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Tamir
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
Posts: 1628
Location: Israel
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 Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 3:44 am Post subject: |
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| Tenshi wrote: | | Hrm... how are we defining pain? |
Let me borrow one of Wikipedia's definitions for a moment.
| Wikipedia wrote: | | Pain, in the sense of physical pain, is a typical sensory experience that may be described as the unpleasant awareness of a noxious stimulus or bodily harm. |
The key word here is "unpleasant". That word is why I'm not talking about reaction to stimuli. I understand that reaction to stimuli doesn't necessarily come from the brain, what I'm saying is that any unpleasantness comes from the brain. Without the brain, the word unpleasant sort of loses its meaning.
Here's a random quote from a site I just got by googling. (aren't I scientific!)
| Random site wrote: | | When we stub our toe, it hurts – but only because our brain says so. Damage-detecting sensory neurons flash a message to the spinal cord, spinal cord neurons relay the message to the brain, and the brain decides (a) damage has occurred, (b) it has been inflicted on the toe, and (c) something needs to be done (we start hobbling, raise the foot, utter an expletive). It may feel as if our toe is throbbing, but the experience is all contained within a mental projection of the condition of our toe within our brain. |
So I think it's understandable to say that although plants to respond to stimuli, it's okay to "harm" them because that won't be unpleasant for them.
| Tenshi wrote: | | Pain to me has always been very easy to understand. There's always a source, always something that's causing the pain, and removal of the source ends the pain. I know that, physiologically, this process happens to transfer through my brain sometimes. |
Change that "sometimes" to an "always" and we're more or less in agreement.  |
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Rolaoi
Joined: 14 May 2008
Posts: 247
Location: The Empire in the South
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| Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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If it were possible to breed cattle without pain receptors, would it be acceptable to treat them in a manner considered cruel to non-altered cattle?
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Tamir
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
Posts: 1628
Location: Israel
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| Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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Mm, depends what, perhaps. For example, I think holding an animal in a tiny tiny little cage isn't okay even if it can't feel pain, because it's still intelligent and wants to be free and with more of its kind. But I'd certainly complain a lot less of you cut up a cow without pain receptors than if you cut up a cow with.
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That's getting very theoretical, though. What's more likely is that we'll develop artificial meat in the near future, which will be pretty much equivalent to what we're used to today, only healthier and lab grown. It's being worked on right now. And I'm okay with that. |
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