[nezzle]

Yet this is the same type of work people are using to argue that that crabs/fish can feel/experience pain. Proving or disproving consciousness is basically impossible.

E.g. I feel like a lot of people aren't conscious :) Prove me right or wrong?

[akvadrako]

The best explanation demystifying consciousness I've found comes from a claim it's a social phenomena that only arose around 3000 years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)

These days most people are conscious because you need it to function in society; there is a good deal of evidence in the book.

[fsloth]

"It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between! Probably the former, but I'm hedging my bets." - Richard Dawkins

[pavel_lishin]

I wonder how you'd spot a Bicameral person in modern society.

[klmr]

> Yet this is the same type of work people are using to argue that that crabs/fish can feel/experience pain.

Not really: a fundamental requirement in the assessment of pain reception in animals is the presence and stimulation of nociceptors (pain receptors). Plants don’t have any nerves, so they fundamentally lack pain reception. It’s entirely possible that they have developed an alternative system to experience pain (e.g. via analogous action potential signalling) but at this point our conventional model of pain reception completely breaks down.

[nezzle]

We could connect a nociceptor to a computer. Does the computer now experience pain?

Just because the mechanism exists for sedation or pain does not imply the experience of consciousness or pain.

[klmr]

I’m not arguing that. I’m arguing that a nociceptor is necessary but not sufficient to argue for pain experience. And plants don’t even fulfil this basic, necessary criterion. So the “type of work” shown in the article isn’t the same kind of evidence conventionally used to argue for pain experience.

[knodi123]

I know where I came from — but where did all you zombies come from?

[hux_]

So would you allow me to chop up someone you have decided is unconscious? If the answer is no, why?

[nezzle]

I shared the impossibility of making such a decision with any degree of certainty.

But we have to eat. I'm no longer sure what's more ethical: eating something dead meat or vegetables that are still alive.