I’ve noticed that there seems to be an emphasis on being extremely serious at all times, as if every single comment is a PhD dissertation being evaluated or something. There’s like this weird, subtle one upmanship about every little thing and a lot of people are very nitpicky and judgmental. It kind of takes the fun out of being on here, TBH. Or am I the only one experiencing this?
oh yeah. just got through one of these. I am expected to obtain solid studies if i so much as go against the flow of popular opinions of which have had never had to be up against any scrutiny what so ever.
eg: vegans speaking on consciousness and how they believe it exists in the brain.
they speak about consiousness and it’s location like it has all been proven. They provide no papers. no proof. just how they feel about consciousness when talking about it.
And there is none. any papers that that exist today are all based in theory around the existance of consciousness and ideas of what consciousness means. no hard facts.
but if you question a vegan on their feefees about consiousness they ask you for the science studies and facts and freely call you insane for daring to question them.
Apparently you’re not supposed to consume anything with a brain that would support thought and a nervous system according to their ideas of consciousness. So it appears sea cucumbers, star fish and jelly fish are vegan food according to their beliefs of consciousness.
of course they loose their shit if you challenge it to any depth like this.
dont get me wrong: im all for the plant based diet as its better for the body and planet. i just think the reasonings around using the consiousness argument is very weak. if they can say consiousness exists with animals: i can say consiousness exists in plants too.
That’s a shame, I think it’s an interesting argument that opens some questions, so let’s challenge it a bit (somewhat ironic given the post, I know, but its just too intriguing).
Your position is basically that humans are the only species that has consciousness, correct? That means if you take a dog or chimpanzee or whatever and burn it alive, they wouldn’t feel a thing in your view because they’re not conscious? Just to make sure we are on the same page.
How do you actually know that humans are definitely the only species that has consciousness and that other species are fundamentally incapable of it? I’d be very interested in the papers and proof or even just arguments for that.
As I see it, we even have the same fundamental issue with human consciousness. Where are the papers, what is the proof that all humans are conscious, or even just one human? I’m not aware of any hard proof.
You just know you’re conscious, and you assume from that that all other humans are too. But you can’t actually prove anyone else is conscious.
By your argumentation and standard of evidence, putting humans on factory farms would actually be fine too, as long as we don’t have hard proof that they are actually conscious.
But I don’t think it works for the following reason:
The argument “other animals are not conscious, therefore their treatment isn’t an ethical issue” relies on that definitely being the case. If there’s still a chance that they are conscious, it remains an ethical issue. You actually need hard proof.
The counter position “other animals might be conscious, so we must not (potentially) torture them by the millions/billions in case they are” doesn’t have that requirement.
The burden of proof lies where do don’t give the benefit of the doubt, not where you do.
You could say that they might be conscious, sure. But raising animals takes a lot more animal feed than just eating plants directly, so industrially farmed meat would still be the most unethical choice either way.
We have to eat something, eating plants directly minimizes both animal deaths and plant deaths.
Even if only plants had consciousness and animals didn’t, factory farming would be still be the most unethical source of food.
Also my position is not that humans are the only beings with consciousness.
My personal position(belief) is that we are in consciousness… ‘submerged’ as it were. Or even a radio wave for it to connect to. along with everything forming this reality. Like interconnected.
So I’m of the opinion everything has consciousness.
I actually take offense that anyone would believe one being would be preferred over another. Human vs animal vs plant.
Vehicle wise we might offer a different experience for a consciousness to know itself.
But I’m against minimizing any life form or any form as referring to it as incapable of consciousness without evidence. This is why I find vegans problematic with pushing their opinions with the intention of shame and guilt.
To live is to consume. And anything we consume has consciousness. We’re all ‘guilty’ of consuming in order to live as a flesh body regardless of what it is we consume.
I certainly had this feeling too when I had an ego death experience. Though I attribute that more to my mind being formed by evolution around an ego/actor, and when this ego is missing, the subconscious might have to come up with a plausible alternative to keep the brain circuits working/comprehend reality. I even thought in terms of “he” instead of “I” about “myself” (the person), but my consciousness felt like a separate universal “they” in this moment. Neat experience for sure.
But to me it still seems most likely that as life is entirely formed by evolution, and things like instincts, pain, memories, agency, emotions, reasoning, model of the world, personalities etc. have advantages for survival, they are selected for in their most basic forms, get more sophisticated over time and eventually coalesce into what we experience as consciousness.
So to me it seems very very likely that most animals have consciousness, with varying degrees of sophistication regarding those abilities. Some animals might even surpass the sophistication of humans on some of these abilities, if the evolutionary pressure for that was stronger for them than for us.
On plants I’m more sceptical because their behavior doesn’t need to be nearly as complex as that of moving animals for survival I believe, it can probably rely much more on “hardcoded” behavior. Although reality loves it’s exceptions and complications so who knows.
Yeah that is another view on that I guess.
To me theres still a big difference between harvesting a carrot and cutting the throat of a pig. But all aspects of living have an impact on the environment and animals and humans, to different degrees, of course. So I agree that we’re all guilty and that nobody is perfect, and that vegans aren’t automatically good people and meat eaters aren’t automatically bad people. Some vegans kinda forget that they also ate meat for many years without considering the harms and that they might still do other problematic things too so they really don’t have an excuse to look down on people.
Yes, see these arguments don’t even get that far. The idea that consciousness could surpass animals is where they devolve into ad hominem attacks. Their entire basis is from feeling good about not causing harm (at all) which would be seen as a personal attack should they consider a plant to be ‘alive’ in the same sense as anything else.
See at the end there i remind ppl I’m agreeing that it minimalizes the deaths. I don’t have any issue with that argument. I fully agree with it.
What I don’t quite agree is that consciousness is distinguishable by arbitrary rules of what defines consiousness, as you’ve taken it for example here: in a utilitarian sense. And it changes depending on who you talk to and what school of thought you lean towards. But it’s still theory and not factually measured as we can’t really agree with certainties on what defines conscience. I realise that enters the faith context and in science that’s considered ‘theory’.
My stance is still if they want to take the consciousness argument, they are entering problematic arguments around it if it’s a purist moral ethics approach. I don’t believe there is a purist approach in the consciousness argument. We can still agree that it minimalizes harm.
Hate to say it but you’re doing the same thing OP is complaining about lol
Ehh not really. Them’s just venting. Not hostile.
But it is true tho. There’s hostile ppl here.
The other extreme where only humans are off limits doesn’t really make sense either, though. Forget about “pigs are fine, but not dogs and cats”.
There’s a lot of open ground for inquiry on how to judge what you should kill in some logical, self-consistent way. It’s too much of a hot button for many people to bother, though.
another idea is that we stop putting the importance on consciousness as the rule around the morality of it at least until we can all understand consciousness more truly.
theres plenty of ideas such as sustainability, lower consumption, less harm to plants and animals (regardless of consiousness), less toiling of the earth, healthier body. these are all feasible and more important discussions to have around consumption that are backed up with facts and studies
That’s kind of an exotic approach. Normally, morality is built around the idea you shouldn’t inflict suffering on others, and to suffer requires consciousness (or something similar).
Sure, there’s other reasons to be a vegetarian as well, like just your own health and saving money.
I believe even plants have consciousness and that consciousness is a waveform
And science hasn’t really scraped the surface on any of this for any one to speak with certainties around what we should be doing around the topic of consciousness.
so there’s no real clean argument around that particular topic that will fit everyone