Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests • Hacker News Board

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#11

Post by viraptor » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 5:34 AM UTC

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #4

Is this a surprise? Dogs and cats, being injured, show that they feel it and are sensitive to others touching where they hurt. Is it really that 'weird' to think that beings other than mammals would have this?

Yes. Complex behaviour and memory, ability to execute complicated tasks, and many other features are usually more common in complex/large organisms. It may not be surprising, but it's certainly non-obvious why insects would have persistent pain after injury - especially if it prevents them from effectively getting on with other tasks after the initial injury source / danger passes.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#12

Post by Mirioron » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 5:37 AM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #11

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #4

Is this a surprise? Dogs and cats, being injured, show that they feel it and are sensitive to others touching where they hurt. Is it really that 'weird' to think that beings other than mammals would have this?

Yes. Complex behaviour and memory, ability to execute complicated tasks, and many other features are usually more common in complex/large organisms. It may not be surprising, but it's certainly non-obvious why insects would have persistent pain after injury - especially if it prevents them from effectively getting on with other tasks after the initial injury source / danger passes.

On the other hand, you could say the same thing about feeling pain in humans. Once the danger/injury source passes then being in pain is not good, particularly chronic pain that actually inhibits the person. We still have that though.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#13

Post by asveikau » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 5:38 AM UTC

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #4

Is this a surprise? Dogs and cats, being injured, show that they feel it and are sensitive to others touching where they hurt. Is it really that 'weird' to think that beings other than mammals would have this?

It's not terribly surprising, intuitively, that a large range of living things feel and remember pain.

The seeming clarity or obviousness doesn't mean it's not worthwhile to study it, test the assumption, prove or disprove, figure out what creatures are subject to it and to what extent, etc. I imagine we could learn a lot trying to explain it.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#14

Post by rolltiide » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 5:40 AM UTC

jerkstate wrote: post #3

nefitty wrote: post #2

Well, this makes being faithful to my ethical commitments a little more complicated.

to complicate things further, mosquitos and ticks have been shown to feel really, really guilty about drinking your blood.

spot on analysis because we are going to kill their whole species for it

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#15

Post by viraptor » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 5:43 AM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #12

viraptor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Complex behaviour and memory, ability to execute complicated tasks, and many other features are usually more common in complex/large organisms. It may not be surprising, but it's certainly non-obvious why insects would have persistent pain after injury - especially if it prevents them from effectively getting on with other tasks after the initial injury source / danger passes.

On the other hand, you could say the same thing about feeling pain in humans. Once the danger/injury source passes then being in pain is not good, particularly chronic pain that actually inhibits the person. We still have that though.

I could speculate at least 2 reasons for persistent pain. Before medicine, if you broke a limb, it was likely not as functional / strong as before. Long term pain is probably a good reminder to be careful about it. Also since we can form complex relations in memory, it's potentially useful as "remember how you thought you could do this thing? well, you couldn't, so don't try it again."

I think for people the equation is a bit different. We care about individuals in general and have limited number of kids. That's not the case for ants for example which seem quite replaceable / not able to recognise individuals (or even if they're alive).

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#16

Post by strictnein » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 5:44 AM UTC

rolltiide wrote: post #14

jerkstate wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to complicate things further, mosquitos and ticks have been shown to feel really, really guilty about drinking your blood.

spot on analysis because we are going to kill their whole species for it

That and the whole spreading of disease that kills a million people a year and harms hundreds of millions more.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#17

Post by dang » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 5:57 AM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #6

Don't tell the vegans. They'll starve to death.

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#18

Post by dang » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 5:57 AM UTC

toinetoine wrote: post #7

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #4

Is this a surprise? Dogs and cats, being injured, show that they feel it and are sensitive to others touching where they hurt. Is it really that 'weird' to think that beings other than mammals would have this?

Insects are mammals?

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#19

Post by antonvs » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 5:59 AM UTC

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #4

Is this a surprise? Dogs and cats, being injured, show that they feel it and are sensitive to others touching where they hurt. Is it really that 'weird' to think that beings other than mammals would have this?

It's a valid question, not sure why it's downvoted. There are also some good answers here, which is the point of discussion.

Re: Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests

#20

Post by blodovnik » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 6:04 AM UTC

Why wouldn't they feel pain?

It's such a superior attitude to even consider that only humans could feel pain.

It's also obvious that any complex organism feels pain... It the most basic evolutionary protection mechanism. Anything that didn't feel pain would soon be evolved out.