and increase pleasure. Agreed?

 

[newpolitics]

Is it not having intelligence that divides animals from plants? Couldn't we conclude, then, that since plants do not suffer but animals do, that it may be that intelligence is what allows for suffering?

No, it is not simply intelligence that divides animals from plants. Plants do demonstrate an "intelligence" of sorts, in the form of extremely sophisticated interaction with their surroundings, and certain animals have barely any intelligence at all. One of the biggest defining features for animals is that they are heterotrophs, and need to feed on other matter. Plants, even carnivorous ones, do not. They get it from the sun. Carnivorous plants can feed on other matter when necessary, but if they are getting enough sun, don't need it.

It is demonstrably and categoricAlly wrong that intelligence has anything to do with suffering. The two parts of the brain responsible for pain reception and intelligent thoughts are distinct. The ability to add 2+2 is handled by an entirely different region of the brain. Animals don't have neocortex like humans, but they all possess the "reptilian brain" (including us) which allows pain sensation. Evolutionary, it is completely illogical to say humans can feel pain, but no other animals before us could.

I have never claimed that no other animal before us could feel pain. I'm not sure where you're pulling that strawman from.

Your definition of intelligence is obviously different from mine. I have never seen anything resembling evidence of intelligence from plant life. Intelligence is born of the brain, and plants don't have brains.

Intelligence and suffering may come from separate parts of the brain, but they do both come from the brain. That is the link and my point; animals, which have brains (other than a select few, such as jellyfish, which do not), are able to feel pain and suffering. So consider it coincidental rather than causal.

I'd still like to hear the difference between equal respect of other species' interests and equal status.

The difference is that I am not asking anyone to allow animals to vote for president, or hold a job in an office, but rather, just admit that they have interests that we have no rational justification to ignore, and to respect those interests and not frustrate them, as we now do. For example, don't keep them in cages, don't enslave them, don't cause them suffering, and don't kill them (they want to live just as much as we do).

 

[Montrovant]

Next, I'm using the term intelligence a bit loosely. Intelligence is a requirement for sentience, at least in this context. I'm not interested in various definitions of sentience that don't have anything to do with this conversation. So yes, intelligence is relevant to moral considerations.

.

You said, "intelligence is a requirement for sentience." So my question is, do you consider animals intelligent?

Edit: okay. Sorry. You answered this... So then you admit, being that animals have some level of intelligence, also have sentience, and can therefore feel Pain and pleasure, which means they have interests to avoid pain and increase pleasure. Agreed?

As I understand it many animals do feel pain and pleasure. I've got no problem agreeing with that.

Further, I'll agree that each animal is going to want to avoid pain and increase pleasure where possible.

 

[Montrovant]

No, it is not simply intelligence that divides animals from plants. Plants do demonstrate an "intelligence" of sorts, in the form of extremely sophisticated interaction with their surroundings, and certain animals have barely any intelligence at all. One of the biggest defining features for animals is that they are heterotrophs, and need to feed on other matter. Plants, even carnivorous ones, do not. They get it from the sun. Carnivorous plants can feed on other matter when necessary, but if they are getting enough sun, don't need it.

It is demonstrably and categoricAlly wrong that intelligence has anything to do with suffering. The two parts of the brain responsible for pain reception and intelligent thoughts are distinct. The ability to add 2+2 is handled by an entirely different region of the brain. Animals don't have neocortex like humans, but they all possess the "reptilian brain" (including us) which allows pain sensation. Evolutionary, it is completely illogical to say humans can feel pain, but no other animals before us could.

I have never claimed that no other animal before us could feel pain. I'm not sure where you're pulling that strawman from.

Your definition of intelligence is obviously different from mine. I have never seen anything resembling evidence of intelligence from plant life. Intelligence is born of the brain, and plants don't have brains.

Intelligence and suffering may come from separate parts of the brain, but they do both come from the brain. That is the link and my point; animals, which have brains (other than a select few, such as jellyfish, which do not), are able to feel pain and suffering. So consider it coincidental rather than causal.

I'd still like to hear the difference between equal respect of other species' interests and equal status.

The difference is that I am not asking anyone to allow animals to vote for president, or hold a job in an office, but rather, just admit that they have interests that we have no rational justification to ignore, and to respect those interests and not frustrate them, as we now do. For example, don't keep them in cages, don't enslave them, don't cause them suffering, and don't kill them (they want to live just as much as we do).

Do we have a rational justification to care about their interests?

I can give rational justification to ignore them in some situations, such as animal testing for medical research : self interest.

Not keeping animals in cages means, basically, no food animals and no pets. When we can grow meat without needing to use the animals (I think that is something that may be close to happening) then I can see getting off of food animals, but not before. Humans are omnivores, we are going to keep eating meat.
Pets, while often kept in cages, are also usually taken care of. So the question of whether time spent in a cage decreases their pleasure more than being taken care of by their owners increases it is very much up for debate.

You say animals want to live just as much as humans do. I don't know that I can agree with that. I don't think most animals are nearly as aware of life and death as humans. Do most animals have desires as we understand them? Is instinctively avoiding danger or pain the same as wanting to live?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Ironically, now you are philosophizing into obscurity, as you are simply misconstruing epistemic boundaries to mean that animals can not suffer. This is fallacious and highly biased. Just as you can not prove another mind exists and solipsism isn't true, neither can I prove that animals can suffer, with certainty. But so what? This isn't about certainty. This is about what is likely. I don't need to the word "sentience" to show that animals feel, and therefore can suffer. Whether you want to call them sentient is irrelevant. It's just a word to model reality. Realty shows that animals possess nerves just like we do, and a brain to process that information, just like we do. Therefore, to say they don't feel pain, is simply illogical and I am wondering is your evidence that animals don't feel pain. Further corroborating this anatomical evidence is the behavioral evidence, who show, just as humans do, visible signs of agony and suffering when in pain. Further corroborating all of this is the evolutionary necessity for any animal to need to be able to detect pain and pleasure in order to survive, In order to know what to stay away from (predators) and what to be attracted to (sex, food). You seem to want to burden me with evidence, which I have just provided. Now provide me with evidence, given the facts of our anatomical similarities with animals regarding pain-messaging pathways, that would suggest animals have no ability to feel pain.

Ironically? you have no idea what ironic means, do you?

By the way, I never once said that animals do not suffer. In fact, of you go back and read, I pointed out that plants suffer. This is a scientific fact, which means it exists completely outside your universe.

Since you say that animals are sentient, and that plants are not, you have effectively affirmed my premise that suffering is not indicative of sentience.

Thanks for agreeing with me that you are stupid.

Considering that you have not demonstrated that plants suffer, you have not shown that suffering can happen without sentience. By definition, this is impossible. I don't even know how this is a point of contention.

I am still waiting for you to demonstrate that animals are sentient, something I have asked for more than once. You haven't even provided any evidence that eating plants lessens overall suffering in some magical way.

Plants react to stimulus, they send out signals to other plants that warn them of danger. How could they do that if they don't feel pain?

UC Davis researcher finds that chemical links warn plants of dangers - Daily Democrat Online

Plant sniffs out danger to prepare defenses against pesky insect