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This is a link post Are animals conscious?
Yes. Obviously.
 (I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Sun 16 Jun 2024, 15:50, , Reply)
This is a normal post I have to wonder at scientists like this
Are they trolling?
 (I helped save b3ta! simbosan liked your link on, Sun 16 Jun 2024, 20:40, , Reply)
This is a normal post There really is a widespread cultural belief that animals don't feel pain or emotion like we do.
I can understand hunters, farmers, abattoir workers and animal experimentalists perpetuating the myth. I can even understand meat-eaters who want to think they are living an ethical life wishing it were true.

But anyone paying the slightest attention to animal behaviour must know it's bollocks. The concept of anthropomorphic projection relies on the same chauvinism. I find it weird that this orthodoxy persists in science. Darwin was so obviously right in the first place. Pleasure and pain are obviously related to the accepted notion of survival instinct. Animals can clearly enjoy themselves and can clearly suffer. I don't know what tests need to be done to confirm what is so fucking obvious!
 (I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Sun 16 Jun 2024, 21:59, , Reply)
This is a normal post Absolutely
It's exactly what Darwin fought against. The idea that we are not on a continuum with all other life
 (I helped save b3ta! simbosan liked your link on, Sun 16 Jun 2024, 22:51, , Reply)
This is a normal post We are however the only animals smart enough to ask the question.
Does a wasp care about the caterpillar it’s eating alive? Do orcas play with seals because deep down they’re sadistic bastards? When it comes to brb’s point about food animals I would gently say that humans are one of very few predators that try to kill what we eat as quickly as possible and the others that do only do so to stop their food running away.

On a less flippant note, how does an animal feel full when it has nothing to feel with? It reminded me of Charles Stross’s Accellerando where one of the characters rants that lobsters only need 14 neurons to manage their digestive system and they have business being so uncomplicated. I’d put the quote up but searching on a Kindle is all kinds of broken.
 (I helped save b3ta! jonbob loves you, Sun 16 Jun 2024, 23:59, , Reply)
This is a normal post Or we're the only species dumb enough to ask the question.
I think you're conflating morality and consciousness. It makes sense to me that carnivores should evolve to find pleasure in killing. A carnivore that naturally despises hunting is going to have a depressing time before it goes extinct.

I am sure that all social animals have culture, and that each culture contains some kind of morality/proto-morality, and I am sure that all animals have natural instincts defining behaviours that are the basis of moralities.

Your third question seems to negate itself because the article explains how the brainless animal feels using its nervous system.
 (I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Mon 17 Jun 2024, 1:03, , Reply)
This is a normal post I don't think it's that simple.
Just on a basic comparison of senses they perceive the world in different ways and you can't give a whale a personality test.
 (I helped save b3ta! FeralCatMan Unusual disease collector., Mon 17 Jun 2024, 1:15, , Reply)
This is a normal post I do. Other animals absolutely don't experience pain and emotions the way we do.
That's not to suggest they don't experience either at all, though. Stick a needle in a mouse and it's pretty obvious that it felt pain and will run away from you in the future. Come home from work feeling sad and your four legged friend might well pick up on it and try to comfort you. To make a somewhat extreme counter-argument, however, when was the last time you heard of an animal jumping off a cliff out of sheer despair? Obviously you can't ask it how it was feeling first (or after) but wouldn't you agree that suicide was a uniquely human thing?

Consciousness though? Fuck knows, ask two scientists to define it and you'll get three different answers. If you can't agree on that the question "are animals conscious" is meaningless. If you asked me I'd say they generally aren't, because I'd think you were asking if animals were self-aware and while some do show signs of theory of mind most don't.

There's definitely a continuum of... something... and humans are at the far end, but there are a few other species out there that are pretty damned close. Just teach a gorilla sign language and ask her.
 (I helped save b3ta! jonbob loves you, Mon 17 Jun 2024, 2:30, , Reply)
This is a normal post Yes there is a continuum.
I guess part of the difficulty is we are looking at it from our way of perceiving, some of the more intelligent creatures (like octopuses) may have a radically different model of reality and thought.

As for the suicide question, I see that as more of a learned helplessness and giving up, rather than animals actively killing themselves.

I suspect the question of consciousness is so difficult and bound up with our projections and expectations as to be unanswerable.
 (I helped save b3ta! FeralCatMan Unusual disease collector., Mon 17 Jun 2024, 12:07, , Reply)
This is a normal post
Given that, apparently, communications between humans whose IQ's differ by more than about two standard deviations can be difficult, is it any wonder that empathising with other creatures might be a a tad problematic?

TLDR: I can't fucking stand dealing with retards.
 (Pompey Monkey, Wed 19 Jun 2024, 10:12, , Reply)
This is a normal post "Other animals absolutely don't experience pain and emotions the way we do."
Prove it.

I can accept the idea that animals with completely different hormones to us may feel differently, but if it's the same biology doing the same chemistry then it's obviously the same.
 (I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Mon 17 Jun 2024, 16:02, , Reply)