No it hasn’t been. Cockroaches, lobsters, and other arthropods have a decentralized nervous system. They have ganglia throughout their entire body instead of one centralized brain. These ganglia can react to stimuli independent of the other ones.
Yes, “decentralised”, “can react to”, but what about perceiving? That’s what modern mortality cares about. Most plants react to stabbing but since there isn’t any processing unit of such signals, we humans don’t take moral punishment from doing so. We don’t emphasize non-sensual creatures.
Honestly they may not be able to perceive in any way we would recognize. Arthropods are about as distant as you can get from humans while still being in the animal kingdom, were in Maine and they’re in American Samoa. So while they most certainly perceive the question of sentience in the more traditional sense is up for debate, though there is at least one species of spider that has a proto-brain so it isn’t universal.
So does this mean stab the lobsters or don’t stab the lobsters? I was raised on the NE shore and have cooked hundreds of lobsters, I used to do the trick of putting them face down and stroking the spine, that would work ok but they wake up when you move them to the pot. I started stabbing the lobsters a few summers ago after a chef I worked with told me I should be, but I wasn’t convinced it was a lot more humane and it’s not fun if there’s kids around lol.
I can’t tell you for sure which is quicker or more painless. I’m not a marine biologist and even if I were I don’t think I’d have the answer on another creature’s consciousness. Personally I think it’s really just cope and it’s splitting hairs at that point. You just need to face the fact that you’re killing and eating a living creature.
I’ve got no qualms with killing and eating something, I make an effort to dispatch those animals as quickly and humanely as possible, thus the question.
No it hasn’t been. Cockroaches, lobsters, and other arthropods have a decentralized nervous system. They have ganglia throughout their entire body instead of one centralized brain. These ganglia can react to stimuli independent of the other ones.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-cockroach-can-live-without-head/
Yes, “decentralised”, “can react to”, but what about perceiving? That’s what modern mortality cares about. Most plants react to stabbing but since there isn’t any processing unit of such signals, we humans don’t take moral punishment from doing so. We don’t emphasize non-sensual creatures.
Honestly they may not be able to perceive in any way we would recognize. Arthropods are about as distant as you can get from humans while still being in the animal kingdom, were in Maine and they’re in American Samoa. So while they most certainly perceive the question of sentience in the more traditional sense is up for debate, though there is at least one species of spider that has a proto-brain so it isn’t universal.
So does this mean stab the lobsters or don’t stab the lobsters? I was raised on the NE shore and have cooked hundreds of lobsters, I used to do the trick of putting them face down and stroking the spine, that would work ok but they wake up when you move them to the pot. I started stabbing the lobsters a few summers ago after a chef I worked with told me I should be, but I wasn’t convinced it was a lot more humane and it’s not fun if there’s kids around lol.
I can’t tell you for sure which is quicker or more painless. I’m not a marine biologist and even if I were I don’t think I’d have the answer on another creature’s consciousness. Personally I think it’s really just cope and it’s splitting hairs at that point. You just need to face the fact that you’re killing and eating a living creature.
I’ve got no qualms with killing and eating something, I make an effort to dispatch those animals as quickly and humanely as possible, thus the question.