RE: Does the fact that many non-human animals have pituitary disprove Cartesian Dualism?
June 23, 2023 at 9:18 am
(June 23, 2023 at 4:49 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(June 23, 2023 at 3:56 am)FlatAssembler Wrote: Oh, really? The empirical fact that fish with a hole in their fin continue swimming normally doesn't suggest that they don't feel pain? Or the empirical fact that they have little or no type-c neurofibers which human beings need to feel pain?
No, the hole-in-the-fin thing doesn't suggest anything about pain. Due to the presence of nociceptors and the fact that injured fish exhibit behavioural changes that are alleviated with painkillers, it's likely that fish do feel pain.
But we still don't know if what the fish feels is what we mean when we say 'I feel pain'. We can know, empirically, that fish respond to noxious stimuli. But whether this response is the same (from the fish's perspective) as my response when I hit my thumb with a hammer can only be approached rationally, since we can't really ask the fish about it.
Boru
Most fish do have nociceptors (though sharks don't), but nociceptors are not enough to feel pain. At least in human beings, type-c neurofibers are also necessary (and fish have little or no type-c neurofibers). So is the interaction between quite a few parts of the brain that fish don't have. As for fish responding to painkillers, James D. Rose tried to replicate some experiments that supposedly show that and he failed to replicate them.