XPost: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian, misc.education, alt.philosophy
XPost: rec.pets.cats.misc
From: see@sig.below
In article ,
"pearl" wrote:
[SNIP]
>
> With respect to all mammals, birds, and reptiles, we know that
> they possess a sufficiently complex neural structure to enable pain
> to be felt plus an evolutionary need for such consciously felt states.
You avoided responding to this issue in a previous thread, so I'll try
again: We agree that animals possess sensors for various dangerous
stimuli (intense heat, cold, pressure, etc.), and that they are
neurologically complex enough to consistently respond in ways to avoid
such stimuli; BUT, the scientific state of the art is currently unable
to tell us if they have any SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE analogous to our
feelings of pain, or for that matter any subjective experience of
anything at all. One could build a small mobile robot that senses and
avoids extreme environmental conditions, but surely from seeing its
purposeful behaviour you would not leap to the conclusion that it had
"consciously felt states". Or would you?
Note that I am not asserting that higher animals definitely lack
subjective experience, but rather that our ignorance of the material
underpinnings of subjective experience is so vast that we can not even
begin to answer questions such which animals (if any) have "consciously
felt states".
Over to you. And please try to respond with your own thoughts, rather
than another large cut-and-paste.
[SNIP]
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