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Again I see this strange idea that insects don't feel pain. Ants express pain much more actively than mammals, they don't cease to move after receiving injury.
by GoblinSlayer 5y ago
Again I see this strange idea that insects don't feel pain. Ants express pain much more actively than mammals, they don't cease to move after receiving injury.
- bumby 5y agoI think the relevant distinction is between “responding to threatening stimuli” and “suffering”. I don’t know where the definition of pain would be on that spectrum. There are some neuroscientists who think you need a neocortex to suffer. From that perspective, lower cognitively evolved species like ants and lobsters don’t suffer in the same way we empathetically assume mammals do.
- GoblinSlayer 5y agoThat sounds like philosophical zombie. Pain is stimulus, what is distinction?
- bumby 5y agoPain and suffering are not synonymous. I don’t know if I have the clearest definition, but suffering may have a rumination aspect to it. Plants respond to stimuli, but I’m not convinced they suffer. E.g., a hard workout can cause “pain”, but many people come to like, or even look forward to, that feeling. It still hurts, but the way they are mentally reflecting on that pain distinguishes it from “suffering”. Meanwhile, someone else who hates exercise may feel the exact same pain and be miserable. So it’s not the pain, but the way the pain is framed which leads to suffering.