The behavioural cue of ‘flexible self-protection’ is a way to establish whether an animal feels pain, scientists say

Crickets that received the hot probe “overwhelmingly” directed their attention to the affected antenna – they groomed it more frequently, and tended to it over a longer period of time, he says. “They weren’t just agitated and flustered. They were directing their attention to the actual antennae that was hit with this hot probe.”

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[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why would any animated being run away from danger if it didn't feel pain? It should be assumed that animals feel pain. Pain keeps them away from danger, so they survive, and evolve with those pain genes. For plants however, whether they have pain genes or not doesn't matter for their survival so they evolve either way.

[–] TheBlackLounge@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I don't think tending to damage is enough to prove pain.

Microbes detect and move away from danger. Plants detect danger and react to defend themselves. They also redirect resources to heal. Pain isn't necessary for this.

Pain is for learning, so you avoid what caused the pain. Beings that don't learn shouldn't feel pain, it would just be a waste of energy. That'd only happen in evolutionary quirks (ie loss of capacity to learn after gaining pain). Nature is cruel (grasshoppers get their heads eaten during mating) but not just for the sake of it.

And of course, there's humans that have a condition that makes them not feel pain. They still learn self preservation, and they have some reflexes too.

The article makes the comparison with a hurt dog. Dogs remember for life what hurt them. It's very obvious they learn from pain.

[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Pain is a detection of danger. If burning felt good, microbes, plants and animals wouldn't turn away.

[–] TheBlackLounge@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Your body does a whole bunch of things in reaction to danger that don't register as pain. Sweating, contracting pupils, releasing insuline...

You could get philosophical and say that these are pains of your body's subsystems. And if microbes can feel pain then your body functions on the misery of billions of beings trapped inside of you. Not really something you can build a morality on.

[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Well what we feel as pain is ultimately chemical reactions. Now I can't go into the entire set of chemical reactions that another being would qualify as "pain", much less hypothesize as to what word another being would qualify anything. I'll leave the spectrum of chemical reactions and non-human pain thresholds to others.