Sentience...

how would you know? you didn't even watch 30% ...

Hmmm... Buddhist ideas + Stanford =

I know because it's funnier my way.

SE: telling from the time you posted your reply, you were not able to watch even 30% of the documentary - so how would you know that "day of the triffids" would not be referenced?

now - "sentience" is all about "being funny" and unsolved equations... ?

wow the video on a tour through reality blew my mind wow

I think it's all funny because when we start applying this term to plants we are in danger of loosing maple syrup because of unnecessary stress on the tree or subjecting produce to the torment of refrigeration. We may as well return to hunter gatherers and give a general disregard to our own nature.

possibly...

One Wheel Dave once put it this way: ~ many vegetarians only play a numbers game ~ meaning that by consuming plants they only aim to minimize their impact of suffering on the planet (as in their opinion meat already contains accumulated suffering)...

it is in the nature of the human mind to simplify things and thus to blur the fact that plants might have emotions - and that other life forms do feel compassion and do have conception.

My personal approach is less about loosing maple syrup - or steak - it is more about realizing where it comes from, and... (*) Many "civilized" people simply don't (want to) realize. They eat beef but would never eat horse or dog. I personally (for the first time in my entire life) cleaned fish from its intestines (before putting it on the grill) and saw the chicken before its life been taken.

(*) for me it's more about awareness and gratitude.

"Perhaps it would be useful to move away from senient/not-sentient to the idea of degrees of sentiency."

Thank you for that view OWD.

I would think that in doing this we are also placing some sort of value system upon the degrees of sentience. How would we make the comparison? Does dog awareness equate to only 20% of a human? This leaves room for debate on weather or not we would diminish suffering with the adaptation of vegetarian lifestyles.

We would increase the amount of suffering on plants. We would be consigning countless millions of livestock to oblivion because they no longer serve our purposes. I would think in degrees of sentience, suffering mainly, that we would be inflicting suffering upon the farmer that depends on these animals economically.

FT, I think your last statement was defiantly food for thought to all of whom, do not consider such things. It was a beautiful thing. Being grateful and giving consideration for the value of life is something that many 'civilized' cultures do fail to recognize because they think it's unnecessary, but it is if you are truly civilized.

Thanks for sharing that personal realization with us FT.