(04-30-2012, 02:43 PM)βαθμιαίος Wrote: I raise both cattle and chickens, and my honest belief is that they are not individuated except in rare cases where they have a lot of interaction with a human.
Then you are supporting my assertion that they have the capability for individuation.
I have 3 points to make regarding this:
1. If they do indeed have the capacity to become individuated, as you just acknowledged, then how can we be so sure they haven't already started the process?
2. If they do indeed have that capacity, then why does their value (or lack thereof) get determined by whether humans decide to draw them out or not? ie. if I decide to single out 1 chicken as a pet, and draw out its consciousness, but kill the others, then that would mean I get to determine its worth and value. Do I really want that responsibility?
3. You're acknowledged individuation in animals. Does a carrot live long enough for that to happen? Have you ever had a pet carrot? Maybe it's possible, but how likely is it? Sure, some people might draw out consciousness in a houseplant. That houseplant might actually develop sentience, just like the chicken. But they don't then kill and eat the houseplant.
(04-30-2012, 02:43 PM)βαθμιαίος Wrote: Really? You don't think that carrots suffer when we pull them out of the ground and they slowly die in our refrigerators until we eat them? I do.
No, I don't. If that were true, then the very grass beneath our feet lives in constant agony.
(04-30-2012, 02:43 PM)βαθμιαίος Wrote: I have known people who have plants that have been handed down in their families for generations. I can imagine them running to save their plant before their dog.
That's a stretch.
But ok, fine, even in those rare cases, do they then kill and eat the plant?
(04-30-2012, 02:45 PM)βαθμιαίος Wrote: I don't agree that domesticated animals have lost it. Cattle certainly think as a herd.
But not like plants.
Why, then, don't cows warn other cows of their impending doom? Why don't they sense the impending slaughter of the other cows, and warn them like plants do? why do they not react until it's their own turn to be slaughtered?