[thechat] Fish do feel pain

[Erika Meyer]

Mike M wrote:
>You're asking about where to draw the line: at what point in the gamete ->
>embryo -> fetus -> baby progression can the lump of cells in question be
>considered 'human'?

well I threw that in there, yeah.

actually I had an issue in that my daughter's girl scout troop was 
given a list of natural items (decaying leaves, fallen tree, live 
dandelion, mouse, rock) and told to discuss and to determine whether 
each object was "alive" or not.

Well, by our American Indian POV they were all alive.  And many 
Indian languages do even have words for that which is "not alive." 
Everything is animate, alive.

By western science POV, not so much.  But then western science runs 
into a breakdown in the "alive/not alive" dichotomy at the viral 
level.  I personally think that the "alive/not alive" concept is a 
cultural one, not a description of objective reality.  And therefore, 
I had issues with the girl scout exercise.

And begin to suspect girl scouts as a conspiracy for cultural 
domination... but I digress.

>right near the beginning, while the pro-choice crowd thinks it's near the
>middle. It's my understanding that the ancient Chinese believed it was at
>the end, and that newborns were considered not-yet-human and therefore
>expendable until they were a few months old. (!)

yeah, well that's a good point.  In fact the human brain undergoes a 
LOT of development in the first six months after birth.  So any one 
of those POVs could be argued.

>They can tell you exactly what the physical characteristics
>are of the cell-blob at any given point, but who's to say when the 'soul'
>takes hold?

yes.  Well okay, so dropping the human/not human question (as if 
humans are somehow inherently more valuable life forms...  but 
whatever...) for the "alive/not alive" question... maybe it's just as 
ridiculous.  I am thinking it is, in fact, ridiculous.

Biology has different critera for alive/not alive (I forget what they 
are, exactly and don't really care enough to google it) religion is 
usually "soul" vs. no "soul" or Yurok would say "spirit."  And in 
fact rocks rivers and fallen trees all have a spirit.  Therefore, 
they are alive.

Yuroks would burn the wood shavings in a freshly dug canoe as 
spiritual purification.  The burning also happens to harden the wood. 
They carve a heart in their canoes, because the canoe is alive... but 
that heart happens to be carved in a place that prevents the wood 
from splitting.  Spiritual or scientific?

Erika
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