From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@rawbw.com)
Date: Sat Oct 20 2007 - 23:22:21 MDT
Stathis writes
> We tend to behave as if the ability to feel pain, fear etc. is
> directly proportional to how similar the entity in question is to a
> human. For example, there is no compelling reason to believe that the
> death throes of a fly exposed to insecticide are not associated with
> terrible agony, but we ignore this possibility anyway.
Yes, there is *very* good reason to suppose that the death throes
of a fly exposed to insecticide are not associated with great pain.
Evolution does not find it expedient to waste resources for no
purpose; no complex behavior or module ever arose unless
it aided the survival of the creature (its genes). The pain suffered
by a fly cannot affect its future planning, nor can it be highly
motivated to devise complicated plans, nor to write pamphlets
agitating for the removal of that pain. Therefore flys simply
have not been endowed much circuitry for pain.
How do we know that trees don't feel pain? Because there
is nothing that they would be able to *do* about a negative
stimulus. The amount of pain a creature feels is in direct
proportion to the degree of control it has over its environment,
and the way that such control has in past evolutionary history
paid for itself.
Lee
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