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Comment by carmen_sandiego | Hacker News Reader

Proof is a Math thing. I'm comfortable with the weight of evidence from all the tests we devise for this purpose, combined with the fact we actively strive to show the consciousness of animals in a way we never did with slaves. You're free to disagree and consider it hubris, many animal rights activists do.

N.B. I don't believe we fully understand consciousness. Just that factory farm animal consciousness is categorically not at a human level.

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Proof is a Math and Logic thing.

If we're being pedantic, I just consider Logic a branch of Mathematics.

and I consider mathematics a branch of logic

If it's about reason and what we can know, it belongs to epistemology. Since you're being categorical.

Isn't it the other way around?

Technically I'm not sure it's really true either way. Well, there's some debate that we could get bogged down in, but really I'm just an old Math major having fun with that comment.

What are you talking about?? Only the conscious can feel pain now? Or the misery of being separated from its nursing offspring? Results of all of these things measurably correlate with human hormonal and physiological responses. Again what are you talking about???

It's a science, not a 'math thing'. Yours in an old fashioned conservative retreat into avoiding reason or ethical considerations.

BTW I don't consider myself an activist.

Their first point is one of epistemology. You asked them to prove it but that's outside of the scope of science. Proof is deductive and certain, whereas science (outside of math) is empirical and only asymptotes on certainty as theories remain unrefuted. Scientists have theories that can at best converge on truth and don't think in terms of proof.

This notwithstanding, the ethical concerns seem premature. Shouldn't we wait for information on an actual concrete proposal? Perhaps it can be done with very little of the brain and when coupled with FMRI we can be sure enough that it isn't experiencing conscious states. But all this seems premature and subject to the actual details.

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