godlessmath

Can I add then, that pomegranates are oh so, oh so, oh sooooo delicious. Man, could I live off those things!!!

How possible would it be to live off of just fruit, with vitamins maybe?

integral domain

While I see your point that everything, be it love, pain, or photosynthesis, is really just a chemical reaction, or just some psyiological process for survival. You can't reasonably say that all such reactions and processes are equal. You're suggesting that they're all equal... and that if I'm against hurting animals with nervous systems then that means I should be against killing plants with photosynthesis.... b/c both phenomenon are just chemical reactions or physiological processes. But by that logic then, if you think it's ok to hurt/kill animals then you should think it's ok to hurt/kill people... b/c actually, hurting/killing an animal results in chemical reactions and physiologial processes even more similar to those caused by hurting/killing humans than those caused by hurting/killing plants!

So basically... if you can make a logical distinction between animals and humans... then certainly you should be able to accept my logical distinction between plants and animals.

Bottom line... animals can FEEL PHYSICAL PAIN because they have nervous systems, while plants, without nervous systems, cannot feel physical pain! in fact, plants can't feel at all. So my logic tells me, it's better to kill something that can't feel than to kill something that can.



GOOD TO SEE SO MANY VEGGIES OUT THERE!! Anybody got any good recipes?

integral domain

Exactly...

It's odd, if nothing else, being vegetarian has showed me just how much it sucks to be attacked and antagonized for no reason at all... like you suggested, I now know just a little bit of what homosexuals must go through.

Chicken Girl

I'm a vegetarian for the following reasons:

1. I just plain don't like meat.
2. I find the idea of eating a dead animal personally repulsive.
3. Animals raised for food are treated horribly.
4. Many meat products are loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol.

I do eat milk and eggs, but I tend to avoid them when possible.

I would also like to point out that

I don't give a rat's ass what anyone else eats or chooses not to eat.

So don't be ragging on me about how my being a vegetarian somehow interferes with your right to enjoy a nice juicy quarter-pounder

vixstile

Take in mind that i'm not trying to attack/criticize anything you have said in particular. It's just that you initiated a discussion about vegetarianism in a forum for discussing morality. So that's all i'm trying to do: discuss the morality involved in vegetarianism.

That is exactly what i'm saying. Everything that exist is exactly equal. Everything that exist has the exact same amount of value; that is, zero value.

Now before we go any further; these are just my amateurish attempts at philosophy, and I don't for one bit hold anything with any permanence. So don't attack me like i'm on the pulpit.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

I have always taken this to mean: "beauty" is not a property that an object "has". In other words, out of all the possible properties that an object can have like weight, mass, etc.., "beauty" is not one of them. So beauty is rather an emotion that exist in the individual human mind.

So a pile of dog shit has exactly the same amount of beauty as a rose; none. But for what ever reason, evolution/cultural(most likely the former), we see the flower and experience the emotion 'beauty'.

I have also taken this concept and applied it to other concepts. Concepts like "value".

"Value is in the eye of the beholder"


Just like there is no property "beauty" tucked away in the molecules of a flower, radiating outward, and being perceived by some mysterious sixth sense; there is no property "value" yada yada yada.

Value is an emotion

I am not suggesting any kind of "should". I am saying that you have simply been programed, both evolutionarily and culturally, to experience value toward some things, but not other things, and to varying degrees. Also, everybody has a different program.

Some people walk into a pristine forest and experience value; I just see bugs and dirt, and retreat to the nearest temperature controlled structure.


"So my logic tells me, it's better to kill something that can't feel than to kill something that can"

It's not your logic telling you that. It is your programing.

------

Optimizing Your Programing
If you buy anything I have said so far........

So your "programed" to experience certain emotion like love, hate, pleasure, pain, and value.

Humans often times get their emotions all out of whack, causing all sorts of psychological dysfunctions. Through various avenues, such as personal exploration and professional help, we can have our emotions optimized to improve the overall quality of our life.

If you buy anything I have said so far........

It would seem to make sense to include things like value and beauty into the common practice of optimization of your emotions.

If an individual experiences value toward something, that if not valued would improve the quality of their life, then, if at all possible, through a process of personal exploration and other avenues, could adjust their sense of value to improve quality of life.

So if your an individual that has some value toward the wellbeing of animals, but also value toward the pleasure derived from eating meat, I would suggest you examine and weigh your different values , and try to make a decision that will best increase the quality of your life.

If your a "vegetarian about three or four days of the week" you would probably be best off just dropping the guilt and increasing your enjoyment of meat.

This is probably my longest post ever. Hopefully it isn't entirely incoherent BS.

integral domain

vixtile: Um... I'm not sure what you're trying to say... but read this.... maybe it will clear things up from my side.

1) Ok, so I'm programmed to value certain things more than others. Why is this programming? Maybe it's just something I consciously decided? In life, there are a few general philosophies you can choose to perscribe to... one being that we should all try to try to live our lives in such a way that we should minimalize suffering and promote the greater good (peace, love, hoy, etc...)(this is generally my view... that I CHOSE). YOu seem to have chosen the "life's a freeforall do whatever you want" philosophy. Which is perfectly respectable. But it's not fair of you to say I'm "programed"... however nicely you tried to say it, it's still insulting b/c it implies I don't give things a lot of thought.

2) You need to set your philosophy aside and look at it from my philosophy. B/c obviously, anything I believe to be logical is logical only within the context of my personal philosophy... which is, that we should try to minimalize suffering and promote joy and peace and all those other fluffy things.

3) So taken within the context of my philosophy, not eating animals but still eating plants, is ~logical~ b/c plants can't SUFFER.... b/c they can't feel... b/c they don't have a nervous system. ANimals can and do suffer when you kill them... therefore, I try to minimalize suffering by not eating meat. I'm not causing any extra suffering by eating plants b/c they don't feel anything.

4)Yes I realize that a lot of things I do on a daily basis cause a lot of suffering in some way... such as... driving my car, living in a house, buying clothes made in sweatshops. I understand that... however, I have to look at things and determine what's reasonable for me to do. It's not reasonable for me to leave the civilized world and go live in the alps like an animal just so I'm sure I don't cause anyone any more suffering than need be. I do what little things I can... such as, not eat meat.


If you want to attack my personal philosophy at its core... feel free... but I believe my vegetarianism makes perfect sense in the context of my chosen personal philosophy.

Dark Jedi

I don't eat vegetables. I eat what eats the vegetables.

"If we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?" -Mad Max

Dark Jedi

I cry like a baby when I hit a deer. If I have no tag, or it's out of season, I can't keep the meat. All that damage to my car and I don't even get the meat? Hell, yes, I'll cry.

godlessmath

Hey Integral, I am having a tea at the math department in your honor!

Well, not exactly. So every graduate student has to take a turn aand make tea for the rest of the deparment on one day. Usually, snacks and goodies are served. Mine is due up this tuesday, and I bought 30 dollars worth of fruit. You name it, I have it. Strawberries, oranges, Kumquats, bananas, apples, and some other stuff...

Oolon Colluphid

Hi AntiChris
Really? I don’t often venture out of E/C, have never heard anyone use it before, and worked this out for myself from what I know of evolutionary biology.
In a word, yes. Well actually, no, of course I’m not ‘perplexed’ by it; it isn’t much of a surprise. But to anyone who understands evolution, it should be.

From an evolutionary standpoint, there is no sensible ‘moral’ distinction to be drawn between animals and plants -- or fungi, protists, bacteria or viruses for that matter. We are all the same ‘make’, merely different ‘models’. We are all, from the point of view of any alien investigators, practically the same thing -- nothing else in the universe, I can confidently predict, uses DNA/RNA. All earthly living things have managed to get their genes into the modern world while millions of their ancestor’s contemporaries didn’t; they are all equally ‘valid’ twiglets on life’s bush. To protect one group over another is an illogicality, possible only because of ignorance. We are simply protecting what is most like us. In relation to ‘the preservation of favoured races’, it is racism.

On what grounds should a line be drawn around humans, or apes, or primates, or mammals, or vertebrates, or whatever? Such a distinction -- protect these but not these -- is a value judgement on the part of society, not based on any obvious line of demarcation in nature. Suppose we decided to protect all ‘animals’. Do we protect Euglena... or not? Therefore, the hyperprotection we offer humans is speciesist.

Which is fair enough. Morals, unlike scientific facts, are culturally dependent, and we are cultural creatures. But this makes not the slightest difference to the rationality of it.

Hope that makes it clearer.

Cheers, DT