Should you buy plants with less animal deaths then other plant products?

[thebestofenergy]

But just because I see a dog that I anthropomorphize as being happy, why should that mean its likely the dog is actually happy? Do you think we could be anthropomorphizing too much with our intuition?

Intuition for when it comes to understanding whether someone is happy or sad is usually pretty good and accurate, we evolved to be able to empathize well (it's one of the keys to our survival).

However, we can easily empirically test if a dog is happy when wiggling its tail by hooking up a machine to his brain to see neuroactivity.
We also know a dog is happy when wiggling its tail because every time a dog is given something that it wants, like a tasty treat or a leash for a walk, or about to be given something that it wants, it wiggles its tail - this is not just one experiment, this is consensus after billions of dogs behave the same.

Do you think its not likely a non sentient thing could seek out something beneficial to its survival thru natural selection?

You mean like an antivirus seeking out viruses to protect the computer from?
Or a plant seeking out water with the roots?
Or a self-driving Tesla seeking out the road patterns ahead to follow?
Or an NPC in a game seeking out to kill another NPC?

It depends what you mean by 'seeking out'. Every being can evolve to 'try' and get to things, but there's a black and white different between simply getting from A to B, that anything can be programmed/evolve to do simply for commands/survival tactics, and wanting to get from A to B because you desire it.

Scenario 1:

1. X being needs more Y for better chances of survival
2. through evolution, X changes so that it has a better/more efficient way to get to Y
3. X automatically goes to Y

The AI video I linked you before is a good example of this. The AI does trial and error through classical conditioning until it achieves the goal (jumping over the obstacle).

Scenario 2:

1. X being needs more Y for better chances of survival
2. through evolution, X's brain learns to desire/crave Y more, so that X wants to get to Y more
3. X wants to get to Y more

This is an example of how our primitive brain (and many other animals') brain worked, like humans trying to get to sweet fruit more than non-sweet ones for more calories - this is done through operant conditioning, by having a better reward with the sweeter fruit (first with the brain having a better reward with the sugar, then us having a better reward with the taste).

Scenario 3:

1. X being learns he needs more Y for better survival chances, through understanding of the environment and testing
2. X wants to get more Y

Like us understanding that B12 is a needed supplement, and then us wanting to supplement it.

Scenario 1 doesn't have a brain (central nervous system), scenario 2 and 3 do, and are sentient because they want something.

This goes back to Dennett's creatures.
I would suggest reading that for a better understanding.

forgive me please, I'm starting to question if anyone else besides me is sentient again

Sometimes it's useful to go back and read the previous posts to clear your head a bit.

[NickNack]

@thebestofenergy
So you think something being sentient has a better chance of getting to what it needs to survive a lot of the time then something non sentient.

And you make a pretty good point when you say every time we would expect the dog to have a certain emotion, we have signs from the dog that correlates with our expectation a lot. So its pretty unlikely these things would correlate so much if the dog wasn't sentient, right?

If I'm correct in my assessment, then that means we can use this logic to correlate it with certain brain activity and start to see patterns. This also means we can test and see if bugs have anything that correlates with what we would expect their emotions to be in a certain situation, right?

The only thing I'm a bit concerned about is the saying "correlation does not equal causation", but is this case different? Maybe the saying should be "correlation does not equal causation without a reasonable explanation", but if two things correlate a lot, and you have a reasonable explanation of why X would cause Y, do you think that means X likely caused Y? That intuitively appears reasonable to me but I'm wondering if my intuition is correct here. Is there a further argument to explain why correlation likely equals causation if there is a reasonable explanation for why one caused the other?

[thebestofenergy]

So you think something being sentient has a better chance of getting to what it needs to survive a lot of the time then something non sentient.

Not necessarily, as non-sentient beings require much less to survive than sentient beings do, on average.

However, sentience is probably ultimately a better long-term survival strategy for the species, as the beings are able to think and have desire to drive them forward, improving their situation.

So its pretty unlikely these things would correlate so much if the dog wasn't sentient, right?

Correct.
Not just pretty unlikely though, it would be astronomically unlikely, like the chance that everybody is wrong and the Earth was flat all along.
Just like with the Earth being flat, dogs not being sentient would require an absurd and inconceivable level of error: for dogs to be non-sentient, it would require for everybody in history to be wrong about their observations, for scientific consensus to be wrong and for neuroscience and all related sciences to make no sense whatsoever, and be mistaken about pretty much everything.
It's such a ridiculous chance that it would be irrational to doubt it.

If I'm correct in my assessment, then that means we can use this logic to correlate it with certain brain activity and start to see patterns. This also means we can test and see if bugs have anything that correlates with what we would expect their emotions to be in a certain situation, right?

Yes, you're right.

The only thing I'm a bit concerned about is the saying "correlation does not equal causation", but is this case different? Maybe the saying should be "correlation does not equal causation without a reasonable explanation", but if two things correlate a lot, and you have a reasonable explanation of why X would cause Y, do you think that means X likely caused Y?

Correlation =/= causation is often misused, and people commonly end up believing correlation doesn't mean anything. Which is absurd.
Weak correlation means unlikely causation, decent correlation means probable causation, strong correlation means likely causation, very strong correlation means very likely causation.

As you said, incredibly strong correlation with very clear and sound explanations for the most likely causation, means extremely likely causation.

If you have every person out of billions that looks outside during day hours, every single day they all see a bright ball in the sky that looks the same to them all and fits the description of what a yellow star would look like, and on top of that you have scientific explanations that would only conclude a star exists there (like Einstein's field equations), then yes, you can safely conclude the star (the sun) exists - even without having undoubtable proof about it.

It's often very hard to prove causation, and correlation is sometimes the only way we can arrive at a conclusion.
After all, science is not about 100% certainty, but about probability.

That said, after we have correlated a certain behavior with something, we can do further tests to verify the correlation, and sometimes we can can have empirical evidence.
Like in the case of dogs, you can have empirical evidence that a central nervous system is working through observation, and you can have empirical evidence of how it's working (which you can then correlate). The more you understand about how it works, and the more it never contradicts itself, the more likely it is to be true.

You can never truly 100% prove something, as there could always be a scenario - for however absurd it may be - in which it would be possible that everything and everyone is mistaken.

[brimstoneSalad]

So you think something being sentient has a better chance of getting to what it needs to survive a lot of the time then something non sentient.

Not necessarily, as non-sentient beings require much less to survive than sentient beings do, on average.

However, sentience is probably ultimately a better long-term survival strategy for the species, as the beings are able to think and have desire to drive them forward, improving their situation.

It's pretty much just true of motile species, with the exception for small motile organisms where the cost of sentience increases sharply (it's cheap for whales to be sentient, very expensive for ants to be sentient, it would be prohibitively so for mites), though there are ecological niches like filter feeders and bottom feeders where they don't really benefit much from sentience because of their food sources or environment (jellyfish and worms of various kinds).

It's all cost:benefit in terms of evolution.

If I'm correct in my assessment, then that means we can use this logic to correlate it with certain brain activity and start to see patterns. This also means we can test and see if bugs have anything that correlates with what we would expect their emotions to be in a certain situation, right?

Yes, you're right.

The key test there is operant conditioning: introducing some change the animal has to make that couldn't have been pre-programmed by evolution.
For insects, antenna movement have been used -- like move antenna in a circle some number of times for a reward. If they can learn that it demonstrated a rudimentary awareness of the self and environment.

The only thing I'm a bit concerned about is the saying "correlation does not equal causation", but is this case different? Maybe the saying should be "correlation does not equal causation without a reasonable explanation", but if two things correlate a lot, and you have a reasonable explanation of why X would cause Y, do you think that means X likely caused Y?

Correlation =/= causation is often misused, and people commonly end up believing correlation doesn't mean anything. Which is absurd.
Weak correlation means unlikely causation, decent correlation means probable causation, strong correlation means likely causation, very strong correlation means very likely causation.

The issue is more direction of causation, or if another factor is causing both.

Certain behaviors correlate with sentience. Are those behaviors causing the sentience? No, of course not. Rather the sentience is causing the behaviors.

Correlation doesn't establish the exact nature of the causal relationship in itself, it only shows certain things to be related in some way, either causally (without telling us the direction of causality) or sharing a common cause.

Establishing causality is more complicated and has to do with removing or preventing one event, or looking at which precedes the other in time. For sentience, however, reason and a very basic understanding of mind is enough to arrive at strong conclusions about it causing the behaviors rather than the other way around. We do have plenty of data that shows how activity in the brain precedes actions, though.

[NickNack]

@thebestofenergy
I see, so the correlation is absurdly strong with animals and their reaction to things just from observing them thru everyday life, and the science is even stronger. Its not correlation or no correlation, it is a spectrum of how much correlation something has. And I think the example you gave with the sun shows the more the explanation gives you results you would expect, the more likely the explanation is true. That's the piece of the puzzle that I was missing. The correlation is hella high and the explanation that things act a certain way because they are sentient is basically perfect. So I'm going to write this down so I don't forget it. But I believe the other thing we were talking about is the question "why should a less sentient creature have less moral consideration when considering under what circumstances its ok to take the creatures life?'. Or do you even hold that position?

[NickNack]

@brimstoneSalad
Yes, its very important to remember that its sentience causing the reaction, not the other way around

[thebestofenergy]

But I believe the other thing we were talking about is the question "why should a less sentient creature have less moral consideration when considering under what circumstances its ok to take the creatures life?'. Or do you even hold that position?

Yes, I do hold the position that a higher position on the sentience spectrum means inherently higher moral value (without other factors coming in, such as the being with higher sentience doing more harm than good, etc.).

I already explained how, so before I'll answer any questions, do you agree or disagree yourself?
Do you believe an ant is morally worth equally to a human?

[NickNack]

@thebestofenergy
Intuitively I don't feel that way but I don't know if I can justify my intuition. Sometimes I get freaked out about driving or sprinting on grass because I might be killing bugs. So I guess philosophically I do think an ant is worth the same as a human with regards to the right of its life. Would a less sentient human have less of a right to life then a more sentient human? Why should level of sentience determine when its ok to kill something? I agree that if it has less capability to feel pain, It would be more moral to torture the ant then the human if you had to choose one, but I don't know If I can justify taking away an ants life just because I want to sprint on grass or drive a car. Why should right to life change with regards to sentience?

[thebestofenergy]

Would a less sentient human have less of a right to life then a more sentient human?

You keep using the word 'right', but right is quite loaded with meaning, as it usually refers to what should be/is legal.

What you're asking has more to do with morality than legality, so it would be better to simply ask whether X has more moral worth than Y, rather than right to life (which is quite a specific thing).
Then whether X's life is worth more than Y's, will follow from that.

If a human is significantly more mentally impaired than another, and shows a lower ability to interpret things subjectively and be aware of what's going on, then yes, it would only follow that human has less moral worth.
That doesn't mean it shouldn't be given consideration, but that if you had to pick between one or the other to save, it would be better to pick the more sentient one.

Why should level of sentience determine when its ok to kill something?

Why should sentience determine whether it's OK or not to kill something unnecessarily?
Because the sentient being has a desire to live and doesn't want to die, and killing it wouldn't be in its best interests.

Likewise, something even more sentient would have an even stronger desire to live and would have a stronger want not to die, and killing it would be against his weightier interests.

If sentience is at the core of morality because of what sentience entails, so would be the level of sentience.

- An ant may want not to die somewhat (with the want being very weak when compared to that of a human), and beyond going against its weak wants and interests of not dying, by killing it you would cause a very small opportunity cost: the very small amount of happiness felt by the ant, that the ant would have had for the rest of its life if it had kept living.
- A human very strongly wishes not to die, and beyond going against its very strong wants and interests of not dying, by killing it you would cause an enormous opportunity cost: the high amount of happiness felt by the human, that the human would have had for the rest of its life if it had kept living.

I agree that if it has less capability to feel pain, It would be more moral to torture the ant then the human if you had to choose one, but I don't know If I can justify taking away an ants life just because I want to sprint on grass or drive a car. Why should right to life change with regards to sentience?

Two things.

1. If you think capability to feel pain would mean that the being that feels more pain should be given more consideration in respect to pain-inflicting consequences, then the capability to have wants and interests would mean that the being that has stronger wants and interests should be given more consideration in respect to wants/interests-breaking consequences.

2. With your ants example, it depends by context, and by how many ants there are. It's not useful to try a deontological approach, as it results in drawing conclusions that don't hold up.
If by arriving at a life-changing appointment in time you had to sprint through the grass, and it may kill a couple of ants if any at all, then there would be a clear net positive to sprint through the grass.
If you were too lazy to simply change direction by a few meters to avoid stepping on an ants' nest while taking a walk, killing with certainty a lot of ants and possibly thousands, and you would step on it, it would be clearly a net negative to not deviate a little.

Overall, killing a few ants by accident isn't something you should worry much about, as it's pretty much inevitable and doesn't cause a great deal of suffering (even if you were to avoid grass, ants and other insects would be in other places you walk in). That doesn't mean that running over ant mounds would be fine, but that walking through the grass isn't a problem, considering the loss you would have from forbidding yourself to walk in a lot of places outweighs the unknown of whether an ant may be splattered or not, because of how wide the difference is between a human and an ant in terms of moral worth.

You can instead focus on what IS avoidable that causes a great deal of suffering - such as animal products.

[NickNack]

@thebestofenergy
The main concern for me would be how much does a bug want to stay alive and avoid pain? And just because its hard to avoid doing something (indirectly killing bugs) doesn't necessarily make it morally ok, but it doesn't necessarily mean its not morally ok either. But do bugs want to stay alive more then I want to drive a car, walk without sweeping the floor in front of me, sprint on grass to work out, or mow the lawn? I agree now that level of sentience can change things with respect to weather or not its moral to cause somethings death, but I'm not sure to what degree I'm morally allowed to cause the death/suffering of others when talking about a bugs level of sentience.