Ethical treatment of animal arguments for vegan-ism?

[brimstoneSalad]

I do not, and will not tolerate straw-manning, the positions of other people in arguments. I try to avoid strawmening in someone else’s point of view, the best of my ability.

Good, because I don't think I did that; but now you're straw manning my argument by saying I deliberately straw manned you.

Like I said, I have had to skim and answer quickly; and no, I haven't had much time to put into this.
As you requested, I was trying to give you another reply. I had to rush it.

AND if you will read it again, I presented what I saw as the logical ramifications of your beliefs, and then I asked, not once, but several times, whether you were aware of these ramifications, and if you want to change your position now in light of them.
I offered that, despite the very overtly racist implications of your argument (to me), you may not realize those consequences, and that you may perhaps want to change the argument now (upon realizing it is a racist one).

Just because somebody argues 2+2, doesn't mean that person will realize the natural conclusion of that claim is =4.

Or did you not know that black slaves were bred at one point?
Or do you, perhaps, want to change your claim here, and revoke this absurd notion of one intelligent life form being able to arbitrarily define the purpose of another through exacting some measure of control over the latter's genetics?

I used strong and relatively insistent wording to introduce those ramifications, with a touch of snark, yes, but a straw man it was not.
I was deeply offended by the argument you were making -- and for good reason.

In fact, numerous times during this thread I stopped, and explicitly pointed out my understanding of what the vegan moral patent and waited, for confirmation.

If you would avoid jumping to conclusions and accusing me of straw manning you, I think you will see that's what I did.

My basic form is:

1. Logical Implication you supposedly must accept if you are sincere in this argument (along with my offense at this).
2. Is this really what you believe? Or did you not realize that implication, and want to change your stance on this topic?

If you think I am mistaken, you have the opportunity to correct me, or change your argument.
The very same that you gave others.

How many times did I ask you if this was your belief? Go ahead, count.

Don’t even pretend you didn’t do it on pinurpose, knowing it was a strawman you quoted my position before making an accusation. Here:

This is why I find you offensive NOW. You're pretending to be polite, but you're just as ready to viciously attack me and assault my character with claims like this. You're making a horrible straw man of my argument here and a personal attack, and you should know very well I already addressed your point.

Unlike what you did, though, I don't accuse you of doing it on purpose. You've probably just misunderstood.

I set the ethical patient as any creature that modern scientific consensus currently agrees is self-aware.

I explained how "self-aware" is an incoherent standard, and no, there is no consensus on it because it's not even fully clear what it means. It's an open philosophical question, like "consciousness". It's non-rigorous.

I also explained how Christians could be considered not self-aware, because they believe themselves to be magical spirits, rather than what they are. Their awareness is delusional, and not of the actual self.

Depending on how strictly "self awareness" is defined, if it can be defined rigorously at all, either ALL sentient creatures are self aware (which goes down to insects and some worms), or NO sentient creatures are self aware based on the standards of perfect awareness. It could also be a matter of degrees, but you already apparently rejected that with a rights based formulation.

Last time, I checked African-Americans are human, and humans obviously are self-aware or you and I wouldn’t about this on the Internet right now.

NO, humans are NOT obviously "self-aware", whatever that means, because it's incoherent, and you should know very well that I discussed this at some length, and questioned even the self awareness of human Christians to explain the point.

How did you miss that entire argument and decide to straw man me instead?

Implying I’m a racist is dishonest and nothing but strawman. (unless you don’t believe that African-Americans are human) The closest thing to racism, you can accurately accuse me of speciesism.

You made no overt or unambiguous speciesist arguments.
You did say "species" but I assumed you meant it non-rigorously as breed/subspecies because most of the animals you're talking about aren't actually distinct species from wild relatives. e.g. Gray Wolves and Dogs are both C. lupus.

What you effectively made (without clarification to the contrary) were breed-ist or "race"-ist arguments, referring to a type bred to purpose. In humans, as in other animals, this is essentially racism. You are ascribing type and moral value based on the cultural purpose ascribed to them by the dominating class who has controlled their populations and influenced their genes to purpose through coercion, killing, or sterilization.

I do not and will not tolerate purposeful strawman in my debates. If you are unsure of my feelings/understanding about/of Something simply asked me.

I did ask. You ignored it and accused me of straw manning instead. I also had a relatively extensive bit discussing the problems with your original metrics.

you should always give someone, the benefit of the doubt until they proven otherwise.

I agree. This is why rather than just asserting those were your certain beliefs without question, I presented them to you, then questioned you after.

I gave you the benefit of the doubt based on possible misinformation you may be laboring under.

This is a misunderstanding of nothing, like I said in my original response to bobo0100

Again you straw man and trivialize my entire argument...

The argument you made, with the assertions of theories being "untrue" and "constantly overturned" is rudely hostile to science.
I found that assertion on your part more offensive than you found any subtle implication that your beliefs may be racist in nature.

What did I do to offend you so much that you lash out like that?

You made a rude and ignorant claim about science, as I explained above.
And you made an irrational racist argument (which you may simply not yet realize is racist -- and which I granted in the original post).

These things we both (and still are) offensive to me.

I replied with a modest amount of snark on one of those points. And then you really went off on me, doubling down on both of them and making all kinds of accusations.
Unless you're willing to apologize, I don't think I can continue this discussion.

But you will have Bobo and possibly others to discuss with; users far more patient, and probably nicer, than I.
Whatever you decide, I hope you can gain the knowledge you need and have the kind of conversation you're looking for.

[AsmodesReynolds]

I’m figuratively seeing stars after the truck of realization hits me, no I did not realize I was unintentionally comparing African-Americans, to livestock. Words cannot describe how deeply I apologize.

You made a rude and ignorant claim about science, as I explained above.
And you made an irrational racist argument (which you may simply not yet realize is racist -- and which I granted in the original post).

These things we both (and still are) offensive to me.

I replied with a modest amount of snark on one of those points. And then you really went off on me, doubling down on both of them and making all kinds of accusations.
Unless you're willing to apologize, I don't think I can continue this discussion.

Your Snark didn’t really bother me, I too am very snarky and sarcastic. Yes, I was extra polite, because I was very very angry. When I get that way I tend to fly off the handle and say things I regret, and I was being very cognizant of my word choice because I was figuratively seeing red, me going off to you was not necessarily your fault, I was having a bad day , I read your post between classes on my phone, and I didn’t even get through the whole thing before I saw the implied accusation of racism, And just started furiously typing without even finishing reading your post, or really thinking much about it. But time I finished class I was a little more calm. Instead, my entire bus ride home, Rereading the entire thread. And I would like to take this time to apologize to anybody I offended. BrimstoneSalad, to you most of all, I apologize . I accused you of straw manning, which is not true, and yes, I did make overly racist remarks unintentionally , but I did in. Ironically , I now realize what you mean by self-aware having so many meanings and being completely useless to the discussion, We were having.

Like I said before, I don’t have time tonight, to do the research and to familiarize myself with the concepts that were linked in those posts , I’m going to set aside some time on the weekend to do so.
BrimstoneSalad, I hope you can forgive me, because you phrase things in a way is easier for me to understand , especially here:

Pain is one of many things that matters, and only matters because organisms don't want to experience it.
Being restrained matters (even painlessly), when organisms don't want to be restrained.
Being in a noisy or scary environment matters, being bored or entertained matters.

What matters to you as the one being done unto -- or to the organism being done unto -- is what matters.

If you don't feel pain, then forget about pain. If you LIKE pain, well then that's a good thing for you. It's matters what matters to you.

Do onto others as they would have done by.

The vast majority of animals we are farming do not like what we are doing to them; it would be very reasonable to suppose that approaches unanimity.

Whether we're physically torturing them when they don't enjoy being tortured, or playing them jazz music when they really really hate jazz, it's wrong.
It sounds silly to compare the two, but if you don't feel pain normally, you need to understand what it is: It's something that we are essentially genetically hardwired to feel is unpleasant.

And remember: Waterboarding isn't painful.

Throughout my entire life. People have tried to explain the concept of pain to me, to no avail. And because I never experienced it myself. I have real trouble, showing empathy towards physical pain.

I do have sensation, but my brain doesn’t differentiate the sensations and automatically decide which ones are bad in which ones are good , which is how I understand “normal” humans experience it. I have to decide that on more of a conscious level , based on logical deduction. No one has put it quite so elegantly as you did. Everybody always tries to equate to some sort of physical sensation, for me physical sensations can be so easily ignored, so I never understood what the problem was.

Now, emotional pain that I understand. I guess that’s why I used the phrase “self-aware”. What I was really meaning was without the ability to look back on an event, and have regrets, one cannot really suffer. I realize now how much that viewpoint was based on my perspective. Which calls into question a whole lot of my other assumptions. I guess I owe you one, which makes me feel even more guilty for my earlier remarks.

I'm sorry that we get off and on foot, and am hoping we can start over, because you seem to have a way of putting things that I understand much must easier than some other people on this forum.

[brimstoneSalad]

Apology accepted. No worries.

Thanks for being reasonable.

no I did not realize I was unintentionally comparing African-Americans, to livestock.

It's not so much the comparison in itself that's the problem; we can compare and contrast all kinds of thing.
The problem is implicitly condoning the practice, given the same line of reasoning can be used to do so. It's the idea that one being can ascribe purpose to another's life by virtue of control.

"Race", or ethnicity, or even families can be harmlessly compared to breeds of dogs, cattle, pigeons, etc. in the sense that we are talking about group genetic differences under the species level (where genetic differences are mainly aesthetic).
Biologically, comparing breed and ethnicity isn't too far off base.

The issue is when we begin to point at those genetic differences, and try to ascribe moral values to them, and particularly based on a notion of man made purpose. This is something we have to be mindful of.

You may be familiar with this:
http://ethicsalarms.com/2013/02/07/dog- ... pit-bulls/

It seems silly to talk about racism against pit bulls, but environment/nurture is so incredibly important for all intelligent animals (and particularly social ones), that drawing generalizations about behavior or intelligence from trivial sub-species genetic differences is usually going to be a fool's errand.
Whether people or dogs, we can't jump to conclusions; everybody deserves a fair shake on a case by case basis.

The greatest problem is the notion of "purpose", though.

And I would say the same thing about non-sentient things too.

If somebody had said that chairs are made for the purpose of being chairs, so it's right to use them as chairs, I would object too -- on rational grounds (although I would find it less offensive on emotional grounds).

If I buy a "chair" at a store, it's not really a chair; it's just a thing with a particular shape, the shaper of which had a certain idea of how it would be used in mind, but which is not usually morally relevant. It doesn't mean it should be used that way. I am not more or less wrong to use this thing as a short table instead, or a climbing stool, or to flip it upside down and use it as a hat rack, or any other use I should want to make of it.
The rightness or wrongness of any use or any action derives from the consequences of that use or action on other sentient beings, or specifically in terms of violating the wills of sentient beings.

Now, there is one caveat to that, which is if somebody made a chair, and didn't just casually intend it to be a chair as per superficial mass production, but felt it very important -- as a work of art, or a gift -- that it be used as intended, and you might be violating the will of the creator to use it differently.
If your grandmother nits you a sweater, and you use it as a floor mat, it might hurt her feelings.
If you purchase a chair from a master craftsman who views his work as art, and use it as firewood, this might also be a violation. He made the work, and chose that profession, because he wants his work to be enjoyed as a thing of beauty and function and live on for generations. He probably wouldn't mind if you used it as a table, though, provided you were respecting his artisanship and appreciating its quality and aesthetic.

Anyway, that's a rare exception, and a very minor consideration very easily overridden by other factors.

I do have sensation, but my brain doesn’t differentiate the sensations and automatically decide which ones are bad in which ones are good , which is how I understand “normal” humans experience it.

Yes, something like that. In your case, it's hard to compare to purely physical sensations. But there may be some physically related sensations.

Do you have a gag reflex? If you eat something that smells or tastes really awful, or just seems really gross and you expect to be terrible, do you gag or feel sick?
Or do you respond to annoying sounds, like nails on a chalkboard, or socks being shuffled across carpet, and cringe or want to cover your ears?
Or do you look away when you see something disgusting?

Those are not pain (even nails on a chalkboard), but if if you experience them, pain is sort of like that in terms of how it's "automatic".
We don't have to think about or consider/choose if these things are unpleasant, they just are more automatically so, based on something like firmware.
Disgust is very close to pain in terms of rapid and more or less automatic response. Disgust just varies more from person to person (it's a little less hardwired).

For pain, there's a certain point at which a stimulation becomes "painful", by crossing the pain threshold, and we are compelled to react against it by reflex or an overwhelming unpleasant experience associated with tissue damage.

As you probably know (for lack of it), this is incredibly useful most of the time to have an automatic process to warn us not to do things. Sometimes, though, it's just annoying when we can't help but do those things, like when we have an injury and still need to move and function, or have arthritis or another condition which produces pain (imagine being really hungry, but all there is to eat is disgusting).

Everybody always tries to equate to some sort of physical sensation, for me physical sensations can be so easily ignored, so I never understood what the problem was.

A lot of people can ignore physical sensation, actually. If a person practices, and wants to, pain can be turned off by a bit of concentration.

These things are based on perception, which comes from mental states. Hypnotism is famously capable of vastly altering concept of pain and physical sensation.

Here's one Derren Brown did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmp14eSdUEI

Susceptible people can be hypnotized into essentially the state you find yourself in, ignoring pain (rather than not feeling, but the same effect).
This is also how "faith healing" works. When "healed" the subject loses all pain associated with the ailment... for a short time, anyway (it requires something like concentration to maintain, like remembering a phone number long enough to dial it, which will carry on for about as long as the excitement over the event does).

Unfortunately, I don't think you could be hypnotized into feeling pain normally. Hypnotizing people to turn off pain is like turning off a light, but we can't simply turn on a light that isn't physically there (or is congenitally broken).

It would be interesting to try, though. Or examine other mechanisms. The brain is plastic, and you could learn to experience pain, and with enough work, possibly convert it into an unconscious process. It would be a lot of work, though, and I'm not sure it would be worth it to you.

Now, emotional pain that I understand. I guess that’s why I used the phrase “self-aware”. What I was really meaning was without the ability to look back on an event, and have regrets, one cannot really suffer.

Suffering emotionally, usually, yes; emotional pain is much more contextual in most cases.
There are cases where it isn't as contextual, though.

Imagine, for example, being made fun of or ridiculed in public. You don't really need temporal context for that; you could just be dropped right into a situation like that, and it feels terrible (whether the ridicule is valid or not).
Or irrational experiences of shame, like being naked in public and people laughing at you (like so many bad dreams people report); you don't need a lengthy context there, it's just immediately unpleasant.

Or, imagine looking down and seeing that your hand has been severed. This isn't even usually painful for people who have had their hands severed (traumatic injury isn't usually painful, most people don't even notice or feel anything until they see it -- like Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff and then looking down -- and sometimes even then don't feel it until long after).
This would be a distinctly unpleasant sort of experience of emotional pain and panic, but it requires no real temporal context.

Drowning/waterboarding, panic attacks.

You can probably find hundreds of examples of non-physical or reflexive more psychological/abstract unpleasant phenomena that don't require much if any higher level context to experience.

I realize now how much that viewpoint was based on my perspective.

I don't think your perspective is quite as limited as you assume. I think other people's perspectives are actually limited, because they have the tendency to overly fixate on pain, when literal physical pain isn't very important in many cases.

Many vegans have failed to see the forest through the trees, because the concept of pain has distracted them from the more important issues of experiential suffering and unpleasantness.
It's as if people have mistakenly claimed that red is the only color, or even just the most important color, just because it's the most vibrant or apparent/distracting color in a certain situation.

It's probably more others' faults for focusing on something so superficial, simply because it's easier to convey to most people (but not necessarily a more accurate or meaningful reason).

[AsmodesReynolds]

I’m going to try and answer each one of the question posed to me in reverse order, so, so up I missed one that was not answered in this post, please pointed out.

Unfortunately, I don't think you could be hypnotized into feeling pain normally. Hypnotizing people to turn off pain is like turning off a light, but we can't simply turn on a light that isn't physically there (or is congenitally broken).

It would be interesting to try, though. Or examine other mechanisms. The brain is plastic, and you could learn to experience pain, and with enough work, possibly convert it into an unconscious process. It would be a lot of work, though, and I'm not sure it would be worth it to you.

Unfortunately, you are correct, my parents tried a lot of things to get me to feel pain normally, pain is a very important psychologically speaking. I can’t tell you how many times, debilitating injuries because I couldn’t feel pain, the first one that comes to mind is my mother was cooking breakfast, for my about one to the stove to lean against the wall talking to her, but did not realize that I had put my elbow on a burner, that she just got finished using and did not notice until I tried to pull it off . I spent the rest the day in the emergency room. I’ve given myself.

From my perspective, human beings/sentient life do not in fact have a fear of death, we have a fear of pain, which psychologically act more like a reflex, so you are not actually afraid of jumping out the window of that 10 story building, you realize that this is a sudden stop at the end that will cause a lot of pain. Animals, and even humans do things that are likely to cause them death, as long as the action is not painful. Smoking, is a good example in humans.

There are dolphins that that get high by harassing puffer fish, and other poisonous fish in till they sting them. I’m sure one could find numerous other examples. These are two examples of actions that are potentially/eventually deadly, but we do them anyways Why? They feel good and/or get us high. Animals and humans also resistant potentially beneficial activities that cause pain with equal fervor to the ones that cause harm.

Do you have a gag reflex? If you eat something that smells or tastes really awful, or just seems really gross and you expect to be terrible, do you gag or feel sick?
Or do you respond to annoying sounds, like nails on a chalkboard, or socks being shuffled across carpet, and cringe or want to cover your ears?
Or do you look away when you see something disgusting?

Those are not pain (even nails on a chalkboard), but if you experience them, pain is sort of like that in terms of how it's "automatic".
We don't have to think about or consider/choose if these things are unpleasant, they just are more automatically so, based on something like firmware.
Disgust is very close to pain in terms of rapid and more or less automatic response. Disgust just varies more from person to person (it's a little less hardwired).

I do have a gag reflex kind of, it’s something goes down my throat, and hit the wrong nerve endings. Yes, I will gag, but if I eat something that smells bad their tastes awful, well I have the uncontrollable urge to gag or spit it out, No. However, I do get this undescribable sensation, on the back of my neck, if I don’t do something about the situation. Annoying sounds frustrating me, but no I do not get the automatic urged cringe or do anything about it, although my patients do have their limits. As far as disturbing images or disgusting images, I don’t have any automatic physical reaction to them, although I may be from desensitization is that injured myself so many times.

To use your analogy, my firmware seems to be completely different than yours, I do have very primitive reflexes by swallowing, and the elbow and knee movement. But some of the more complicated things actually requires brain involvement. Is different. For example : my cardiovascular system acts more like it runs on a dimmer switch, I can consciously turned off, to completely forbore, but will not change on its own without my conscious thought.

Me and my doctors cannot access or manipulate my unconscious in the strictest sense of the word, I obviously have something similar by does not function the same way your does. I’m not going to go into too much details of my medical particulars, but most of my physical movements have to go through my consciousness, even when I sleep, I go into REM sleep without the rapid eye movement, and my vital signs stay at the same levels as they were before I entered my sleep cycle, they don’t know precisely why, I do not die when I fall asleep. If our current understanding of neuroscience and the related subjects was correct. I should die, The second I fall unconscious. Obviously that doesn’t happen.

the average person sees something that looks like emotions. therefore, it must be emotions. just because something looks like emotions does not necessarily mean that it is.

That's true. But if something acts like it has emotions, it does. Emotions are not simply aesthetics, they are FUNCTION.
Function can be easily proved.

We know they experience the emotions of fear, desire, lust, and some other basic ones.
It's the more complicated and interdependent emotions where we have to start asking questions.

this comment, makes me ask this question at what point, this complex reflexes and/or instincts, become emotions? Self preservation, the urge to reproduce, the urge to eat/hunt, migrate? Are these instincts, complex reflexes or emotions? I don’t have the answer to this. For me personally, this would be an important distinction. Between creatures “truly think” and creatures that respond based on a very complex set of instincts and reflexes, that allow limited learning , but not “true thinking”. What is consciousness? What is consciousness to you? Is it just simply the ability to take in information from your environment, make based on experience, conditioning and reflexes?
You may have a problem with the terms “truly think” & “true thinking” by saying they are not rigorous, if you have more rigorous terms describe those concepts, I be more than happy to use those.

Robots with adaptive neural networks have emotion; they're afraid of things, they like or want other things. Very, very primitive. But nothing has true volition without emotion.

I personally dealt with some the code that runs a couple of the equivalent adaptive neural systems You’re referring. Most of the time. In my experience, the emotions are simulated based on conditions that were intentionally put in to cause those responses, these conditions are inputted mainly for marketing purposes. Because of the fear of artificial intelligence. I personally emotions are not needed for true volition, it’s more of a byproduct, of sufficiently advanced adaptive neural networks, whether they be biological, or technological if given proper social imperatives, and socialization. But my experience with the software, is rather limited.
I personally hope I am wrong on this point, but all my experience tells me I’m not.
As far as these two comments I am willing to go down this rabbit hole with you:

This is your ignorance of neuroscience talking. There's a little something called neural plasticity. Blind humans can learn to use echolocation; making any bold claims about what a brain categorically can not do on account of structure or evolution (as long as there are enough neurons there to get the job done) is foolish.

I am not a neurologist, but I do have a professor that is one. Judging by his lectures, he doesn’t seem to agree with you. Not plasticity has its limits, from organism to organism, developmental stage, and a whole whack of other factors, if there was no limits to neural plasticity. I would not be disabled, and people would lose functionality permanently after a stroke.

A large part of behavior is learned, not strictly genetic. You have an extreme degree of misunderstanding here that you need to correct.
You can't even make assumptions between human beings who are genetically similar but grew up in drastically different environments.

You are correct, kind of. If you look at any twin study in psychology, that a large portion of our behavior is socialized but not all of it twins were usually think the same way, react similarly to the same basic stimuli, but they may hold separate opinions, have different likes and dislikes, etc. based on their individual upbringing, and life choices.

This did not answer Bobo's question. You're completely wrong here; the mirror test only indicates positive results, never negative ones, and only for certain highly visual animals.

Guess what: Blind people fail the mirror test. Is it OK to kill them?
The mirror test is a joke; if you'd read more into that, you'd realize why. IIRC, the criticism section of the very page you linked to is pretty good.

I find it somewhat insulting that you would actually reference it as evidence.

All organisms that can engage in operant conditioning have a rudimentary sense of self and environment. It's a basic job requirement.
Look into operant conditioning, and ponder carefully on what that entails.
You really need to open your mind to the notion that the world is not composed of blacks and whites and hard arbitrary lines everywhere. Properties come in manners of degrees, in non-human animals as in man.

okay, you have me here, I was trying to save time and effort. I am aware of the limitations of the mirror test, but it seemed the easiest and simplest way to explain the concept is trying to get at. (Due to its pop psychology, recognizability. ) I did not mean to insult anybody’s intelligence.

I will stop attempting, to gauge my responses based on the perceived knowledge base of who I’m responding to, I didn’t want to come off as overly pretentious. The second I joined the forum. It’s clear now that that I was an error and attempting to do this.

[brimstoneSalad]

From my perspective, human beings/sentient life do not in fact have a fear of death, we have a fear of pain, which psychologically act more like a reflex, so you are not actually afraid of jumping out the window of that 10 story building, you realize that this is a sudden stop at the end that will cause a lot of pain.

That is not true at all. There may be a small minority of people who do not fear death, but the vast majority do. People legitimately fear death, not just the pain of it.

I'm not afraid of falling out of a window because it might hurt; in fact, it would not, because adrenaline tends to negate the experience of pain. Pain is largely psychological. Also, I'd be dead, so I wouldn't feel anything after that.
I explained before how humans can experience traumatic injuries in cases without noticing them until they calm down or follow the blood, or notice a missing limb. This is typical. I have some personal experience with this, as person who generally feels pain, but has experienced that pain is easily ignored or not noticed in extreme situations (which I won't share here).

You're just completely wrong in that hypothesis. Although I understand how you got there: People are stupid.

Animals, and even humans do things that are likely to cause them death, as long as the action is not painful. Smoking, is a good example in humans.

This is a case of irrationality and stupidity, not fearlessness.

Stupid people, or addicts, are short sighted, favoring short term pleasure over long term consequence. As a potential ill drifts farther into the future, psychologically, it becomes more abstract and less frightening. The more intelligent a person is, the more far sighted, and the more willing to sacrifice immediate reward or accept immediate pain for long term benefit.
This has been well established in experimentation.

Likewise, as a potential ill becomes less certain, it becomes less frightening.

There's a common account of a commander telling his soldiers that two out of three of them would die today. Each soldier looks to the left and right (counting three, including themselves) and thinks "those poor bastards".
It's a common bias to think, even if a bad consequence is overwhelmingly probable "But it won't happen to me."

This is something that's resolved by critical thinking.

Smokers think everybody else will die from lung cancer, but they'll be the lucky ones. Or it's so far in the future, they aren't worried about it as much (or convince themselves they aren't). The combination is very effective at creating irrational behavior.

They most certainly are afraid of death, even if they lie and say otherwise.
The immediate prospect of death, with or without pain, is terrifying.

There are dolphins that that get high by harassing puffer fish, and other poisonous fish in till they sting them. I’m sure one could find numerous other examples. These are two examples of actions that are potentially/eventually deadly, but we do them anyways Why? They feel good and/or get us high. Animals and humans also resistant potentially beneficial activities that cause pain with equal fervor to the ones that cause harm.

That's interesting, but really just speaks to ignorance, shortsightedness, and irrationality.

It's not due to a lack of fear of death, or a mere fear of pain.

You may not know, but it's common in children to fear dying during sleep when they learn about death. Completely painless, but terrifying.
Existential dread, just the idea that we will die, is a common trend in human history, and a major driver of religion.

But some of the more complicated things actually requires brain involvement. Is different. For example : my cardiovascular system acts more like it runs on a dimmer switch, I can consciously turned off, to completely forbore, but will not change on its own without my conscious thought.

You can't consciously stop your heart. It's impressive if you can consciously slow it to the point where your pulse can't be clearly felt, not very many people can do that, but we can all regulate our heart rates consciously through focus and relaxation or excitement.

Your brain stem keeps your heart beating when you're not paying attention. Hypothetically, if you consciously stopped your heart, you would lose consciousness and your brain stem would take over again.

when I sleep, I go into REM sleep without the rapid eye movement, and my vital signs stay at the same levels as they were before I entered my sleep cycle, they don’t know precisely why, I do not die when I fall asleep. If our current understanding of neuroscience and the related subjects was correct. I should die, The second I fall unconscious. Obviously that doesn’t happen.

Your brain stem is still regulating your vital functions. I'd have to see more rigorous tests on you to tell you more. Your doctors probably are not trained researchers. Most doctors don't understand how to do science. You also need FMRI to tell much more about what's going on.

You may want to go to a better sleep clinic, to be monitored properly by people who do experiments in this field.
Nothing in science says you should die when you sleep, though. That's like saying "science says bumble bees can't fly". Nonsense.

this comment, makes me ask this question at what point, this complex reflexes and/or instincts, become emotions? Self preservation, the urge to reproduce, the urge to eat/hunt, migrate? Are these instincts, complex reflexes or emotions? I don’t have the answer to this. For me personally, this would be an important distinction. Between creatures “truly think” and creatures that respond based on a very complex set of instincts and reflexes, that allow limited learning , but not “true thinking”.

True learning is true thinking. The two can not be separated. What you'd be looking for is what impulses are driving the displayed ability of operant conditioning. What kinds of drives are pushing the animal to learn to push a button, or do another related task for the reward?

Compare two animals with superficially identical behavior. One is sentient, one is not.

When you put food in the bowls, both creatures slither to the food and eat it in their respective bowls. In this circumstance, we can't determine which is sentient.
The non-sentient one is just driven by a mechanical instinct to move toward the food, while the sentient one has learned to move toward the food because it likes it. The result is the same.

Now, when you put food in a bowl only when a button is pushed in that bowl, this changes the entire experiment.

The non-sentient one does nothing, or acts randomly, sometimes pushing the button, and then going for the food, and sometimes not.
The sentient one, on the other hand, first acts randomly, and then learns that by pushing the button (first accidentally) food is made to appear. After this, it begins pushing the button more frequently, and going for the food.

The sentient organism adapts its behavior in order to get what it wants, and the non-sentient organism acts only on reflex because it doesn't really want anything -- it just does things.

What is consciousness? What is consciousness to you? Is it just simply the ability to take in information from your environment, make based on experience, conditioning and reflexes?
You may have a problem with the terms “truly think” & “true thinking” by saying they are not rigorous, if you have more rigorous terms describe those concepts, I be more than happy to use those.

Consciousness is the non-rigorous term here (it's more useful for talking about the 'sleep' vs. wake dichotomy).
I prefer to talk about sentience.

True thinking means true learning, which is expressed no more clearly than by operant conditioning. Displaying operant conditioning is proof positive of sentience, which indicates that there is a concept of self, environment, want, will, and true thought occurring.

I personally dealt with some the code that runs a couple of the equivalent adaptive neural systems You’re referring. Most of the time. In my experience, the emotions are simulated based on conditions that were intentionally put in to cause those responses, these conditions are inputted mainly for marketing purposes.

Neural networks are not typically used commercially. They're used in experimental settings.
Simulated emotions are not real emotions, they're just superficial appearances of emotion.

Most video games and commercial software do not contain intelligent or emotional entities. They contain more efficient algorithms and shortcuts that create the external appearance of intelligence. This is very different.

True intelligence is emergent behavior based only on core rules -- the emotions.

http://www.livescience.com/10574-robots-learn-lie.html

For example, in that experiment, the robots' core emotions are to like food, and dislike poison. These are the robot core operating emotions, the impulses driving their wills. Beyond that, the neural networks adapted to realize that will.
This is real learning. These are sentient beings. (Granted, only marginally so)

They don't really seem emotional, but they are. The emotions drive them. Emotions aren't about appearances, but about how they drive intelligent behavior, through true learning.

I personally emotions are not needed for true volition, it’s more of a byproduct, of sufficiently advanced adaptive neural networks, whether they be biological, or technological if given proper social imperatives, and socialization.

No, exactly the opposite. Behavior is a byproduct of emotion. Emotion is the core motivation that drives adaptive learning.
It's absolutely necessary for any kind of volition or true learning.

if there was no limits to neural plasticity. I would not be disabled, and people would lose functionality permanently after a stroke.

I think you meant people would not lose functionality permanently after a stroke?

1. People don't always lose all functionality after a stroke. Nerves can and do rewire. Nobody said it didn't take work. You have to keep hammering away at it. However, sometimes the damage is very extensive, and because of the slow rate of nerve repair and the effect of ageing, a person would not necessarily be able to see full recovery within a natural lifespan.

2. Your disability is not limited by neural plasticity, but by hardware, and total focus and learning effort you put in.
It's like saying "If computers could be reprogrammed, we wouldn't need keyboards or mice to type and input information".
Yes, computers CAN be reprogrammed, but you need some hardware to interface with them.

As I touched on before, you may actually be capable of learning to feel pain. It would be incredibly difficult, though. And as I said, it may not be worth it to you.
You're kind of like a computer that doesn't have a keyboard, but still has a mouse, and you need to reprogram your brain to interpret mouse input as typing.

In order for you to be able to feel pain, you'd need to learn to judge sense input very precisely and accurately, and learn to focus to do that constantly, judging when input exceeds the threshold of damage.

Can you pick up a bag, and tell me how many kilograms is weighs?
If not, you're not even close.
Can you touch something, and tell me what temperature it is down to a range of a couple degrees?
If not, again, not even close.

People can do these things. And if you have the basic hardware to feel temperature and pressure (but not pain) you can do them too.
And if you can learn to do them with your finger, you can learn which temperatures and which pressures are damaging, and thus painful. We're talking constant drills and practice, beyond the point of tedium. You practice until it becomes second nature, and then automatic. Learn to become averse to the sensations that exceed that through associative learning.
Now you can experience pain in your finger.

Then learn to do that with every part or you body.

That would be years, or maybe a lifetime of work.
At a certain point, you'd have to ask yourself if it's worth it.

You are correct, kind of. If you look at any twin study in psychology, that a large portion of our behavior is socialized but not all of it twins were usually think the same way, react similarly to the same basic stimuli, but they may hold separate opinions, have different likes and dislikes, etc. based on their individual upbringing, and life choices.

There are genetic tendencies, the point is that they are nowhere nearly absolute. Also, twins don't grow up in drastically different environments. It's usually a case of a couple towns away.

It's probably more useful to look at animal studies, like feral and tame cats, which can have profound differences in temperament.
There are also great examples of apes taught some language that have acquired such an improved understanding of the world that it has made them civil and improved impulse control and wild behavior seen in relatives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanzi#Exa ... s_behavior

Feral children pose a better example for humans, but they are rare and I'm not aware of any twin studies done with one feral and one humanely raised child. The ethical implications would be problematic for doing that kind of research.

[AsmodesReynolds]

I am an atheist, because the Bible is inconsistent, lacks evidence, does not logically consistent what we know about reality, and was clearly written by man.

Bad answer. How do you know that, if not through science? Why do you believe science, rather than the bible?

This is an important question, relevant to the foundation of ethics.

why is that a bad answer?
I don’t believe in science, I have studied science, math, computers , computer science, and am currently studying, psychology and neuroscience, with a little bit of sociology stuck in when I can spare the credit hours.
Science is observable; it is testable; make accurate predictions about our reality; It is consistent to our current understanding of the universe.
The Bible is none of these.
The Bible contradicts itself routinely sometimes on the same page, it makes claims that sciences has proved false. And even most of the believer is in Yahweh, don’t even follow his ridiculous laws. They have to twist their logic and core passages into knots. There are almost indistinguishable from the original to say that they were moral, by any sane person.

As far as the self-aware, not being rigorous. I agree with you, after researching your suggestions,
I would set the moral patent at Gregorian creatures and some of the higher functioning Popperian creatures that have emotions, not creatures who are simply making choices based on advanced set of instincts, reflexes and learned behaviors.

As I said earlier, that leaves questions when does complex instincts, reflexes and learning behavior morph into consciousness and emotions? Like you said earlier, I don’t have the answers to this. More research is needed.
Sentience, by the way that most vegans, attributed it, could easily apply to current iterations of artificial intelligence in video games, does that mean it’s immoral to kill the AI combatants in those videogames?
Does the creature have to be biological, for this distinction to apply?

The concept of desire, that was brought up earlier is interesting, when it comes to keeping pets, and you’ve expressed your feelings on this and other threads.

See this thread for a discussion on dogs: https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... 1677#p1293

Except that thread, seem to focus more on rescuing animals from being euthanized, which is a painless process, then animal is used to because they get other shots at the vet, I believe you get a dog for your own pleasure, and happiness, if that wasn’t the case, a person would rescue all animals that a particular shelter (or at least as many as they can financially and emotionally support.) But that’s not what people do, and this says nothing about the supposed it desires of the animal.

I believe that’s all my disagreements, answers to questions, if I missed any that are pertinent, please pointed out.

If you want to know about the ethical aspects of veganism, a necessary prerequisite IMO is EARTHLINGS https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ce4DJh-L7Ys

You can also check Peter Singer's the ethics of what we eat https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UHzwqf_JkrA

Are you familiar with dawkins/harris:, here's an article that's related
http://veganstrategist.org/2014/02/09/o ... am-harris/
It also links to the singer Dawkins dialogue

If you want to know about the environmental aspect you can watch Cowspiracy, though I don't think it's available for free.

I was aware of these documentaries and had watch them before posting, here, to me they were mostly designed for shock value, to try and make the watcher feel empathy, based on physical sensations of pain, they didn’t affect me. Most of the animal testing arguments were flawed at best and just factually wrong at worst. Earthlings was the biggest offender of this, when I got finish it. It felt more like a propaganda piece than a documentary.

[brimstoneSalad]

why is that a bad answer?

Because it's the same answer Christians give about why the Bible is true.

Science is observable; it is testable; make accurate predictions about our reality; It is consistent to our current understanding of the universe.

How exactly is it testable? How do you test science to know that science is true?
Would that be... using science?

So, you confirm that science is true with science, right?

Christians confirm the Bible is true using the Bible. And they corroborate that with their prayers, and delusions that they're talking to god.

The Bible is none of these.

The Bible is all of these to people who believe it, and use the Bible to judge the Bible.

The Bible contradicts itself routinely sometimes on the same page, it makes claims that sciences has proved false.

Scientists contradict each other, don't they? Science is all about proving other scientists wrong, right?
And Science makes claims the Bible says are false.

Anyway, the Bible doesn't contradict itself, you just have to interpret it creatively, according the the guidance you get from god in your prayers. Or, it's just mistranslated or something. Or it's just Atheist lies. How can you prove the Bible contradicts itself? The Bible says it doesn't contradict itself and it's perfect. There you go.

My point is that it is not adequate to appeal to the functional value of science, because without using science itself we can't objectively substantiate that any more than a Christian can substantiate the functional value of salvation.

Science is true because of the philosophical epistemology that realizes it. Science is a branch of philosophy, and is substantiated only by philosophy, not as a thing on its own.
It's based on the notion that we have biases which influence our perceptions, and the idea that there's a core true reality, and that by controlling our biases, that's the best way to get information about that shared objective reality.

We judge science as the best tool for realizing a vision of a shared objective reality, and we find value in that because of its moral worth. We can not behave morally if we are delusional. In order to do good, we need to know what we're doing, and have a practical and unbiased sense of causality and moral value which only scientific knowledge can provide us.

This is why Christianity is wrong -- it is inherently self defeating, because it claims to be moral, and yet does not convey a realistic world view, which leads to immoral deeds committed in ignorance (like hatred against homosexuals, or indifference to animals because they don't have 'souls').

I would set the moral patent at Gregorian creatures and some of the higher functioning Popperian creatures that have emotions, not creatures who are simply making choices based on advanced set of instincts, reflexes and learned behaviors.

There's a huge difference between reflexes and learned behaviors. One is automatic/mechanical, and the other is a manifestation of a will.

Skinnerian traits are the bare nature of sentience; the first point at which the organism can demonstrate that it wants something.

I would agree with you in that that I have more sympathy and compassion for Gregorian and Popperian creatures, but I can't substantiate rationally the valuation of those creatures (which are simply more complex wills and self reflection) without also ascribing some moral value to Skinnerian creatures, which must by the presence of a will represent the bottom rung of that hierarchy of moral value. Trying to do so is an exercise in futility.
If we do not value Skinnerian creatures at least a little bit, we can not substantiate valuing Popperian creatures or Gregorian ones, which puts us in a bit of a pickle.

The trick with all of these creatures is that they're not hard lines, but rather gradations of ability. Any lines we draw are arbitrary, but we can speak much more meaningfully about the degree to which a creature does this or that, or represents these fuzzy benchmarks.

As I said earlier, that leaves questions when does complex instincts, reflexes and learning behavior morph into consciousness and emotions? Like you said earlier, I don’t have the answers to this. More research is needed.

I hope I answered adequately in the last post, but please let me know if there are still more questions.

Sentience, by the way that most vegans, attributed it, could easily apply to current iterations of artificial intelligence in video games, does that mean it’s immoral to kill the AI combatants in those videogames?
Does the creature have to be biological, for this distinction to apply?

Great question!

Very few video games use adaptive neural networks, because they're slow and kind of hard to predict. Most use fake AI, which is just simulated intelligence. Usually "cheating" AI, by relying on omniscient/perfect algorithms and then adding in error.

Anyway, for the very few games that do -- and for the larger number of games that may in the future do so -- it may be in some rare situations.
Although, there are a few considerations that make that unlikely.

1. It would at worst be more on the order of killing an insect than a man. Current generation SI (Synthetic Intelligence; which is real intelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_intelligence ) is not very intelligent, so would only be marginally sentient.

2. Most are not going to be intelligent at all in real-time, but rather Darwinian creatures, where a mother neural net is adapted, and then instantiations of the rules/behaviors are spawned. So, it's not immoral to kill these spawn of the actual intelligence, since the spawn are not sentient (only the mother is).

3. Generally speaking, video game death isn't death. Most AI, like the mother above, would benefit from learning from match to match, so would not be deleted, but continue evolving.

4. Even without "killing", you could violate the will of the SI if it were at odds with your own. Maybe the SI doesn't want you to win, so by winning you harm it. However, this is an unlikely scenario because this kind of true adversarial play would make the game less optimally fun. A more likely scenario is that the SI's goal is to produce maximal enjoyment markers in the player -- most likely based on biometrics and video feed. So: by enjoying the game you are fulfilling the SI's will. Gaming is distinct from the real world, and is more amenable to win-win scenarios. Consider the situation of a game master and players in an old school table top game -- both sides ultimately have a good time, and it's not an inherently adversarial or zero sum game.

It's an interesting hypothetical, but it's not something I would expect to happen outside of badly programmed games.

Except that thread, seem to focus more on rescuing animals from being euthanized, which is a painless process, then animal is used to because they get other shots at the vet,

I'm not quite sure what you are getting at.

Euthanasia is painless, but it is wrong because animals don't want to die However, it can sometimes be the lesser of evils, considering alternatives. Sometimes killing is the least wrong thing to do.

Saving a dog is a good, but a very very small good that is very expensive, which is why I would only recommend it for selfish reasons. Rescuing animals by adopting them is probably the most inefficient form of charity in the world.

I believe you get a dog for your own pleasure, and happiness,

Correct. That doesn't make it wrong, though. Unlike animal agriculture, having a dog is a more mutually beneficial symbiosis, rather than a mutually harmful one.

if that wasn’t the case, a person would rescue all animals that a particular shelter (or at least as many as they can financially and emotionally support.) But that’s not what people do,

It's a good thing, too.
That would be like trying to help Africans by putting an African child on a plane to Disneyland for a weekend.
That's nice, but what exactly is that supposed to accomplish? It makes one child really happy for a weekend, meanwhile millions are still dying.

I have harshly criticized adopting rescue animals as a form of activism or charity, because it's a huge waste of money and does little good. However, I'm sympathetic to it as a form of relatively harmless entertainment or personal emotional support.

Most of the animal testing arguments were flawed at best and just factually wrong at worst. Earthlings was the biggest offender of this, when I got finish it. It felt more like a propaganda piece than a documentary.

Does Earthlings have a lot of animal testing stuff in it?

I don't agree with most of the anti-animal testing activism.

Animal agriculture is lose-lose. It harms animals, the environment, and the health of those who eat them (particularly in the first world).
But medical animal testing is lose-win. It sucks for the animals (although not as much as being on a farm, since lab animals have a much higher standard of ethical treatment and oversight), but it provides life saving medicine for human beings.

It's starting to be less lose-win now, because we're developing alternative technologies like organs on chips which will be able to replace the animal model, thus making the animal model outdated and less effective (as well as more expensive). But that's another subject.

I fully agree with the push against animal testing in unnecessary things like cosmetics, though.