Kate’s Controversies

If this actually happens the urban legend that KFC doesn't use the word 'chicken' anymore because they don't actually use 'real' chicken would kind of be true!

Sounds that we are coming to a world like Soylent Green.

My thoughts exactly.

When you call yourself Vegetarian you are not supposed to eat Meat whatever method it is produced. Humans are non carnivores animals they do not have cannie teeth and no digestive acids to consume meat. I know many of friends who are non vegis will not agree with me. But to-day most of the diseases are born out of animal meat. Also you dont know health of animal whose meat you are eating, it might have been inficlted by any of the diseases. Latest was "Mad Cow" problem and "Bird Flu". I am vegi from birth I dont even eat eggs, but at age 67 yrs I am not suffering from any problems. I can read without wearing glasses. I enjoy active life of working as free lancer for my clients.So long live Vegis.

"to avoid contributing to the suffering of sentient beings like cows, pigs, horses, and sheep"

A cow, pig, horse, sheep a sentient being. Do you even know what one looks like. By this statement you have never been around one. I have never seen one that showed any signs of being self aware.

I have been on farms. I have personally interacted with cows, horses, and pigs. I have played with calves who jumped with joy to see me, and licked my face like a pet dog would (these animals were particularly well-treated since they were raised only for milk, and treated with kindness). There exits much evidence that apes, monkeys, dogs, cats, porpoises, elephants, horses, cows, sheep, and even mice, (i.e., all mammals) have emotions. I would argue that to have emotions, a being must exhibit sentience (awareness of separate self). If you don't accept all of the animals on my list, would you at least agree that apes and pet dogs are sentient? If yes, then why would an ape or dog have this trait, but not a cow or horse? What criteria should we use to distinguish between sentient and non-sentient animals? I would argue that it depends on the structural complexity of the brain, and that all mammals have the necessary minimum complexity.

I will agree that the great apes have shown sentience but not the dog. The criteria is self awareness. When you look in a mirror do you see your self or another person?

Dogs can recognize themselves in the mirror. If that is the criteria for self-awareness, then several mammalian species have already passed the test. I think that my criteria -- the observable presence of emotions -- is a stricter test.

I have seen dogs growl at the mirror with the hair standing up on their back. Charging their own image. Fear is the emotion in which these dogs showed. A self aware being does not fear the image of their self in a mirror.

Friendly dogs would approach the mirror and go around to get a better sniff and become confused. They would shorty lose interest. Confusion is that an emotion?

Neither of these show that a dog is self aware when see their image in a mirror.

Emotions are all so a poor criteria to base self awareness on. When in disciplining a dog you perchance yell at them and they hang their heads low. They are not doing it because they are sad that they did something wrong. They are just reacting to the fact your up set. Heck I don't think they understand even if you rub their nose in it!

Dogs, as with other animals, absolutely display emotions. I am not aware of what definition you want to apply to the phrase "self-aware", but dogs can and do display emotion, are cognitive of the emotions of others, and posses intelligence.

I think your examples of the mirror are a little too simplistic. Generally, dogs that show aggression have other issues that are causing an imbalance in their life. The result of this imbalance is expressed in the form of aggression in some dogs or can manifest itself as other traits such as self mutilation or other destructive behavior.

I think that both examples of dog behavior you cited are dogs that are self aware, but how you define self-aware is a tricky question.

Lastly, as humans we project human traits on animals and expect animals to relate to us in this context. This is anything but true, particularly with dogs and can have horrible consequences when we treat dogs in this fashion.

You are right, rubbing a dog's nose in their own feces does not help a dog "get it" at all.

The mirror is just a tool that has been used for this type of research. To study the reaction of the subject in seeing their image in a mirror.

What they are looking for is reaction that would leave them to believe that the subject recognizes the image as them self. The subjects ability to distinguish that image from just another animal to them self is part of test to gauge self awareness.

You are right in the that the treatment of animals will effect how they would react. Fear should not be the reaction of seeing ones own image.

Fascinating. Do you have any links on this? I would like to learn more about this technique.

Thats some thing i will have to dig up. It has been a while since looking at these studies.

I have been away for a week, but will try to catch up on this thread.

Recognizing a reflection of one's own body in a mirror does not prove self-awareness. A machine could be easily designed to do this (but try to program a machine to feel emotions, good luck!). Recognition of one's own exterior proves nothing except that some brains (computers) are good at pattern recognition. And by the way, some dogs *do* recognize themselves in the mirror. Try this experiment: if you can get your dog to sit still in front of a mirror, sneak up on it from behind an attempt to strike it from behind with a foam rod (so that the dog sees only your reflection -- watch the dog flinch! I have never seen a dog growl at its own reflection (those that do have some kind of disfunction).

Having emotions does not make it less tasty. By your analysis, grass, moss, algiae and even single celled organisms have emotions. And also Bears have emotions....Go hug a grizzly....and we'll bury the peices he shits out.

Just cause you happen to be on top of the food chain doesn't give the rest of them more rights...and rice is a living organism, as is a mushroom, a fungus or the herpies living in your body...if you don't want to kill anything by digesting it....starve. Cause if anything other than a rock passes your lips, you are a hypocrit

You eat, you destroy life. when you with to die or kill your children by not feeding them, then you can talk.

Some times stupidity rears it's head just by it's existance...not knowing that it is what it protests/

Pass me that rare fetus in an orange sauce, and cook it properly....I don't care where the fetus comes from .... all that is social

This is svengali (away from my pc & can't remember my password).

Hi Tom,

What part of my "analysis" would imply that I think grass has emotions? Because I said cows, dogs, and other mammals have emotions? Actually I think, based on general my modest knowledge of neural networks, that emotions require a minimal level of neural complexity that plants seem to lack. So no, I would say that "grass, moss, algae and even single celled organisms" DO NOT have emotions.

I agree that plants are alive, and that I kill them when I eat them. For now, killing cannot be avoided if we want to eat. But I can still be selective about what life forms I kill. I prefer to rely mainly on a vegetarian diet because this seems to cause far less suffering to living beings than would a carnivore's diet. Now please explain how this makes me a "hypocrite". Strong words about me coming from someone who apparently misunderstood what I actually wrote. If you can't explain what you think makes me a hypocrite, then you should apologize. But judging from many of your previous posts, I expect that you will not understand, and neither will you show civility.

And regarding your last sentence: "You eat, you destroy life. when you with to die or kill your children by not feeding them, then you can talk." Would you please translate that into English so the rest of us can figure out what you're rambling about?

Actually emotions are a software issue not hardware, a neural network is biological hardware utilized to communicate information between the variety of single celled organisms that comprise the body of a multi celled organism. since we operate and function at a basic level much differently than a plant, it is understandable that we do not have the same hardware. However, the concept of pain and suffering, which are not emotions because this is a very ambiguous notion that actually requires a level of intellectual understanding, awareness and free time that animals probably do not have,is something that is identified in plants, as they respond to damages and stresses from areas that are not in direct contact with the areas that are damaged or stressed. Plants just do not accomplish many of the responses in exactly the same manner we do, they also do not walk or move around (there is no fight or flight response for a plant, they don't get that option). So i guess in reality you are inflicting pain and stress on a life form that is essential helpless to defend itself against your assaults, unlike a pig (pigs can be quite dangerous, and are quite willing to eat you, if they have the opportunity).

I remember reading about plant emotions back in the 60s. It seems some guy was fooling around with a lie detector and hooked it up to a plant on the table next to it. As he was wondering what would happen if he burned one of the leaves, the needles on the machine went crazy. Seems that plant was not only emotional but telepathic.

I guess it all depends on how you define emotions and telepathy. I believe they probably do have a more basis response to pain, much like many animals, but they don't have the same reactions to pain, since they can not flee or really fight. I believe for those people who use the emotions argument, it really isn't about an animals capacity for emotional response, but their interpretation of human responses corresponding to perceived body language in the animals, those big brown eyes like a baby's and long eye lashes, or the sounds. It is easier to kill something that is even more peaceful as long as it makes no sounds or doesn't have features that we derive body language responses from.

The MythBusters tested the old myth about plants telepathically detecting and reacting to the haring of nearby plants. At first they thought they had found a real reaction from the plants. But after improving the design of their experiments to control more of the experimental variables, the correlation between stimulus and response disappeared. They concluded that the myth is "Busted". I know the MythBusters sometimes cut corners, but on the other hand, can anyone cite a reference to reproducible results in favor of telepathic plants?

Oh yeah, let's see a special effects guy and a nerd work together (with a lil' help from other nerds) to prove or debunk "myths". And they proved this to be wrong? Not that I would have the slightest inkling on how to go about prove this sort of thing, I seriously that this group would either...

I am not sure there is sientifically valid reporducible studies that support the concept of telepathy in Humans, let alone plants or animals.

It makes no sense to assume that plants sense much pain (if any). Animals evolved pain in order instinctively retreat from physically harmful events (and the memory of pain events helps us to avoid it in the future). Since plants cannot move to retreat from pain, pain it serve no useful purpose for them (it terms of evolution and natural selection).

Regarding your comment about software, obviously both hardware and software are needed to execute an algorithm. My point was that simple life forms probably have very rudimentary emotion (if any at all) because of their very simple hardware and software.

Regarding the distinction between pain and emotions, obviously pain come in a variety of forms such as physical, emotional, and intellectual. What concerns me about eating cows and pigs is not the physical pain of the slaughter-house. I object more to the life-long emotional pain that these exploited cows and pigs endure in factory farms. I have no objection to hunters killing animals in the wild for food.

I don't understand some people's reactions to my simple message. Unless a person is an animal-rights extremists (and has to think twice about which to rescue first, a drowning human or a drowning dog), I don't see why anyone sees anything controversial about the idea that some species are more sentient than others, and therefore deserve more protection. Clearly most people feel much more regret about accidentally killing a dog than an insect.

I follow a mostly vegetarian diet, but I don't claim ethical purity, and I don't mean to preach. But when I eat animals once in a while, I eat fish and birds since these non-mammalian animals probably suffer much less emotionally than cows and pigs in factory farms. This seems reasonable to me, but a few people seem to have a negative knee-jerk response whenever anyone suggest eating less red meat. I suspect that they feel a bit annoyed for being reminded about what goes on in factory farming.

You may want to visit a chicken or turkey farm. Those make beef cattle livving arrangements look luxurious, shettlered from the cold when they want, provided with good free food and water to supplement their limited natural resources. Also, many birds have a much higher level of sentience then a cow or even a pig, by human testing standards (definitely parrots and crows). Birds actually could be in many way more evolved than humans. After all mammals evolved from reptiles about the same time as dinosaurs, but bird evolved from later dinosaurs. Plus I am not sure how many people wouldn't volunteer to live in a situation similar to the way we raise cattle, if the alternative was starving in the wilderness and cold like a wild animal. I am sure the mortality rate from starvation alone is dramatically higher amongst semi-wild buffalo than farmed cattle. Most beef cattle only get into relatively tight confinement, like you'd see at a dairy, just before slaughter for a couple of months, but spend most of their lives on the range (with supplements of water resources and food they do not have naturally available on the range). Now Dairy cattle are handled much more like you see chickens raised,though they still have much more freedom and area to roam than chickens (more like free-range chickens). And, the way we slaughter fish, would be equivalent to throwing cattle in a deep pool with weights and allowing them to drown while they struggle, Let alone shell fish, lobsters and such. So obviously, it is not a question of the treatment of the beef or pigs, as they are treated substantially better than other food sources. Nor can it be a belief in the animals capacity to be aware of its situation and living conditions, as chickens are likely at least as sentient as cattle, maybe not pigs. Some of the issues are related to a racial bias that most people have where they assign human characteristics of mental capabilities based on observed physical traits, particularly the eyes, or sounds. As such this simplistic thought process cause a generalization of many human characteristic to these animals based on some simple physical trait, and thus many people would question whether to save their pet dog or some guy they do not know. However, given the prevalence of dog fighting world-wide, some people might just as easily fight to protect a butterfly but raise dog to fight ( this is another simple bias many people suffer regarding things they perceive as beautiful).

Regarding the concept of simple life forms, obviously in many ways plant are vastly more evolved and complicated than humans. Otherwise we could just walk outside and stick out feet in some soil and soak up some sunlight to get our food. Plants protect themselves by producing some extremely complicate biochemicals, which we find hard to reproduce many times. Plant biochemisty is much more complicated and evolved than human biochemistry. They also have complicated physiological responses to environmental conditions and stressors, including movement, however, these tend to occur in response to factor much different than those we'd respond to, in part because different environmental factor effect plants more strongly than animals, or vice versa.

I have been reading the posts about self awareness in animals and it occurred to me that the case for self awareness may be summed up from a quote of Tom Regan's Kantian Account of Animal Rights.

The following passage, I believe, hits the nail on the head. Regan cited that in order to posses inherit worth you only need be "the subject of life."

"That is, you must be conscious of having a life that can get better or worse. You need not be able to place it on a graph, or reflect deeply about it, or set ultimate goals, or develop rule-governed justifications of your evaluations, or even give a verbal description of the process of your life. You must have a life, and have sufficient self-awareness that you can recognize when things are going well or ill."

When you consider all the creatures that can fit this definition it is easier to attach a definition of self-aware on a case-by-case basis. I think that self-aware as defined as being able to recognize that life can get better or worse is a very, very good definition.

Hmm, by that definition, i am not sure that 30% of the human population would qualify.

5 perry, but who judges? You? and if you do, does that mean I get to judge you as not capable?

Regan cited it with the arrogance of ignorance...The Liberal Agenda. See, if they can define something, they can tax it or make you feel guiltiy about it.

I tell you what, if you really want to be at one with the earth...take off everyihing you have and walk neked into the sun...forage and be one with nature...I give you 5 days before you're a raving lunatic....and you wouldn't last a year north of alabama

You probably worship Al Gore, who's house burnes 30 times what the normal household energy footrprint is, though he's there 30% of the year...the rest of the time he is flying on his private jet, buning more fuel in an hour than most truckers burn in a month...Telling you to fuck off and use less because you are a fucking asshole unless you are buying carbon credits from his companies

You will have a wonderful life sucking down soilent grean and not thinking about the grandma they just took out in a garbage truck

Milliions of people in the world are vegitarians...and 99.995% of those would kill your mother for meat, but don't have it as an available source of food. India is a great example....India actually is able to feed itself on available resources...if you want half your population living on less than 1 lb of rice a