tskat

I did a term paper on fish euthanasia, and yes, fish are sentient beings, so they do feel pain. I recommend you read Peter Singer's, Animal Liberation essay. He talks a lot about "speciesism" and other such things. He is in my opinion the best ethics philosopher EVER!!!! AND no I'm not a vegetarian or an animal rights activists.... he takes a very utilitarian approach to the subject.

The real question now.... is if fish have "interest." And although the fishes interests are not as complex as humans, whales, or even your dog's or cat's,but you can not belittle the fact that they do have the very basic interests that include the following:

*the interest to avoid suffering,
*suffering is to keep a being from it's interests.

Now you can intemperate suffering to many things from pain to sadness.

Living things that are not sentient beings are things like mollusks (snails, clams, ect.)

I HOPE you read the essay I recommenced earlier.... Peter Singer uses fun analogies like horses having the right to vote. Please check it out.

mhc

Is that the condition for consciousness?
Isn't decision-making in there somewhere?
I don't disagee about the ants. Is it too far-fetched to think that ants make rudimentary decisions?
I mean, being aware of two different things, they choose one over the other, based on some criterion they are to some degree aware of?

Farren

PZ, I'm curious (I must admit I'm asking you because you waggled your credentials around a little earlier):

Do you think the concept of collective insect consciousness is a valid one? That some comparison can be made between the functioning of say an ant colony and the human brain?

This idea has always fascinated me, especially after reading numerous stories about the behaviour of colonial insects that suggest the formation and testing of abstract ideas at a colony level.

I can't verify this because I don't remember the source. It may have been David Attenborough. I watched a wildlife program where japanese bees formulated a completely novel strategy for eliminating a breed of hunting wasp.

The wasp in question was immune to bee stings and was a serious nuisance to beekeepers. Then out of the blue bees in one area of Japan began attacking it by forming a ball around it, piling layer upon layer of bee on top of it until not only the wasp, but the bees in the center were literally cooked by body heat. Apparently this practice rapidly spread throughout Japan.

Ant colonies, too, seem to undergo incredibly rapid changes in behaviour in response to their environment. I just read about a supercolony of ants, a continuous colony stretching from Portugal to France, with no discernable distinction between one conventional "colony" and the next. Ants flow freely without conflict between what, ten or twenty years ago, would have been competing colonies, stretching across half of western Europe. This represents a seemingly complete break from previously witnessed ant behaviour. I think this was in New Scientist.

Another one: The same species of ant can be found cultivating totally different fungus, as well as variations of the same family of fungus in different colonies along a ten mile stretch of South American rain forest. This hints tantalisingly at a learning algorithm/Culture in ants.

I have a programmers understanding of neural networks (and a keen layman's understanding of neurons themselves). While I've been made aware that there's a lot more to human intelligence than the limited digital "neural net" model, my understanding is that this is still a key component of intelligent learning and adaption. What fascinates me is that colony/hive insects appear to have all of the connectivity requirements of a slow moving neural net. Comment?

John Page

Slime Molds and the signaling implications fascinate me.....

Farren

Yeah. me too, ever since I read a National Geographic feature on them

Unfortunately, they seem to rely on a rather simple chemical mechanism that doesn't allow for the kind of complex, adaptive, intentional behaviour I was thinking of. But they're fascinating nontheless. Like some fantasy monstrosity.

Fred

I wouldn't know about the scientific reasons for or against.
I do know that I have literally played with individual fish while scuba diving. These fish were interacting with me, they seemed to enjoy it and I am left with the impression that fish are quite intelligent. I think all living beings are intelligent to some degree.

Amos

Of course fish are self conscious. Fish have an ego just like we do or consciouseness would be impossible. In other words, if they were not conscious about themselves what would they be conscious about? That they are wet? Exactly, they are conscious about what "they are" in relation to others.

Fish also have a soul because you can't have consciousness without a soul just as you can't have a soul without consciousness.

My wife actually has a pet fish that hides from the neighbors dog but comes to her when she calls her. Her name is Ursula.

pz

That must be one very large aquarium. And what's your wife doing in there? Your wife or the fish?

Amos

It's really a funny story. She had a fishpond made and bought this goldfish so she would have a fish in her pond. That was nice for the summer but when winter came she needed to move this fish inside and, of course, outside again in spring. That's been going on for about 10 years now and they seem to know each other.

Pyrrho

Some of you may be interested in another thread on a related subject:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=52653

It is a thread I started. I have resolved not to respond to anyone there until at least Monday (May 5, 2003), to see how it will go without me interfering.