Jellyfish have no brain - can they feel pain?

[Duty]

Or pleasure or...well, anything really? 

One for the ghost of Descartes probably but I'd say no - they feel nothing. Thoughts?

[Belacqua]

Or pleasure or...well, anything really? 

One for the ghost of Descartes probably but I'd say no - they feel nothing. Thoughts?

This is kind of tricky...

On the one hand, they must feel things in the sense that they react to their environment. 

On the other, they probably don't have concepts. So when they react to their environment, they just react, and there's no part of them conceptualizing "Geez, I'm scared; gotta get out of here." 

I suspect that to call something "pleasure," it has to be something that we're aware of enjoying. We need the capacity to say, "Yeah! I like it!"

[Jehanne]

On the one hand, they must feel things in the sense that they react to their environment. 

On the other, they probably don't have concepts. So when they react to their environment, they just react, and there's no part of them conceptualizing "Geez, I'm scared; gotta get out of here." 

It would be like the twitching of the severed legs of dead frogs (or, any other mammal, for that matter.)

[bennyboy]

Or pleasure or...well, anything really? 

One for the ghost of Descartes probably but I'd say no - they feel nothing. Thoughts?

We don't know what pain really means, in a universal sense.  Certainly, for a person, you'd expect that unconsciousness would mean a lack of suffering as well.

But it seems to me that any living thing that is capable of motivated behavior (like trying to survive or to reproduce) must suffer on some level when the goals of those motivations are thwarted.

[Jehanne]

Here's an example of animal consciousness:

[Angrboda]

Or pleasure or...well, anything really? 

One for the ghost of Descartes probably but I'd say no - they feel nothing. Thoughts?

This is kind of tricky...

On the one hand, they must feel things in the sense that they react to their environment. 

On the other, they probably don't have concepts. So when they react to their environment, they just react, and there's no part of them conceptualizing "Geez, I'm scared; gotta get out of here." 

I suspect that to call something "pleasure," it has to be something that we're aware of enjoying. We need the capacity to say, "Yeah! I like it!"

That raises the whole question of plant intelligence. Just what does it mean to be aware of something? Surely there's a spectrum, and maybe plants and jellyfish overlap with animals on it.

[Jehanne]

This is kind of tricky...

On the one hand, they must feel things in the sense that they react to their environment. 

On the other, they probably don't have concepts. So when they react to their environment, they just react, and there's no part of them conceptualizing "Geez, I'm scared; gotta get out of here." 

I suspect that to call something "pleasure," it has to be something that we're aware of enjoying. We need the capacity to say, "Yeah! I like it!"

That raises the whole question of plant intelligence.  Just what does it mean to be aware of something?  Surely there's a spectrum, and maybe plants and jellyfish overlap with animals on it.

You can't hear the plants crying when you bite into them?  Just think of the horrors of the poor corn at harvest time, as they are first cut on a beautiful sunny day, first being decapitated and falling onto the side belts of the combine, where they are slowly, but inexorably, drawn to their dismemberment; as they reach the center belt, they hear the roar of the feeder house, where they are suddenly sucked into the separator, where they are shredded, the combine separating the corn from its husk.  Finally, they are deposited into the grain tank after being smashed one against another in a huge centrifuge, pilling one upon another, higher and higher until they are dumped into a waiting semi.  After that comes the long journey to the processing plant where they are crushed and baked before being converted into all manner of chemical byproducts; some are destined to be syrup to be slowly dissolved in the guts of humans after unknown weeks of waiting for their doom, while others are destined for incineration in the gasoline tanks of cars and trucks.

What a pity!

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I think the only thing a jellyfish can feel is the shame of being a jellyfish.

Boru

[Jehanne]

They can dance, though!

[The Valkyrie]

Yes, they feel pain.*







*The only way to test this was to experiment. Since jellyfish can't vocalise, I had to find something without a brain that could.

I used a Trump supporter as a proxy.

He felt pain.

Therefore, jellyfish feel pain.

Also worthy to note, like jellfish, Trump supporters also have no backbone.