In article >, dh@. wrote:

> On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 15:08:13 -0000, "Brass Extrusion" > wrote:
>
> >http://www.newscientist.com/channel/...-pain-may-pric
> >k-diners-consciences.html?feedId=online-news_rss20
> >or
> >http://preview.tinyurl.com/38ou7h
> >
> >09 November 2007
> >Colin Barras
> >Magazine issue 2629
> >It could prick the conscience of seafood chefs everywhere. Prawns, lobsters
> >and other invertebrates may feel pain, a controversial finding that could
> >open up the debate on animal welfare.
> >
> >Robert Elwood at Queen's University Belfast in the UK and his colleagues
> >claim they have found convincing evidence that prawns do feel pain.
>
> Duh.
>
> >When
> >they dabbed an irritant - acetic acid - onto one of 144 prawns' two
> >antennae, the creatures reacted by grooming and rubbing the affected antenna
> >for up to 5 minutes. This focused reaction is similar to that seen in
> >mammals exposed to a noxious stimulant (Animal Behaviour, DOI:
> >10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.07.004).
>
> What a clue. Another one is that crabs jump out of pots of
> boiling water if they can. It's really pretty damned obvious.

What is obvious from their behaviour is that they see to avoid certain
aversive stimuli, which is clearly an evolutionary Good Thing. But that
doesn't tell us anything about their subjective experience (if any).
For example, one could build a simple wheeled robot that seeks to avoid
extremes of heat, cold, light, etc., but such behaviour does not in
itself indicate that the robot feels *anything*.

> >Elwood says the results show a centrally organised response to the irritant.
> >"The prolonged, specifically directed rubbing and grooming is consistent
> >with an interpretation of pain experience," he says.

It's also consistent with the prawns being biological machines which are
complex enough to behave like that but not complex enough to have any
subjective experiences at all.
>

> If this is a breakthrough, then it's truly a wonder that researchers
> have ever managed to learn a damn thing.

They don't say it's a breakthrough. In general, most research results
are pretty minor.


> >Most researchers believe that only vertebrates feel pain,
>
> How incredibly stupid.
>
> >but Elwood argues that this is unlikely because of ...
>
> Whatever about Elmo... They can see, and they can hear,
> and they can smell, and they can taste. Only incredibly stupid
> people would "think" they can experience all of the senses
> EXCEPT FOR what is probably the most important one. For
> everyone who is just now getting a clue, here's a great big
> DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
> for you!

It certainly is a "DUH!" to "discover" that prawns have pain receptors.
What is very far from a "DUH!" is the issue of whether or not triggering
their pain receptors results in some subjective experience analogous to
our experience of pain.

And the same issue applies to vertebrates too. In a painful situation,
Fido or Fluffy certainly *act* like we would, but again that does not
give us a clear window into their subjective experience (if any). We
can certainly empathise with Fido or Fluffy's plight, but that does not
imply that they themselves are having a subjective experience similar to
what we would have in the situation which we are mentally projecting
ourselves into through empathy.

Here's what the Encyclopaedia Britannica says about the "pathetic
fallacy" <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9058718/pathetic-fallacy>:

"poetic practice of attributing human emotion or responses to nature,
inanimate objects, or animals. The practice is a form of
personification that is as old as poetry, in which it has always been
common to find smiling or dancing flowers, angry or cruel winds,
brooding mountains, moping owls, or happy larks. The term was coined by
John Ruskin in Modern Painters (1843-60)."


Someday we may know enough about how brains generate subjective
experiences to be able to settle the question of whether prawns, dogs or
cats have any subjective experience of pain. But until then, it's grist
for the mill of philosophers, theologians, etc.

[snip]

[added sci.philosophy.tech]

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