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Comment on [CW: Animal Cruelty] 370 billion crickets are farmed for food every year. Scientists have discovered they may feel pain

yenahmik@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

I don’t understand why the assumption always is that X doesn’t feel pain until proven otherwise. It would be logical that most if not all living things are capable of experiencing pain, as that is the innate way for the body to protect itself from harm.

I think the assumption should always be that every living being can feel pain and then if proven otherwise that would be the exception.

How many times has it been proven wrong that X can infact feel pain - from human infants to mammals to fish, etc…

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Beacon@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Exactly, it's crazy to think that any organism with a nervous system can't feel pain. The default assumption should be that a nervous system = ability to feel pain unless proven otherwise

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Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Well, because it has not really been proved at all, except if we accept some specific assumptions (about consciousness), and if you wiggle those assumptions just a tiny bit, trees also feel pain, and stones too.

Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t.

But I guess that is why it’s hard to settle down on things, like babies don’t feel pain was so ingrained in people, until it wasn’t. Personally I wonder what should we do if insects feel pain. Accept it? And then do what?

A question more complicated than it seems at first glance IMO.

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- M137@lemmy.today ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  No, stones don’t feel pain because they aren’t alive. They have no nervous system of any kind. Trees are alive, react to damage and even signal other nearby trees of danger. What we see as pain is obviously subjective, but that does in no way take away that any living being also feels pain. Pain isn’t some thing that exists in itself, it’s the brain or cells sending signals that something is damaging us.
  
  I seriously don’t understand how you could think stones feel pain, they have nothing to make those signals.
  
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  - sbeak@sopuli.xyz ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    They are assuming that pain is a reaction to some sort of stimulus. In this case, of course living things with some sort of nervous system will feel pain, as they react when they are hurt, but one could argue that hitting a stone very hard could deform it, cause it to wobble, create cracks, etc. and that could constitute as pain.
    
    Of course, this really stretching the definition of pain by a lot. Personally, I don’t think stones feel pain.
    
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  - Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That’s because we do not understand consciousness (like at all) and you need consciousness to “experience” the world, and for example, pain.
    
    No consciousness, no pain.
    
    So to your question; one theory is that everything has a little bit of “consciousness” and it’s just in the wildly complex brain it can actually express it so well, which means the whole universe is somewhat conscious.
    
    I personally don’t think so, but I also know that that is just wishful thinking from my side and that I do not know anything more than that I have, a consciousness.
    
    HTH
    
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turdburglar@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
let me know when the trees stop screaming, clarice.

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