The machine analogy is popular because it lends the imposing complexity of biology the illusion of being graspable. The machine analogy is a tool. A means of mapping rather than the territory.Consul wrote: ↑May 23rd, 2021, 9:49 pmQUOTE>
"The human body is a machine which winds itself up, a living picture of perpetual motion."
(p. 7)
"To be a machine and to feel, to think and to be able to distinguish right from wrong, like blue from yellow—in a word to be born with intelligence and a sure instinct for morality and to be only an animal—are thus things which are no more contradictory than to be an ape or a parrot and to be able to give oneself pleasure."
(p. 35)
(La Mettrie, Julien Offray de. "Machine Man." 1748. In Machine Man and Other Writings, translated and edited by Ann Thomson, 1-40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.)
<QUOTE
Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
- Sy Borg
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
"Who cares, wins"
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
What do you think of the quote of Henry David Thoreau?Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑May 24th, 2021, 5:10 am Conscious plants don't stop us eating. We already eat conscious animals, and so do most other living things in our world. If the possibility of conscious plants causes humans to have greater respect for the other living things we eat, and the environment in which we live, so much the better.
"Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized."
Do you believe that he is right and that a greater capacity for moral/ethical consideration will naturally result in abolishing barbaric forms of eating, such as eating animals?
What about plants, when it is discovered that they posses 'meaningful experience'?
The discovery of cells in the root system of plants that function similar to brain neurons in animals, is a fact. It is also a fact that many neurotransmitters that are found in the human brain, and of which it is assumed that they are crucial for conscious experience in animals, are present in the root system of plants. And it is a fact that some bigger trees have more 'neuron'-like cells than a human brain.
At question would be: why would one consider the discovered physiology meaningless and consider it justified to maintain a view that plants are machine like automata that cannot possibly have conscious experience?
I do not see a ground to argue that plants are not likely to posses of meaningful experience when considering the recent discoveries of plant physiology that may potentially facilitate such an experience.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
The machine analogy has grave consequences because it removes the factor 'meaningfulness' from plant life.
The modern trend (officially named 'revolution in science', synthetic biology or eugenics on Nature) is to 'remake life' and to transform plant life into an engineering endeavor of which the human has (or will achieve) full mastery.
When meaning is applicable to plant life, such an endeavor could be disastrous for concepts such as 'vitality of Nature'.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
I fully endorse what you are saying and I wonder if there are any signs of popular consciousness that we should extend moral rights to plants .Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑May 24th, 2021, 5:10 am Conscious plants don't stop us eating. We already eat conscious animals, and so do most other living things in our world. If the possibility of conscious plants causes humans to have greater respect for the other living things we eat, and the environment in which we live, so much the better.
Soon the UK will outlaw peat based compost.
People are generally outraged by vandalism against trees and wild flowers.
Brazilian Bolsonaro and his rain forest destruction is being punished by British supermarkets' withdrawing their custom.
I have sneakily planted two oaks where I hope they will flourish at least until they are very big trees.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
The machine analogy essentially cartoonises life, treating it was a weak, sketchy version of it's reality.arjand wrote: ↑May 24th, 2021, 6:09 pmThe machine analogy has grave consequences because it removes the factor 'meaningfulness' from plant life.
The modern trend (officially named 'revolution in science', synthetic biology or eugenics on Nature) is to 'remake life' and to transform plant life into an engineering endeavor of which the human has (or will achieve) full mastery.
When meaning is applicable to plant life, such an endeavor could be disastrous for concepts such as 'vitality of Nature'.
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑May 24th, 2021, 5:10 am Conscious plants don't stop us eating. We already eat conscious animals, and so do most other living things in our world. If the possibility of conscious plants causes humans to have greater respect for the other living things we eat, and the environment in which we live, so much the better.
My personal feeling is that there is little point in complaining about the eating of other living creatures when most living creatures do this, and always have done this, to survive. It is a fact of the world, and to complain about it is to complain about the sun being too bright, or too dim. It just is.arjand wrote: ↑May 24th, 2021, 6:05 pm What do you think of the quote of Henry David Thoreau?
"Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized."
Do you believe that he is right and that a greater capacity for moral/ethical consideration will naturally result in abolishing barbaric forms of eating, such as eating animals?
[As above.]
"Who cares, wins"
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
There is not a single plant as smart as a pig, and I love a good hand of pork with all the trimmings with the skin done to a crisp.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwDdYrFpAUo
There is not better meal to be had anywhere on the planet.
As Ongka says; "You have to have pigs for whatever you want to do"
Time:8:22 following
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyQ8rW25Iy8
If you don't have pigs you are a rubbish man.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
Mmm mmm.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
I've eaten plenty of pork myself during my lifetime. I haven't eaten it for a long time, but my son likes bacon (who doesn't? I bet even pigs would like it) and I have been known to buy it and cook it for him. So I'm one of those funny creatures.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
This might seem like an obvious point, but the sun doesn't have a brightness control. Our diet does. We can choose what we eat. Sculptor1, for example, has pointed out several times that he likes to eat meat and doesn't have a very high opinion of the kinds of foods he imagines vegans to eat. Fair enough. But that is a choice.Pattern-chaser wrote:My personal feeling is that there is little point in complaining about the eating of other living creatures when most living creatures do this, and always have done this, to survive. It is a fact of the world, and to complain about it is to complain about the sun being too bright, or too dim. It just is.
I know from personal experience as a weak-willed, part-time, on-off vegetarian and from experience with more strong-willed full-time vegetarians and vegans among my family and friends (a growing proportion, it seems) that taking part in the treatment of non-human animals the way we do in order to maximize their food output is a choice. We do it for no other reason than that we like their taste and regard the resultant epidemics of over-eating related health problems as a price worth paying for that. I don't think we should pretend otherwise. I think we should be honest and say: I am willing for other animals to live lives of misery because I enjoy the taste of their flesh, not because of any argument as to what is or is not the natural way of things.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
Food is too cheap. We should be spending more money on food and less on air travel and hardware.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
Yes, meat particularly. Like a lot of things it's artificially cheap in the sense that the economics of it treat certain things as cost-free. The trouble is, it's very difficult to fight against economics, particularly when it's global. If you tell a poor hard working family that food (or specifically meat) is artificially cheap they'll probably, quite reasonably, fight back against that.Belindi wrote:Food is too cheap.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?
Out of interest, I did a quick search. The source below seems to suggest that that image is of pigs in gestation crates. In the US, at least, these crates are apparently about 2 feet wide by 7 feet long. I guess that looks about what they are in that picture.Belindi wrote:Sy Borg, I hope that is an old picture of pigs being tortured. Several years ago i saw a similar picture on Facebook, and vowed never to buy pig products again. It is not inordinately difficult to do. I agree bacon is the hardest.
https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-use ... terhouses/
Of course, I haven't yet verified the descriptions from the above source, which some people will say is partisan. It could all be fiction. Pigs on US farms might in reality live wild and free.
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