We underestimate the intelligence of most animals. So, yes.
And this is usually because we measure intelligence by our own standards, rather than theirs.
“What’s normal to the spider is not normal to the fly.”
Gary Larson knew.
This is just dumb. Of course cows use tools. There’s a small dairy farm near where I live, that has an automatic milking station in one end of the barn. Whenever one of the cows feels like their udder is too full, they just walk into the station, and it clips onto them and starts milking.
They aren’t stupid. They know what it is, and what it does…and they use it. Consciously.
IMO the important thing isn’t just the use of objects, but the planning involved. Picking up a broomstick with your mouth doesn’t feel good, so there’s no reason the cow would do it for more than a moment unless she were already thinking ahead to its possible future use.
That’s cool. One day people will have sufficient empathy for consciousness that we’ll stop eating them.
There is a growing body of science that plants may have more consciousness than we originally thought (like this tool use by cows).
Assuming this becomes established fact, it would be hard to find something to eat that wasn’t conscious.
Not the person you originally replied to, but eating plants directly would at least be a sort of harm reduction in that case. It takes a lot more plants to raise non-human animals than to just use plants directly. This is also a big part of why the environmental impact is so high for meat, dairy, etc.
1 kg of meat requires 2.8 kg of human-edible feed for ruminants and 3.2 for monogastrics
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211912416300013
We really have to stretch the definition of consciousness to get there.
But sure. Let’s get to that point and worry about it then. Rather than wait around for more research and kill things we know are conscious.
It’s a decent thought experiment now.
As long as you are not using it as a reason to continue your oppression, I don’t mind you doing any thought experiment
Yes.
Cows are smart. Sheep are very dumb. IMO
