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

lse.ac.uk

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

#291

Post by jjcon »

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…

Lobsters have essentially the same number of neurons in their entire nervous system (including the “brian”) as a fruit fly does. Complex yes? Interestingly complex? Not even close. A cockroach has 10x more.

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

#292

Post by ornornor »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #244
adriand wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not because we are humans and therefore more valuable to each other I value my children more than I value your children, but you will likely disagree with my assessment, even though it isn’t unexpected. And I would have to admit my assessment is not objective. > Never mind the fact that we have consciousness and ego and complex nervous systems, whereas lobsters do not. That’s how speciesism works: we try to find so…

In your definition of speciesism, you are doing exactly what you accuse your-defined "speciesists" of. You are manufacturing ("try to find some") a definition of speciesism to paint other-people as the bad guy. Your comparison of their actions with slavery is just to demotivate any response. In animal kingdom, animals kill each other ruthlessly. African dogs and other animals eat their prey from back-to-front while t…

> In animal kingdom, animals kill each other ruthlessly

Not that long ago, humans routinely tortured, killed, raped other humans sometimes even just for fun (and in some places of the world very much still do).

Humans (as a species) are destroying their ecosystem past the point of no return, putting their very existence in question.

These two things can also be interpreted as lack of self awareness or any other property you deem worthy in a living being, thus making them inferior to another species.

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

#293

Post by michaelmrose »

colordrops wrote: post #276
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?

If your criteria is sentience and not ability to feel pain, then what are your thoughts on a newborn baby? Or someone with severe brain trauma? Is euthenasia ok for those born with the brain capacity of a cow or lobster? Or are you just being speciesist?

I think that pain is different from suffering. To suffer is to hold an abstract mental model of a world that could be and a world that is and experience discomfort at what is rather than merely processing a pain signal and responding with a reflex action. To suffer requires a modestly complex brain while having a reflexive response to a signal doesn't require any sort of central nervous system at all.

For context some approximations insofar as number of neurons for a rough and imperfect estimate of brain complexity

- Lobster: 100,000

- Jumping Spider: 100,000

- Ant: 250,000

- honey bee or roach: nearly a million

- cats, dogs, and octopi: hundreds of millions

- Human: about 86 billion 1

1 https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/brain-metrics/are_there...

The apparent divergence of the first 2 entries whereas ants and roaches seem very stupid singly makes one wonder how many neurons exactly are needed to have a complex internal life. One would be hard pressed to imagine the single ant, roach, or bee suffers but the relatively complex behavior of the jumping spider makes it easier to imagine it suffering.

It is however easy to see there is little similarity between lobster and octopus when the latter has 500 x as many brain cells.

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

#294

Post by deanCommie »

post_from_work wrote: post #281
deanCommie wrote: post #269

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…

>>>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? Yup. Didn't care. Bacon-wrapped filet mignon tastes THAT good. Some things are worth the risk. Like driving too fast, riding motorcycles, or skydiving. >>>Didn't you know about the carbon footprint? Same answer here... >>>Most importantly, didn't you have ample eviden…

Not today.

I guess I should have been more clear I'm speaking about the Western World.

In 50 years, consumption of animal meat will be like caviar+cigarettes+segregated bathrooms are today in the Western World.

The rest of the world? Too many variables, depends a lot on climate change.

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

#295

Post by ornornor »

Gwarzo wrote: post #237
adriand wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not because we are humans and therefore more valuable to each other I value my children more than I value your children, but you will likely disagree with my assessment, even though it isn’t unexpected. And I would have to admit my assessment is not objective. > Never mind the fact that we have consciousness and ego and complex nervous systems, whereas lobsters do not. That’s how speciesism works: we try to find so…

"I honestly believe that at some point, the majority of humans will look at our system of factory farming and “harvesting” of wildlife in much the same way that today we view slavery, colonialism and other egregious examples of human disregard for other lives. I am not saying they are the same thing, but I do think that they are in the same category.' Do you believe that in our current world state we have some magica…

We apparently won’t be able to feed 10 billion in the near future. Because using 40% of the worlds landmass to grow plants to feed animals to feed humans is as inefficient as it gets.

If we skipped the animals and ate the crops directly it would be far more efficient in every dimension (calories/area, protein/area, environmental impact)

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

#296

Post by jjeaff »

Igelau wrote: post #161
thelibrarian wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who says using the word “octopi” displays ignorance of three languages at once - English, Latin, and (ancient) Greek.

Eric Weinstein says some crazy stuff, but I remember hearing him once say that the best debate strategy for Republicans would be to mention the "noo-kyoo-lar" family, and let them correct you to "nuclear". Then you win because the other side looks like pedants and elitists. This "octopi" is definitely such a word.

I don't think the Democrats have cornered the market on pedantry just yet.

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

#297

Post by ComodoHacker »

junon wrote: post #238
sen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only real solution here is to make the official plural term be Octopises.

"Octopissies" doesn't exactly sound the best when said out loud...

What about "octopussies"?

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

#298

Post by colordrops »

michaelmrose wrote: post #293
colordrops wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your criteria is sentience and not ability to feel pain, then what are your thoughts on a newborn baby? Or someone with severe brain trauma? Is euthenasia ok for those born with the brain capacity of a cow or lobster? Or are you just being speciesist?

I think that pain is different from suffering. To suffer is to hold an abstract mental model of a world that could be and a world that is and experience discomfort at what is rather than merely processing a pain signal and responding with a reflex action. To suffer requires a modestly complex brain while having a reflexive response to a signal doesn't require any sort of central nervous system at all. For context som…

I was speaking against reductionism but while we are there, as your examples alude to, counting neurons to determine sentience is like counting GHz to determine computational power.

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

#299

Post by standardUser »

mr_toad wrote: post #65
galaxyLogic wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question is more who can kill an animal? Humans are animals too. But ordinarily one human is not allowed to kill another, except the state of course in countries with death penalty. So if humans can kill humans it makes sense that humans can also kill (other) animals. But you can not kill someone else's animal because it is not your property. Now if it is ok to kill somebody I don't see why it would be an…

> I think the question is more who can kill an animal? Even in societies that tolerated endemic warfare, slavery, human sacrifice and blood sports, cannibalism was usually off the menu.

Some argue that has been for health reasons, like so many other historical dietary restrictions.

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

#300

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

enriquto wrote: post #278
Sebb767 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact this is somehow just dawning on modern society is a sad indictment of our blinkered and callous disregard for other species Well, lobsters eat fish and fish, as any child could explain to you, can experience distress and probably also pain. As far as animals go, both humans and lobsters are quite actually quite nice - there are species out there that poison their prey and eat it alive [0]. So this is not r…

> no more than it's disregard of a fox to eat a deer Does this happen? It would seem that a fox that attacks a deer has a disregard for its own life

I feel like the GP probably meant to say ‘a wolf to eat a deer’, or perhaps ‘a fox to eat a chicken’.
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