How much confidence would you give to the statement: “Whiteleg shrimps are sentient”?
I think the best explanation for the behavior of shrimp and animals is sentience. Sure, it’s not impossible that the behavior of a shrimp in response to negative stimuli is all a complex system of reflexes, and this has some additional weight due to the small number of neurons that white shrimp have, but even reflexes in humans are rarely as complex and contextual as would be needed to describe all of the behavior that being capable of suffering would provide shrimp and other similar creatures.
Furthermore, if you grant that non-mammalian species, such as octopus, have independently developed the capacity for pain, then that greatly increases the likelihood that shrimp feel pain, as shrimp have similar evolutionary incentives as other animals, such as avoiding predators, starvation, and other dangerous situations.
However, it’s important to note that I think shrimp likely experience the world very differently from us.
I get your point—but which behaviors do you consider “complex enough” to be best explained by sentience? Which criterions do they fall into, or rather, where do you cross the line between a very complex system of reflexes and sentience?
On evolutionary incentives, it is true that nociception is particularly well conserved throughout the animal kingdom for this reason, but sentience might be “too expensive” for somes species to get or keep. Directors of Welfare Footprint Institute described this idea as the “sentience bargain” in this post if that’s of interest for readers
I think the best explanation for the behavior of shrimp and animals is sentience. Sure, it’s not impossible that the behavior of a shrimp in response to negative stimuli is all a complex system of reflexes, and this has some additional weight due to the small number of neurons that white shrimp have, but even reflexes in humans are rarely as complex and contextual as would be needed to describe all of the behavior that being capable of suffering would provide shrimp and other similar creatures.
Furthermore, if you grant that non-mammalian species, such as octopus, have independently developed the capacity for pain, then that greatly increases the likelihood that shrimp feel pain, as shrimp have similar evolutionary incentives as other animals, such as avoiding predators, starvation, and other dangerous situations.
However, it’s important to note that I think shrimp likely experience the world very differently from us.
I get your point—but which behaviors do you consider “complex enough” to be best explained by sentience? Which criterions do they fall into, or rather, where do you cross the line between a very complex system of reflexes and sentience?
On evolutionary incentives, it is true that nociception is particularly well conserved throughout the animal kingdom for this reason, but sentience might be “too expensive” for somes species to get or keep. Directors of Welfare Footprint Institute described this idea as the “sentience bargain” in this post if that’s of interest for readers
Thanks for your input :)