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Originally Posted by Pierre
Do animals know that being killed is painful?
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No, but that's the point. They avoid being killed because it is painful and they avoid pain. They don't avoid being killed on principle itself. Give an animal a choice of two identical options, where one will kill them instantly without pain, and another will not, it will make a completely random 50-50 choice. You'd have to indicate somehow that the lethal box contains the concept of death.
Can you figure out
any way of communicating or indicating to an animal that 'this box features death' that does
not actually indicate 'this box features pain'? Without doing so there is no way to determine or prove whether animals avoid being killed.
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In regards to the baby, I don't understand your point.
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The point is your argument is flawed, simply avoiding something from your point of view, does not mean the animal understands or possesses awareness of it's underlying concepts. Animals (including us) avoid harm by reacting instinctively to environmental cues and senses, that can be proven. Without an experimental methodology that completely excludes this aspect of their behavior it is impossible to prove if an animal is avoiding 'being killed' because they are aware of mortality and death verses simply avoiding harm because they associate it with pain.
---------- Post added at 15:04 ---------- Previous post was at 14:58 ----------
P.S. This article is a good overview on the matter of animal self awareness and 'awareness of mortality':
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a..._suicide_.html
---------- Post added at 15:05 ---------- Previous post was at 15:04 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by idi banashapan
this is getting into Pavlov and Skinner territories of conditioning, reinforcement and superstition, and we could talk about that all day along with learning types. The animal does not know what electricity is, it is simply aware that a particular action results in an 'unpleasant state of affairs'. it has gained no knowledge of the technicalities of what happens, it just knows it hurt, and to avoid it.
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Exactly this.