Which animals have the capacity for conscious experience? While much uncertainty remains, some points of wide agreement have emerged.
First, there is strong scientific support for attributions of conscious experience to other mammals and to birds.
Second, the empirical evidence indicates at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians, and fishes) and many invertebrates (including, at minimum, cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans, and insects).
Third, when there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal. We should consider welfare risks and use the evidence to inform our responses to these risks.
The definition of sentience is really low, it's basically the ability to have sensations and react. The most basic organisms can be argued to have that. The definition is not what I used for most of my life, which is higher intelligence.
That technically is the definition of sentience, basically consciousness with the ability to react and have awareness of your surroundings. I think the word your looking for is sapience, which is the ability to contemplate and act productively using knowledge and reasoning
I think jumping spiders fit into the sapience category then. They're known to learn different prey types and change their hunting strategies accordingly, even learning typical behaviour and being able to pick out sick/injured insects and figuring out they don't need to go full stealth.
They've even been observed to enter REM like dreaming states, where it's assumed they process a lot of the visual information they picked up throughout the day.
So basically every animal higher than the jumping spider might fit into the sapience category, which is kinda wild to think about
Jumping spiders also seem to be genuinely curious about things. Anytime I want to take a photo of one, it stops, looks at the camera, jumps on it to check it out, and then leaves. Kinda like I'd take a look at a new product on display on a supermarket shelf
So a child isn't sentient in your opinion? I've always understood sentience as the ability to have experiences, memories, and emotion (which is different from the paper's definition, that was my layman definition).
Seeds shouldn't be covered by patents. When you buy a patented item from a patent holder (or a manufacturer that licensed the patent) then First Sale Doctrine says that you can do whatever you want with it without needing to pay for a patent license. In the case of a seed, that means you could resell it to someone, you could roast and eat it, or you could plant it in the ground. But unlike other inventions, a seed's purpose is to create more of itself. By buying a seed, you are implicitly buying the ability to make more seeds. If First Sale Doctrine allows you to use the patented product how you want, then it allows you to grow more seeds, because that's just what seeds do.
I think most of these seeds are modified in a way that they don't reproduce. This is what creates the dependency of farmers, they have a well growing plant with good harvest, but need to buy the seeds year for year.
The problem discussed in the article is that people that develop new plants are working under a high uncertainty, as big cooperations have patented a variety of plants and could make claims that some of their "inventions" have been used to develop new one or that new development look the same than their patented "development".
I think patents were a good idea then we used to have many small companies. But in today's economy it is overly used and slowing down innovation instead of making innovation attractive for inventors.
I agree with everything you've said, but modern technologies aren't the only issue. The fact is that many food crops are hybrids that don't breed true, and it's been like that for many decades. That is, you can save seeds, even legally, but within one or two generations the plants revert to form, losing their desired characteristics and "hybrid vigour".
To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as a GMO wheat. Yet saving seed at scale hasn't been viable since at least the 1960s.
Same,more neurons create more complexity but not necessarily more acute distress. Although you could imagine there’s only so much distress a 100 neurons could create. That being said if you watch a bacteria get killed by another it quite clearly is not enjoying it
Would it not be relative? If sentience were to emerge from just 100 neurons, wouldn't their experience of terror be the same as our own? I mean, you could argue that ego is required for true suffering, but I think there is a more fundamental biological aspect that ensures all species capable of moving out of the fire are incentivized to do so.
The authors of the paper uploaded 6 videos in the supporting info. It looks like mucus to me, but it is difficult to see. I cropped one video in which you can see strings of the "milk": https://i.imgur.com/9RvVSgz.mp4
I also have a snippet from one of the videos that shows in more detail how the fluid is excreted. I will hide it under a spoiler tag to make sure people are warned of the content before clicking the link, because I think these images might be uncomfortable to watch for some people.
“Do we protect one globally insignificant tiny species of fungus that has barely any impact on the ecosystem and may not even be native to the area, or do we completely restore an entire forest to help ensure thousands of different life forms can return and survive?”
Everything about this society is irresponsible, haven't you noticed? "tee hee can't stop me" is more or less the name of the game and it's dragged everybody down to its level
In Mexico, a country full of symbolism and magical realism, hummingbirds — long associated with good luck when they cross your path and flutter around you — are captured and then “prepared” to reach the heart of the loved one. The shocking practice has become popular in recent years. It consists of carrying the small bird, dead and dry, inside your shirt pocket. This, we are assured, will let us find a partner for life. But so far, the only objectively measurable thing it has achieved is to put 39 of the 57 species that inhabit Mexican territory at risk of extinction, according to data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
So, if it works, you're now married for life but will have no good luck because you killed the hummingbird. That's a stupid choice.
Some powerful and influential witch needs to turn this around. They could denounce it as an error in reading the sacred texts, it's really mosquitoes that you have to kill and put their bodies in your pocket. That way you get love and fewer vector-borne diseases
Thank you. It would be nice if Lemmy users didn't follow the behaviour of other social media, but instead take the extra minute to post quality links. People, you're not going to miss out on fake internet points.
I’ve always felt the same, but that’s empathy talking. It’s been difficult to prove that the action is anything more than neurological response. I’m happy to see science is finding evidence to support what instinct has been telling us.
I saw a wasp or bee (idk) approach me (I was holding some kebab), fly around my face for a couple of seconds, land on the kebab, use her fucking mouth like scissors to cut off some meat just large enough that she could carry it, and fly off with it. She tumbled a bit when flying off with it at first, but then she managed. It was like a movie scene.
Biodiversity
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