Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law • Hacker News Board

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

#591

Post by NineStarPoint » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

glenstein wrote: post #547

shakna wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sentience always requires more than just reaction, but a memory component. That is, it can take a proactive response to avoid that negative stimuli in the future. However, measuring both of those is generally very difficult, and so determining if something is sentient can be difficult. The bar for sentience is basically, "is it more than automatic". Which is fairly low and easy to clear. It doesn't even require that…

>However, measuring both of those is generally very difficult, and so determining if something is sentient can be difficult. That makes sense. So then, we should probably be very cautious about statements that openly entertain such possibilities given that they may be hard to substantiate meaningfully. >The bar for sentience is basically, "is it more than automatic". Which is fairly low and easy to clear. It doesn't…

I don't think the definition has changed philosophically, but using consciousness as a definition makes decision making very hard. We have no way to prove what animals are and aren't conscious, and what evidence we do have either way is extremely hazy. Using a line like "is more than automatic" to define what we think is probably sapient is pretty reasonable. Maybe it catches some things that are just complex machines with minor learning capabilities, but if you're more worried about excluding sapient beings than including non-sapient it's a reasonable heuristic for decision making.

I do personally think the line can be pulled back a bit to include creatures that's learning ability is extremely inflexible, but in the end it comes down to one's philosophical stance on what is likely to indicate a conscious creature.

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

#592

Post by akudha » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

Enginerrrd wrote: post #557

akudha wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing is one thing, Killing by boiling alive is on a whole another level of cruelty, like unit 731 level, nazi level cruelty. I don’t eat meat, so I don’t know why only lobsters are boiled alive and not other sea food. Whatever the reason, it is hard to justify. If we are going to kill something, the least we could do is kill it painlessly. At the beginning of COVID-19, some farm in the Midwest killed hundreds of p…

Serious question here... but, are you sure that's a cruel method of killing lobsters? (I'm 100% with you on the pigs but here me out on the lobsters.) I think when you're evaluating killing methods based on how humane they are, one thing to keep in mind is that how something looks to the executioner is NOT a good metric. As an example: Consider the oft repeated anecdote about how being hanged is only "humane" if you…

This is a good question. I don't have an answer. I don't eat meat, never have, never killed anything in my life, other than mosquitoes. I assumed that boiling alive is a horrific way to die.

As for pigs, I found the article https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/pigs-factory-farms-venti...

That is from last year.

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

#593

Post by bumby » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

patagonia wrote: post #518

Yizahi wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please define "feel". They experience structural damage - yes, same as every other living organism or plant if damaged. If I tear dandelion in half it will emit poisonous juice. Does it "feel" pain though? I think no. The "feel" part probably can happen only in the sufficiently large brain, and lobster most likely don't qualify.

If you wouldn’t be willing to “experience” the same set of experiences and pains via a similar subset of your sensory system and brain in exchange for the benefit of a meal that could have been cruelty free, then you shouldn’t. The burden of proof should not be on others to prove to you via rationalization/ intellectualization that it’s not a nightmare of an end to a sentient creature’s life experience.

"Experience" is the tough part to define here. Granted, it's not an easy answer but there are some smart thinkers who've tried. Here's an interesting take from the neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran

"your withdrawal from a hot kettle is a different pain from the pain that you then contemplate. In the first case, the pain from withdrawal from a kettle, there is no qualia, no meta-representation."

From his framework, to truly "experience" pain, there needs to be a sense of self. You need higher levels of cognition for the "meta-representation" that causes suffering in our human conceptualization of the term. (There's some interesting brain lesion studies about people who lack this sense of self. They can witness their own body interacting with the environment but have no actual "experience" of the action; it's as if they are watching someone else perform it.) Everything more primitive to that higher cognitive function is just stimulus-response. For example, Gerald Engelman draws the line at lobsters in terms of what "experiences" pain and suffering. The implication being anything below that from a neural perspective would be cruelty-free to consume.

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

#594

Post by bumby » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

toolz wrote: post #575

afiori wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to pose this as not empathy for the animal but empathy for ourselves* It is not nice to the kind of colture that inflict pain on an indutrial scale and we can empathise with the torture that is mutilation and being boiled alive, does not need to be about what an octupus feels during slaughter, it can be about how to approach the act itself. I believe that buddhism teaches to pay respect or thank the lifes that…

I would suggest lobster tastes worse when boiled alive. Any animal that has an endocrine system is likely to taste worse when boiled alive. My understanding is that adrenaline rush caused by immense stress eat up the glycogen stores in muscles which in turn prevents the production of lactic acid to tenderize the meat postmortem. I can't imagine this would be any different in lobsters than basically every other animal…

Your premise may hold true in the general sense but not in the specific. I don't think lobsters produce adrenaline. There may be some other hormone that has a comparable effect though

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

#595

Post by bumby » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #578

bumby wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can’t yet even define consciousness so of course we don’t have a “good” model. But using our current understanding of the “machinery” makes more sense to me than basing the decision on whatever it is you’re vaguely referring to, otherwise I don’t see what stops one from going to full Jainism. If our understanding of that machinery changes so will my opinion. You haven't really given much rationale beyond "they see…

It costs us nothing to admit what we don't know and reserve our judgments until we do. Are you arguing that we not?

No, I've already stated that is a completely reasonable position. It was the main reason behind my decision to become vegetarian. I don't think it's no cost to everybody though and some people's health deteriorates, particularly on vegan diets. However, being conservative in the face of uncertainty is a different stance than claiming they experiencing pain. It also doesn't address how you avoid the slippery-slope argument. For example, we haven't proved plants are not conscious so how do you reconcile a vegetarian/vegan diet with that? For me, that's why I rely on the biological argument that started this discussion. I have a feeling many people just resort to their intuition. Meaning it's just the same position of convenience you railed against masquerading as principled, reasoned stance.

My personal choices aside, there are also reasonable arguments against it that I don't think we should immediately dismiss with hand-wavy anthropomorphic arguments.

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

#596

Post by patagonia » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

toolz wrote: post #582

patagonia wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“…might enjoy watching you writhe…” I’ve seen no evidence that polar bears enjoy watching their prey suffer. Since you are broadening the scope of the argument then let’s talk about how we raise almost all animals that make it to our plates. The process is meant to be economically efficient and has the minimum legal required considerations for the animals welfare between birth and death. It’s not just about their suf…

> It’s about the suffering from birth to death. I would suggest for most all animals being raised with constant supply of food and having your health maintained by intelligent actors is far better a life than the brutality found in nature. Caveats apply I'm sure, but in general a farm animal is raised intentionally to eat as much as it can with as little stress as possible. I'd be curious what criteria you could give…

“Caveats apply I'm sure…” “harmful to what?” You’re living with blinders on. Willfully or not, idk. We can’t have a conversation if you don’t at a minimum gather some basic, widely and easily available information. Enjoy your life of ignorant bliss.

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

#597

Post by GoblinSlayer » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

omnicognate wrote: post #579

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't simulation done? https://github.com/Flowx08/Celegans-simulation

That's a simulation based on the connectome and a trivially simple body, producing a very small piece of behaviour. I don't mean to minimise it, it's very cool and I'm not an expert. The video itself says that it is limited. As I understand it, C. Elegans displays a surprisingly large and complex set of behaviours given its (relatively) extremely simple nervous system. A database of thousands of these "behavioural ph…

That model's phase space is about 2000 bits, realistically speaking its behavior never repeats. It can't be searched either, our computational limit today is about 70 bits.

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

#598

Post by bumby » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

NoGravitas wrote: post #539

akudha wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing is one thing, Killing by boiling alive is on a whole another level of cruelty, like unit 731 level, nazi level cruelty. I don’t eat meat, so I don’t know why only lobsters are boiled alive and not other sea food. Whatever the reason, it is hard to justify. If we are going to kill something, the least we could do is kill it painlessly. At the beginning of COVID-19, some farm in the Midwest killed hundreds of p…

Yeah, ffs, just kill the lobster quickly right before you boil it, and stop whining about how not getting to boil it alive infringes "muh freedumbs". Instructions: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/how-to-k...

From the HN guidelines:

Be kind. Don't be snarky.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says

Please don't post shallow dismissals

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

#599

Post by plorkyeran » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #454

plorkyeran wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very common for Science Fiction to use "sentient" where "sapient" is the correct word. Star Trek is no exception. Calling trees sentient isn't nonsense; your understanding of what the word means is simply incorrect.

Is it really incorrect or does the term just happen to be a homonymous collision of more than one semantic concept? I don't know (it's an actual question I ask myself, not some rhetoric vehicle), but the concept you declare as incorrect is so widespread it makes me wonder... (obviously, the meaning in the legal context we are talking about it's clearly on one side)

Incorrect in the specific context of a scientific or legal discussion which operates using a formalized definition. In normal conversation it is sort of nonsensical to say that the widespread usage of a word is incorrect, as correctness is defined by widespread usage.

The usage in SF stories stands out because often the writer was _intending_ for the word to be using the formalized definition used in science.

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

#600

Post by harpersealtako » Mon, Nov 22, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #153

bumby wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is some thought backed neuroscience that lobsters can't feel pain in the human conception of it because of the lack of a neocortex. I don't know how well that can be tested, but it goes beyond justifying it because "that's what paw deid"

A lobster being boiled behaves the same way a cow or dog or human behaves when being boiled. Seems strange to make the cutoff for acceptable treatment based around a wishy-washy ill-defined notion of "Can this thing that is very different than me feel pain? I promise I am not biased by the fact that I have vertebrae."

I do a lot of hunting, fishing, etc....there are a lot of misconceptions in this thread. The head of a snapping turtle will still try to bite things up to an hour after it is separated from its body. Its body will still grasp and wriggle and flinch and react to stimuli 30 minutes or longer even after it is decapitated. It reacts as if it was alive and I was to poke it or stab it or scald it.

Hopefully most people can agree that when the turtle is flinching 30 minutes after death, it is not actually "feeling pain", despite reacting the same way that a cow or a dog or does. The argument that "it behaves the same as a cow/dog/human" is flawed. Anybody who's butchered a chicken or a fish can tell you that they can react as if in pain even after they are reasonably considered to be dead.