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You think animals don't experience pain?

• Joker_vD 2mo ago
  Well, they certainly have behavioral response. But do they experience it? Descartes believed they didn't, most people today believe they do, but don't believe that web servers or LLMs are conscious; who knows what people a century in the future will believe?
  • hparadiz 2mo ago
    Experiance is subjective even among the same species. For example you and I have access to a billion times more information and easily have 100 times the education. Yet when discussing cognition I find what Descartes thought about cognition is an appeal to tradition; not an argument. Whereas you apparently do not. I find this particularly odd. Especially since there is a mountain of evidence proving he was wrong. So why would you even bring it up? Just to be contrarian?
    • Joker_vD 2mo ago
      > what Descartes thought about cognition is an appeal to tradition; not an argument. The modern debate about whether LLMs are conscious are not has lots of people whose position is "no, they're not" but with arguments not that much better than Descartes (and also coming from the position of tradition). That's why I bring him up. > Especially since there is a mountain of evidence proving he was wrong. Only if you accept a particular way to interpret it. After all, I can show you an experimental proof that apparently the rays of cold (in addition to the rays of heat) exist; but that experiment can easily be re-explained in terms of infrared radiation only.