Can something that isn't conscious truly suffer?
Can something that isn't conscious truly suffer?
Jayden Thompson
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Jeremiah Nelson
What do you consider conscious?
Owen Fisher
No, they only appear like they do. That's why vegans are retarded.
Cooper Sanders
suf·fer
ˈsəfər/
verb:
1.
experience or be subjected to (something bad or unpleasant).
yes, but unless it has a certain level of awareness of its experiences i'd say that morally it doesn't matter.
inb4 what about hyper-intelligent aliens who feel the same way about humans?
well me feeling differently about cows won't make a lick of a difference.
Sebastian King
More a matter of symantics than philosophy.
To answer your question we first need to define suffering, but definition of consciousness will also need to be examined to complete the query.
According to Google, suffering is defined as "the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship." Now you could say a machine laboring under strain, say a drive-train pushing a truck up a hill is 'suffering' or a computer hard drive copying two large files simultaneously is causing 'hardship' and thus 'suffering'.
What about pain or distress?
Google defines pain as "highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury." I don't really like this definition. To me pain is more of a 'Stimulated response to damage.' A human is in pain when parts of the body are being damaged. Mentally a human could also be in pain when parts of their neural circuitry is malfunctioning. Any machine or creature with sensory input can experience pain as a result of damage. This could be in the form of a warning light on a printer due to a blockage or sensory feedback within an insects nervous system indicating loss of a limb.
Distress likewise, defined is "extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain." I don't like this definition either, and I feel distress can be more accurately defined as 'imminent possibility of damage or destruction'. So suffering can be summed up as the danger of or experience of or endurance of physical or mental damage,
By this logic any molecular structure capable of sensory input to diagnose its own function can experience "suffering".
What about consciousness? What is consciousness and what isn't?
By Google's definition, "the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings." In order to be 'aware' and 'responsive' a system requires sensory input, the ability to store that input and process it. By this logic a large number of living systems, including trees, fungi, fish, even computers are conscious.
cont'd.
Brandon Young
A cow is conscious you stupid fuck.
Dylan Taylor
Can something that doesn't suffer truly be conscious?
Brody Long
But to complete your query we need to understand what isn't conscious.
So if a system lacks sensory input, or memory storage or processing power, it is not conscious. Now a rock does have a form of sensory input in the form of heat. Heat passes through the rock causing changes in chemistry and matter, albeit slowly, but over millions of years the rock 'experiences' its surroundings. A rock also has memory in the form crystallization and addition to its structure. Over a long period of time it can develop different structures and grow in different ways, relative to its surroundings, demonstrating a form of memory. What about ability to process information? A rock can't do anything with its memories or its sensory input. The information doesn't go anywhere or do anything, it just is.
By this analysis we can deduce that rocks are not conscious and thus, cannot suffer.
Michael Thomas
>Can something that isn't conscious
I'm guessing you didn't finish high school
user
>truly suffer
Do you mean feel pain? Are you retarded? Do you think cows just sit there if a person burns a mark on it?
Jacob Diaz
>Do you mean feel pain?
no, he means 'suffer', you idiot