Already sentient beings

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greentara
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Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2012 4:03 am

Already sentient beings

Post by greentara »

BABY fish can sense danger from inside the egg, Australian researchers say. Macquarie University biologists have found that rainbowfish embryos’ hearts speed up when they are exposed to water in which a spangled perch, one of their natural enemies, has swum.Water that has contained goldfish, an introduced predator, also sets their hearts racing – an indication that the embryos are experiencing fear.

The Australian Newspaper
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Already sentient beings

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Thanks for sharing that!

Since smells are in fact chemicals, it could be an indication that the embryos are responding to chemical changes in the environment. It doesn't mean that the experience of fear is actually occurring. When humans encounter a dangerous situation, it also triggers a rapid heart beat, increased perspiration and the hairs on the body become erect ( hence the term "hair raising") and all this occurs because the brain tells the adrenalin gland to give you a big does of juice. That juice is a molecular structure, and almost exactly the same as the molecules that are experienced as rage or anger.

However, these molecules only become experienced as fear or anger by awareness, by some cognitive witness.
Otherwise, there is no experience. It is like the digestive juices in the stomach, or the blood in your heart. Unless something triggers an awareness of those juices (such as an upset stomach) there is no experience of digestion.

Similarly, when a tree falls in the forest, it causes the vibration of molecules. But if those moving molecules (or a played -back recording of those moving molecules) do not vibrate an eardrum and that vibration is not witnessed by awareness, there is no sound, but merely the causes of sound.

So, technically, without that experience, the embryos are not already sentient beings.
Or are they? They are living, but are they aware?
Is a brain-dead person whose body is still functioning, but who has no awareness, a sentient being?
That's opening a whole new can of worms.
Fish like worms.
When these fish hatch, they can eat the worms.



here is another link to that research:
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features ... 913-2.html
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EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
Simon E.
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Re: Already sentient beings

Post by Simon E. »

greentara wrote:BABY fish can sense danger from inside the egg, Australian researchers say. Macquarie University biologists have found that rainbowfish embryos’ hearts speed up when they are exposed to water in which a spangled perch, one of their natural enemies, has swum.Water that has contained goldfish, an introduced predator, also sets their hearts racing – an indication that the embryos are experiencing fear.

The Australian Newspaper
Fear is of the affective domain. There is no reason to assume that fish have affect.
There is therefore no reason to postulate more than a simple physiological response here.
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to me.
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ClearblueSky
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Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2012 1:27 am

Re: Already sentient beings

Post by ClearblueSky »

I'm not sure if the article is saying it's something else, but it also could be a physiological reaction due to what the mother is experiencing. Just like with human embryos. But yes, I do believe it's "sentient" at that point, and a lot of teachings say the consciousness joins at the point of conception.
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