Sentience in fish

Studies of mental functions, behaviors and the nervous system.

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Re: Sentience in fish

#21  Postby Blip » Jul 27, 2011 10:52 am

Mr.Samsa wrote:Essentially, in my opinion, the attempt to arrange animals in terms of "more" or "less" sentient is really just an exercise in ranking animals from the cutest to the ugliest. I find it absurd to consider the possibility that an organism that can learn, somehow can't feel pain or suffer.


This is more by way of a bookmark than a substantial contribution to this fascinating discussion, but I disagree with you bringing in notions of cuteness here, Mr Samsa. It implies universal sentimentality as the basis of ethical decisions: some of your readers may be offended by that suggestion.

Not to mention that beauty is in the eye of the beholder... :)
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Re: Sentience in fish

#22  Postby Spearthrower » Jul 27, 2011 11:00 am

I can say for me that I find neither crabs nor fish 'cute', but I am still nauseated by the way they're treated here while waiting to be culled for someone's plate.
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Re: Sentience in fish

#23  Postby Fidget » Jul 27, 2011 11:26 am

Mr.Samsa wrote:
I'm not sure why you think Kandel's experiments in understanding the neurological mechanisms of learning affects my (highly simplified) statement? The learning that occurs in the absence of "pleasure" and "pain" can be viewed as a by-product of basic behavioral laws.

Well if your characterization is correct then the experiments wouldn't have affect you statements. Similarly I wouldn't have made the statement.
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Re: Sentience in fish

#24  Postby rEvolutionist » Jul 27, 2011 11:46 am

Mr.Samsa wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:
However, it's undeniable that all animals experience pleasure and pain, and it's undeniable that all animals have a conscious experience of this pain (since it's not possible to separate out the experience of pain from experiencing pain - they're necessarily intertwined).


Can you expand on this? I'm wondering if Coral and Zooplankton really are conscious.


I'd have to read up more on coral and zooplankton, but they are both animals so I don't see why not.


They don't have a brain? I'm not sure what sort of nervous systems some lower animals have either.


Doesn't the category 'zooplankton' cover animals like jellyfish? If so, then we definitely know that they can learn.


Jellyfish are Zooplankton (ZP). But ZP includes animals that are much much smaller than jellyfish.

But tell us more about Jellyfish learning. You behaviourists must get up to some weird and wonderful experiments. ;)

I think the problem is with the use of the word "conscious", which can have a lot of baggage attached to it. I'm simply using it in the broadest possible sense (i.e. the ability to experience),


That's how I would use it too. But I'm having trouble getting my head around how something without a brain or a significant nervous system or even a ganglia of some sort could be "conscious" though.

rEvolutionist wrote:
Essentially, in my opinion, the attempt to arrange animals in terms of "more" or "less" sentient is really just an exercise in ranking animals from the cutest to the ugliest. I find it absurd to consider the possibility that an organism that can learn, somehow can't feel pain or suffer.


I guess it would depend on the definition of "learning". What is a reasonable definition? I know you are talking about animals, but I'm thinking plants can learn in a manner of speaking. They "learn" to avoid negative stimulus over evolutionary time, and that is manifested in real time in a single organism.


Learning is usually defined as being something along the lines of, "a process of change that occurs as a result of an individual's experience" (according to James Mazur). But I quite like the description of "adaptively variable behaviour within the lifetime of the individual", which was originally used by Sternhouse to describe "intelligence", but I can't see how his concept of intelligence differs from learning.


But this definition by Sternhouse doesn't really imply consciousness, does it?

Interesting, this is the definition that Trewavas uses when he discusses plant intelligence, in this paper: Aspects of Plant Intelligence. I think he made a strong case for us to think that plants can learn, not only over evolutionary time, but also over the span of an individual's lifetime. (There was quite a good discussion on this in the thread: "Can plants 'see' or 'sense'?").


Thanks for the links. I'm going to check them out over the next couple of hours, so hopefully can post something on the soon.
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Re: Sentience in fish

#25  Postby Calilasseia » Jul 27, 2011 12:36 pm

Tangential diversion ...

Interesting that Mr Samsa brought in a paper by someone called Trewavas into the discussion ... only Ethelwynn Trewavas was one of the big names in Cichlid fish research during her life.

By the way, if anyone has access (as I do) to a copy of William T. Innes' Exotic Aquarium Fishes, the introduction to Cichlids and their behaviour in that book is still worth a read, even though the original text was written back in 1936, and includes some slightly less than rigorous anthropomorphising (it was written for amateur fishkeepers, not professional scientists, after all). The remarks he makes about Cichlid behaviour, despite their age and departure from ideal levels of rigour, are still applicable. Note that his introductory remarks centre upon the behaviour of Central and South American Cichlids, many of which pair monogamously for life, and engage in intensive parental care of eggs and fry. However, they can be applied, with appropriate modifications, to the Rift Lake mouthbrooders too.
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Re: Sentience in fish

#26  Postby Mr.Samsa » Jul 27, 2011 12:51 pm

Blip wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:Essentially, in my opinion, the attempt to arrange animals in terms of "more" or "less" sentient is really just an exercise in ranking animals from the cutest to the ugliest. I find it absurd to consider the possibility that an organism that can learn, somehow can't feel pain or suffer.


This is more by way of a bookmark than a substantial contribution to this fascinating discussion, but I disagree with you bringing in notions of cuteness here, Mr Samsa. It implies universal sentimentality as the basis of ethical decisions: some of your readers may be offended by that suggestion.

Not to mention that beauty is in the eye of the beholder... :)


I'm not sure if I quite understand your objection, Blip.. To clarify, I wasn't suggesting that cuteness SHOULD be the basis for our ethical considerations, but rather highlighting the fact that I think it tends to be the basis for many people's ethical considerations. This is either directly the case, in that people are more willing to eat animals the further away they get from humans (i.e. they'll eat fish but not apes), or this is indirectly the case, in that they try to base their opinion on scientific evidence. Unfortunately, science itself largely concerns itself with animals which are similar to humans, or cute or interesting in some way, hence why we have so much research on dolphins, chimps, dogs, etc. I think this accounts almost entirely for why we view those animals as being particularly intelligent, despite the fact that they don't do anything that other animals can't do.

rEvolutionist wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:I'd have to read up more on coral and zooplankton, but they are both animals so I don't see why not.


They don't have a brain? I'm not sure what sort of nervous systems some lower animals have either.


Zooplankton don't have a brain but they do have a system of nerves which perform the same functions as a brain. I'm not well-read on coral, but I'd guess that (as an animal) they would have some kind of nerve net which functions in the same way a brain does.

rEvolutionist wrote:

Doesn't the category 'zooplankton' cover animals like jellyfish? If so, then we definitely know that they can learn.


Jellyfish are Zooplankton (ZP). But ZP includes animals that are much much smaller than jellyfish.


Indeed, I knew that but I was surprised to find that jellyfish fell into the category.

rEvolutionist wrote:But tell us more about Jellyfish learning. You behaviourists must get up to some weird and wonderful experiments. ;)


:lol: You should see the research looking at training woodlice to run in circles by flashing lights at them..

I'll have to look for some research on jellyfish learning tomorrow, but a quick google scholar hit gave me this: An investigation of habituation in the jellyfish Aurelia aurita.

rEvolutionist wrote:
I think the problem is with the use of the word "conscious", which can have a lot of baggage attached to it. I'm simply using it in the broadest possible sense (i.e. the ability to experience),


That's how I would use it too. But I'm having trouble getting my head around how something without a brain or a significant nervous system or even a ganglia of some sort could be "conscious" though.


Well they have a set of nerves. The function of nerves is to 'experience' (i.e. they convert external signals into internal responses). Therefore, under the definition of 'conscious' that we're using, they must be conscious.

rEvolutionist wrote:
Learning is usually defined as being something along the lines of, "a process of change that occurs as a result of an individual's experience" (according to James Mazur). But I quite like the description of "adaptively variable behaviour within the lifetime of the individual", which was originally used by Sternhouse to describe "intelligence", but I can't see how his concept of intelligence differs from learning.


But this definition by Sternhouse doesn't really imply consciousness, does it?


It necessarily does, doesn't it? The definitions of learning and consciousness are practically dependent on each other. Learning requires a response to experiences, and in order to experience you must be conscious (since consciousness is "the ability to experience"). So anything that learns is necessarily conscious.
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Re: Sentience in fish

#27  Postby Blip » Jul 27, 2011 1:08 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:I'm not sure if I quite understand your objection, Blip.. To clarify, I wasn't suggesting that cuteness SHOULD be the basis for our ethical considerations, but rather highlighting the fact that I think it tends to be the basis for many people's ethical considerations.


And that was my objection. I would take exception to such a charge being levelled at me, if ever it were. :)

Mr.Samsa wrote:This is either directly the case, in that people are more willing to eat animals the further away they get from humans (i.e. they'll eat fish but not apes), or this is indirectly the case, in that they try to base their opinion on scientific evidence.


I think there might be a rational case to be made for eating something with which one has not recently (by whatever definition of 'recent' one operates) shared a common ancestor, indeed. My own objections are other, as you know.

Mr.Samsa wrote:Unfortunately, science itself largely concerns itself with animals which are similar to humans, or cute or interesting in some way, hence why we have so much research on dolphins, chimps, dogs, etc. I think this accounts almost entirely for why we view those animals as being particularly intelligent, despite the fact that they don't do anything that other animals can't do.


I may have misunderstood you here, but it seems you are saying that a fly - say - or a fish is capable of the same problem-solving or other cognitive behaviour as a dolphin (or chimp, or dog). :ask:
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Re: Sentience in fish

#28  Postby rEvolutionist » Jul 27, 2011 1:12 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:I'd have to read up more on coral and zooplankton, but they are both animals so I don't see why not.


They don't have a brain? I'm not sure what sort of nervous systems some lower animals have either.


Zooplankton don't have a brain but they do have a system of nerves which perform the same functions as a brain. I'm not well-read on coral, but I'd guess that (as an animal) they would have some kind of nerve net which functions in the same way a brain does.

rEvolutionist wrote:

Doesn't the category 'zooplankton' cover animals like jellyfish? If so, then we definitely know that they can learn.


Jellyfish are Zooplankton (ZP). But ZP includes animals that are much much smaller than jellyfish.


Indeed, I knew that but I was surprised to find that jellyfish fell into the category.

rEvolutionist wrote:But tell us more about Jellyfish learning. You behaviourists must get up to some weird and wonderful experiments. ;)


:lol: You should see the research looking at training woodlice to run in circles by flashing lights at them..

I'll have to look for some research on jellyfish learning tomorrow, but a quick google scholar hit gave me this: An investigation of habituation in the jellyfish Aurelia aurita.

rEvolutionist wrote:
I think the problem is with the use of the word "conscious", which can have a lot of baggage attached to it. I'm simply using it in the broadest possible sense (i.e. the ability to experience),


That's how I would use it too. But I'm having trouble getting my head around how something without a brain or a significant nervous system or even a ganglia of some sort could be "conscious" though.


Well they have a set of nerves. The function of nerves is to 'experience' (i.e. they convert external signals into internal responses). Therefore, under the definition of 'conscious' that we're using, they must be conscious.


I'll have to read up on some of the lower animals. I was assuming that some wouldn't have nerve networks due to their size and simplicity. But if all animals have nerve networks, then I guess it could be said that they are all conscious (if they use those nerves to learn. Or even if they perhaps don't).

rEvolutionist wrote:
Learning is usually defined as being something along the lines of, "a process of change that occurs as a result of an individual's experience" (according to James Mazur). But I quite like the description of "adaptively variable behaviour within the lifetime of the individual", which was originally used by Sternhouse to describe "intelligence", but I can't see how his concept of intelligence differs from learning.


But this definition by Sternhouse doesn't really imply consciousness, does it?


It necessarily does, doesn't it? The definitions of learning and consciousness are practically dependent on each other. Learning requires a response to experiences, and in order to experience you must be conscious (since consciousness is "the ability to experience"). So anything that learns is necessarily conscious.


This is essentially the point I am making. His definition of "learning" isn't convincing to me, hence how doesn't imply consciousness.

I've just been reading through that plant thread you linked to, and I see you and Spearthrower have touched on this very issue. I haven't finished reading it, and as you know, I prefer to have an argument rather than read something :evilgrin: ; so I will delve into it here in this thread. Before I jump in though, you'll have to give me a bit of a refresher concerning some aspects of behaviourism. What exactly is a behaviour? And would it be true to say that there is one behavioural law that rules them all (so to speak) - and that is, pleasure/good/like/want vs pain/bad/hate/ don't want?
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Re: Sentience in fish

#29  Postby Mr.Samsa » Jul 27, 2011 1:29 pm

Blip wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:I'm not sure if I quite understand your objection, Blip.. To clarify, I wasn't suggesting that cuteness SHOULD be the basis for our ethical considerations, but rather highlighting the fact that I think it tends to be the basis for many people's ethical considerations.


And that was my objection. I would take exception to such a charge being levelled at me, if ever it were. :)


Ah, I getcha. I obviously can't speak for you personally since I don't know your reasons, but the 'cuteness' issue does seem to be a recurring issue in these topics for some people - and that was all I was trying to say. (I hope it didn't sound like I was attacking you personally? I didn't even consider that it might sound directed at you.. :cheers: ).

Blip wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:This is either directly the case, in that people are more willing to eat animals the further away they get from humans (i.e. they'll eat fish but not apes), or this is indirectly the case, in that they try to base their opinion on scientific evidence.


I think there might be a rational case to be made for eating something with which one has not recently (by whatever definition of 'recent' one operates) shared a common ancestor, indeed. My own objections are other, as you know.


Out of interest, what kind of arguments do you have in mind for why it might be rational not to eat something with which we shared a common ancestor?

Blip wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:Unfortunately, science itself largely concerns itself with animals which are similar to humans, or cute or interesting in some way, hence why we have so much research on dolphins, chimps, dogs, etc. I think this accounts almost entirely for why we view those animals as being particularly intelligent, despite the fact that they don't do anything that other animals can't do.


I may have misunderstood you here, but it seems you are saying that a fly - say - or a fish is capable of the same problem-solving or other cognitive behaviour as a dolphin (or chimp, or dog). :ask:


No misunderstanding at all. I wasn't trying to say that all animals are equally intelligent and talented, of course, but rather that the proposed differences between certain animals aren't as great as is usually suggested. I have no doubt that many, many fish could perform to the same, or even greater degree, as dolphins in similarly designed intelligence tests. Dolphins simply get more media time because they're cute and scientists love to study them (who wouldn't want to get paid to play with dolphins?). But consider that some of the most impressive feats in intelligence have come from pigeons - they can grasp the concept of grammar and differentiate between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, they can solve statistical problems that take professional mathematicians decade to reach a consensus on, they can distinguish between a Monet and a Manet, etc. This isn't because pigeons are particularly bright, it's just because they're a handy lab animal.

rEvolutionist wrote:I'll have to read up on some of the lower animals. I was assuming that some wouldn't have nerve networks due to their size and simplicity. But if all animals have nerve networks, then I guess it could be said that they are all conscious (if they use those nerves to learn. Or even if they perhaps don't).


You'd probably be in a better position than me to say whether it's true or not, but I assume that anything that can respond to its environment must have some mechanism for interpreting external signals. Whether these are nerves, or vascular strands or roots etc, seems irrelevant to me.

rEvolutionist wrote:
It necessarily does, doesn't it? The definitions of learning and consciousness are practically dependent on each other. Learning requires a response to experiences, and in order to experience you must be conscious (since consciousness is "the ability to experience"). So anything that learns is necessarily conscious.


This is essentially the point I am making. His definition of "learning" isn't convincing to me, hence how doesn't imply consciousness.


Oh okay.. well the Mazur definition I posted also includes the criterion of experience (as does every other definition of learning I've ever seen). How would you define learning?

rEvolutionist wrote:I've just been reading through that plant thread you linked to, and I see you and Spearthrower have touched on this very issue. I haven't finished reading it, and as you know, I prefer to have an argument rather than read something :evilgrin: ; so I will delve into it here in this thread. Before I jump in though, you'll have to give me a bit of a refresher concerning some aspects of behaviourism. What exactly is a behaviour?


Broadly speaking, a behavior is generally understood as "anything that an organism does". However, this would obviously include things like cell decay, and a host of other things that we wouldn't really think of as behaviors. In behavioral science, defining 'behavior' is like defining 'life' to biologists; everyone knows what they mean, but nailing something specific down becomes more difficult and it sort of changes depending on what question you're asking. As a rule of thumb, I say that if it can be conditioned, then it's a behavior.

rEvolutionist wrote:And would it be true to say that there is one behavioural law that rules them all (so to speak) - and that is, pleasure/good/like/want vs pain/bad/hate/ don't want?


I don't know if it's absolutely true, it's possible that there are complicating details or even completely new fundamental laws of behavior that need to be considered, but I think that at least for the vast majority of behaviors that we ever talk about, that behavioral law can account for all of them (obviously excluding innate behaviors).
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Re: Sentience in fish

#30  Postby HughMcB » Jul 27, 2011 1:36 pm

Blip wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:Essentially, in my opinion, the attempt to arrange animals in terms of "more" or "less" sentient is really just an exercise in ranking animals from the cutest to the ugliest. I find it absurd to consider the possibility that an organism that can learn, somehow can't feel pain or suffer.


This is more by way of a bookmark than a substantial contribution to this fascinating discussion, but I disagree with you bringing in notions of cuteness here, Mr Samsa. It implies universal sentimentality as the basis of ethical decisions: some of your readers may be offended by that suggestion.

Not to mention that beauty is in the eye of the beholder... :)

Well I have always maintained (rather than ""cuteness"), that humans just look for the most "human" characteristics in other animals and then grade them accordingly. Therefore we see intelligence ranked top amongst "most sentient", perhaps feelings/emotion come next, then on down the line. We see primates score highest, then higher mammals, then all the other mammals, then reptiles, etc. etc. etc.

Of course I know dickall about this subject, certainly nothing compared to the like of Samosa, but I'm confident that most of this ranking process is just bullshit pandering to human ego. "They're most like us, therefore they must be most sentient i.e. more important not to harm".
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Re: Sentience in fish

#31  Postby ughaibu » Jul 27, 2011 1:37 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:As a rule of thumb, I say that if it can be conditioned, then it's a behavior.
There's a danger of triviality here as it seems that any behaviour might imply sentience.
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Re: Sentience in fish

#32  Postby rEvolutionist » Jul 27, 2011 1:48 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:
Blip wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:I'm not sure if I quite understand your objection, Blip.. To clarify, I wasn't suggesting that cuteness SHOULD be the basis for our ethical considerations, but rather highlighting the fact that I think it tends to be the basis for many people's ethical considerations.


And that was my objection. I would take exception to such a charge being levelled at me, if ever it were. :)


Ah, I getcha. I obviously can't speak for you personally since I don't know your reasons, but the 'cuteness' issue does seem to be a recurring issue in these topics for some people - and that was all I was trying to say. (I hope it didn't sound like I was attacking you personally? I didn't even consider that it might sound directed at you.. :cheers: ).

Blip wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:This is either directly the case, in that people are more willing to eat animals the further away they get from humans (i.e. they'll eat fish but not apes), or this is indirectly the case, in that they try to base their opinion on scientific evidence.


I think there might be a rational case to be made for eating something with which one has not recently (by whatever definition of 'recent' one operates) shared a common ancestor, indeed. My own objections are other, as you know.


Out of interest, what kind of arguments do you have in mind for why it might be rational not to eat something with which we shared a common ancestor?


My approach has always been related to cognitive intelligence. Those more able to abstract their surroundings and contemplate them would seem to show a higher level of intelligence (and therefore have more to lose). Even if this was considered to be anthropomorphising, it is still relevant as it is humans who are doing the choosing whether to eat or not. I don't see any advantage in using any other reference system of beliefs/determinants to decide whether I should eat something or not.

Blip wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:Unfortunately, science itself largely concerns itself with animals which are similar to humans, or cute or interesting in some way, hence why we have so much research on dolphins, chimps, dogs, etc. I think this accounts almost entirely for why we view those animals as being particularly intelligent, despite the fact that they don't do anything that other animals can't do.


I may have misunderstood you here, but it seems you are saying that a fly - say - or a fish is capable of the same problem-solving or other cognitive behaviour as a dolphin (or chimp, or dog). :ask:


No misunderstanding at all. I wasn't trying to say that all animals are equally intelligent and talented, of course, but rather that the proposed differences between certain animals aren't as great as is usually suggested. I have no doubt that many, many fish could perform to the same, or even greater degree, as dolphins in similarly designed intelligence tests. Dolphins simply get more media time because they're cute and scientists love to study them (who wouldn't want to get paid to play with dolphins?). But consider that some of the most impressive feats in intelligence have come from pigeons - they can grasp the concept of grammar and differentiate between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, they can solve statistical problems that take professional mathematicians decade to reach a consensus on, they can distinguish between a Monet and a Manet, etc. This isn't because pigeons are particularly bright, it's just because they're a handy lab animal.


And this is why behaviourism sucks balls. It throws all our commonly held anthropomorphic beliefs on their heads. And as such, we are therefore required to relearn how the world works. And some of us are too old and busy to have time to do that. Therefore behaviourism sucks balls. :coffee:

rEvolutionist wrote:I'll have to read up on some of the lower animals. I was assuming that some wouldn't have nerve networks due to their size and simplicity. But if all animals have nerve networks, then I guess it could be said that they are all conscious (if they use those nerves to learn. Or even if they perhaps don't).


You'd probably be in a better position than me to say whether it's true or not, but I assume that anything that can respond to its environment must have some mechanism for interpreting external signals. Whether these are nerves, or vascular strands or roots etc, seems irrelevant to me.


Ok, I see what you are getting at. Up to this point in my life (although doubts have been forming since debating with you about cognition), I have been of the belief that there is such a thing as higher order processing (or what I call - and have read as - cognition). I.e. bundle a few bazillion synapses together and you wind up with this emergent thingy that no one other than behaviourists can seem to explain. Plants don't have that. Usually I would say that plants react to their environment in a direct chemical/physiological way. Humans et al, obviously do this in both a reflexive sense and a higher order cognitive sense, but in the case of the latter, the chemical/physiological responses are so far removed/abstracted from the stimulus as to be nothing like the same process that goes on in plants. But I need you to answer those behavioural questions I posed, so that I can be sure of what I am agreeing with and what I am arguing about. (oops, i see they are down below. I'll get back to this point).

rEvolutionist wrote:
It necessarily does, doesn't it? The definitions of learning and consciousness are practically dependent on each other. Learning requires a response to experiences, and in order to experience you must be conscious (since consciousness is "the ability to experience"). So anything that learns is necessarily conscious.


This is essentially the point I am making. His definition of "learning" isn't convincing to me, hence how doesn't imply consciousness.


Oh okay.. well the Mazur definition I posted also includes the criterion of experience (as does every other definition of learning I've ever seen). How would you define learning?


As it's disappeared in my quote block here in my reply window, i'll get back to this in a sec.
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Re: Sentience in fish

#33  Postby rEvolutionist » Jul 27, 2011 1:52 pm

ughaibu wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:As a rule of thumb, I say that if it can be conditioned, then it's a behavior.
There's a danger of triviality here as it seems that any behaviour might imply sentience.


This is in a sense my main beef with behaviourism (well, my limited understanding of it so far). It's a self-fulfilling theory. By it's very definition it can't be wrong.
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Re: Sentience in fish

#34  Postby rEvolutionist » Jul 27, 2011 1:59 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:And would it be true to say that there is one behavioural law that rules them all (so to speak) - and that is, pleasure/good/like/want vs pain/bad/hate/ don't want?


I don't know if it's absolutely true, it's possible that there are complicating details or even completely new fundamental laws of behavior that need to be considered, but I think that at least for the vast majority of behaviors that we ever talk about, that behavioral law can account for all of them (obviously excluding innate behaviors).


A quick follow up question to this:
Where does this behaviour come from? As I suspect you are going to essentially say 'evolution', I'll go further and ask - What supports or maintains this behaviour in an individual? Essentially, How is this behavioural law translated into action (by what mechanism)?

There you go: Where, What, How! You have 2 minutes and no more than 3 paragraphs to describe the history and dynamics of behaviourism! :razz:
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Re: Sentience in fish

#35  Postby rEvolutionist » Jul 27, 2011 2:14 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:
It necessarily does, doesn't it? The definitions of learning and consciousness are practically dependent on each other. Learning requires a response to experiences, and in order to experience you must be conscious (since consciousness is "the ability to experience"). So anything that learns is necessarily conscious.


This is essentially the point I am making. His definition of "learning" isn't convincing to me, hence how doesn't imply consciousness.


Oh okay.. well the Mazur definition I posted also includes the criterion of experience (as does every other definition of learning I've ever seen). How would you define learning?


I think the use of "experience" is correct. "Experience" to me directly implies consciousness. But Sternhouse's "adaptively variable behaviour" doesn't necessarily imply "experience" to me. Firstly, 'adaptive' could be (to use extremes, to simplify my point) cognitive, or it could be directly physiological (Edit: essentially physical/chemical). That alone removes certainty of conscious experience, in my book. But further to this, the statement "variable behaviour" potentially breaks down when one considers that behaviourism essentially reduces to the fundamental like/dislike paradigm. There can never be 'variability' under such a unifying paradigm. Every particular action in a particular organism at a particular moment in it's life can only ever be one of either a
'like' or a 'dislike' driven event. i.e. no room for variability. Your thoughts?
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Re: Sentience in fish

#36  Postby Blip » Jul 27, 2011 2:48 pm

On the cuteness question, I'd caution that I have never heard an ethical vegetarian give this - or anything that could be so interpreted - as his or her reason for abjuring meat. I have however heard (two) meat-eaters say that they felt guilty whenever they saw lambs in a field. This is anecdotal, of course, but in any case I'd be extremely wary of attributing this motivation to others.

Mr.Samsa wrote:Out of interest, what kind of arguments do you have in mind for why it might be rational not to eat something with which we shared a common ancestor?


Not quite what I said: I referred to more or less recent common ancestors. Hugh refers to this in speaking of greater or lesser relatedness to homo sapiens. It's not my criterion, but preferring not to eat one's closer relatives does not seem unreasonable: I believe it was Gene Roddenberry who said that if we should ever meet ET, we'll be amazed that we were ever able to eat a cow.

Mr.Samsa wrote:But consider that some of the most impressive feats in intelligence have come from pigeons - they can grasp the concept of grammar and differentiate between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, they can solve statistical problems that take professional mathematicians decade to reach a consensus on, they can distinguish between a Monet and a Manet, etc. This isn't because pigeons are particularly bright, it's just because they're a handy lab animal.


Can they grasp these things or is something else going on? I suspect the latter, but would need to see the details of the experiments. For example, on the Monet and Manet differentiation, are pigeons able to distinguish Monet 'x' from Manet 'y' on the basis of having learned to distinguish Monet 'a' and 'b' from Manet 'c' and 'd'? How about music? Are pigeons able to distinguish Beethoven from Mozart? Or Schoenberg from the orchestra tuning up*?

*Cheap jibe at lovers of the Second Viennese School. I couldn't help myself. :lol:
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Re: Sentience in fish

#37  Postby Mr.Samsa » Jul 28, 2011 5:48 am

HughMcB wrote:Well I have always maintained (rather than ""cuteness"), that humans just look for the most "human" characteristics in other animals and then grade them accordingly. Therefore we see intelligence ranked top amongst "most sentient", perhaps feelings/emotion come next, then on down the line. We see primates score highest, then higher mammals, then all the other mammals, then reptiles, etc. etc. etc.

Of course I know dickall about this subject, certainly nothing compared to the like of Samosa, but I'm confident that most of this ranking process is just bullshit pandering to human ego. "They're most like us, therefore they must be most sentient i.e. more important not to harm".


Yeah this is basically what I mean by "cuteness", as essentially I think that's what it all boils down to. Maybe I am being a bit of an ass by phrasing it like that though.. :grin:

ughaibu wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:As a rule of thumb, I say that if it can be conditioned, then it's a behavior.
There's a danger of triviality here as it seems that any behaviour might imply sentience.


I don't think so. I think it highlights the redundancy of using "sentience" as a discrimination tool, but the only 'triviality' is that it must be trivially true. Since sentience is the ability to experience, and experience is a key component of learning (and thus behavior), it must be the case that anything that behaves must be sentient.

rEvolutionist wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:Out of interest, what kind of arguments do you have in mind for why it might be rational not to eat something with which we shared a common ancestor?


My approach has always been related to cognitive intelligence. Those more able to abstract their surroundings and contemplate them would seem to show a higher level of intelligence (and therefore have more to lose). Even if this was considered to be anthropomorphising, it is still relevant as it is humans who are doing the choosing whether to eat or not. I don't see any advantage in using any other reference system of beliefs/determinants to decide whether I should eat something or not.


You seem to be describing "sapience" here. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this, but it does fall into the trap Hugh describes above of valuing things which are human-like.

rEvolutionist wrote:
No misunderstanding at all. I wasn't trying to say that all animals are equally intelligent and talented, of course, but rather that the proposed differences between certain animals aren't as great as is usually suggested. I have no doubt that many, many fish could perform to the same, or even greater degree, as dolphins in similarly designed intelligence tests. Dolphins simply get more media time because they're cute and scientists love to study them (who wouldn't want to get paid to play with dolphins?). But consider that some of the most impressive feats in intelligence have come from pigeons - they can grasp the concept of grammar and differentiate between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, they can solve statistical problems that take professional mathematicians decade to reach a consensus on, they can distinguish between a Monet and a Manet, etc. This isn't because pigeons are particularly bright, it's just because they're a handy lab animal.


And this is why behaviourism sucks balls. It throws all our commonly held anthropomorphic beliefs on their heads. And as such, we are therefore required to relearn how the world works. And some of us are too old and busy to have time to do that. Therefore behaviourism sucks balls. :coffee:


Your face sucks balls. OOooo burn! :grin:

rEvolutionist wrote:
You'd probably be in a better position than me to say whether it's true or not, but I assume that anything that can respond to its environment must have some mechanism for interpreting external signals. Whether these are nerves, or vascular strands or roots etc, seems irrelevant to me.


Ok, I see what you are getting at. Up to this point in my life (although doubts have been forming since debating with you about cognition), I have been of the belief that there is such a thing as higher order processing (or what I call - and have read as - cognition). I.e. bundle a few bazillion synapses together and you wind up with this emergent thingy that no one other than behaviourists can seem to explain. Plants don't have that. Usually I would say that plants react to their environment in a direct chemical/physiological way. Humans et al, obviously do this in both a reflexive sense and a higher order cognitive sense, but in the case of the latter, the chemical/physiological responses are so far removed/abstracted from the stimulus as to be nothing like the same process that goes on in plants. But I need you to answer those behavioural questions I posed, so that I can be sure of what I am agreeing with and what I am arguing about. (oops, i see they are down below. I'll get back to this point).


Indeed, there are higher order cognitive processes and we can be fairly sure that plants don't have these (and as for the cheap shot :lol: , behaviorists have no problem explaining emergent cognitive processes). But of course higher order processes aren't necessary for the experience of pain (or aversive stimulation) since such an experience is fundamental to all living things. The question then simply becomes whether it is reasonable to cause something to suffer just because it has no understanding of astrophysics or algebra?

EDIT: I forgot to mention this, but plants don't just respond in a 'chemical/physiological' way (at least no more than animals). They actively employ methods to avoid pain, even without the painful stimulus present, etc. There is more complex learning and behavior involved in plants, and not just a simple cause-and-effect type response.

rEvolutionist wrote:
ughaibu wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:As a rule of thumb, I say that if it can be conditioned, then it's a behavior.
There's a danger of triviality here as it seems that any behaviour might imply sentience.


This is in a sense my main beef with behaviourism (well, my limited understanding of it so far). It's a self-fulfilling theory. By it's very definition it can't be wrong.


Behaviorism isn't a theory, it's a methodology. It can't be right or wrong in the same way "biology" can't be right or wrong. The only way it can be ignored or rejected is if it can be shown to be useless or unable to predict the subject matter it seeks to explain.

In other words, attacking the definition of "behavior" for not being able to be 'wrong', is like attacking biology's definition of "animal" because it can't be wrong.

rEvolutionist wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:I don't know if it's absolutely true, it's possible that there are complicating details or even completely new fundamental laws of behavior that need to be considered, but I think that at least for the vast majority of behaviors that we ever talk about, that behavioral law can account for all of them (obviously excluding innate behaviors).


A quick follow up question to this:
Where does this behaviour come from? As I suspect you are going to essentially say 'evolution', I'll go further and ask - What supports or maintains this behaviour in an individual?


It's arguable whether it specifically comes from evolution. The behavioral law could be a natural consequence of having an organism that avoids bad things and approaches good things.

rEvolutionist wrote:Essentially, How is this behavioural law translated into action (by what mechanism)?


You mean on a neurological level? Long-term potentiation and in-vitro reinforcement appear to the mechanisms which control classical and operant conditioning.

rEvolutionist wrote:There you go: Where, What, How! You have 2 minutes and no more than 3 paragraphs to describe the history and dynamics of behaviourism! :razz:


How'd I do? :dopey: :lol:

rEvolutionist wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:Oh okay.. well the Mazur definition I posted also includes the criterion of experience (as does every other definition of learning I've ever seen). How would you define learning?


I think the use of "experience" is correct. "Experience" to me directly implies consciousness. But Sternhouse's "adaptively variable behaviour" doesn't necessarily imply "experience" to me. Firstly, 'adaptive' could be (to use extremes, to simplify my point) cognitive, or it could be directly physiological (Edit: essentially physical/chemical). That alone removes certainty of conscious experience, in my book.


Is it possible that you're interpreting "consciousness" as "awareness"?

rEvolutionist wrote:But further to this, the statement "variable behaviour" potentially breaks down when one considers that behaviourism essentially reduces to the fundamental like/dislike paradigm. There can never be 'variability' under such a unifying paradigm. Every particular action in a particular organism at a particular moment in it's life can only ever be one of either a
'like' or a 'dislike' driven event. i.e. no room for variability. Your thoughts?


Firstly, I think I might have been unclear when I described the basic behavioral law that controls behavior. This is not a claim or belief of behaviorism, it is a conclusion from behavioral research. That is, Skinner didn't say "All behavior must or should be controlled by basic pain and pleasure principles". Instead, it just turns out that all behaviors that have been studied and understood have all been reducible to things like the matching law, or the contingency discriminability model. Essentially, all behaviors are reduced to choice theories because all behavior is choice behavior; so whenever you choose to do something (e.g. wave your arm around), you necessarily choose to refrain from doing something else. And all the currently available choice theories rely on "pain" and "pleasure" parameters.

Secondly, you're defining "variability" too narrowly. The "variable" in "adaptively variable behavior" simply means that the topography of a behavior can change in response to the same task or challenge. So if we put a rock in a maze, it's unlikely that it will find the cheese at the end. If we put a wind-up car in a maze, it's unlikely it will find the cheese at the end, etc, but if we put a rat in a maze, it will display a number of behaviors (e.g. 'go straight', 'turn left', 'turn right' etc) and this variability in behavior is adaptive (i.e. incorrect responses are extinguished, and correct ones are strengthened). This means that after a few attempts, the rat no longer turns left down the dead end, and always turns right down the correct corridor. In other words, it is the behavior which needs to be variable, not the process that underlies the behavior.

Blip wrote:On the cuteness question, I'd caution that I have never heard an ethical vegetarian give this - or anything that could be so interpreted - as his or her reason for abjuring meat. I have however heard (two) meat-eaters say that they felt guilty whenever they saw lambs in a field. This is anecdotal, of course, but in any case I'd be extremely wary of attributing this motivation to others.


No doubt that both vegetarians and meat-eaters both do this, as well as scientists and practically everybody. But as a counterpoint, ever seen animal rights activists protest against fishing nets because they kill dolphins? This is evidence of the cuteness factor, considering that they don't care about the death of millions upon millions of tuna.

Blip wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:Out of interest, what kind of arguments do you have in mind for why it might be rational not to eat something with which we shared a common ancestor?


Not quite what I said: I referred to more or less recent common ancestors. Hugh refers to this in speaking of greater or lesser relatedness to homo sapiens. It's not my criterion, but preferring not to eat one's closer relatives does not seem unreasonable: I believe it was Gene Roddenberry who said that if we should ever meet ET, we'll be amazed that we were ever able to eat a cow.


It might not be unreasonable, but I'm still not sure where the reason is in such a position. It seems to be based more on an emotional response; a disgust over eating something similar to us.

Blip wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:But consider that some of the most impressive feats in intelligence have come from pigeons - they can grasp the concept of grammar and differentiate between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, they can solve statistical problems that take professional mathematicians decade to reach a consensus on, they can distinguish between a Monet and a Manet, etc. This isn't because pigeons are particularly bright, it's just because they're a handy lab animal.


Can they grasp these things or is something else going on? I suspect the latter, but would need to see the details of the experiments. For example, on the Monet and Manet differentiation, are pigeons able to distinguish Monet 'x' from Manet 'y' on the basis of having learned to distinguish Monet 'a' and 'b' from Manet 'c' and 'd'? How about music? Are pigeons able to distinguish Beethoven from Mozart? Or Schoenberg from the orchestra tuning up*?

*Cheap jibe at lovers of the Second Viennese School. I couldn't help myself. :lol:


Indeed - they are obviously tested with novel stimuli. The only way for them to solve the tests is for them to understand the abstract concepts behind the sample stimuli - the nature of grammar, or the style of a painter, etc. There have been numerous tests on musical discrimination, I'm not sure if any have compared Beethoven and Mozart, but here's a test of Bach and Stravinsky. They can also judge how 'good' or 'beautiful' a painting is. (And, if you're interested, here's a study on carp distinguishing between blues and classical music).

The grammar study is here, and followed up here Artificial Grammar Learning in Pigeons, and the statistics study: Are birds smarter than mathematicians? Pigeons (Columba livia) perform optimally on a version of the Monty Hall Dilemma.
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Re: Sentience in fish

#38  Postby ughaibu » Jul 28, 2011 6:26 am

Mr.Samsa wrote:
ughaibu wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:As a rule of thumb, I say that if it can be conditioned, then it's a behavior.
There's a danger of triviality here as it seems that any behaviour might imply sentience.
Since sentience is the ability to experience, and experience is a key component of learning (and thus behavior), it must be the case that anything that behaves must be sentient.
And anything that's sentient must behave.
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Re: Sentience in fish

#39  Postby Mr.Samsa » Jul 28, 2011 6:31 am

ughaibu wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:
ughaibu wrote:There's a danger of triviality here as it seems that any behaviour might imply sentience.
Since sentience is the ability to experience, and experience is a key component of learning (and thus behavior), it must be the case that anything that behaves must be sentient.
And anything that's sentient must behave.


Not necessarily. If something experiences pleasure or pain, but doesn't adapt or react in any way as a result of these stimuli, then it would be sentient without any behavior. Of course, we couldn't test this scientifically, as we can only test sentience through behavioral tests.
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Re: Sentience in fish

#40  Postby ughaibu » Jul 28, 2011 6:34 am

Mr.Samsa wrote:
ughaibu wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:Since sentience is the ability to experience, and experience is a key component of learning (and thus behavior), it must be the case that anything that behaves must be sentient.
And anything that's sentient must behave.
Not necessarily. If something experiences pleasure or pain, but doesn't adapt or react in any way as a result of these stimuli, then it would be sentient without any behavior. Of course, we couldn't test this scientifically, as we can only test sentience through behavioral tests.
Didn't you define sentience in terms of adaption rather than experience? Anyway, I see your point.
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