Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

lse.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 704 posts

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#261

Post by donatj »

adriand wrote: post #25
chrisweekly wrote: post #11

Crabs and lobsters are basically bugs, whereas an octopus is a creative, playful, intelligent creature with amazing capabilities. It seems strange to group them together.

I assume that Dr Jonathan Birch, Associate Professor at LSE’s Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, and his team of scientists didn’t encounter this insightful perspective when they reviewed “over 300 scientific studies” in order to arrive at their conclusions… In seriousness though, this comment is a prime example of speciesism. Even if it were true that these crustaceans were “basically bugs” how doe…

I find the idea that pain is something profound and not just the reception of a signal strange and based in non-scientific beliefs.

Your CPU has a temperature sensor, does that mean if you hold a flame to it and it can detect its own impending destruction, it deserves protection under the law?

Just because something has sensors somehow makes it our contemporary?

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#262

Post by imgabe »

jacquesm wrote: post #215
imgabe wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s kind of beside the point. I’m sure the process of being killed and eaten by a lion nevertheless causes “pain, distress, and harm”. These things are a part of life.

Yes, but Lions lack - for want of a better term - options, whereas we humans have plenty of options. We decide to boil living creatures alive, their feelings be damned because we like their taste better that way. But that's a very conscious choice to inflict harm. In the court of ethics the Lion was just eating, the human being was inflicting unnecessary pain.

Who decides what's necessary? It's not really "necessary" to eat a lobster at all. Maybe we should just live in mud huts, eating the bare minimum amount of soybeans and rice to keep us just alive. That would inflict the minimal amount of "unnecessary" suffering. But then, why is it even necessary that we should be alive?

All living things suffer at one point or another, whether it was necessary or not. There is no grand cosmic register that tallies up all the suffering and is going to cause something bad to happen if it gets too high. Suffering, in and of itself, is just a subjective experience that exists solely in a mind.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#263

Post by tekromancr »

donatj wrote: post #261
adriand wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that Dr Jonathan Birch, Associate Professor at LSE’s Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, and his team of scientists didn’t encounter this insightful perspective when they reviewed “over 300 scientific studies” in order to arrive at their conclusions… In seriousness though, this comment is a prime example of speciesism. Even if it were true that these crustaceans were “basically bugs” how doe…

I find the idea that pain is something profound and not just the reception of a signal strange and based in non-scientific beliefs. Your CPU has a temperature sensor, does that mean if you hold a flame to it and it can detect its own impending destruction, it deserves protection under the law? Just because something has sensors somehow makes it our contemporary?

So according to your philosophy; you wouldn't object to being tortured, after all, it's just signals being registered by a biological computer in your head.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#264

Post by imwillofficial »

adriand wrote: post #25
chrisweekly wrote: post #11

Crabs and lobsters are basically bugs, whereas an octopus is a creative, playful, intelligent creature with amazing capabilities. It seems strange to group them together.

I assume that Dr Jonathan Birch, Associate Professor at LSE’s Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, and his team of scientists didn’t encounter this insightful perspective when they reviewed “over 300 scientific studies” in order to arrive at their conclusions… In seriousness though, this comment is a prime example of speciesism. Even if it were true that these crustaceans were “basically bugs” how doe…

‘speciesism’ hahahahaha good one!

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#265

Post by jmcgough »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #252
lanevorockz wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, I find it remarkable that people use the term “found studies” as anything but self selection. You can prove anything including that the earth is flat and that video footage in the moon landing is fake. Don’t forget that the ancient alien theory is a phd research with published papers

Ah yes, the theory that since bad papers exist all papers are bad. Reading one study is not the same as reading (and then citing) many studies. Common sense is frequently wrong, for a lot of well-studied reasons. There's also a large difference between one lone study which finds a thing using dubious methods and a cohort of studies which independently replicate the same results. There is no shortcut for actually read…

Part of the challenge is that must people lack the education to differentiate between a good study and a bad one, so we just throw our hands up in the air and cede to confirmation bias.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#266

Post by Issaclabs »

hi41 wrote: post #92

The essay "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace came to my mind. In that essay he describes how extraordinary the nervous system of a lobster is and how mindlessly and cruelly we boil them live. If David were still alive, he would definitely welcome this development. I really miss David. I am awestruck by his other essay "This is Water". I am amazed at his deep insights into human nature and how well he desc…

Very pleased to see this comment here :). I would definitely recommend his essays and especially his book infinite jest, if you have the stomach for it.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#268

Post by donatj »

tekromancr wrote: post #263
donatj wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the idea that pain is something profound and not just the reception of a signal strange and based in non-scientific beliefs. Your CPU has a temperature sensor, does that mean if you hold a flame to it and it can detect its own impending destruction, it deserves protection under the law? Just because something has sensors somehow makes it our contemporary?

So according to your philosophy; you wouldn't object to being tortured, after all, it's just signals being registered by a biological computer in your head.

Billions of years of evolutionary survival instinct would have my body grasping at all straws, releasing chemicals and likely having negative affects on my physiology and mental state for the rest of my life. Clearly that isn’t anything anyone wants.

If I had no memories of the experience, and it had no long term physical affects on me, I would be indifferent, obviously, because I don't know about it.

If I were to die from it, I see no advantage to a painless death over a painful death, other than for those around me. I will have no memory of the incident.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#269

Post by deanCommie »

Context: I'm not a hypocrite. I eat a lot of meat.

I would put very strong money down that by the time most people reading these comments are in an old folks home with their grandchildren, the vast majority of the population will consider consumption of all meat unethical.

I don't think it will be illegal yet (just extremely regulated, and expensive - not the least bit because the carbon footprint of meat production will be fully factored into the price).

But to most people under 30 they will consider it as ridiculous as smoking.

And they'll ask us uncomfortable questions we won't have good answers for. Didn't you know about the health risks at the amounts you were consuming? Didn't you know about the carbon footprint? Most importantly, didn't you have ample evidence of consciousness, personality, and sentience in every way that is reasonable to us? We didn't eat dogs but considered pigs and cows different? Why?

And we won't have answers.

A few more decades and people will look back, note the high numbers of vegetarians and vegans in the public sphere, and ask the people of that present to stop venerating historical figures from our time because of pictures of them eating steaks. They'll say "even by the moral standards of the time, they were criticized. The information was all out there."

I don't say any of the above as a value judgement that I think it's good or bad. Just that I think it's inevitable.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#270

Post by margalabargala »

tekromancr wrote: post #263
donatj wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the idea that pain is something profound and not just the reception of a signal strange and based in non-scientific beliefs. Your CPU has a temperature sensor, does that mean if you hold a flame to it and it can detect its own impending destruction, it deserves protection under the law? Just because something has sensors somehow makes it our contemporary?

So according to your philosophy; you wouldn't object to being tortured, after all, it's just signals being registered by a biological computer in your head.

That's not their philosophy, it's the opposite of it. Their point is more in line with something like "the ability to sense pain is not related to sentience and is not special", not "if something can sense pain, it is therefore not sentient and is not special".
Post reply on HN