Queen bans fox hunting!

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Trees don't like being hurt either, then. No plant does. Therefore, eating plants is evil too. We should starve ourselves to death.

Rhetorical fallacy alert

[Gibsie]

If a tree had a nervous system, we'd treat it like a fox for the purposes of pain. However, it doesn't. Obviously, you idiot.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Rhetorical fallacy alert

No fallacy there, except what results from HIS logic.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Gibsie
If a tree had a nervous system, we'd treat it like a fox for the purposes of pain. However, it doesn't. Obviously, you idiot.

See AGAIN wrt chemistry!

****er.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Foxes aren't aware of pain.

Then why do they avoid it?

How can it be merely an input if they go through measures to prevent it from happening - to prevent it from being 'input' in the first place?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
See above wrt chemistry.

Did so.

And once again, your case (that human pain is different from animal pain, that human pain is somehow not reaction to external stimuli) is completely unconvicning.

I have the impression that your opinion generally lies on the idea that either you're an intelligent (or "sentient", or "self-aware" or whatever) species, or you're a species stuck in repeating hardcoded chemical routines.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Then why do they avoid it?

Because they are a fantastically complex machine designed to react in a certain way to certain stimuli. It is not aware of the pain, in the sense of self-awareness. A robot that backs up and turns around when it hits something does not feel pain when it hits an object. It is not aware of pain. It simply senses an input.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Foxes aren't aware of pain. Their brains sense it as an input, but is your basis or morality now defined based solely on the chemical mechanism by which the organism processes information? If I created a brain with five neurons, would it be equally protected? And by the way, fetuses have a brain. Are you absolutely against abortion as soon as any nervous tissue develops?

I am against abortion, but that's besides the point.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Did so.

And once again, your case (that human pain is different from animal pain, that human pain is somehow not reaction to external stimuli) is completely unconvicning.

I have the impression that your opinion generally lies on the idea that either you're an intelligent (or "sentient", or "self-aware" or whatever) species, or you're a species stuck in repeating hardcoded chemical routines.

There's no other option. In both cases you are stuck on repeating hardcoded chemical routines, but in one case it's no more wrong to inflict "pain" on the animal than on a Lego robot, whereas in the other case it is wrong, because the animal is aware of the pain. Those animals are sentient.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Dissident
I am against abortion, but that's besides the point.

Not at all. Fetuses are animals. And I was responding to Ludd.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by General Ludd
Then why do they avoid it?

Because they are a fantastically complex machine designed to react in a certain way to certain stimuli. It is not aware of the pain, in the sense of self-awareness.

What stimuli? It reacts to pain without feeling it - it anticipates it and avoids it - because it is aware of it.


You can say that all life forms are "fantastic machines" only reacting on stimulis, but how does this make foxes any different than humans?

[Gibsie]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
See AGAIN wrt chemistry!

****er.

Sorry, your argument is utterly stupid, even if you do mention chemistry and robots. Humans repeat hardcoded chemical reactions as much as animals do, the concept of awarness has no qualitative bearing on the result.

Beating (Or, let's say, causing pain towards) babies or the mentally-handicapped is still wrong, and they still feel the pain, for example, even if they aren't completely "aware" of what is going on.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
There's no other option. In both cases you are stuck on repeating hardcoded chemical routines, but in one case it's no more wrong to inflict "pain" on the animal than on a Lego robot, whereas in the other case it is wrong, because the animal is aware of the pain. Those animals are sentient.

Please prove me, then, why the lack of self-awareness would be the same as thelack of sentience. You have done that bold assertion, but I haven't seen anything that backs it.

Remeber, you have defined self-awareness as such: any being that can say is aware of itself, is in fact self-aware.

[Kuciwalker]

What stimuli? It reacts to pain without feeling it - it anticipates it and avoids it - because it is aware of it.

You can say that all life forms are "fantastic machines" only reacting on stimulis, but how does this make foxes any different than humans?

Because humans are self-aware. We feel the pain. I could build a robot, out of Legos even and with a very simple processor and code, that had a laser rangefinder and a touch sensor. It would avoid feeling "pain" (the touch sensor) by stopping when the laser rangefinder said it was a certain distance from an object. According to you, this would have equal moral worth with a fox.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by General Ludd
Then why do they avoid it?

Because they are a fantastically complex machine designed to react in a certain way to certain stimuli.

Foxes are designed?

By whom or what?

"Pain is far more complex, and understanding it requires an open mind and a sympathetic attitude. Pain does not behave in predictable and consistent patterns that can be reduced to simple formulae. Nor does it respond identically to similar treatments in different patients. It is affected by the patient's mind - though that does not mean it is "in the mind" in the sense that some arrogant physicians occasionally hint to distraught sufferers.

As a striking example of the mind's effect on the experience of pain, the book shows a photo of President Ronald Reagan seconds after he had been shot in the chest (1981). In the emergency of the attempted assassination, Reagan's unconscious mind gave priority to escape and his face displays alertness rather than agony. Not until he was safely on his way to hospital did the President report the pain, which proved that a bullet had entered his body.

This mental feat is not exclusive to humans, as is demonstrated by another picture showing a racehorse winning the 1980 Epsom Derby 150 yards after he broke a leg.

Pain is a necessary response to illness or injury, but it is neither simple nor automatic. The body's control systems, whether human or animal, are able to edit internal nerve messages to suit the over-riding demands of survival. Complex over-ride systems of this kind may well be implicated in the unpredictability of pain."

http://www.writersite.co.uk/Articles/Pain_W.htm