the_cave

Why do you think they're sentient? As far as I can tell, this argument is just more behaviorism. I'm certainly not saying that fish couldn't be sentient, for all I know they are, but I'm not persuaded that they are.

Neural evidence for particular reactions to stimuli doesn't really take us anywhere, it just brings the argument inside the nervous system of the fish (which is where it leads anyway, of course.) In other words, it begs the question--how do we know that mental events for fish are the same as for humans? Without a physics of sentience, we can't really say one way or the other, yet.

When I meet a human, I assume they are sentient, and experience pain as I do, because I know that human minds are like that--because here I am. I do not know that fish minds are like that. Hopefully someday we will know. We cannot know today. Though we can take sides, if we want, and wait and see how it turns out.

Myself, I'm willing to extend the experience of pain to other primates (I'm not a speciesist, I'm a genusist ), because I know their brains are closely related to mine, so I can "trust" that they will experience things similarly to the way I do (though I don't extend that experience much further beyond basic stimuli.) I don't have that trust with other animals (perhaps maybe I'm willing to extend it to other mammals. Maybe. Octopuses are also relatively smart--and for that matter, they're mollusks!--but I'm still not sure about them.)

Pyrrho

Unless you dissect the people you meet, you do not base your belief that they are sentient on their neurology. Furthermore, a recently dead person has the same structures as a live one, and you don't judge the dead one to be sentient, do you? In point of fact, with people, at least, you probably judge these matters by behavior. Why not use the same method in all cases?

It is also useful to keep in mind that, historically speaking, knowledge of neurology is fairly recent. But having the idea that others are sentient is not fairly recent, so the knowledge of neurology is basically irrelevant to how people, in fact, decide that others are sentient. I may also venture to say that you probably did not study neurology BEFORE deciding other people are sentient.

You might be interested in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , particularly SECTION IX. Of the REASON of ANIMALS. Within the text, you can click on the symbol for the footnote to take you to the footnote, and from the footnote, if you click on the symbol for the footnote, it will take you back to the main text.

johngalt

I like to eat fish

the_cave

That's true, but then no one here is arguing that fish are sentient, that I can see.

It occurs to me that maybe fish experience pain in some subjective manner, but that doesn't mean they experience it as we do. They might, they might not.

And I'm not sure it's just behavior--it's behavior of a creature whose behavior I can recognize as similar to mine. This is very easy for me to do with primates, less easy to do with other mammals, much more difficult for me to do with non-mammalian animals.

John Page

So sentience is a higher form of evolvedness than consciousness? I think I agree with that (but then I'm human, aren't I).

Cheers, John

mhc

sentience is the ability to respond to sense impressions, isn't it?
Isn't that really an easy quality to determine in an animal,e.g., poke it with a stick...?

John Page

Isn't it more like "has sensations" in the sense of "feels something". In order to feel something (like fish pain) wouldn't one have to be consciously aware of that something? What should we say is the difference between reflex and writhing in agony?

Cheers, john

Pyrrho

When it comes to things like "pain", fish behave exactly in the same kinds of ways as people and most other complex animals. If you don't believe me, you can try poking both a fish and a person with a stick, and see how they both react. Both will try to avoid future pokes. You may also wish to poke several different people, so you won't be confused about the fact that there will be slight variations in the particular actions involved, but you should have no difficulty in recognizing the common theme. And take a look at the Hume text I previously recommended.

Pyrrho

Maybe the actions of other people is simply "reflex", and does not involve "consciousness" in any way. When you poke a man with a stick, you only see behavior; you don't see mental states at all. This is the same as with most complex animals. So the justification for claiming that a fish feels pain is EXACTLY like the justification for claiming that a human feels pain. You poke it, and it engages in "pain behavior", and that is all you ever see. With both, if they are dissected, one observes nerves and other tissues, but one never finds "mental states" inside.

To all those who claim that there is "no reason" to believe that non-human animals feel pain, I say that there is no more reason to believe that humans feel pain.

tribalbeeyatch

I agree. I work on animals (rodents primarily) as model systems for higher cognition (learning/memory primarily), and I'm always a little bit surprised to hear that anybody doubts that "lower" animals have at least a rudimentary consciousness -- that anybody would doubt that they feel pain really astounds me.