usenet/Medicine_and_the_Mall.html
From our archives of Tom's USENET posts. Some of these posts are over a decade old. The author may have mellowed with age since these were written, but the basic views remain. (Please note that web links inside this document may be broken.)
<![CDATA[From tms Mon Dec 7 12:49:01 EST 1992
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
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feathers@eskimo.com (Cheryl Owen) writes:
>
> I have a question about this vegetarian mall fantasy, and it relates
>to something I've been wondering since I started reading this news group
>a couple of months ago. My question is especially prompted by someone
>questioning whether those entering the mall would have to be checked for
>leather, products derived from animals or that had been tested on
>animals, etc....I'm not wrong in my belief that insulin was tested and
>developed using animal research, am I? I've never used it, but I
>believe there's a kind of insulin make from a pork product.
I think so; but there are non-animal ways of obtaining insulin, using
engineered bacteria.
>Even
>Humulin was developed using animal research. What about those diabetics
>that require insulin to live? Would they be excluded from this
>wonderful fantasy mall, prevented from working there or shopping there
>because they need their insulin to live? How far do you take this?
>What does a parent do when their child is diagnosed with diabetes; is
>the only correct thing to do to say that it's wrong to use any product
>that animals were exploited to develop, and let the child's eyesight be
>destroyed, and then watch the child die, because it would be wrong to
>use insulin?
Has anyone ever said or implied that they would do this???
Whether on not animal reasearch was used _in the past_ to develop
something isn't too relevant today. The pyramids of Egypt were built
with slave labor; yet they are beautiful. Should we tear them down as
a protest against slavery? Or what about the syphilis research done
on black men in the U.S. some decades ago? Or the experiments where
members of the U.S. military where exposed to radiation from atomic
blasts, or secretly dosed with LSD? Should we strike out any knowledge
or benefits gained from this completely immoral research?
>Is there truly no hierarchy of values, ever, for some of
>you people? You women, what would you do if you became pregnant and
>then were told you had gestational diabetes, and you needed to take
>insulin because if you didn't, you would likely be damaging your unborn
>child (I've seen the statistics on these kinds of birth defects, because
>I was in that situation) and it was dangerous to yourself to have blood
>sugars of 360 and higher.
> If I've ever been accused of anything related to animals, it was of
>being too attached to them, anthropomorphizing at times, and taking the
>care of animals too seriously (donating money for the welfare of animals
>when it could have been spent on people, etc., although I donated money
>to people causes too), so I understand being passionate about animals.
>But how far do you take this? Do some of you believe that people with
>diabetes should just die rather than be able to use insulin?
Of course not. I used Seldane, an allergy medication that comes only
in the form of a gelatin-containing pill. If I had another option, I would
use it. But this is the only drug that works and doesn't make me nearly
unconscious.
But there is no reason why this drug _has_ to be made with animal
products. By making the cruelty-free choice whenever I can, I hope to
encourage those who make the products to use cruelty-free methods.
> How can some people think of themselves as so compassionate and
>caring, yet be so callous to other people for whom the question of
>animal research/products isn't a choice of a fashion statement, but life
>and health itself? Ironically enough, animals have no such compunctions
>-- they take what they need.
Animals often exhibit compassionate and ethical behavior that puts
humans to shame. Of course, they also often exhibit cruel and heartless
behavior that looks a lot like the worst we do.
> I don't know what rights animals have. I can't believe in my heart
>that they have no rights at all under any circumstances. The closest I
>can come to something I *know* is true is that regardless of whether
>animals have rights, people have responsibilities.
And I believe that one of those responsibilites is to protect those
who cannot protect themselves, including animals. A sort of noblesse oblige
toward the other members of the animal kingdom.
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
Quayle stumbled in response to a question about his opinion of the
Holocaust. He said it was "an obscene period in our nation's history."
Then, trying to clarify his remark, Quayle said he meant "this century's
history" and added a confusing comment. "We all lived in this century,
I didn't live in this century," he said.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
From tms Tue Dec 8 11:58:42 EST 1992
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
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Me:
| Whether on not animal reasearch was used _in the past_ to develop
|something isn't too relevant today. The pyramids of Egypt were built
|with slave labor; yet they are beautiful. Should we tear them down as
|a protest against slavery? Or what about the syphilis research done
|on black men in the U.S. some decades ago? Or the experiments where
|members of the U.S. military where exposed to radiation from atomic
|blasts, or secretly dosed with LSD? Should we strike out any knowledge
|or benefits gained from this completely immoral research?
avi@seal.imagen.com writes:
>In short, YES !
>
>If you use it, you indirectly condone it.
>
>Its the same as saying, "I can buy the leather shoes, because the cow that
>was used for this leather is already dead". Yes, the cow died in the past,
>maybe long before you got to the shoe store, and by somebody else, but if you
>buy and wear this shoe, you partake (indirectly and retroactively) in her
>killing.
Perhaps I wasn't clear. I meant the "distant" past. Far enough
distant that there is no causal relation. My viewing the Egyptain
pyramids in no way supports slavery. On the other hand, my
(hypothetical) purchase of leather rewards the animal skin industry
and thus prompts them to continue their work.
>And bacteria is not alive ? what's the difference that makes it OK to use
>and abuse bacteria but not cows and chickens ? life is not related to the
>size of the organism.
Show me a bacterium with a complex nervous system, and I'll be
concerned. You can't, obviously; bacteria are single-celled.
>Another logical flaw, commonly overlooked by "ethical" vegetarians is
>that eating chicken and cows is immoral, but eating plants is not. I
>direct anybody who thinks that plants of any kind are NOT alive (just
>because they can't move) to the "secret life of the plants" a book
>written I believe in the late 70's that clearly demonstrates that
>plants are not only alive but are actually intelligent, maybe even
>more so than chickens and cows!
Please. This psuedo-science about plant intelligence has long
been discredited and debunked. (The issue was never whether plants
are _alive_. Obviously they are. The issue is intelligence, consciousness,
and/or the ability to feel pain.)
Plants don't have complex nervous systems, or equivalent
structures. Show me a plant that has one, maybe some ET vegetable life
form, and I promise not to eat it. B->
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
"The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the
poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal
bread." -- Anatole France
From tms Tue Dec 8 12:22:40 EST 1992
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
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dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>How would you get acute
>and long-term toxicity data before starting tests in humans? Or is
>it appropriate to start administering a drug to humans first? "Better
>that two human volunteers die, than two rats--the humans at least knew
>what they were getting into?"
The issue here is whether it is ethically permissable to take
life because the results _might_ save other lives.
Would it be right to sacrifice two humans, if the results might
save dozens? Hundereds? Thousands? What if the experimental subjects
were brain-damaged, so that they were no more intelligent than
chimps? (Heck, I know a lot of healthy-brained humans who seem no
more intelligent that chimps! B-)
Basic toxicity tests can be performed on tissue samples. For
additional testing, I have no serious objection to drugs or medical
procedures being used first on animals _in a veternary context_ - that
is, used on animals who already have the relevant disease or condition
and are expected to benefit from the treatment; for example, a new
cataract treatment that has been carefully analyzed and is expected to
work being tried first on a dog that naturally has cataracts.
>Like it or not, all of Western drug therapy is fundamentally based on
>animal testing. This is not the world of cosmetics where you might be
>able to replace the rabbit's eye with some cell culture. In complex
>organisms, you need to look at a drug's effects on the organism as a
>whole and at the organ level.
You need to look at the effects on _human_ organisms. We know all
too well about the limitations of applying animal results to humans.
>> Animals often exhibit compassionate and ethical behavior that puts
>>humans to shame. Of course, they also often exhibit cruel and heartless
>>behavior that looks a lot like the worst we do.
>
>"Ethical"? "Cruel and heartless?" This is anthropomorphizing at its worst.
>Frankly, I think you do animals a disservice by trying to imbue them with
>human traits.
Why? I look at other humans, observe their behavior, and based on
that, conclude that they have internal thoughts and feelings like my
own. I do the same for other mammals. The evidence I would have for
labeling your behavior "ethical" or "heartless" is no stronger than
that I would have for labeling the behavior of a chimp "ethical" or
"heartless". The only way I can consistantly avoid "anthropomorphizing"
animals is to stop "anthropomorphizing" other humans. I'm not imbuing
animals with human traits, just recognizing that those human traits
are just traits of the more intelligent mammals in general.
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
"The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the
poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal
bread." -- Anatole France
From tms Thu Dec 10 12:07:52 EST 1992
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Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
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young@serum.kodak.com writes:
>
>> I look at other humans, observe their behavior, and based on
>>that, conclude that they have internal thoughts and feelings like my
>>own. I do the same for other mammals. The evidence I would have for
>>labeling your behavior "ethical" or "heartless" is no stronger than
>>that I would have for labeling the behavior of a chimp "ethical" or
>>"heartless". The only way I can consistantly avoid "anthropomorphizing"
>>animals is to stop "anthropomorphizing" other humans. I'm not imbuing
>>animals with human traits, just recognizing that those human traits
>>are just traits of the more intelligent mammals in general.
>
> Making assumptions about other humans may be justifiable: after all,
> as humans, it is not unreasonable to assume that there is some
> similarity in response between ourselves and others of our species.
> It is the extension of this to other species that results in
> conclusions which have no justification.
The strongest justifications I find for assuming that other humans
have an internal experience similar to mine are in behavior and physiology.
The same justifications apply, in differing degrees, to other animals.
Consider the following twist on what you wrote:
Making assumptions about other white men may be justifiable:
after all, as white men, it is not unreasonable to assume that
there is some similarity in response between ourselves and others
of our gender and race. It is the extension of this to other
races and to women that results in conclusions which have no
justification.
Obviously poor reasoning. (And I don't mean to imply that you're
racist, or that you hold such views.) But it points out, by contrast,
the need to discuss the what similarities are relavent. Race, culture,
species, gender, religion, politics, and socioeconomic status are all
rather well-defined contrasts, but I don't see enough justification
there to remove people of other races, etcetera, from my ethical
consideration.
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
Weinberg's Second Law:
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy
civilization.
From tms Thu Dec 10 12:22:46 EST 1992
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
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avi@seal.imagen.com writes:
>>tms@cs.umd.edu (Tom Swiss (Swift, Suiss, Swiss!)) writes:
>> Show me a bacterium with a complex nervous system, and I'll be
>>concerned. You can't, obviously; bacteria are single-celled.
>
>So, your definition of life is a "complex nervous system" ?
>To paraphrase a saying "your compassion to life should not be limited to the
>extent you can judge the intelligence in this life form".
Are you being deliberately obtuse? No, of course my defintion of
life is not a "complex nervous system". Plants, fungi, and bacteria
are alive, but have no nervous system.
However, compassion results from a recognition of similarity
between self and other. This recoginition is strongest with respect to
those organisms with complex computational apparatus. But I give some
ethical consideration even to insects; I don't, for example, pull the
wings off flys.
>Further, any living organism no matter how complex their nervous
>system might be (including humans) can be reduced to the single-cell units.
>This single cell will NOT have a "life" according to you, and thus
>could be eaten. Therefor, if I rationalize that I do not consume a cow but
>a cluster of "lifeless" cells, then its OK to eat meat.
You have to kill the cow to do that. If you find a cow that died
of natural causes, and want to eat it, you have my blessing. But while
it's alive, I recognize a basic resemblance between us, as mammals, and
this recognition brings forth compassion.
>As well, neither milk (or dairy products) nor Eggs have any nervous system,
>yet ethical vegans will abstain from using them.
The animals that produce them have nervous systems; thus I wish to
prevent the abuse these animals undergo in the factory farming that
produces eggs or dairy products.
>>(The issue was never whether plants are _alive_. Obviously they are.
>>The issue is intelligence, consciousness, and/or the ability to feel pain.)
>
>1) Excuse me, but I thought (and still do) that it WAS all about life !
> (or taking away life)
Bacteria are alive. Yet you probably kills hundreds if not thousands
each day. Many of you cells die each day.
>2) "Intelligence, consciousness, and/or the ability to feel pain" -
> Well, Since it is NOT about life - I can kill the cow and since after
> its death, the cow is NOT intelligent anymore nor is it conscious or
> able to feel pain - then I can eat it. So, according to your logic -
> once again, its OK to eat meat.
It was alive when you killed it. It's the killing that's "wrong".
By buying meat, I would reward that killing and encourage more killing.
>3) As above, neither eggs nor milk or dairy products, has the capability
> of "intelligence, consciousness, and/or the ability to feel pain" -
> should these be excluded as well ?
See above.
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
Weinberg's Second Law:
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy
civilization.
From tms Thu Dec 10 12:33:26 EST 1992
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
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dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>
>How can you possibly use the word "ethical" in connection with an
>animal? It's meaningless. "Cute", I can understand. "Maternal"
>I can understand. But "ethical"? It has no meaning. It's like
>describing a horse's ability to perform calculus.
Sorry to sound like a re-run of _Kung Fu_, but: how can you not?
How is it reasonable to lable behavior X "ethical" when performed
by a human, and not when performed by a chimp? That animals engage in
behavior that when performed by humans is called "ethical" (and by
this I mean ethically praiseworthy or heroic; exceptionally altruistic)
is, I believe, not in question.
I'm not anthromophorizing animals; I'm animal-izing (zoomophorizing?)
humans - recognizing that we're just a bunch of baldish apes, with
larger brains perhaps and fancy hands perhaps, but still close cousins
to the chimp and the gorilla.
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
Weinberg's Second Law:
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy
civilization.
From tms Sat Dec 12 02:44:53 EST 1992
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
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avi@seal.imagen.com writes:
>>
>> Are you being deliberately obtuse? No, of course my defintion of
>>life is not a "complex nervous system". Plants, fungi, and bacteria
>>are alive, but have no nervous system.
>
>Then if you agree that Plants, fungi, and bacteria are alive, then obviously
>you be murdering them upon cooking and eating.
Obviously I'm killing them. All life feeds on death. Plants feed on
deay products in the soil, and on the slow heat death of the sun.
>If they are alive - they also
>have a right to live just as much as animals do.
On what grounds do you make this statement?
>Who are you to play God
>and say that killing cows is wrong and killing plants is right ?
>In other words, why dont you extend the "Ahimsa" (non-harming) argument to
>plants as well.
For one thing, I'd starve. Gotta eat, you know.
Now, I'm not completely without respect for plants. I keep a
few spider plants around, and the do quite well. I don't go around
chopping down trees for no reason, v
>> However, compassion results from a recognition of similarity
>>between self and other.
>
>Wrong. Compassion is and should be derived from recognition of the
>HARM and PAIN afflicted on the organism if treated in an uncompassionate way.
>Eating plants is just as uncompassionate as eating animals, both of them
>needing to be killed in order to be consumed, and both feeling (and reacting) to
>this pain in MEASURABLE ways.
Simply not true. To feel pain - or to feel anything at all - a brain
or equivalent structure is required. Simple reaction to damage is not the
same as pain - a very simple mechanism can detect and react to damage.
>Interestingly, ancinet civilization (such as the American Indians and others)
>who we consider "primitive" but otherwise were much closer to Nature than we
>ever have been, used to TALK to the plants/fruits they were about to pick and
>ask for their forgiveness of killing them, before they do that. Obviously, they
>recognized the above facts, which were scientifically confirmed in the latter half of the 20th century.
No, they weren't.
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
"I can identify with steelworkers. I can identify with workers that
have had a difficult time."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle addressing
workers at an Ohio steel plant,1988
From tms Mon Dec 14 12:11:19 EST 1992
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Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
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young@serum.kodak.com writes:
))
)) The strongest justifications I find for assuming that other humans
))have an internal experience similar to mine are in behavior and physiology.
))The same justifications apply, in differing degrees, to other animals.
)
) At what point in the evolutionary scale does it become unjustifiable?
) Please post for us the criteria you use to make such judgements and
) the exact procedure you use to determine whether a non-human species
) is to be classified ethically important or ethically irrelevant.
I don't see a sharp line; it's not a simple dichotomy. More of a
continuum.
There's a sort of hierarchy, even among the "ethical importance"
of other humans. My parents get more consideration that mere
acquaintances. Acquaintances get more consideration than stangers.
The same with animals. Dogs get more consideration than frogs.
Frogs get more consideration than flies. But even flies get some small
consideration; I don't rip their wings off for fun, and I shoo them
out the window rather than smashing them when I can.
)) Consider the following twist on what you wrote:
))
)) Making assumptions about other white men may be justifiable:
)) after all, as white men, it is not unreasonable to assume that
)) there is some similarity in response between ourselves and others
)) of our gender and race. It is the extension of this to other
)) races and to women that results in conclusions which have no
)) justification.
)
) Your example is a strawman.
It's the exact same form as your argument. Your original
arguement had "species" where I have "white man"; I've just
substituted another class of genetic similarity. I think you have
a more well-defined argument in their somewhere, but I can't
quite see it.
) The issue is whether we, as humans,
) can make justifiable conclusions regarding non-human species based
) on the criterion of similarity of physiological structure.
"Justifiable" is pretty fuzzy. We ultimately have no way
other knowing what subjective experience other animals have, if
any, any more than we can know the subjective experience of other
humans. Is the inside of your head anything like mine? Do you
even have an internal experience of existence? What conclusions
can we justifiably draw about each other, based on similarity of
physiological structure and behavior? What "justification" do I
have for assuming that you have some sort of internal experience,
that there is indeed something going on in your head that's somewhat
similar to what goes on in mine?
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
"There are some microorganisms that exhibit characteristics of
both plants and animals. When exposed to light, they undergo
photosynthesis and when the lights go out, they turn into
animals. But then again, don't we all?"
From tms Mon Dec 14 12:24:46 EST 1992
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dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>> How is it reasonable to lable behavior X "ethical" when performed
>>by a human, and not when performed by a chimp? That animals engage in
>>behavior that when performed by humans is called "ethical" (and by
>>this I mean ethically praiseworthy or heroic; exceptionally altruistic)
>>is, I believe, not in question.
>
>Let me assure you that it is. I don't have the faintest idea what
>you're alluding to.
Okay, let me give an example. I don't have it handy, so the
details may be wrong, but I read an excerpt from Carl Sagan's new
book, _Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors_. It describes an experiment
with (I think) orangutans, in which in order to be fed the orangutans
had to press a button which delivered a painful electrical shock to
another orangutan; the shock victim was within sight of the first
orangutan. The majority of the orangutans would not press the button;
they would not harm their fellows, even though the alternative was
starvation.
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
"There are some microorganisms that exhibit characteristics of
both plants and animals. When exposed to light, they undergo
photosynthesis and when the lights go out, they turn into
animals. But then again, don't we all?"
From tms Mon Dec 14 12:34:04 EST 1992
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Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
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young@serum.kodak.com writes:
>In article <62786@mimsy.umd.edu> tms@cs.umd.edu (Tom Swiss (not Swift, not Suiss, Swiss!)) writes:
>
>> Simply not true. To feel pain - or to feel anything at all - a brain
>>or equivalent structure is required. Simple reaction to damage is not the
>>same as pain - a very simple mechanism can detect and react to damage.
>
> Ah, here we have it at last: the standard semantic retreat to the
> dictionary definition of "pain", rather than consideration of the
> basic principles involved. What makes you think that "pain" is not
> the animal equivalent to the plant's "mechanism to detect and react
> to damage?"
It seems to me that the basic principle of "pain" requires more
than detection and reaction to damage. I can hook up some sensors to
my PC and, with only a few lines of code, make it scream bloody murder
whenever anmyone touches it. I don't think that qualifies as "pain".
There's nothing going on inside that has the pain; there is not an
_experience_ of pain. Now, if we had some Turing-test-passing true AI
program with the same sort or arangement, that would be a different
kettle of horses of another color.
>P.S. You might want to consider setting follow-ups to t.p.a. as someone has
> already suggested. I won't do it because I know that some do not
> receive the "talk" groups.
I get my share of flamage on r.f.v, thanks; if I read t.p.a, I think
I'd never get any rest.
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
"There are some microorganisms that exhibit characteristics of
both plants and animals. When exposed to light, they undergo
photosynthesis and when the lights go out, they turn into
animals. But then again, don't we all?"
From tms Tue Dec 15 14:47:57 EST 1992
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
Summary:
Expires:
References: <1992Dec12.190900.23523@pixel.kodak.com> <62834@mimsy.
umd.edu> <1992Dec15.005657.11900@imagen.com>
Sender:
Followup-To: poster
Distribution:
Organization: The Reality Liberation Front (pixels to the people!)
Keywords:
avi@seal.imagen.com writes:
>>tms@cs.umd.edu (Tom Swiss (not Swift, not Suiss, Swiss!)) writes:
>> It seems to me that the basic principle of "pain" requires more
>>than detection and reaction to damage. I can hook up some sensors to
>>my PC and, with only a few lines of code, make it scream bloody murder
>>whenever anmyone touches it. I don't think that qualifies as "pain".
>>There's nothing going on inside that has the pain; there is not an
>>_experience_ of pain.
>
>Your example actually proves exactly the OPPOSITE. With your PC, obviously
>some intelligence was inserted into a dumm machine (in the form of a program)
>to serve for the purpose of "pain simulation". But why would the plants have
>such a mechanism ? What purpose does it serve to program teh plants' DNA to
>eact this way?(other than of course a pain sensor, for self-preservation, etc).
I'd hardly call a few dozen lines of code "intelligence".
Why would plants have a mechanism to detect damage? Plants are capable
of self-repair; obviously for self-repair systems to function, there must
be a triggering system. That damage to plants results in the activation
of various chemical processes is, I think, not a controvertial statement.
>Further, if a bee or a human will simply touch the leaves, nothing will
>happen, the plant will NOT react in the same way.
No damage; no activation of self-repair systems.
>But there are MEASURABLE
>changes in the plant chemistry when cut, bruised, cooked, etc. (see "the
>secret life of the plants"). So, there's definitely a mechanism to both DETECT
>and REACT to pain !
Detect and react to damage, possibly. Measureable changes != pain.
In my PC example, there are measureable changes; some memory locations
get certain values, etc. But there's still not pain. Pain is an
_experience_; it requires an experiencer, a consciousness, some sort
of subject.
Responses to e-mail.
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
"Heard a lot of talk about this Jesus
A man of love, a man of strength
But what a man was two thousand years ago
Means nothing at all to me today." -- "Operation Spirit", Live
From tms Sat Dec 19 16:52:57 EST 1992
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Medicine & the Mall
Summary:
Expires:
References: <1992Dec12.161139.18050@pixel.kodak.com> <1992Dec12.
223333.20789@psych.toronto.edu> <tara.724656637@starburst.umd.edu>
Sender:
Followup-To:
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Organization: The Reality Liberation Front (pixels to the people!)
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tara@starburst.umd.edu (Tara McDermott) writes:
>This of course only applies to those who agree that plants suffer
>horribly by being harvested and eaten. I wonder if the kosher people
>know about this angle. They had better devise a way of slowly
>torturing plants to fit in with their religious beliefs when it comes
>to devouring plant food! This refers to the kosher method of killing
>cows - letting them bleed dry, while still alive, and not bothering
>with more humane ways of killing them such as using a stun gun.
That's not fair, Tara. The kosher laws do not in themselves
require "inhumane" slaughter methods (if one can reasonably talk about
"humane" slaughter). It's when they're put together with certain health
regulations that the process becomes cruel. There is a movement within
the Jewish community to change the kosher laws because of this.
===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu | "Born to die" | Keep your laws off my brain!
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe
Keep your values off my family.
The Official MBA Handbook on business cards:
Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the
Realm, Defender of the Faith, Emporer of Siberia" or
"Director of Corporate Planning".
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