Do you think the society will care enough to move away to alternative protein source? How long would that take?
Not exactly sure if this is the right sub for these questions.
Do you think the society will care enough to move away to alternative protein source? How long would that take?
Not exactly sure if this is the right sub for these questions.
Comments
Define “fully conscious”. I’m struggling to find a definition by which we don’t already know farm animals are fully conscious.
Well, it’s kind of a non-starter as questions go, because there’s no objective thing we can point to as being ‘fully conscious’. Are humans even ‘fully conscious’?
We know that animals have intelligence, can assess their environment and react to stimuli. But the same is true of plants. Plants, like animals, also appear to show signs of memory, communication, and intelligent reactions. Do either of these qualify as ‘fully conscious’?
In your question, is the assumption that mice, shrews, lizards and the such are not fully conscious? Is it just large mammals and birds? As is, we know that many small animals are killed in the process of preparing fields for sowing crops. Are we unconcerned with their deaths? Fun fact: some research suggests that mice sing to each other, not just for communication, but to soothe their young. Is it at all concerning that little mouse lullabies may be getting cut short to get those soybeans planted?
The reality is, we can’t sustain ourselves as it stands without the death of other living, and potentially conscious, beings. Maybe one day we’ll be able to synthesize food en masse inputting only organic matter from beings that died naturally, but until then, something that experiences reality and wants to remain alive has to die for you to survive, unless you want to live off of fruit alone. If you’re eating only fruit (with undigestible seeds) and then making sure to excrete those seeds somewhere where they can grow then you’re not only not killing a plant, but you’re actually assisting it and justifying its strategy of fruit production. If you’re crushing the seeds to make oil, or to consume directly, you’re not killing the plant, but you are frustrating its reproductive imperative.
tl;dr – There is no consensus scientifically as to what ‘fully conscious’ means. The egoic assumption that consciousness has to look like how we internally experience our own is fundamentally anthrocentric. The reality, however, is that you can’t get around killing to live…we are animals still, caught up in the same cycles of life and death.
If we accept that single-celled organisms are not conscious, and say that humans are conscious, then there are only two options:
I think the second case is not very plausible. In the first case, there is no groundbreaking discovery waiting for us.
Animals are fully conscious, and nobody cares.
People today have a much further removed relationship to the animals they consume than at any point in the past.
People in the past ate animals.
I feel like you think that “If people just knew that animals were conscious they wouldn’t eat them” but people who had much closer relationships with their flocks and herds still ate them. Farmers who spend most of their waking moments tending to the needs of their animals still eat those animals.
The statement “If people just knew that animals were conscious they wouldn’t eat them” is a demonstrably false statement.
All living things are conscious. Plants, animals, most humans.
They problem solve, they seek survival, the gather into org structures, they teach each other things.
Life feeds on life, as a human you can pick which form is your favorite to eat.
There could be another outcome – if animals are consious and we eat them, then it’s ok to eat humans.
We know a lot of animals dream, they form bonds with others, understand pain and need, joke and play.
As we only learn more over time pointing to our understanding of their intelligence and awareness being lacking, vs them not actually having it, I expect we will eventually come to have proof that our arrogant perceptions of consciousness are manufactured by our own experiences, not universally true, and that all life is equal. The result will be that some will be more equal than others for most people, and never equal at all to some, who are hopefully not the majority.
We’ll also have an interesting time of it, in the other direction, so to speak: when we create engaging, electronic identities who seem to have empathy, compassion, awareness, experience anger, joy, and friendship. These will be indistinguishable for humans from a loved one or friend, even though these are the clearest definitions of manufactured response. I won’t be alive to see the worst of it, but I expect it will be horrible to witness.
What? Who doubts that farm animals have consciousnesses?
We can’t even get everybody to agree other people are just as conscious and sapient as they are, I doubt you’ll ever have better luck with a chicken.
We know they are conscious. Are you thinking sentient, or self aware?
None, look at what we do to other people already for the answer.
A few of them are as smart as our toddlers. We still eat them.
I won’t stop
There are plant cells and animal cells. If I eat animal cells, it’s cannibalism.