Is Meat Really Murder?

anticipation · 11-10-2011, 10:44 AM

Actually just wrote my research paper about sustainability and how industrialized farming practices are basically destroying the Earth and countless species, including our own. Farm-to-table has been around forever, but I'm pretty excited to see how this new vegan/rawfood movement shapes my career. Being in the industry really allows me to see the detrimental effects the prototypical "Western diet" is having on our world.

hip hop bunny hop · 11-10-2011, 12:41 PM

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I don't believe, though, that the awareness of death leads to the awareness of life, Zaqarbal. I see much evidence that animals, like human children, can be very aware of their own life and experiences without awareness that death awaits them. They can express fear and have a sense of danger without knowing about death.

This would be, at best, anecdotal. All scientific evidence available tells us otherwise, link

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When I was a child, for example, I first began to realize when I was 13 years old that I, and everyone I knew, would die, truly die, eventually. Yet before I was 13, I experienced life just as vividly and was full of emotions and thoughts. Knowledge of death just led to greater fears and nostalgia, a sense of impending doom, and the knowledge that loss was a definite in my future.

Children become self-aware before age two.

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I mention this just in case someone is going to make the bogus claim that "animals don't know they are going to die; therefore, they aren't aware that they are alive; therefore, we can do with them what we will."

How is it bogus? 99%+ of Animals lack self-awareness. Even those we consider intelligent - such as dogs - are, at best, able to accept a bit of Pavlovian conditioning. Not only do these creatures lack any concept of death, they lack the concept of self.

VEGANGELICA · 11-10-2011, 01:42 PM

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Originally Posted by hip hop bunny hop

This would be, at best, anecdotal. All scientific evidence available tells us otherwise, link

Even animals who don't pass the mirror test can still be *aware*, hip hop. Failure to pass a self-awareness mirror test does not mean an animal lacks awareness of being alive.

The brains of many animals are wired for experiencing emotions, vision, hearing, etc. Are you arguing that animals have no experience of existing? Are you arguing that they have pain receptors but can't feel pain? Are you arguing that animals who produce oxytocin don't feel affection, bonding, even love?

Have you never seen a dog who appears to be dreaming? What do you think the dog is experiencing? Nothing??

Finally, note that some animals, including European magpies, pass the mirror test you reference. Therefore, evidence that animals can be very aware not just of their own life and experiences, but also of themselves as individual "selves," is not anecdotal.

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Children become self-aware before age two.

The point was that my life experiences show that knowledge of death is not necessary to have awareness of being alive.

Your comment, though, makes me wonder: May we eat a 1-year-old before he tests as self-aware?

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How is it bogus? 99%+ of Animals lack self-awareness. Even those we consider intelligent - such as dogs - are, at best, able to accept a bit of Pavlovian conditioning. Not only do these creatures lack any concept of death, they lack the concept of self.

Again, why do you select "self-awareness" as the deciding factor for whether or not we should eat a being?

I use the much broader definition of "sentience." I argue that even 1-year-old babies who fail a self-awareness test are still sentient, and therefore, I don't eat 'em. What's your reason for not eating a 1-year-old baby who isn't "self-aware" according to the mirror test?

Here is the distinction between "self-awareness" and "sentience" from wikipedia:

"Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. Self-awareness, though similar to sentience in concept, includes the experience of the self, and has been argued as implicit to the hard problem of consciousness."

"Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences."

Tsunami · 11-10-2011, 02:20 PM

Humans are not actually supposed to eat meat, but since we invented fire we've been eating it, so I guess we've changed the evolution quite a bit, so that will alone cross thoughts whether it's natural or not to eat meat, but most of the vegetarians don't eat naturally either, seeing that they usually cook their food, unless they follow a certain diet ( Raw foodism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

It doesn't really bother me to eat meat, and I do not believe that it's a murderer, because we're apparently used to eat meat (even if it doesn't digest properly) Animals eat meat in the nature too, but we have to note that humans kill a lot of more animals because the population is way bigger than any predators / omnivores around. Sure a lot of food goes to waste, but what can you do? Nobody who has the power to change it will do it because it's too good for the business.

VEGANGELICA · 11-11-2011, 06:52 AM

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Originally Posted by Tsunami

Humans are not actually supposed to eat meat, but since we invented fire we've been eating it, so I guess we've changed the evolution quite a bit

Humans are well-adapted to eating meat, Tsunami, so I'm not sure why you say we aren't "supposed" to eat meat. Biologically we are omnivores. Many foods, whether derived from plants or animals, can contain toxins or indigestible portions, yet this doesn't prevent us from obtaining beneficial nutrients from the foods.

Also, I want to point out that our early hominid ancestors are thought to have eaten meat raw, so meat-eating came before the use of fire for cooking:

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WHAT DID EARLY HOMINIDS EAT?
Hall of Human Origins | American Museum of Natural History

By two million years ago, our ancient relatives had added meat to their diet. How do we know? Animal bones from around this time have been found with cut marks made by stone tools, a clear indication that early hominids cut up animal carcasses to eat the meat. Firm evidence for the domestication of fire is only occasional at best before 400,000 years ago, so early hominids such as Homo ergaster probably ate their meat raw.

Finally, I don't follow your explanation for why you feel eating meat isn't murder. You seem to be saying that it isn't murder simply because people are so used to killing and eating animals. Is that the gist of your reason? How are you defining murder?

Tsunami · 11-11-2011, 12:35 PM

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Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

Humans are well-adapted to eating meat, Tsunami, so I'm not sure why you say we aren't "supposed" to eat meat. Biologically we are omnivores. Many foods, whether derived from plants or animals, can contain toxins or indigestible portions, yet this doesn't prevent us from obtaining beneficial nutrients from the foods.

Also, I want to point out that our early hominid ancestors are thought to have eaten meat raw, so meat-eating came before the use of fire for cooking:

I don't believe that humans ate raw meat regularly before fire. If there are some cases they did to survive, it doesn't equal to being natural omnivores, because humans can work outside of instinct unlike most of the animals (apart from some primates)

Guybrush · 11-11-2011, 02:12 PM

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Originally Posted by Tsunami

I don't believe that humans ate raw meat regularly before fire. If there are some cases they did to survive, it doesn't equal to being natural omnivores, because humans can work outside of instinct unlike most of the animals (apart from some primates)

Actually, we owe a lot to our meaty diets. Eating plants in the real olden days may not have been as easy as you think. Generally speaking, it's not like life in the fruit section of your local supermart. Agriculture is only 10 000 years old and involves relatively few species. Most plant matter is very tough to digest and so large primates like gorillas or geladas have to spend a lot of time foraging, most of their waking hours. The reason is the low quality plant food is so low in nutrients and tough to digest that you have to eat a lot of it to meet nutrient/energy requirements and so these animals need to have large stomachs to accommodate their vegetarian diets. Being a vegetarian animal tends to make you more dependent on habitat so that you need to stay put. It's a pacifier.

Humans with our large brains (requiring a lot of protein rich and fatty food to develop) and our relatively small stomachs undoubtedly owe a lot to our meaty diets through our evolutionary history. The general hypothesis is that assumed ancestors like Homo habilis (lived approximately 2.3 to 1.4 million years ago) were not hunters themselves, but scavenged kills by other predators. Better food meant bigger brains, leaner bodies and eventually, man started hunting on his own. The high quality food also meant we had to spend less time eating, less tied down to specific habitats and started moving around more in hunt for animals.

You wrote earlier that humans are not supposed to eat meat. I thought that was a strange way to put it. What are we supposed to do then?

Tsunami · 11-11-2011, 04:03 PM

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Originally Posted by tore

You wrote earlier that humans are not supposed to eat meat. I thought that was a strange way to put it. What are we supposed to do then?

How humans are not physically created to eat meat

Guybrush · 11-11-2011, 05:23 PM

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Originally Posted by Tsunami

How humans are not physically created to eat meat

I'm afraid that the text on that website is clearly written by an idiot. You should be a little more critical in regards to where you get your information.

Zaqarbal · 11-11-2011, 11:22 PM

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Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

I don't believe, though, that the awareness of death leads to the awareness of life, Zaqarbal. I see much evidence that animals, like human children, can be very aware of their own life and experiences without awareness that death awaits them. They can express fear and have a sense of danger without knowing about death.

When I was a child, for example, I first began to realize when I was 13 years old that I, and everyone I knew, would die, truly die, eventually. Yet before I was 13, I experienced life just as vividly and was full of emotions and thoughts. Knowledge of death just led to greater fears and nostalgia, a sense of impending doom, and the knowledge that loss was a definite in my future.

OK, but I meant life in a broader sense (not just "being alive"). And in an intergenerational way. A famous Latin aphorism says: Ars longa, vita brevis ("Art is long, life is short"). Here Art is understood as technique or craft, but, by extension, we may also say Science, Culture or knowledge in general. The same idea in other words: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Our present ideas are the result from accumulated knowledge, transmited throughout human history. Imagine we had a time machine so we could "transport" one of the first homo sapiens to our days. He could study Philosophy or Computer Science at a University, just like any of us. But at his time....

All the above is a consequence of the awareness of Death. We humans know that we are going to die sooner or later. Therefore we act accordingly, bearing our descendants in mind, trying to record our thoughts and creations in order to make them last, etc. And because of that characteristic, today we know, for instance, how Human ideas regarding animals were in the past, thanks to art, literature, etc.

Medical and veterinary sciences advance gradually from a previous step of knowledge. And the same could be said about the Arts. Dead musicians are "alive" in this forum. If it weren't for the consciousness of the own death, nobody would try to leave a legacy for the future generations. So hundreds of millions of Human experiencies and thoughts would be lost forever, like tears in rain.

.........ars longa.................................................. ......vita brevis

I mean, the analogy animals-replicants is very relevant, enlightening and beautiful, but it's not 100% exact. Anyway, I really like it, and I'm sure that everybody will draw interesting conclusions from it. By the way, movie takes place in Los Angeles, but in Philip K. Dick's novel the city in question is San Francisco. That is, Saint Francis. Interesting, isn't it?

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Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

I mention this just in case someone is going to make the bogus claim that "animals don't know they are going to die; therefore, they aren't aware that they are alive; therefore, we can do with them what we will."

I know what you mean. But, as regards me, you don't have to worry.

As an admirer of John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, I always bear in mind the basic principle. That is: as a general rule, when discussing treatment of animals, the number-one criterion is "can they suffer?" The question is not, Do sheep dream of androids? but, Do sheep have nightmares about humans?

Anyways, a few months ago I realized that this issue is more complex than I thought before. And I have to read certain books on the matter. So I daren't talk about it in detail until I have a well-supported opinion.

11-10-2011, 10:44 AM	#931 (permalink)
anticipation Music Addict Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 3,565	Actually just wrote my research paper about sustainability and how industrialized farming practices are basically destroying the Earth and countless species, including our own. Farm-to-table has been around forever, but I'm pretty excited to see how this new vegan/rawfood movement shapes my career. Being in the industry really allows me to see the detrimental effects the prototypical "Western diet" is having on our world.

11-10-2011, 02:20 PM	#934 (permalink)
Tsunami Music Addict Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: Finland Posts: 86	Humans are not actually supposed to eat meat, but since we invented fire we've been eating it, so I guess we've changed the evolution quite a bit, so that will alone cross thoughts whether it's natural or not to eat meat, but most of the vegetarians don't eat naturally either, seeing that they usually cook their food, unless they follow a certain diet ( Raw foodism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) It doesn't really bother me to eat meat, and I do not believe that it's a murderer, because we're apparently used to eat meat (even if it doesn't digest properly) Animals eat meat in the nature too, but we have to note that humans kill a lot of more animals because the population is way bigger than any predators / omnivores around. Sure a lot of food goes to waste, but what can you do? Nobody who has the power to change it will do it because it's too good for the business.