I did not assume you were downplaying the issue, just wanted to give my $0.02 ;).

I would define harm as the objective, measureable damage done to the individual, pain as the accompanying physiological sensation (neural impulse and circling excitation) and suffering the emotion arising from that sensation and the subjective (conscious and subconscious thus not necessarily aware) evaluation which heavily relies on feedback from the brain (at least in us humans and presumably all neo-cortical animals).

As such suffering would be viewed as the quale of pain and epiphenomenal to it (but in itself a phenomenon as part of the consciousness). It can also be described as circling excitation on a higher neuronal level though and a case could be made that until a higher processing instance is reached suffering (or any other feeling) does not occur. Another way to put it: if there is no post-processing unit to evaluate the pain it would just feel like other "neutral" inputs like seeing, hearing, smelling (to a certain degree smelling is directly and instinctively coupled with emotions just like pain) etc. with maybe the spatial positioning sense as the most similar.

The distinction between pain and suffering may also be argued as semantics and maybe some will disagree with my assessment but I tend to break everything down to the biological level and then build up to the (IMO) most reasonable conclusion and avoid a priori assumptions.

IMO suffering requires some kind of stress or activation response that deeply afflicts the individual. To a certain degree that can be measured but I am not sure how that applies to certain "borderline" animals like said crustaceans.

I also have not good answers to all those questions and I am not sure the answers are necessary to establish basic animal rights.

Dualism=bs, I think we agree on that ;).

by eborujion on 06/29/2009 07:26:21 PM EST

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