[dfischer]

This is an odd form of cross species slavery. It’s one thing to agree to the conditions and another to force it upon life.

This... has a lot to contemplate. Service dogs don’t agree but there is an essence of joy there. Can you feel a clams emotions? I guess at this point you get close to the contemplation of plant life.

There’s one thing to kill life and use it for food and then another to use it as a test for poison. There’s probably more nuances. I’m not taking a stance that any of these things are wrong. I am however trying to make sense of the consequences of these pieces of the architecture of life that we participate in.

[cybernoodles]

Very unscientific claim on my part, but I'm sure it doesn't make them better off to be restricted to servitude for another species.

[dfischer]

Can you expand on that? What you're saying sounds interesting but it's vague or ambiguous.

[knuthsat]

I thought that mussels and bivalves are like plants, there's no central nervous system and nothing else allowing them to be capable of consciousness.

[gus_massa]

They have a central nervous system, with three ganglia: http://www.manandmollusc.net/advanced_introduction/bivalve_n...

If you look carefully, it is very similar to the neural system in any bilateral https://www.britannica.com/science/nervous-system/Diffuse-ne... . It is twisted following the deformation of the body inside the shell. Compare it with https://entomology.unl.edu/charts/nervous.shtml

In our central nervous system one of the ganglia grow tooooooo much. Moreover, the olfactory part of it grow tooooooooooooooooooooooooo much.

[dfischer]

How can we define what "capable of consciousness" is? As we become a species closer to exploring the vast cosmos, we have to be humble in our assumptions of what consciousness or life is. It's quite a Copernicus error to think that humanity is the center of relative consciousness to compare against. What consciousness is may be entirely incommensurable - which would be a serious error in our discovery of what else exists in the universe.

There's a lot of wisdom in Star Trek: TNG, and it feels more prudent than ever to contemplate these lessons as we near the point of becoming space faring species.

[knuthsat]

I'm definitely humble when it comes to assuming consciousness and would rather consider it a spectrum than a binary thing.

[dfischer]

Why is this downvoted?