Most animals do not hibernate. During low-growth summers, foraging animals that do hibernate often do not gain enough weight to sustain them through the winter months and find themselves in a bad way. You quoted me, and STILL didn't get it
you said that man was superior to many animals who die during the winter.
well, how does his actions make him superior to those who survive by hibernating?
And as for comparing a 6 month old cat to a 3 year old child …
this is to compare 2 beings that haven't being taught much. a cat that hasn't been taught much will be more likely to survive than an human. to live you use everyday tools that you wouldn't have been able to make if your ancestors hadn't invented them. a cat just uses its claws and fangs.
and by the way, with your obsession on superiority, why don't you consider cats superior because they are independent much faster than humans?
You have some kind of mad hate on for mankind
in your dreams only.
because i don't consider my species superior to others doesn't mean i have any hate for it.
I maintain that our ability to adapt to nearly any environment ... make us superior
so, are lichens superior to humans?
make use of any kind of resource ... make us superior
so, are amphibians who can breathe in water superior to humans?
triumph over any predator as a species ... make us superior
so, is the hiv virus superior to humans?
Domestication of plants and animals occurred in the late Neolithic Period.... Christianity arose 2000 years ago, we already had a long standing tradition of domination over nature by this point.
hmmm, the neolithic didn't start much more than 10,000 years ago. compared to the millions of years of human existence, i don't consider it a long standing tradition.
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i enlarged to include minerals in the debate.
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On what basis? I included the cellular POV with backing premises relating it to the current argument. Please justify this so I can take it seriously.
to show that if it's not accompaniated by pain-suffering, trauma-suffering is not as relevant.
if you break a rock, it suffers trauma-suffering.
but you'll never pity it because as far as we know, know the rock doesn't care about being broken.
the plant, without consciousness or CNS doesn't care either about being cut. yes, it will die, but, as far as we know, it doesn't have any conscious interest in not dying and it doesn't suffer of pain-suffering.
So does that mean you don't listen to anyone who doesn't talk about what you talk about?
i talk about pain-suffering, and you answer me talking about trauma-suffering, which i consider out of topic concerning a being having neither consciousness nor nervous system.
But the fact of the matter is that pain is inadequate as a sole reason to make an ethical decision of this magnitude.
in the case of a conscious creature, of course. most people/animals wouldn't want to be mutilated/killed… even without suffering.
but in the case of plants, which don't seem to have a consciousness, this interest in not being harmed is less than evident, so what other criteria do you propose?
Consciousness is dependent on language, it comprises of thoughts
i don't think so.
a fish is conscious, even though it has no known language.
Saying it is wrong is overly moralistic, unrealistic, and a major denial of the self.
haven't i said it already? ain't no wrong, ain't no right, there's only pleasure and pain.
i don't say "it's wrong", i say "it causes pain"
because "wrong" can always be subjective.
pain is not subjective.
You can't take the moral highroad here anyway, you're saying its ok to exploit plants!
please be serious!
if i had taken the example of rocks, would you have said " You can't take the moral highroad here anyway, you're saying its ok to exploit rocks!"?
well, first it's a shame you haven't realized but my point was not to say it's alright to exploit plants, it was to say it's not alright to exploit animals.
for this i said "animals do suffer"
since i know people look for any arguments to justify themselves, i guessed someone would say "but what about plants? they are alive and they suffer"
so to reply to the poor answer before it was made, i precised that although it was evident for animals, it was not for plants, since they seem to have neither consciousness of pain, nor of existence.
now plants are not what i've been willing to talk about for so long. and we have the same behaviour toward plants, so spare me the moral lecture, you're lecturing yourself as much as myself. i don't need to know your life to be sure that you don't consider plants as sensible when you deal with them, because no one does on this planet. you put your interests before those of animals, and of plants, if ever they have any. at least i respect animals' interests.
Ok, we have a conscious interest in not suffering. Ever burned yourself on a hotplate? Your reflex action confirms you have a non-conscious interest in not suffering aswell
- have you ever had reflexes while unconscious?
- i said before in this thread "without consciousness at some point".
which means that if you regain consciousness after the trauma happens, yes you will suffer (not physically-painfully) from the trauma. the lack of consciousness is only temporal in this case.
the plant never regains consciousness (as far as we know)
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this is ridiculous, you are discriminating against both plants and animals
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Yes, and doing it equally
what i said above.
you seem to be proud to discriminate equally against plants and animals.
isn't it the same as me saying "i kill men, but not women"
and you answering "i'm much more fair. i kill both men and women"
Well, the criteria for hunting Aboriginal people was the fact that they had no establishments (they are a nomadic people), so therefore are animals and worthy of no human rights
it's easy to argue against this criteria.
while you haven't convinced me of the irrelevance of the argument that "animals' consciousness makes their interests in not suffering and dying much more obvious than the ones of plants".
If you still deny it entirely without premise, then there is no worth in discussing it further.
have you considered that it seems to me that you are the one denying?
