351–360 of 704 posts
so, the dispute with France over post-Brexit fishing rights didn't go too well then? innit?
I think you are suggesting that the Animal Welfare Bill has an intended side effect of tipping the balance of cross channel cooked shellfish trade in favour of the UK?
Or I didn’t get the joke.
Not trying to argue it's OK to subject animals to unnecessary pain (it shouldn't be!), but from a pure logical consistency standpoint, are there many non-sentient animals? Why is it OK to not recognize mosquitos, rats, termites, deers, ants, etc etc which meet painful demise by humans as sentient animals while making exceptions for a few?
According to the Buddha, one should not kill any sentient being, sentient being defined as made up of the five skandhas: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. I had a very easy time following this rule until my houseplants were attacked by spider mites and almost simultaneously my rats attacked by a different species of mites. How does one watch the beings (I don't apply "being" to the p…
“The strings break,” the musician replied.
“And what happens when you string it too loosely?”
“When it’s too loose, no sound comes out,” the musician answered. “The string that produces a tuneful sound is not too tight and not too loose.”
“That,” said the Buddha, “is how to practice: not too tight and not too loose.”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to the Buddha, one should not kill any sentient being, sentient being defined as made up of the five skandhas: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. I had a very easy time following this rule until my houseplants were attacked by spider mites and almost simultaneously my rats attacked by a different species of mites. How does one watch the beings (I don't apply "being" to the p…
Isn't the teaching of Buddhism that one should learn to let go of attachments such as love, because they will bring you pain?
Not trying to argue it's OK to subject animals to unnecessary pain (it shouldn't be!), but from a pure logical consistency standpoint, are there many non-sentient animals? Why is it OK to not recognize mosquitos, rats, termites, deers, ants, etc etc which meet painful demise by humans as sentient animals while making exceptions for a few?
According to the Buddha, one should not kill any sentient being, sentient being defined as made up of the five skandhas: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. I had a very easy time following this rule until my houseplants were attacked by spider mites and almost simultaneously my rats attacked by a different species of mites. How does one watch the beings (I don't apply "being" to the p…
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. The bar for sentience is quite low. It only means that one is capable of feeling sensations. (For example, Wikipedia gives the definition, "Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations.")
Does an arduino have sentience? It can certainly sense stuff via its gpio pins. As for "feelings", I don't know, would having a state machine that transitions between "happy" and "sad" based on gpio inputs count?
Right now no, an Arduino can't be sentient because it's not alive. If at some future point an Arduino could tick all the "is alive" boxes [0]: - homeostasis - organisation - metabolism - growth - adaptation - response - reproduction Then yes, there would be a good case for the Arduino being sentient.
However if you take a look at the list you'll see response is listed, that's because anything that is alive is sentient by definition.
Sentient by definition is really the point, sentient and sapient were defined specifically to codify the uniqueness of humanity.
All these other this are sentient, but only us, humans, and sapient.
The definitions although seemingly scientific are simply a re-enforcement of the biblical idea that the world was created for us, and that we can essentially do as we please, you can see this is the test for sapience, which is, is the specimen a member of the homo sapiens species.
Just for completeness, and to also touch on why this might become an important question; you'll also see organisation on that list. Organisation is usually defined as being made up of one or more cells, which suggests that an Arduino, or any machine, will always fail to pass that test.
Essentially humans have defined life in terms of itself. This makes sense, we only have a single reference and as such we can't even begin to imagine what other forms of life may exist.
However, as we create ever more complex nondeterministic machines, or if we ever get serious about finding extraterrestrial life, this definition is going to have to change to allow for other possibilities.
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Isn't the teaching of Buddhism that one should learn to let go of attachments such as love, because they will bring you pain?
Not a Buddhist, but I think it's the desire to attach to things which is the root of suffering, not that you can't love someone.
I agree and should have agreed differently that an absence of attachment does not mean an absence of love.
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According to the Buddha, one should not kill any sentient being, sentient being defined as made up of the five skandhas: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. I had a very easy time following this rule until my houseplants were attacked by spider mites and almost simultaneously my rats attacked by a different species of mites. How does one watch the beings (I don't apply "being" to the p…
Of course your immune system (and Buddha's one) is constantly killing bacteria to keep you alive. Is there a self defense exception? There should be a line somewhere but it's difficult to draw it when we don't even agree what consciousness is. It could also be totally impractical. Probably a Buddhist alive is better than a Buddhist dead because it's necessary to kill smaller beings to be alive.
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>>>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…
You know the argument is good when every response is “I don’t care”. So many horrific things have continued in this world because of people saying exactly that.
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I admire the jainist (?) philosophy of not killing, but it does seem incredibly impractical, to the point of being stupid even. How do you avoid killing mites on the ground when you go out for a walk?
They sweep the ground in front of them with a broom. To be precise, the monks do this, and the laity work as jewelers in Manhattan and support the monks financially.