PHILOSOPHY and other bs to ponder

[Coffee]

Well, assuming that other scientists hadn't already discovered that animals are also sentient and able to communicate...etc...they'd switch to a meat diet. But it would seem far fetched to imagine that plants could do all that and animals couldn't...so basically i'd think that the squeemish would die of either starvation or guilt i guess since that doesn't leave much to eat except dirt. Or I suppose one could eat "dead" plant or animal matter that died of natural causes (getting eaten is a natural cause of death fwiw...but ignore that for the sake of this premise) a "carrion" and "compost" diet...mmmMMmmm.

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

But from Terry Pratchett's books people know that one can communicate even with university walls, so inanimate objects are out of question, too.

Since the whole world is sentient and able to communicate and feel pain... to hell with it, let's just eat each other!

[monkeyknifightz]

Originally Posted by YsaPur EsChomuw

But from Terry Pratchett's books people know that one can communicate even with university walls, so inanimate objects are out of question, too.

Since the whole world is sentient and able to communicate and feel pain... to hell with it, let's just eat each other!

Here here! I second this idea and move to vote on said subject.

All in favor of world wide cannibalism say I. All not in favor say Nay.


I

[brightpearl]

We could probably all feed on Paris Hilton's enormous ego for quite some time.

No one could argue that it's a sentient, souled entity.

[Frieda]

i'm actually serious about this one, as well as the sock dust one
i don't think all of you are taking it seriously

doesn't anybody else have these questions?


i mean, it's a serious question you know. i still don't know about vegetarianism. it's painful to eat an animal, but plants keep on living after you cut them off from their roots. you are actually eating them alive.

[brightpearl]

All right.
Well, I once heard someone say that when you look very carefully, you can see that every motion you make, every breath, every blink, has some effect on the universe. You can be careful not to hurt things as much as you can. You can swerve when a jackrabbit runs across the road. You can take care not to hurt people's feelings as well as you know how. But at many scales, both the very small and the very large, it gets much harder to see the implications of your presence in the universe. It gets impossible to predict or control. You can't stop wars alone, and you can't stop your immune system from murdering countless thousands of microbes every second. You are literally damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

And so, you "knowingly and willingly transgress," she said. You do your best, knowing that you can't avoid leaving footprints. And you accept that it's the way of things, and you love that.

Your question isn't academic, actually, even if plants have no sentience. Few vegetarians grow all their own food, carefully picking each bug off each plant through the growing season; they buy it in the store after it is grown and harvested commercially. Well, rabbits get caught in harvesters, mice get smothered in grain silos, and billions of insects are killed with natural pesticides even on organic produce. No food is really clean. Eating, life, includes death and there is no way around it.

So, I am vegetarian partly for humane reasons, but mostly for health reasons. I do really well on a vegetarian diet. I wouldn't kill an animal myself in order to feed me. But my son is not vegetarian, and I would kill an animal to feed him. So if it turns out that plants think and feel and write poetry, I guess I will go on like I do, and knowingly and willingly transgress as a part of the universe whether I like it or not.

[Hyakujo's Fox]

Originally Posted by Frieda

doesn't anybody else have these questions?

Sure, the Swiss do: http://www.ekah.admin.ch/fileadmin/e...lanze-2008.pdf

But as to the question, the reason for being vegetarian would influence how a vegetarian might react, someone who was a vegetarian purely on the grounds it was better for their health might continue to eat plants, someone who was a vegetarian due to ethical grounds might revert to being an omnivore if they thought being vegetarian was no longer a higher ethical position. Or one might reach a position where one concluded it was not ethical to live at all, and maybe continue to be a vegetarian and feel bad for doing so.

[Frieda]

^yeah i was referring to the ethical vegetarians in our population. my apologies for not pointing that out more accurately.

i'm going to read that swiss thing now

[RuneT]

Originally Posted by Frieda

i mean, it's a serious question you know. i still don't know about vegetarianism. it's painful to eat an animal, but plants keep on living after you cut them off from their roots. you are actually eating them alive.

Yes. But it's an organism without a brain, merely just different parts doing different stuff.
Fruit fo instance, is made sweet so like it should be eaten and seeds are being spread in the poo.
A tree will kill off all its leaves before winter to conserve energy. Other plants die just to barely scrape by under the soil and then come back later.
Plants kill eachother when fighting for light, soil and water.

Eat your ****ing salad!


However I also find it somwhat disturbing to eat animals. Soon they will grow meat in labs. lab meat. yeah. mmm. free range lab meat is allowed to run around freely in the lab.
Before then, we should eat better quality meat (free range) and less of it. Make a feature of it. Stop eating crap meat products. And for god sake stop feading meat to animals. Drop burgers and dogs.

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

Why does one feel surpassing statisfaction after applying nail polish?

[Frieda]

i've been pondering ^ for ages now and still don't know

it could be a combination of feeling pretty, intense concentration and being content with the result??

[Brynn]

Could it be the dual satisfaction of executing a feat of dexterity combined with an aesthetic act of control over a small corner of the universe?