Inverts & Pain - The Ultimate Thread

[Nick_schembri]

Oh yeah, you just quoted him

 

[aaronrefalo]

i read the attached thread...Should T`s have rights?....i think the same way as CreepyCrawly........I think that T`s do feel pain, not in the same way we do as we are the most highly developed species...so surly they dont feel pain as we do but they can feel pain in their own manners...if we came to this extent and talk about phylum Gastropoda...which are less developed then Aracnids.....for example the snail he would feel pain if he cuts its foot...or put on it a crystals of salt...he surly does i think...so....as phylums get larger it get more developed..which this is pretty understood ....and so his sences..thus if a snail feel pain so more feels a tarantula in my opinion...

Aaron

 

[Code Monkey]

Who here believes Ts can also appreciate the difference between HDTV and regular analog television? An old AM radio verus 5.1 surround sound from Sirius satellite radio? How about the smoothness of silk versus burlap?

Come on, raise your hands?

I'm guessing no one, yet they can certainly sense all of these things but how their brain processes the stimuli (it is wrong to insist inverts don't have a brain, Ts do in fact have one of the larger invert brains) is limited both by the sense organs and the complexity of their nervous system.

Yet you emo heads will sit here and insist they can *feel* pain. Bollocks.

A single celled amoeba will avoid negative stimuli, these gross behavioral responses related to avoiding danger have as much to do with demonstrating *feeling* pain as lack of gross behavioral responses have to do with demonstrating joy and ecstasy in a tarantula, or do you believe they can do that too?

 

[Psoulocybe]

Code Monkey, you just saved me some typing.

 

[EDED]

darkeye, sorry you had to experience that, but if you really wanna respect all living creatures, free your spider into the wild, maybe it would have not gone through the bad molt if it wasnt in your captivity, can you argue that?

what do you feed your spiders? vegetables?

some people here like myself feed mice, i think i will stop doing that, it felt like i was feeding a tiny puppy dog to a monster spider, it didnt feel good, but i dont mind it feeding crickets and others, if you think all those things feel pain think about your crickets, and roaches and etc in the mouth of your special spider slowly getting digested, oh the acid must burrrrrrn and hurt, you are biased thats all.


people these are spiders,,,,, S P I D E R S

whats the difference between me stepping on a spider thats in my house, and me stepping on my tarantula, whos gonna care other than people like us, exterminators dont give a damn, others dont give a damn, now im losing my focus i dont know what im talking about, i will stop for now.

 

[Lopez]

Yet you emo heads will sit here and insist they can *feel* pain. Bollocks.

I'm sat here trying to imagine someone saying "bollocks" in an American accent.

Nope, not possible

Doesn't stop me agreeing with your post though. I've missed your posts while you were away, they are refreshingly free of "bollocks". Usually

 

[Code Monkey]

I'm sat here trying to imagine someone saying "bollocks" in an American accent.

Nope, not possible

Blame Garth Ennis for that one. John Constantine in the old Hellblazer comics used to say it all the time.

 

[cacoseraph]

i think some ppl are missing a distinction between pain and negative stimuli

pain:
http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=pain

quote:
2 a : usually localized physical suffering associated with bodily disorder (as a disease or an injury); also : a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort (as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leading to evasive action b : acute mental or emotional distress or suffering : GRIEF

this definition highlights two important things. a certain order of efferent nerves are required for pain and there is an emotional like, context to pain that requires a certain degree of sophistication.

granted m-w ain't exactly the end all and be all of knowledge, but it helps to draw a distinction between what the like, lower and higher animals experience

EDIT:

BUT!!!!
(_)_) (that's a big butt)
if you ever visit my house you will find my spiders set up in as stressless an environment as i can manage... and you won't catch me poking 'em with sticks... just cuz they can't feel pain, per se, doesn't mean stuff isn't deletorious for them

 

[Code Monkey]

if you ever visit my house you will find my spiders set up in as stressless an environment as i can manage... and you won't catch me poking 'em with sticks... just cuz they can't feel pain, per se, doesn't mean stuff isn't deletorious for them

Exactly. Negative taxis, abnormal behavioral responses, etc. are 100% signs that something is happening to the creature that is not beneficial, but it does not mean they are suffering, despairing, or slipping into depression.

Folks: anthropomorphism wasn't true with your fuzzy stuffed animals when you were wee children, it isn't true with your fuzzy spiders now that you're older

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Here is another example for you: T's are known to pull their own legs off if those are damaged. This occurs even when there is no emediate bleeding. Try taking your own leg of just because it doesn't really function as you'd like it to. Or just imagine you'd be ripping on a finger 'til it comes of or imagine cutting it off with a knife.

Even if you had the luxury of doing that just for the sensation of it I bet nothing in the world would convince you to do this because it's just too painful. Now imagine, the spider has 7 more legs it can use even if one is limp, but still it choses to take its leg off eventho it would function well with that limp attached.

That too should show you that Ts "look" on the sensation of pain differently than mammals...

 

[Code Monkey]

I have heard the nonsensical argument that states: Invert brains are not complex enough to feel pain.

At the risk of carrying out this exercise in futility at breaking through emotions masquerading as analysis any further, there is nothing nonsensical about the argument at all.

There is nothing in a tarantula or a lobster or a cricket or slug or any similar creature that physiologically demonstrates a capacity for anything beyond a creature that is largely a skinner-box with a wee bit of associative and habituative learning on top for some behavioral flexibility.

Now, go ahead and reject the best information that the scientific method can give us regarding the abilities of the nervous system of such creatures under the blanket guise of "science doesn't know everything" if you want, but keep in mind that once you leave what rational analysis tells us, you're in purely made up land.

To reject what science tells us about invert nervous systems is to put you in a sitution where I can claim that not only don't Ts feel pain, but they actually feel exquisite, exploding ecstasy from having their leg pulled off and the reaction you see is because they're afraid the pleasure will be too intense and they'll pass out and be unable to escape from a predator while in their state of bliss. Furthermore, the subsequent lack of reaction after you've pulled the leg off is because they are all blissed out.

I have every bit as much proof of that bit of anthropomorphism as you do for them suffering.

 

[NickS1004]

Well, actually, they didn't stab it in the heart, iirc. Since the heart is in the abdomen and they stabbed it through the sternum I imagine they were going for the "brain" (ganglion) of the spider.

stupid me.. i know better than that, just a brain fart.. anyways i didnt specifically mention that the spider feels "pain" beacuse its probably not the same that we feel.. but im pretty sure that being stabbed in the brain is percieved by the spider as something negative, and how exactly does it determine a negative stimuli?

and i do notice how crickets carry on normally after i rip the two back legs off for feeding it to slings

http://www.parl.gc.ca/37/2/parlbus/commbus/senate/Com-e/lega-e/witn-e/shelly-e.htm

 

[Cirith Ungol]

but im pretty sure that being stabbed in the brain is percieved by the spider as something negative

If I'm not mistaken not even humans feel pain in the brain, so you can cut and slice like Hannibal without the need of anesthesia. However, what's the point anyway of wondering wether it feels pain when stabbed in the brain? I can't think of anything else than a dead animal when it's brain is gone, so why care if it feels pain? :?

 

[aaronrefalo]

Here is another example for you: T's are known to pull their own legs off if those are damaged. This occurs even when there is no emediate bleeding. Try taking your own leg of just because it doesn't really function as you'd like it to. Or just imagine you'd be ripping on a finger 'til it comes of or imagine cutting it off with a knife.

Even if you had the luxury of doing that just for the sensation of it I bet nothing in the world would convince you to do this because it's just too painful. Now imagine, the spider has 7 more legs it can use even if one is limp, but still it choses to take its leg off eventho it would function well with that limp attached.

That too should show you that Ts "look" on the sensation of pain differently than mammals...

...
but thats obviously....we are more developed....we surly can feel more then tarantulas do...WE SURLY CANT COMPARE TARANTULI TO USE.....

Aaron

 

[NickS1004]

its not that i care that they feel pain (or even think they do) im curious as to exactly how they know they difference between something harmful and not harmful.. this goes for any inverts, not just tarantulas.. the way i see them, is that they are like tiny robots preprogrammed to to certain things, and are pretty incapable of any kinds of real "thought"

 

[Code Monkey]

its not that i care that they feel pain (or even think they do) im curious as to exactly how they know they difference between something harmful and not harmful.

Mostly hardwiring selected by millions of years of evolution modified by habituation.

Example: The cockroach has two cerci (think prongs) on the end of their abdomen. Any sudden air current as minor as what happens when you swing your foot at one is enough to stimulate these cerci. Now, although the signal does reach the brain, the first place it reaches are the abdominal ganglion for locomotion, zip, the cockroach runs away from this threat. Now, lets say the roach is an area where those cerci are bumping up against something or its breezy - wouldn't do it any good to be running about madly in this situation, so the brain actually does have some mechanism for realising the "car alarm" keeps going off and inhibits the signals from the ganglion to the legs and stops the running.

Another example showing the situational nature of their hardwiring: we all know how crafty flies are at sensing our approach and flying off avoiding us. However, try this in a very dim room and they'll not react to your approach. When it's dark, flies stop flying, simple as that. Their sensory hairs are still signalling, but the inhibition of their flight response is stronger.

 

[TmanPhil]

hmmm

seems to me that this can even go up to a further level. lets say, simple vertabrates. human perception of pain is off the charts compared to other animals. IE a snake will survive for a fairly long time with just a head. still try to eat and function. The body on the other hand may squirm for quite awhile after being parted with its dear friend. so from what the origniator of this post is saying..... the brainless body of the snake is feeling immense amounts of pain, while the head (which is pretty much a very basic brain wrapped in flesh in bone) is fairly happy with life and not feeling a thing.....hmmm

 

[Nlneff]

Of course

There are cases of humans cutting off their limbs when the alternative is death, say when pinned by a rock or something. Just saying :}

 

[Mister Internet]

Ok boys and girls, this thread has now been merged with the most recent lengthy thread on the EXACT SAME SUBJECT because I'm sick and friggin' tired of seeing them pop up like a mushroom after a bad rain as soon as someone gets bored. I reserve the right to continue to merge threads on this topic until such time as (hopefully) they are all in one place.

Please keep it civil, please keep it on topic, and please stay out of it if all you're going to do is inflame the discussion.

 

[TRowe]

...so from what the origniator of this post is saying..... the brainless body of the snake is feeling immense amounts of pain, while the head (which is pretty much a very basic brain wrapped in flesh in bone) is fairly happy with life and not feeling a thing.....hmmm

See, I would interpret that situation in the opposite manner. The body, now lacking a brain, is feeling nothing because although the nerves are firing, the signals are coming to a dead end. Due to the severed connection to the brain, the signals are no longer being received, processed and interpreted as pain. The nerves are simply firing, causing various muscles to contract... etc. I would also think that the "head" portion would feel pain at the point that it was severed. Those nerve endings may still have a connection to the brain, depending on the point at which they were severed.