Subject:
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Re: Responsible Hunting (was Re: We are what we eat. Or is that "whom we eat?")
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 5 Aug 2000 19:28:58 GMT
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Viewed:
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2951 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Tom Stangl writes:
> Christopher Weeks wrote:
> > I doubt quite seriously that a deer can connect so many things. But it • doesn't
> > seem like the same ballpark to connect motherhood memory from season to • season.
>
> That's assuming deer HAVE that complex of a longterm memory (as opposed to
Absolutely. And I could be wrong. But in many ways it seems safer to assume
similarity than difference.
> > OK, what about the desire for apple tree bark instead of grass or poison • ivy?
>
> Nope - that can be explained by the body's nutritional need for something -
Agreed, but I'm not sure it's that simple.
> I don't think you're ever going to agree with most of us on this, Chris,
Right. You're not going to change, and I'm not without some substantial body
of evidence.
> because you seem to insist on giving animals a level of free will that
> most of us agree they simply don't have.
I think simple is a good word for it.
> How you can do this with the evidence at hand I have NO idea.
What do you mean by evidence? You mean baseless claims made by lay people? I
have studied animal as related to human intelligence in a scholarly setting and
feel like the evidence is largely inconclusive. Also, I have spent thirty
years closely monitering the way that cats and to a lesser extent other various
pet-type animals act and think. And after all that, I'm quite certain that
some other mamals are quite a bit more intelligent than the average person is
willing in their ignorance to give credit for.
> > > Free will, for
> > > purposes of this discussion, implies for me an ability to act in defiance • of
> > > one's drives, such as an ability to remain celibate despite high levels of
> > > testosterone or a dieter's ability to resist tempting food despite hunger.
> >
> > What about when people fail to do so. There are many examples of humans
> > successfully defying their drives, to be sure. But many of the opposite as
> > well. Does that color your take on free will, or is the ability to
> > deny impulse, determined even just once, enough to put an organism over the
> > threshhold of self-deterministic?
>
> You are taking a very small minority and trying to paint the brush over
> all of the human race
Actually I'm not. If you claim a rule exists, it has to exist for all the
circumstances that it claims to cover. I'm not trying to paint people at all.
> > From where does your surity arise? I agree that humans have biochemical • drives
> > and sometimes do not act on them.
>
> SOMETIMES?!?
My verbiage was chosen for precision not to imply anything beyond what is said.
> If I (or any male) acted on our drives all the time, EVERY • female on
> the planet with active sexual plumbing would be pregnant at all times.
Not if they didn't let us impregnate them.
> > And I agree that other animals have
> > biochemical drives and at least typically act on them.
>
> Almost always, I would tend to say.
I believe that phrase "at least typically" means "usually or more."
> Oh? So they threw every woman they ran into onto the ground, ripped their • clothes
> off, and raped them?
I guess our drives are somewhat different Tom. I had been assuming, foolishly
I see in retrospect, that other men felt the way I do. Which is to say,
generally horny but not violently so.
> Come on, now. Quit equating RECREATIONAL sex to sex drive -
I never did. Rather than thinking that they are the same, I think that one
leads to the other. Our sex drive leads us to seek out sex which we enjoy.
> one is for simple enjoyment, the other is hormonal,
So when a creature has sex "for hormonal reasons" (whatever that means) they
don't enjoy it? Hogwash.
> and they are quite different.
> I would argue that a good 95% or more of male college sex is purely
> recreational
And hormonal to boot.
You seem to think that my equating hormonal drive with recreational sex (which
I still assert I didn't exactly do) is ludicrous. I happen to think that your
high-handed seperation of hormones and the pursuit of recreational sex is
ludicrous. What if I could demonstrate to you that chemically depleting a male
of testosterone wildly WILDLY decreased their nearly constant desire for sex
and radically changed the way they looked at sexuality. I do have a bunch of
informal qualitative research that I can share, I think.
> > > just as
> > > a human female doesn't have to entice a male when she's at the height of
> > > estrus, because humans are able to curtail their drives.
> >
> > Or is it because estrus is a much weaker drive in humans than in most • species?
>
> Only because female humans are able to procreate a large majority of the year,
> rather than somewhat short to EXTREMELY short parts of the year.
Possibly so. But that doesn't change or deflect my point in the least.
> You seem to think humans are more animal than they are
For the record I don't. :-)
> - if human males were so weak,
Weak? Are you equating animalness with weakness or are you suggesting that I
have?
> strip clubs wouldn't exist, as the strippers would get tired of
> being raped repeatedly on stage.
Whatever.
> You must have a VERY low opinion of the human race.
Nope. I have a fairly high opinion of all the various species. At least as
much as they're quite interesting.
> > Maybe it is that there are more than two states (sentient and not) of
> > life that account for the differences we see.
>
> No, you just want to ignore free will in the definition of sentience,
> while many others here do not.
Well, to whatever degree accuracy interests you, free will has nothing to do
with sentience...but that's only if you want to be technically correct. So I
take this to mean that you reject the notion that there is a spectrum of the
various intelligence-like attributes, and that a creature is either human-like
in intelligence or it is animal and wildly inferior?
> > What about the people who knowingly damage themselves through sexuality.
> > I know people who have had unprotected sex with
> > partner that they had every reason to expect were infected with a deadly
virus.
> And they are making a WILLFUL choice to continue the relationship - obvious
In some of the cases. I know that there are people who become aroused and do
stupid stuff like have unprotected sex. I've done it. It was not a willful
choice. Chemicals were blocking my normally good sense.
> has gone into their choice, because if they were just rutting, they could just • as
> easily dump the person and find someone else to rut with.
In other cases you are quite correct and I withdraw the argument. I still
think it has bearing, but not really the way I promoted it. Thank you.
> MOREso enough to me to make them steak for my dinner. And no amount of • argument
> will change my mind on that, even if the line is fuzzy for me (I define it on
I believe you and don't expect to change your mind. In fact, the discussion
wouldn't have come this far if it had been you on the other end.
Chris
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