The Consensus on Animal Consciousness (also - slaughtering and suffering)

Over 56 billion farmed animals are killed every year by humans. These shocking figures do not even include fish and other sea creatures whose deaths are so great they are only measured in tonnes.

Source
Imagine that was 56 billion humans culled every year, it begins to look like a sci-fi horror. For animals this is planet hell.


How I see it:

I find it sort of obvious. They have eyes like us. 'Something' like you or me is looking out of those eyes and experiencing life, like through the lens of a elephant for example. I would even say it is a person with a trunk and four legs. His knowledge of human experience is muted somewhat, like ours is with animals. We can imagine what it is like to be them and if you've ever had a dog, mine always gave me a look of curiosity of my perspective.
For me this demonstrates that my dog or any other animal is like me but locked into a different set-up.

Mirror test

I find that using a mirror to show if a animal has self awareness to be controversial because its startling for animals to see a absolute perfect reflection. The mirror is not new to us but it is for them. Even though some animals do recognise themselves such as elephants, dolphins, apes, magpies etc. As others have said, another controversy with the mirror test is that some animals are more dominant in other senses, other than sight like in humans so they may fail the self recognition test. They will see themselves but they won't react to it in a way we care for them too.

a reply to: jonnyc55
I'm going to leave this here, understand if it gets removed.

From the film, Food Inc., the "Kill floor"...

***warning gruesome***

a reply to: jonnyc55
It's how the food chain works, predators and prey, we just have industrialized and mechanized the process for ourselves.

This is a really, really tough subject for me as a rescuer and lover of all animals (except snakes, sorry snake lovers).

Do we really need meat? I know my body does; but I don't like it and seem to eat less and less every year.

Raised in the city but visiting relatives living on a farm-I once woke up to them slaughtering a cow. I was so horrified that 50 years later I am still in shock. But I occasionally have steaks and eat alot of chicken. I look forward to the future when killing animals is not necessary-obviously, we need to be more humane and evolve. I hate myself for this. I really do.

Pigs are intelligent and great pets, I know. What a disturbing subject.

a reply to: jonnyc55

I worked on family farms as a kid.
Cows on one, pigs on the other.
Still love a nice steak wrapped with bacon.

And to be honest with you, we need to hunt deer around here or the population gets out of control.

The food chain is mother nature's way to have balance.

a reply to: jonnyc55

It's called the food chain, however killing for pleasure as far as I know is almost exclusively a human thing.

When I hear of people wanting 'revenge' on sharks who attacked someone and want to hunt down the culprit, that irks me. When you enter the water, you are in their territory and you are fair game, sharks are ancient apex predators and everything is fair game.

The same goes for Orca's ( BTW they are not killer whales, they are killer dolphins) and after the ruthless 'harvesting' of the young those intelligent creatures will understandably rebel, it's akin to mental abuse as they are forcibly removed from their mothers to perform tricks, something no one would want.

However we come full circle and return to the food chain, many vegetarians complain about people eating meat but guess what? (drum roll) plants are living organisms too! do they know how much kale and coffee beans die every year for their pleasure? I'll take my steak with a side of leafy vegetables any day, it's called Darwinism.

a reply to: Bluntone22

I worked on family farms as a kid. Cows on one, pigs on the other. Still love a nice steak wrapped with bacon.

I shot my first pig at nine, we made a hungi (or hangi depending on the regional dialect) dig a pit, let the coals burn, then wrap porky in palm leaves- and a few hours later it was brought up and as the cookie monster would say 'nom nom nom.'

As you say the food chain is mother nature's way to have balance, pigs wouldn't be so tasty if they developed prehensile thumbs as they could wield firearms, and then we would have war pigs. Sorry for the black sabbath reference I couldn't help myself.

a reply to: jonnyc55

It's always going to be gruesome when anything eats anything else alive, but y'know what?? It's a part of nature. Watching a pack of lions take down their prey is actually sad to see, but a necessary "evil". Seeing wolves take down an elk is nothing to scoff at. Many times these animals are lying there being eaten alive. No, it's not pleasant, but it's necessary. If you were to chase off the animals hurting that other animal, then you risk them starving to death. They will have exerted all that energy for nothing.

The only reason it's so messed up for us is because there's a lot of us to feed, so we have to do it on an industrialized scale. If you really don't like it, try another alternative than trying to convince people to not eat meat. Convince people to have less babies. Someone mentioned down below that if you don't hunt the deer, they will become over-populated and things get out of control. To be honest, that's where we are as humans. My wife and I theorize that maybe, just maybe mental illness is natures way of creating someone to help "cull the herd". The problem is that murder is illegal, so the herd rarely ever gets culled. So the next best option would be to slow down the birth-rate. There are entirely too many people having too many babies.

Don't want to convince someone to not have a baby?? Then stop trying to convince people to stop eating meat. Some of us understand we're animals in nature, no different than anything else, and we need meat. We also enjoy meat. I care about animals more than I care about people, yet I will still eat meat. Especially chicken.......mmmmm, chicken.....

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: jonnyc55

It's called the food chain, however killing for pleasure as far as I know is almost exclusively a human thing.

I would argue that cats do it all of the time. Have you ever seen a cat play around with something it just hunted, almost like it's taunting it?? I have, I've known far too many cat people. lol

To a cow in the slaughter house. It has no aspect of reality then in a slaughter house. We can't say for certain that cows don't long for the pasture but if you don't know the pasture exists you won't long for it. Those cows and other animals know of nothing else outside their perspective. They may have hopes and dreams for better but until we can talk to them well never know.

Never known a lion to ask cantaloupe if it's okay to eat them.

Also if we ate nothing but grass to fuel our brains we would be doing nothing but eat grass. None of this today would be if that was the case. So eat just your veggies and null your brain. Granted there's more then one way to get your protein but it's only a substitute. Nothing beats meat other then cooked meat.

That's just my opinion and it has no value.

I was an omnivore for most of my life, only in the past few years did I (slowly) convert to a vegan diet (no animal products). I did this because of my affection and respect for all creatures. Animals MUST be conscious to exist and interact with reality. The way that humans treat other creatures has become loathsome- it's no surprise that we treat ourselves like crap, too.

THE MIRROR TEST: I currently have 3 rabbits (rescued after being dumped in a local park) living the "American Dream" in my apartment. I set a full-size mirror against the wall next to their bunny-condo and they went nuts. I had to remove it after just a few minutes because they were so agitated.

Well, given that people will eat animals. The problem is the the treatment of animals. In 75% of countries animal welfare is none existent. Animals are poorly treated and abused by cultures rooted in animal cruelty.

In the remaining 25% of countries standards vary. There's a massive difference between a pig raised to UK welfare standards, than a pig raise in (say) Denmark or the US.

All animals including fish have consciousness, I think trees and plants have a little amount too. We eat meat, some of us have to eat it. Our ancestors ate it.

As long as we treat animals well when they are alive and make their death swift and as painless as possible, I see no problem with harvesting them. We need to respect the life given so that we may eat and give thanks to the earth for providing for us. Also give thanks to the people who take good care of the animals and kill them right so they do not suffer much.

I am not going to say we thank inhumane practices of animals, I do not agree it has to be that way. If humans had to eat only veggies, we would have to rid the world of all animals that competed for the crops, I am not with that.

Death is a part of life, I have no problem with it. I don't have a problem with my own death, so naturally, the fact that other beings are conscious like me doesn't change my feelings on dying.
I don't care what happens to my remains. I think it could be nice if they are used to feed others. Why can't we donate our bodies to feed to animals in a refuge, for example?
I am all for recycling!

On the other hand,
Suffering, I am not a fan of. I don't give a crap when I die but I don't want to suffer. So naturally, that is my concern when it comes to how we treat and kill animals.

Even our biology reacts favorably to eating animal protein, but not if it has suffered. You get hormones in it created by fear and pain, which are detrimental to your own physiology.

I'm not against slaughter, as long as it is done in a humaine and considerate way.

a reply to: jonnyc55

I have dogs. They do everything but speak to me in english. Really very very smart creatures.
The Chinese eat them. They have a month long event over there where they trade in them. Inhumane in every way.
It would be like eating one of my kids.
There is no humane way to eat a dog period.
Savages.

originally posted by: Justso
This is a really, really tough subject for me as a rescuer and lover of all animals (except snakes, sorry snake lovers).

Do we really need meat? I know my body does; but I don't like it and seem to eat less and less every year.

Raised in the city but visiting relatives living on a farm-I once woke up to them slaughtering a cow. I was so horrified that 50 years later I am still in shock. .

I can imagine what the cow was going through. Its LIFE was being taken away casuaully there and then. Horrifying.

I too look at meat more and more as less desirable. Eating some animal that died days or weeks ago with a degree of horror.

originally posted by: calwoodbutcher
a reply to: jonnyc55

I have dogs. They do everything but speak to me in english. Really very very smart creatures.
The Chinese eat them. They have a month long event over there where they trade in them. Inhumane in every way.
It would be like eating one of my kids.
There is no humane way to eat a dog period.
Savages.

Perfect example.

I used to have a dog, cookie the whippet. He was like my brother and a family member. You are right, it would be like eating one of our kids. Un-imagineable terror for these dogs.

Disgusting it is.

I just got my monthly science magazine in the mail. This months cover- how research shows plants think (and hurt and learn to recognize those who hurt them, and communicate...).

What the heck are you all going to eat?

What about just making a difference between suffering and death?
They are not necessarily synonymous.

They finally realize that I'm eating things that are alive no s***

All life wants to live.

a reply to: Bluesma

I suppose the compassionate moral thing to do would be eat yourself a human.