48. Jonathan Balcombe on Animal Rights (Podcast)

[alextsakiris]

Guest: Dr. Jonathan Balcombe author of, Pleasurable Kingdom: Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good.

Click here to read more ...

[Open Mind]

I was strictly vegetarian, almost vegan from 1982 to 2002 .... then I started eating fish again ... and skeptics in here say I would never change my mind? I just had some health problems, started looking into nutrition became concerned about low Omega 3 (mainly in fish) in my diet ... since then I have been 'piscatarian' (a vegetarian who occasionally eats fish or takes omega 3 fish capsules). Vegans need to be careful to eat often uncommon seeds like flax, pumpkin, etc.

People say we are what we eat but it is false, we are what we can digest, it varies from person to person. Also cats have short intestines, dogs have longer ...so a cat would struggle (I think) on a vegan diet.

With regard to ethics ..... if materialistic scientists tell humans they are purely biological/neurological robots using unconscious responses , having no conscious free will in a purely deterministic universe....if so, ethics in science will become very hollow, criminals become victims of circumstances and switching off your computers will one day be a form of murder

Fortunately materialists aren't quite right Something more interesting is occuring than the creationist ideas in past religion or creationist ideas in classical physics with eternal mechanical laws

Enjoyed listening.

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

I was strictly vegetarian, almost vegan from 1982 to 2002 .... then I started eating fish again ... and skeptics in here say I would never change my mind? I just had some health problems, started looking into nutrition became concerned about low Omega 3 (mainly in fish) in my diet ... since then I have been 'piscatarian' (a vegetarian who occasionally eats fish or takes omega 3 fish capsules). Vegans need to be careful to eat often uncommon seeds like flax, pumpkin, etc.

People say we are what we eat but it is false, we are what we can digest, it varies from person to person. Also cats have short intestines, dogs have longer ...so a cat would struggle (I think) on a vegan diet.

With regard to ethics ..... if materialistic scientists tell humans they are purely biological/neurological robots using unconscious responses , having no conscious free will in a purely deterministic universe....if so, ethics in science will become very hollow, criminals become victims of circumstances and switching off your computers will one day be a form of murder

Fortunately materialists aren't quite right Something more interesting is occuring than the creationist ideas in past religion or creationist ideas in classical physics with eternal mechanical laws

Enjoyed listening.

hollow... and maybe even indefensible within the materialistic/atheistic worldview.

[David Bailey]

I think that it was good to include this interview because it broadens the debate somewhat.

It has always seemed strange to me that 'science' would seriously question if animals were conscious. After all, we are evolved from animals, and since we know consciousness exists in at least one species, there seems no explanatory value in denying it to others (without some compelling evidence). In other words, Occam's razor, if applied sensible, would seem to come down on the side of animal consciousness.

I too tend to eat vegetarian and fish - although I do make exceptions if I am a guest. The intense cruelty of modern farming methods, the usual health issues, and the more obscure issues such as the BSE outbreak in Britain (now sadly, probably being replicated in the US) have all driven me that way.

People always say that science is value free - figuring out the properties of uranium isotopes is the same whether you are going to use the information to build a power station or a bomb. I suspect the value free nature of science - when applied to biology - is another example of a certain hollowness (to use Alex's description) that can only be filled by a radical change of viewpoint.

David

[Venom]

It was an interresting interview.

I'm still somewhat wondering who really claims that animals don't have consciousness. Except for old philosophers like René Descartes I don't know anyone who olds such an extreme view (animals beeing like robots or zombie).

Myself I see things like a continuum. We are at the end of the spectrum, with the langage, but animals (with feelings and sensations and some raisoning skills) do have a consciousness at a lesser degree (apes beeing really close to us of course, and so on).

The assumption in Alex discourse is that Psi is relevant for understanding consciousness, and I disagree with him about that. Susan Blackmore wrote a very interresting article about this: "Why psi tells us nothing about Consciousness"

Why psi tells us nothing about Consciousness

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Venom

Susan Blackmore wrote a very interresting article about this: "Why psi tells us nothing about Consciousness"

Why psi tells us nothing about Consciousness

To sum up ..... Blackmore starts article ...

1. Are there any paranormal phenomena? and

2. If there are, do they help us to understand consciousness?

Blackmore makes flawed arguments such as .... psi in experiments is often unconscious/subconscious therefore, she reasons, psi has nothing to do with consciousness. Her reasoning is flawed, if the brain evolved to filtered psi out (and there are strong arguments why that would occur) ... psi will leak from an unconscious (i.e. filtered consciousness) level into the consciousness. So it has everything to do with consciousness, the brain is filtering to improve individuality of consciousness, to avoid interference to the local focus of consciousness, etc.

Yet in a style typical of Blackmore she confidently concludes ....

I will therefore answer my original two questions with "probably not", and definitely "no".

'Definitely "no"

It would be very tempting to conclude Blackmore definitely has had a tendency over the years to jump to unwarranted conclusions

[Venom]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

if the brain evolved to filtered psi out (and there are strong arguments why that would occur) ... psi will leak from an unconscious (i.e. filtered consciousness) level into the consciousness.

Well, of course, everything depends on your own pet theory about how Psi is suppose to work.

It's not because Sue Blackmore doesn't share your own pet theory that she's wrong.

We can only stress that because there is no convincing theory about how Psi works (or if you prefer a theory that reached a scientific consensus), it's difficult to say something meaningfull about it.

If nobody knows how it works, well, it's obviously difficult to talk about it.

Myself, I don't see why Psi (let's say that it's like a 6th sense, the brain is like a radio blablabla and can extract some informations from "outside" itself blablabla) will help answer the hard problem. Well, anyway, I'm a materialist, so for me there is not really a hard problem (the consciousness is the by-product of the brain).

But I still don't see how the Psi can mean a big deal in that debate, even if it's true. I do think that Psi-believers tends to overstate the important of what they are trying to do (like when Alex states that medium research is way more important that research looking for a treatment for cancer).

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Venom

Myself I see things like a continuum. We are at the end of the spectrum, with the langage, but animals (with feelings and sensations and some raisoning skills) do have a consciousness at a lesser degree (apes beeing really close to us of course, and so on).

I certainly agree with that - and indeed an interesting question is just how far back it really goes. Even very simple creatures such as ants seem to behave as if they were conscious, but everyone says "Oh they are just following chemical commands!". Does that mean they are not conscious - it is hard to say, isn't it!

I am, however much more cautious about Susan Blackmore's ideas. She seems to put too much store on some very simplistic notions of consciousness. For example, at one point she was very keen on the idea that there was no such thing as a stream of consciousness. She explored this idea by asking her students to stop at some signal and report what was in their minds at that instant! Often her students found they could not answer that question! From this somewhat flimsy evidence, she concluded that there was no such thing as a stream of consciousness, and used it as evidence that consciousness is somehow not what we think it is! I was so exasperated by this idea that I wrote to her. To be fair to her (because this is, for me, only an armchair interest, so I was not known to her), she wrote back and we shared several e-mails on this subject. I pointed out that there was really nothing new about her 'discovery' because everyone knows that consciousness has a characteristic time scale in which it can act - it does not operate on a timescale of microseconds, for example.

Notice also that in her piece regarding the relevance of Ψ to consciousness, she manages to mention Libet's timing data and not mention Radin's data - even to refute it!

David

[eyemsougly]

Blackmore sucks, why does anyone listen to her? I'm so glad she left parapsychology.


As for animals, everyone who has ever had a dog knows that animals are conscious. Even when I was a die hard materialist I knew that my mini dachshund was just as conscious as any human.

You don't have to be pro Psi to appreciate animals.

[Venom]

Originally Posted by eyemsougly

Blackmore sucks, why does anyone listen to her? I'm so glad she left parapsychology.

Because she has a PhD in parapsychology, she's a skeptic, she wrote a very good textbook about consciousness, and she wrote also "The Meme machine" about memetics.

I think she's very interesing.

You can insult her all you want (I know you "hate" her because you're a psi-believer), but it's not gonna change my opinion about the fact that she's great.