Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

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[james]
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by [james] »

DNS wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 1:25 am
Johann wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 1:18 am
Aloka wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 7:18 am It seems logical to assume that all living beings on our planet are sentient and feel pain. I can't understand why anyone would think otherwise.

:anjali:
To justify wrongdoing, to justifying by "not worthy", good householder?
I think you misunderstood Aloka. Aloka is saying that they are sentient and can feel pain; not that they are "not worthy."
I understand his comment to be suggesting that those who would think otherwise might be doing so as justification of their wrongdoing. If one adheres to the belief or assumption that insects are insentient or cannot feel pain, might one feel that they are not worthy of our respect?
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DNS
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by DNS »

[james] wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 2:10 am I understand his comment to be suggesting that those who would think otherwise might be doing so as justification of their wrongdoing. If one adheres to the belief or assumption that insects are insentient or cannot feel pain, might one feel that they are not worthy of our respect?
Yes, those that argue there is no pain could be justifying for wrongdoing (killing), but that wasn't Aloka's point from what I see and Johann directly wrote to Aloka:
To justify wrongdoing, to justifying by "not worthy", good householder?
Notice the "good householder" at the end, where he is directly talking to Aloka to a point she wasn't making.
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Johann
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by Johann »

DNS wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 1:25 am
Johann wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 1:18 am
Aloka wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 7:18 am It seems logical to assume that all living beings on our planet are sentient and feel pain. I can't understand why anyone would think otherwise.

:anjali:
To justify wrongdoing, to justifying by "not worthy", good householder?
I think you misunderstood Aloka. Aloka is saying that they are sentient and can feel pain; not that they are "not worthy."
Householder told that he can not understand why, so he got food to think about own limitation in regard of judging for gains, good Brahman.
It can be easily a matter of wrong attention, or fixation on a matter, that one foesn't get the "point", release. How one perceives, so one thinks, acts.
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Radix
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by Radix »

Aloka wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 7:18 am It seems logical to assume that all living beings on our planet are sentient and feel pain. I can't understand why anyone would think otherwise.
Descartes himself practiced and advocated vivisection (Descartes, Letter to Plempius, Feb 15 1638), and wrote in correspondence that the mechanical understanding of animals absolved people of any guilt for killing and eating animals. Mechanists who followed him (e.g. Malebranche) used Descartes' denial of reason and a soul to animals as a rationale for their belief that animals were incapable of suffering or emotion, and did not deserve moral consideration — justifying vivisection and other brutal treatment (see Olson 1990, p. 39–40, for support of this claim).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cons ... ss-animal/
Descartes believed that animals were no more than organic automata. He contended that they were incapable of feeling pain or emotion, and that they were more akin to machines than living beings. In the 1600s, Descartes put this theory on open display. He and his assistants would conduct public demonstrations in which they vivisected and tortured conscious animals -- often dogs. As the animal subjects writhed and cried out in apparent agony, Descartes would tell onlookers not to worry. The movements and sounds, he insisted, were no more than programmed responses. The animals were not really in any pain.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2 ... to%20worry.
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Radix
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

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DNS wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 2:38 amNotice the "good householder" at the end, where he is directly talking to Aloka to a point she wasn't making.
Sometimes, a question is just a question to further discussion and understanding, and not a personal attack or a strawman or some such.

No need to go all Jordan Peterson on people.
Western Buddhism is the perfect ideological supplement to rabid consumerist capitalism.
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DNS
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by DNS »

Radix wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 8:52 pm Sometimes, a question is just a question to further discussion and understanding, and not a personal attack or a strawman or some such.

No need to go all Jordan Peterson on people.
Perhaps, but it is Johann who made the statement who goes on the attack in almost every post of his, even toward ordained bhikkhus.
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Radix
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by Radix »

DNS wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 9:03 pmPerhaps, but it is Johann who made the statement who goes on the attack in almost every post of his, even toward ordained bhikkhus.
Whatever happened to the provenance of an idea having no bearing at all on its acceptability and the usefulness of something not being determined by where it comes from?
If you can get a good idea from a bad person, that's to your benefit, is it not?


Anyway, it's very strange for an adult person to say she doesn't understand how anyone can think otherwise than that all living beings on our planet are sentient and feel pain.
Western Buddhism is the perfect ideological supplement to rabid consumerist capitalism.
Glenn Wallis
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by Ceisiwr »

Sam Vara wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 10:03 am I don't know about the science, but I've always liked this poem by William Blake:
Little fly,
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death,

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.
:anjali:
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by Ceisiwr »

Not all that long ago it was accepted by some that even higher animals do not feel pain, hence the justification for horrendous practice of performing a vivisection without any anaesthetic.
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by DNS »

Radix wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:40 pm Whatever happened to the provenance of an idea having no bearing at all on its acceptability and the usefulness of something not being determined by where it comes from?
If you can get a good idea from a bad person, that's to your benefit, is it not?
Sure, if it was a good idea; doesn't look like it to me (the response from Johann).

ymmv
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Johann
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by Johann »

Sometimes it's better to look first why not listening and reflecting, investigate deeper first, instead of believing that not-beloved goes against my beloved?

Sure, Arahats are somehow not sentient, even Brahmas not touched by sensual pain, not to speak of beings without perception and it's easier to be touched and identify with pets and their lover, even they eat mice and they eat insects, not aware that sentient, which usually seems to be not seen once making love or eat, kill.

It's worthy to realy go after A-loka instead of speculate that vegan lotos driving will reduce the road kills on alternative paths, aside of Dhamma-path.

But maybe it's out of this sphere as coming along under wellness, fitness and diet.

Fried grashopper, ant-curry, fried flying ants, ... all not so unusual in an alms bowl, as side food from the rice fields when not having changed to pest-chemicals in areas of the rounds.

Yes, the insects on your wheels and cooler front, had feeling, perceptions... breath. Even those for vegan food sacrificed.
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mjaviem
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by mjaviem »

Johann wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 8:54 pm Sometimes...
If only we could walk without leaving footprints...

Blameless indeed. There's probably a Sangha of bhikkus who are "practicing the good way, practicing the straight way, practicing the true way". They're "worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of reverential salutation,"
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammā Sambuddhassa
[james]
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Re: Insects likely to be sentient and feel pain

Post by [james] »

mjaviem wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 9:55 am
Johann wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 8:54 pm Sometimes...
If only we could walk without leaving footprints...

Blameless indeed. There's probably a Sangha of bhikkus who are "practicing the good way, practicing the straight way, practicing the true way". They're "worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of reverential salutation,"
Yes there probably is a sangha of aspirants drawn to this traceless practice, though they may not be bhikkus if the definition of bhikku is one who is “ practicing the good way, practicing the straight way, practicing the true way".
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