Do Insects Feel Pain?
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- Опубліковано 21 жов 2024
- Do insects feel pain? This is a very important ethical question when it comes to experimenting with insects and other invertebrates that aren't cephalopods or lobsters. Determining what pain is and whether an organism has that experience is not without its challenges, and we delve into what we do and don't know about pain in other animals in today's episode.
Check out our collaboration over on Neurotransmissions:
Do Bugs Have Brains?
• Do Bugs Have Brains?
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Inés Dawson (Draw Curiosity) is a science youtuber, and a PhD student researching the biomechanics of insect flight.
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I hope you found today's video interesting - I'd love to hear your opinion on the matter.
Before you go - don't forget to check out the video we made over on Neurotransmissions: *Do Bugs Have Brains?* ua-cam.com/video/omA7haUBLHc/v-deo.html
It's very interesting and expertly edited!
Certainly an interesting question. It'll be interesting if science is able to come up with some device that can measure pain, if any in living things.
Last evening my wife showed me an amusing meme called Know Your Bees (easily found on Pinterest). It reminded me of one of your videos. I think bees are pretty interesting.
If you accept that other people are real and have internal worlds of their own (which I hope we all do, at least after that week in our teens where we watched The Matrix!), then the reason why we believe they do falls to the similarity of our central nervous systems, especially our brains. Then we realise that other mammals like apes have similar brains too - not identical, but still ones with areas associated with memory and perception and so on, which we understand to play roles in consciousness. And then we say ok not just apes but also dogs have brains, not just mammals but other vertebrates, and so on. And the crucial thing is that there isn't any definitive cut off point anywhere that says "this brain is conscious and this one isn't", it's all quantitative shifts rather than qualitative shifts. And so it carries on - insects have very rudimentary brains, but still a million neurons; take the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans with its three hundred neurons, it's still a question of degree not kind in difference to the human brain. And finally if we had just one neuron firing on its own, this would still be a matter of difference in kind. It's still cognate with our experience, just inestimably reduced.
So what is special about the neuron? Well, probably nothing, we can probably achieve its role with an artificial 'neuron', electrically excited transfer of information. But there wouldn't seem to be any reason why it would need to be electrically excited, the transfer of information would seem to be enough. That alone would seem to be the simple bedrock of consciousness. But everything transfers information - although often inefficiently and slowly - except what's beyond the event horizons of black holes.
So in conclusion, given these apparently reasonable assumptions, I'm a panpsychic, I think that everything must be conscious in some way, even though it may be vastly different and greatly reduced from my experience. Consciousness must be intrinsic to everything in the universe. So I treat flies with a bit more respect these days. A million neurons is still a million specialised cells optimised for transfer of information... pretty impressive all things considered! :) Though I'm a realist too - plug 'n' play remote control insects are probably not the highest ethical priority in the world right now! (That should probably be to prevent those sneaky crickets.)
Congrats on your PhD, cool channel, just stumbled on it tonight. Really interesting subject matters, not dumbed down. Thumbs up!
I used to fish and I'd use fly larvae (maggots). When ever I'd put a hook through the tail end, the head would bite one of the fingers holding it. Why would the maggot not bite at the thing being pushed in to it but would bite at my finger? It has enough of a mind to put together, that my fingers and the hook were related and by biting at something soft (my finger) and not the hook, something hard, it might have the result of stopping the hook from stabbing it.
I think that's complex enough behaviour, that the maggot is feeling pain.
I'm not really explaining it right but that's the best I can do. Insects do feel pain but its impossible to see much because of its exoskeleton, so all we have to go on is how desperately it tries to avoid the thing giving it pain, to the point of attacking the thing preventing its escape (my fingers).
By the way, you have great hair.
@@davec5153 yes!! She does have brilliant hair! Thick, long, dark, and that braid...just beautiful
Anyone else here cos they recently killed something
ugh mosquito
I'm here to make sure when I torture mosquitos the feel the pain for giving my dog heartworms.
Danni Chesney Well that’s what the vet said
Tf u torturing insects for
@@rattheeternal7658 because its fun
Well, let's assume that most creatures feel pain to some degree, and be as respectful as we can.
That’s why I don’t kill bugs
Because they don’t deserve it
@@Mynameishassan0 yeah welcome mosquitos and malaria right
actually no i take that back they didnt choose to be that way lets just fuck malaria instead
Syris of Lemuria cmon we all kno they feel it all
All of it
@@Jp-ui3fw no, we dont all know. because its not true. insects cannot feel pain like humans do. they can sense that they are damaged like an alarm going off telling them something is wrong but their brains are so small that i dont think they would bother evolving to feel more pain then they can.
Bugs when a shadow passes over the:
**FUCKING RUNNNNNNNNN**
Also bugs, when a mantis is ripping them in half and feasting on their organs:
"Oh, I should clean my antenna, one sec..."
Lol 😂
I see this on a daily basis, half eaten cockroach still cleaning the legs it has left as though nothing is happening...
Wow, that is an impressively long braid.
she looks like my red dead horse no cap
@@michaelperreault4239 rude much
@@sonardia9548 What's rude about this?
That braid is Viking-Level
Now that u said i cant stop stairg
That lack of braid is Diking level
Now that you said it I can't stop picturing her as a viking lol
@@nuthintoprove yoooooooo 💀
Its fake. Still cool tho
It was so great collaborating with you, Inés! Can’t wait to do it again! Maybe next time we’ll come to your side of the pond!.😜
Are you two vegan?
@@lilithstorm7026 Then the question comes do plants feel pain? What difference does their diet make to science?
@@colinp2238 From what I understand plants do not experience pain in the way that we, animals and some insects do. Do you really think stabbing a dog is the same as chopping a carrot? Is picking an apple from a tree is the same as taking a baby cow away from her mother like they do in the dairy industry?
I asked about diet because surely people who understand that even insects feel pain, wouldn't want to support the pain and suffering of any sentient being just so they can enjoy the taste of their flesh or secretions.
@@lilithstorm7026 That was not the point of my comment, as I asked what difference is their dietary prefrences to do with the science?
@@colinp2238 I felt like I had answered both questions. Being vegan is not a diet preference it's a choice to not support any form of animal abuse or exploitation (which applies to insects too) Like I said I asked because I'm curious if someone who is so aware that even insects feel pain, would they still pay for the suffering of other sentient beings.
The science is that like the insects mentioned, the animal's people eat also feel pain. However, the question directed at them is more based on morality than science.
I'm just a human asking other humans a question.
Lobsters could be an interesting test case for an even bigger ethical headache. Lobsters have about 100,000 neurons (says Wikipedia), which is small enough it can *already* be replicated (as an artificial neural network) on a normal home computer, a few hundred times faster than real-time.
I understand that it's difficult to be sure, even in the case of biological neural networks such as lobsters, yet we *need* to be able to say with confidence if things are capable of suffering, just to make sure we don't accidentally make AI which can suffer without realising what we've done.
This is a real ethical concern, but I would point out that there are still vast differences between neural networks and brains. Most do not use neurons that are anywhere near a good approximation of real neurons. They are now just a trivial mathematical function in these models. In more neural oriented work they often use another simple model of a neuron known as an integrate and fire model. Also very simple. In my own work we used a much more biologically complete model, that developed by Hodgkin and Huxley's work on the giant squid axon. This is a compartmental model with several ion channels modeled with differential equations. Of course, it could be argued that this is not relevant to the actual function of the brain, but that it is the network structure that matters. Well, I have some good news in a sense there as well. The models they use currently are practically 100% feed forward. Even those that are not, like adversarial networks, really are, because they're two models trying to fool each other, and outputs fed back in are not placed into internal parts of the network, just back at the beginning. It's possible that I'm wrong, but I suspect that a more complex internal structure is necessary for real thought. All I've seen come from AI are glorified correlation machines. For those of us that work on real brains though, the ethics are much more tricky. There are people that work on understanding the formation of memories that grow neurons on a plate in the lab... and they form networks... and then the researcher attempts to induce and recall memories on this network. I think AI research has drifted to practical problems mostly these days and few are even trying to advance actual artificial intelligence, so I think that field is not likely to encounter this issue too soon, but it is a very real concern and of more relevance right now in neuroscience. And should we worry only about pain... what if you lab grown brain isn't in pain, but is suffering from depression?
@@zvxcvxcz A fascinating subject! Could you point to some introductory sources for further reading perhaps? :)
@@zvxcvxcz Isn't depression processed in the same region of the brain as pain?
@Ben, as somebody who studied neural networks as a minor subject at the university, I could say that today’s model of MLP is sooo far from a real neural network (and so are more modern models like transformers, GAN, CNN, LSTM). From a mathematical point of view, it is just a computational graph, so we cannot expect it to suffer pain in the nearest future (or we should expect series object to experience pain, although it is incorrect to compare neural network and series from mathematical point of view)
I feel much pity for the Lobster. They do experience pain! I do NOT eat or harm them!
I can't imagine any living organism to not experience some sort of negative smiluli, other wise what is stopping an insect from flying directly into fire for example, they know to avoid that.
Hi Inés Hi Alie 🙂
I love the point you make towards the end. Pain or no pain, treat animals with respect.
Awesome collab!
Idk if animalscan always feel that respect tho 😕
We dont know if bugs are similar to something like bacteria, if so you make no sense.
Vegan here. Are you Vegan?
Inquixotic u didn’t ask me, but I am :p, maybe this response will get them back into the comment thread
I can’t the respect part, but insects that can’t feel pain is sad.
Well idk why would you respect some insects or arachnids like ticks maggots flies mosquitos since they are danger to earth
Insects are essentially like mammals , in the sense that they function in the same way. They have a circulatory and nervous system and breath oxygen. I think it's safe to say by deductive reasoning that they also experience fear, pain and other sensations and emotions. I came to this conclusion with out the need to perform a single experiment on an insect.
I wouldn’t say they’re “essentially like mammals:
They have orders of magnitude fewer neurons, and their brains and nervous system are fundamentally different than ours, they lack most of the parts of a brain like ours that would result in emotions, they don’t have amygdalas, or hippocampus-es. Yea they’re biological organisms that are part of the same tree of life that we are, with about a billion years of evolution separating us.
Insects are amazing creatures and they for sure feel sensations like hot/cold/pressure, and they can execute complex behaviors and tasks, but we aren’t really sure if they’re even self-aware. The decent which a bug knows he’s a bug is questionable, and everything we know about biology and neuroscience says that pain, as we define it, being a complex interplay between pain receptors and the thalamus, is a part of consciousness, and requires similar brain hardware.
It’s more a question about how aware of themselves are they, and to what degree do they even have a concept of pain.
No, you shouldn’t kill bugs Just for fun, or torture them, obviously, but nature itself routinely and mercilessly massacre hordes of animals and insects since the dawn of time, but I think every person has a sense that insects are expendable, we don’t go out of our way to harm them, but as soon as they’re in our way or cause us the slightest inconvenience we don’t think twice about destroying them. Life is especially cheap for insects it seems.
I'm an insect and I feel pain
Which insect are you???
Niggabeatle
Lowkickbug
MilkWeedBug?
Fo4 Re7 😹
They feel heat and they feel fear. This I know. They also feel discomfort too. I know this for a fact. I've seen a small bug trapped in a fire pit racing around in desperation trying to escape from the flames. It ran faster and faster in circles trying to get to safety. I tried to catch it but I wasn't fast enough. Ill never forget that. Also I used to tickle these caterpillars with a soft feather and they would toss their heads about trying to stop this sensation. Which was quite awful of me, I'm ashamed to say... That goodness I got wiser after seeing the little bug in the fire .
It’s a bug. You’re just pathetic if you feel any sympathy over it. Humans fought World War 2 last century to save the free world from evil. Now humans care if bugs have feelings. We got so advanced our brains devolved
Lol no they don’t buddy they are just performing an action not because they want to but because they’re programmed to. For instance, if you messed with a wasp nest and the wasp notices it, no matter how big, how scary, or however much of a threat you may seem it will have no choice but to try to sting you every, single, time. If it really had a choice and could experience fear it wouldn’t think twice about just flying away, it doesn’t sting you because it wants to but it stings you because thats what it’s programmed to do.
What a tricky problem - especially for those of us working with these model organisms. Thanks for sharing!
the braid is insane! love it.
I feel that an insect probably does feel pain - just not in the same way we do obviously. Therefore approaching them on the assumption that they do feel pain is more humane. In any case, great video - enjoyed it!
Great comment enjoyed it! If insects could feel pain, they would limp or show physical signs of it, in which they do not. You are full of yourself.
@@alienextraterrestrial113 Are you suggesting that insects don't shows any signs of distress when exposed to what we would imagine to be painful experiences?
In relation to this subject, I often think of a statement made by a former coworker, regarding the attractions at a Hormel pork processing plant open house. These included a spectacle of herding the pigs with electric shocks in the floor to the apparent distress of the pigs, and the delight of some of the human observers. This display has since been shut down due to ethical concerns brought by PETA or similar. My coworker voiced the opinion that the pigs had been brought there to be slaughtered for meat, so it didn't matter how they were treated. I couldn't think of anything to say at the time, but I have since thought that although we may conclude that we have the right to sacrifice some other vertebrates to enhance our own survival and quality of life, it is callous to deliberately increase their suffering before the time they are sacrificed. We do violence to ourselves by giving no consideration to the suffering of these beings.
Very well said - "we do violence to ourselves by giving no consideration to the suffering of these beings"
I don't understand why 'pain' requires an emotional response.
Pain is your brain telling you that something harming you. If a bug steps on a hot surface it will jump or fly off. Because it is causing harm. It doesn't just stand there and fry.
An emotional response to pain is just that: 'an emotional response' to pain. It's a Cause and Effect. But the emotional response is only an effect and not the only effect of pain. It's does not work backwards: if you feel pain, then you cry does not mean if you cry then it's because you feel pain.
So, YES, they feel pain because pain is a sign of harm being done and bugs will avoid things that cause harm.
That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
Maybe you should educate yourself, instead of doubling down on your layman explanation.
Reflexive responses by themselves are not conscious and do not guarantee that a pain sensation is experienced.
When a doctor hit your knee with a hammer and your leg goes up, does that mean you felt pain?
Sorry to say but that is an immediate reflex that causes the knee jerk reflex; however, it may also be processed by higher centres (in the brain) and based on prior experiences and emotional states you may or may not experience pain. I test reflexes on a daily basis my intent is not to cause pain but rather to test the spinal cord reflex. However, there are still some patients that feel "pain" (based on the previous statement) while the majority do not and may just shrug it off and some even laugh. Does this mean striking the knee is comedic and causes laughter? No you felt a mechanical stimulation that the spinal cord responded to and then the brain interpreted as threat or no threat then other centres may look at it as humours.@@pabrodi
One thing that may be relevant to this is that many small arthropod species display responses which may be distress, even if its not physical pain. For example, Wolf Spider mothers have been observed as agitated when dealing with offspring that aren't their own, but will never kill them. If the baby is eventually accepted by the new mother, it is done after persistently being kicked away by the mother, who may also take out her stress by attacking nearby small objects. Likewise, a species of stick insect I can't remember the name of has been known to mate for life, and may die shortly after its mate does despite there not being an evolutionary incentive to. They live fairly long in ideal conditions (3 years), so there's no evolutionary reason they'd be doing this rather than seeking a new mate. Similar to vertebrates known for strong emotional bonds with others, they may well be dying of stress from the loss of their loved one.
Eucantha calcarata is the species name
I'm pretty sure they do, at least cockroaches. As a kid i captured one and the movements it made as i held a flame to it was a clear indication that it didnt like it at all.
Maybe we are “humanizing” the experience of other animals. As you pointed out, they must be treated, above all, with respect. Though I’m not a biologist, probably their “pain”, “discomfort” (human terms, restricted to our experience) or whatever, follows a mechanism we won’t ever be able to tell or understand completely since we can’t feel it.
Great video!
You answer or cover very interesting questions. I really enjoy the format you have chosen to present the information in a interesting way that warrants further investigation. Keep up the good work.
They can feel pain but cannot suffer from pain because their nervous system is very simple
Whats the difference?
@@Aldarinnthey aren’t concious enough to experience suffering or any trauma,if they get their legs cut they will just try to walk normally.
Idk, on another post a guy said he dropped hot food on his hissing cockroach & it went on for a bit with a similar response to a person who had boiling water thrown in their face. If not feeling pain, why such a similar reaction?
I also want to know your thoughts on insects that have been sprayed with bleach. Do you think they wouldn't be able to suffer & feel the pain of the chemicals killing them based on the simplicity of their makeup?
Quick answer is: we don't actually know for certain.
Consider following, spider, starfish or lizard (probably more) who can detach body parts at will, is the effected detachment site blocked of pain? if insects do have capacity to feel pain, why do they often walk into dangerous if not deadly situations?
@WWE is my city where did i get this info from? personal observation, insects flying into my glass of water and drowning, moths flying into flames or lights. Plenty of other examples in nature documentories.
As for losing legs, its a survival trick, a leg rather than your life, since they can grow back.
I love how all "studies" about the lobster feeling pain, are always "inconclusive". 🤦🏻♂️
Maybe because it's indeed inconclusive
This has nothing to do with insects, but your long thick hair, large braids, is absolutely beautiful. Had to comment on that.
um you didnt have to comment that, thats creepy dude
@@magentamoth621 but it is beautiful. I thought so too.
I'm not a creep. It's a very nice braid.
@@magentamoth621 Creepy if you're a mangina, feminist, or both
Magenta Freak How’s that creepy? I get how some comments about appearance can come off as creepy but they’re literally just saying they have nice hair. That’s not even remotely sexual or objectifying.
@@aprilblenk ikr it’s like ppl can’t say anything now 😔
I cut off half of an ants leg and remember it running and flickering itself which definitely looks like it's in tremendous pain
Give it poison and it’ll feel pain, cut of a ants leg and it’ll feel pain, sometimes when dissecting a insect alive they will give the most horrific dream haunting scream ever. They feel pain, and worse yet is the fact that the pain lasts longer for them because on most insects they have multiple brains
This is just from my own research however(I also discovered that you can replace certain veins with plant stems, and replace certain organs with a combination of plant stems and clay on insects)Though if you’re going to test this yourself I would knock the insect out first( I’ve killed a lot of insects with this experiment)
Also if you experiment on baby insects you’re a monster and something’s wrong with you
That braid tho 👌
Interesting video.
Your question of do insects (or lobsters) feel pain beings up further questions. It's probably not enough to say "that lobster feels pain." There's also a question of the degree of pain and the implications of that pain. A lobster twitching its tail is far, far different from the screaming in agony that a person would do if boiled alive.
Can humans feel pain? We know that they can exhibit behavior suggesting pain and even communicate feeling pain, but are they really? How can we be sure without science?
Boiling lobsters, whether or not they feel pain, just seems so barbaric if we’re going to be civilized.
Yes, so barbaric to boil food.
@@alienextraterrestrial113 I’m talking about a living animal.
Pain or no pain they are important for the ecosystem and deserve respect like all creatures
Killing flies is a hobby of mine
BLACK OUT UNIT 62 I cut a beetle in half and I’m letting it walk around now
@@blackoutunit6276 same to Mosquito
: 3 true, bless your heart ❤️
I try my best to save any insect around me... Not because of they're important for the ecosystem but because I don't wanna harm qny of them and I can't see anybody in discomfort... and when I save them I feel good.
They may not feel pain from the loss of a leg, but fire causes every being pain.
Thank you for this!
I’ve always wanted a chameleon, but was sad to learn that their diet REQUIRED live bugs. No dried bugs or supplements would do. This pretty much immediately crushed my hope of having a chameleon, because I can’t stand being confronted with any kind of animal fear or suffering.
Since then, some people have tried to tell me that it would be fine because crickets can’t feel pain and fear. So I appreciate very much the different angles you looked at this!
I feel you. I just don't want pets that directly require the suffering or death of other sentient beings. Did you get the chameleon?
@@Kanzu999 I haven't! Still can't get beyond my original hangup.
@@retrospectors6595 While I am just a stranger on the internet, I don't think we can say with certainty what the experience of a cricket is like. And when there is this uncertainty, and we care about ethics, we should make the assumption that they their subjective experience does matter and that we shouldn't just act towards them however we'd like without a strong justification.
So I believe that it would be the right thing for you to not get the chameleon.
@@Kanzu999 That's my feeling exactly. I hoped I might hear some scientific fact that would tie it up in a bow, but I doubt such a fact exists, nor do I think it's possible to be certain. And if there's even a chance of their pain, I'm not touchin' it.
Pain and discomfort by this definition are separate and discomfort plus bad thoughts equal emotional pain. I’m not saying insects have complex emotions but they do need feedback to move around so they must feel something. I imagine being torn apart by something can’t be pleasant. They wouldn’t avoid it if it were pleasant right?
I think insects do feel pain just because of their hyper sensitivity and awareness to their environment and changes in their environment. If they can sense when they're in danger, amongst other things, why wouldn't they be able to feel pain. They can feel when it's cold or hot.
Very interesting, keep bringing this type of content.
According to your conclusion, it's more ethnically correct to avoid eating/ killing mammals than insects.
The order of animals, or even living things on that matter, which where it is oke to be killed because of human individuals, seems to me like an open question, which itself could and should be answered, just like you did in the video!
Or in 40 years we could just assemble our own food with machines
Studying pain, ticklish sensations and how our emotional psychy reacts to it helps us understand the difference between us and other organic life in general. This also helps us understand how human consciousness set us apart from the rest of all life on the planet. Understanding "how" is key to the bigger question of "why". Do ants have wants? We know they have needs, but do they have aspirations for anything? The answers behind these questions will greatly improve our understanding of ourselves
You know, this is something that I have thought about my whole life. Why would a creator make something like fish and land animals to feel pain really bad, if they need to eat eachother to live. If so, it's just really cruel. Today, I had a centipede in my room, and I scooped it up with a little cup, and put it outside my third floor window on a ledge. Me not thinking, it's hot outside, but was in the shade, put it on the ledge, and then it got caught in a spider web. I took it out of the spider web and did my best with a really small pair of scissors to untangle it, but then all of the sudden, it just stopped moving completely. I did not try to at all, but I don't know if the heat or the spider web had killed it, or it was playing dead, but I try to not hurt or harm anything, no matter what it is. If I knew that they didn't feel pain, well then I wouldn't have felt so bad. I sat it out front like I should have in the first place, but I just wonder if the heat or web killed it. I feel horrible for the centipede, cause I don't wish pain or cruelty on nothing anymore, I should have just left it be, but my scared of bugs ass didn't.
It worries me a lot that we could end up harming and killing 10s of thousands of insects in our lifetime if we switch from a meat to insect based diet. If we underestimated how much pain they feel that would be horrible.
To be fair, thrashing is just about the only thing that worm could do when it was stabbed. That looks a lot like pain to me.
Great collaboration, guys! I’ve always wondered this, given how far bugs can fall off a person and seemingly be fine. They’re definitely very interesting!
The bigger they are the harder they fall, so the smaller they are the softer they fall. Bugs are super humanly durable so they can survive that drop. Tarantulas however will explode
Do cockroaches feel pain when sprayed ? They react by running around very fast . It looks terrible. I would much rather prefer to smash them quickly for a quick painless death but they are very fast , they might get mutilated. Which I don't want.
I don't like cockroaches but I don't want them to die in a painful way either
They feel fear ..I've seen that ! When I was a child I saw a woodlice trapped in wood that my mother was burning off . The poor thing was trying to escape from the flames. It ran faster and faster in mounting desperation. I tried to put my hands into the fire to catch it but sadly I wasn't fast enough and it fell into the flames .
😓🥺RIP poor woodlice
The response of cockroaches to spray or someone stomping on them where they flail their legs viciously seems to me a very obvious sign of pain. Mentioned this because it is an experience almost everyone has had.
To me it seems logical that the capacity to feel pain must have evolved alongside mobility. And insects are certainly mobile. It is true that we can't know exactly how another being with an anatomy very different from our own is experiencing reality, but I definitely think we should err on the side of caution.
At least some insect species, like bees, have shown signs of great intelligence (among other things they even seem to have an understanding of the concept of zero). I realise that the capacity of intelligent thinking doesn't necessarily mean that being also has the capacity to feel pain, but it certainly does mean awareness of some kind.
Just watched the Neurotransmissions video and it was superb as well. Both of these videos would be very useful in classrooms. I would enjoy listening to a discussion between Dr. Alie and Temple Grandin regarding this topic.
Every organism with a nervours system, I think, feels pain because it's a defensive mechanism and when you still feel pain while you keep moving and don't know what causes you pain, it's panic. My guess is those insects are panicking but are not able to display in another form than running away (but you could try hurting a centipede, he got some interestings ways to display his discomfort). But I'm no neuroscientist, it's just my two cents.
I don't know if the term "panic" applies unless it is more broadly defined, but pain is distinctly beneficial as a defensive mechanism. It is hard to remove our emotional human perspectives when observing these events.
My two cents, again, is that pain and fear (the instant version one) are 2 basic primitive functions that don't need emotions to exist. We got emotions and memory (we turn into knowledge), that's why we like horror movies and some people become masochists. I guess some insects have a very few memory (wasps can remember some forms, that's how they find their way to your table in summer), but they are so "primitive" when they experience pain (as a signal for something wrong), it's the fear button which is activated, making them run away instantly, and if by running the "pain" doesn't go away, then the organism become so dedicated to the sole "idea" of escaping danger, it's panic. I think we cannot define the pain felt by insects as the pain with memory and emotions, but as the instant signal that activate their defense mechanism and making them try to run away for hours as they are "tortured" for hours. Now the legitimate questions is, as they say in the video, can we do experiments that makes feel "pain" to those organisms ?
TL;DR : I think they don't feel a pain linked to emotions and memory, leading most advanced organisms to experience anxiety or fear while they don't feel pain anymore. But the signal and the instant fear as a defense mechanism, might be real. Could we be allowed to undergo them for hours because they don't yelp or feel anxiety before experiment ?
Well, I think you're leaving out the fact that in order to experience pain, there must be an experiencer. In other words, consciousness. Robots can respond to stimulus, as you describe, but they are not conscious so they can't be said to be experiencing anything. Plants also react to stimulus, such as being eaten, but there's no consciousness there to experience anything, it's just a passive systemic reaction.
As far as we know you need a fairly sophisticated brain to have any level of consciousness. That would include most higher animals but not plants, insects, or lower life forms such as earthworms. Claims that insects are conscious are not scientific.
I'd also refer you to the example of general anesthesia. This does not turn off your nerves or spinal column. The nerves still send pain signals when the doctor cuts into you. It just blocks your brain from forming a reaction. And you wouldn't say that a patient undergoing surgery is experiencing pain, because that all important consciousness element is lacking.
Blay & Chriss, you both bring excellent perspectives to the discussion. Back to Blay's question regarding experimentation - I'm personally OK with research on insects. However all research should be done with respect for life. I don't believe that animals have "rights" since it isn't a concept that we can convey to them, but we must have standards/rules/laws that insure our ethical behavior in how we treat living organisms. This is my philosophy and I respect that others may feel differently.
@@soloolo671 their entire nervous system is different
I'd like to think they don't suffer pain as intense as we do. But some behaviors come to my mind, like how ants crul on themself when they are dying.
I always figured insects could sense damage but not necessarily feel pain.
Two awesome UA-cam channels in collab! :D YAY
You said nobody really understands what pain actually is, but most scientists think insects don't feel pain. I see pain as a mechanism to alert me that something is potentially harming me. If I'm in pain, do I simply want the pain to stop, or do I want the cause of the pain to be healed, or pull my hand away from the flame? If an insect tries to escape being trapped, is it merely carrying out reflex, or does it know fear? If you trap a fly under a glass and it tries to find an escape route, does it fear what will happen to it if it fails to escape? Does it fear pain?
Forgot bout the topic,
Your braid got me hooked
Just because an insect reacts doesn’t mean it feels pain.
Most human pain is emotional and fear based and is triggered in response to a physical feeling. They are two very very different phenomena.
When you release the emotion? The physical thing never feels as bad. The emotions always seem to be routed in some fear of pain itself, fear of dying, fear of being alone and vulnerable, etc etc. all of these fears seem to be routed in childhood experiences and feelings.
I’ve personally witnessed pain dripping away to a mere awareness of injury after working through the emotions were always childhood injuries being triggered.
This is how I imagine most vertebrates feel pain. An awareness of an injury. Most of what we feel is all emotional distress and the pain of the thing itself.
Observe a child and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
I used to fish and I'd use fly larvae (maggots). When ever I'd put a hook through the tail end, the head would bite one of the fingers holding it. Why would the maggot not bite at the thing being pushed in to it but would bite at my finger? It has enough of a mind to put together, that my fingers and the hook were related and by biting at something soft (my finger) and not the hook, something hard, it might have the result of stopping the hook from stabbing it.
I think that's complex enough behaviour, that the maggot is feeling pain.
I'm not really explaining it right but that's the best I can do. Insects do feel pain but its impossible to see much because of its exoskeleton, so all we have to go on is how desperately it tries to avoid the thing giving it pain, to the point of attacking the thing preventing its escape (my fingers).
remarkable the first thing you mention is the reason I searched for 'can insects feel pain' in the first place
If they feel pain, I am sure the way they feel pain won't be like mammals do. They are very simple animals.
That's one way to think if you don't want to feel guilty.
Sometimes I wonder if lighter living things feel less pain when hitting the ground after falling than heavier living things
Holy eff, do they or don’t they?
To be honest I think insects like a Roach do feel pain and even sense fear too. For example how do you explain when A Roach will react while its on a Hot Plate? The Zig Zag movements to explain the increase heat is a indication that something is going on a escape for its life. If anything they can tolerate more pain then we do because when a Insect lose a Leg or a Wing it does not show pain but continue his usual thing.
Nope, thats simply Primal Reflexes, all insects have their ways of dealing with high temperature through evolutionary experience, otherwise how would they be here now? Why does a bug not limp or squirm in pain when cut in half?
@@alienextraterrestrial113By that thinking all animal responses to heat can just be primal reflexes. There's no way to prove its just a reflex and they arent feeling anything.They could very well feel pain in that instance.
Bugs squirm when damaged all the time. Also maybe some organisms dont respond to pain by squirming has that crossed your mind?
We all learned the real answer to this question as little kids and we first witnessed a worm being stabbed onto a fishing hook and it wildly thrashed around in pain.
The short answer is no, but the long answer is yes. They don't feel pain in the same way we do, but they experience a stimuli to let them know something is wrong, which is all pain is to us.
They don't like being held or constricted, but that being said, certain insects like praying mantises and cockroaches can be being eaten while they themselves are eating something. So it's hard to tell if their "pain" even bothers them.
Lovely people explaining things that give me headache
I think all species do feel pain because feeling pain is too important to avoid harm and evolution favors those behaviors
they might have small brain and nervous system but definitelly they are understanding much more than we think. Their brain processing the picture of many eyes... the spiders have less, but the dragonfly has around 30.000 eyes, that is unbeliveable.
Is this why moths fly into flames and are killed, they don't feel the pain of heat?
When we see insects that have obviously suffered an accident or attack they are often squirming about, do you think that this is a struggle to carry on as normal despite their injuries?
I killed a moth and felt bad because it was twitching and trying to escape death :(
6:00 In the late 18th and early 19th century live vivisection was performed on living animals on the belief that, as animals don't have soles they don't feel pain. Though I'm not sure how you can say that a dog crying out as its broken leg is examined by the vet isn't in pain.
I've never witnessed a live vivisection myself, but I can't imagine a dog being strapped down and cut open would cry less than when its broken leg is very gently examined.
I say err on the side that organisms *DO* feel pain if they respond to harmful stimuli in any way.
Just because an insect may not feel pain in the same way we do doesn't mean they don't feel what might be called pain.
I think it's possible that even plants feel pain. Granted, they don't feel what we feel and call pain, but that doesn't mean they don't feel what they might consider to be pain.
It doesn't matter if that pain is remembered or not. After all, a person who has been drugged and sexually assaulted is treated the same even if they have no memory of the attack.
It's why I consider vegans, who choose that diet for moral reasons are hypocrites. They consider eating animals immoral but eating plants is okay. Not once has one given me a good reason why a plant has less of a reason to survive than a cow.
More plants are used to feed animals used for food. A plant based diet actually results in less plant death.
@@lives4datube That has nothing whatever to do with why vegans who choose a plant based diet for moral reasons are hypocrites.
If your reasons for not eating meat is to reduce suffering, then you should eat nothing at all.
Of course, that isn't reasonable. We need to eat to live, so you need to justify the suffering you cause by eating.
Saying animals feel pain and plants don't is just ignorant. We don't *KNOW* that plant's don't feel what could be considered pain. They probably don't. But not being plants, we have no idea how plants might experience being alive.
You just contradicted yourself lol. It literally is reducing suffering if less plants die. Nobody said veganism is about removing suffering all together as thats impossible. If i have the choice between 100 plants dying and 20, the choice is not eat nothing or kill 100 plants, its obviously gonna be to eat the 20(if your psuedo science claim is true). Not eating is obviously not an option. But you're saying either dont eat and die or force tons of meat into your mouth because fuck it. A cow bleeding out and crying is the same as a plant reacting to stimuli after being chopped down. Btw what about dogs? Can i torture and eat those? Who says a dog has any more value than a carrot? Or a human? No living organism has true value if you want to think thay way. Seems more that you feel defensive about people deciding to cut out meat because you eat it and obliviously you're a moral person.
Fascinating, thank you. We need to know more so we can better understand and if necessary, empathise/treat fellow creatures with appropriate degrees of compassion.
Saw a bug thrashing on the ground that my cat killed, and wondered to myself what UA-cam thinks about it. Time well spent 👀 I still feel bad for the buggers tho 😭
Based on observations of bugs against bugs, venomous stings seem to affect the bug but not to cause pain since there is no obvious attempt to escape the sting or bite. You would think feeling pain would create a survival reaction of escaping that which is causing the pain. Venom DOES cause the insect to be affected but more in the way the venom works instead of how it causes pain.
no opinion on bug pain, but man! what lovely long hair!
Worms also react violently when poked with a fish hook. They clearly feel and don’t like it
a good video to show your kids to get them thinking about the bugs around them. Thanks!
You mention that crustaceans have opioid peptides. Would that imply that it's a shared trait with vertebrates, derived from a common ancestor? Or is it something that could feasibly have independently evolved twice (or more)?
Possibly convergent evolution
I think insects can feel pain because from what I know every living thing experiences it.
How could I know that you can feel pain? I can't feel your pain, and signals can be misleading. I can't feel either insects' pain, but I think they feel it. They, like us, needed pain to survive, to avoid the dangers.
but the thing is: do they just react to stimuli or do they F E E L them
if i cut your arm off you will react, you'll contract your body and make other movements, and also feel a bad sensation
if I cut an ant's leg, it will also probably react and make movements
but it can't TELL me that it's feeling something or not. But you can tell me that THAT SHIT HURTS
therefore, we know that you CAN feel pain (physical pain) and we can't tell the same about insects, they either can or can't, it's a mistery
a insect moving after being damaged does not mean it is hurt. it can probably detect pain like a warning on a screen telling it what part is broken but they dont have enough brain to actually feel pain.
@@Graftin_ They have enough brain to detect wich part is broken like a warning on a screen but not to feel the pain. Why would they need to know witch part of their body is broken? How much brain is requested to feel an evolutionary signal like pain?
@@marcoaurelioa.4394
wait did you just ask me why they need to know where is broken? what?
if they didnt know which part was broken then it would try to use the broken part as if it was fully functional and it could take longer to get somewhere if they didnt know which part was broken whereas if they knew which part was broken then they wouldnt try to jump with a leg that wasnt there.
@@Graftin_ It seems harder for me to think of them to see and experience the world like on a screen of a computer then to imagine them to experience pain. Anyway, there's a recent study (2019) made on fruit flies that seems to suggest that they can indeed feel the pain.
got into a fight with a dog , bit a chunk of my leg off , even with the adrenalin rush , the pain was soo much i froze , then i lost my right finger as well. how is this much pain of any help to a organism if it gets in the way of self defense and survival ?
I have the impression that the insects can be afraid so have mental pain. If we say it is just a reflex, why no say that about us?
Because we know it. We can see that and (to a certain degree) how the human brain reacts to different situations. A reflex is a very simple task, compared to a complex thought at least. We can measure the brain activity, how high the activity is and where it occurs in the brain.
I hope I could help you, have a nice day.
Mmm, you have an impression? So it must be 100% correct even if neuroscience says otherwise.
wait, wut..
1. you say they don't display symptoms that indicate pain.
2. you show a larvae being burned and it shows symptoms of being in pain...but it may not be in pain and just move around a bit because that aids survival. But that's one of the main reasons why people think we have pain: to increase survival by giving us a motivation to move (away).
(probably understanding too little myseld as well) If it is a complex reflex, than it might be similar to your lets say knee reflex, if ine taps the your legs kicks forward,(if Im not mistaken it is to protect ligaments or something), however would you describe that as oain?(behaviour reflex to protect from damage, though not asociayed with pain)
Yeah, sure, might be.. but the claims about the behaviour is very contradictory. Surely, since we've thoroughly established that beings with a nervous system can experience pain, the burden of proof lies with those claiming insects do not sense pain. Citing pain-experiencing behaviour (that is what it would be called in other animals, like vertebrates and cephalopods) and discounting it as 'meh, reflex?' wouldn't be enough?
The previous claim that insects do not display behaviour (like limping or making sounds..). Well, idk if you've ever tortured insects out of curiosity or for your amusement when you were a child, but when I see that happening, I certainly do see the insects reacting: avoiding. Trying to get stuff off, getting away in a difference sense, or even attacking - yes, attacking can be seen through that lens too, I think.
Complex reflex as a response is a good description for an emotion. An emotion is an automatic program that runs immediately in response to certain stimuli. You see something good to eat and a series of electrical and chemical changes happen in your body. Something dangerous happens and a different set of physical responses play out automatically. From what I understand all living organisms have emotional systems like these all the way down to individual cells. So as a general system it is ubiquitous.
Yeah, there is a bit of a double standard here. If a vertebrate showed a similar response to that stimulus, we would just as easily pass it off as undeniable proof of pain.
Nothing on this video is contradictory. Your sense of logic is distorted. If you claim insects experience pain, which is a symptom, the burden of proof lies on you.
The established criteria are:
1. Has a suitable nervous system and receptors
2. Physiological changes to noxious stimuli
3. Displays protective motor reactions that might include reduced use of an affected area such as limping, rubbing, holding or autotomy
4. Has opioid receptors and shows reduced responses to noxious stimuli when given analgesics and local anaesthetics
5. Shows trade-offs between stimulus avoidance and other motivational requirements
6. Shows avoidance learning
7. Exhibits high cognitive ability and sentience
Having just one of them is not conclusive.
So this is where you end up at 3am when you can’t sleep with a hangover…
I am here bc i have a fruit fly problem in my house. I got some glue traps and a big fly got stuck. It was trying to flap it's wings to get out and it made me sad, I don't want it to suffer :/ but I also can't have flies all in my house. I feel awful tho any time I end a living creature's life :/ Or feel like im torturing it no matter how small. I always use catch and release for rodents though and I am VERY OPPOSED to boiling anything alive period. Or torturing sentient creatures of any kind. I try to respect life as much as possible. We wouldn't aliens thinking we aren't sentient bc of their intelligence over us it a way I look at it ( wether you believe in aliens or not its just an example )
I like to play jigsaw with insects, some of my methods include hot water on water bottles not inside so I can watch them slowly die, another one of my methods is to bore them to death by crumbling a water bottle, and putting them to the side where there’s the least space, and another one of my methods is to put a spider and a fruit fly inside a water bottle, they are both staving after a few days and the spider will eat the fruit fly
I don't know that opinions are very useful on this question. As you said, the science comes down on the not complex enough to feel pain side of the question. I see no reason to doubt that until new evidence appears. In the meantime, if you have to kill an insect, kill it quick, don't prolong the potential for suffering. Just in case.
All living creatures have the same emotional system in the sense that an emotion is a series of automatic actions that play out in an organism in response to stimuli. You see a fertile female and a series of actions play out in your body that changes your chemical state. Something burns you and a different automatic program plays out. These are evolved responses to keep the organism alive. From single cells on up, the emotional system is ubiquitous. Do we need to interpret pain to want it to stop? Do we need to have complex thoughts to know something's wrong and it needs to stop? Of course everything feels pain in the most visceral way. To me that non-abstract pain is more important than "can the being have thoughts about the pain in an abstract way". The visceral pain is the worst part... Even cells must have a reaction to damage that alarms them so to speak. Whatever that means to a cell.
Wow her hair is from another world !! Beautiful
Really interesting and great collab 👍👍
It’s crazy cause I looked this up cause I’ve been feeling guilty about feeding my mantis bugs and this is the thumbnail
Do insects fail pain?
Everyone's answer: That's the longest braid🙄
So when I cut my finger I perceive pain in my finger, but am I actually feeling pain in my finger? Or is it a trick of the brain?
Have they never used a can of raid that will show you bugs feel pain spray a wasp and he is flailing around rolling then die bugs feel pain for sure you can try to say that ain't pain but shit I think it is
I hurt a flys wing with a broom last night, i took it home with me in a cup and gave him sugar, little drops of cream to drink, and some ice cap, but overnight the icecap drop melted and he got stuck in it. I washed him off but now he cant move very well, just a couple legs 😔 i feel bad i thought he could be my pet
Why is it assumed that insects do not feel pain? If it has a nervous system, it can feel pain.
I simply don’t think insects need to feel much if any pain as getting your arm torn off is incredibly easy when your do small and just being reminded by discomfort is useless since either the insect easily heals is gonna die anyway or can’t do anything about it’s injury. Although I do think the brain knows the concept of harm
That makes no sense. if insects didnt feel some type of discomfort from damage they wouldn't distance themselves from it. And thus become injured and incapable of reproducing. Im of the believe that all organism need to develop some kind of pain response.
@@rgonzalo511 yeah I agree they probably do feel discomfort but for my aforementioned reasons I don’t think it’s as great as in typically larger animals although I am open to changing that idea because I’m most definitely not an expert
Thanks for the subtitles in spanish, greetings from Mexico
holi
Well, I have to say my brain says thanks a lot for this informative scientific content! What I worry about concerning insect's instinctive behaviours is more that so many people apply our basic knowledge of the topic to humans: pretending human reactions and experiences are somehow genetically predisposed, as in an ant, and all the associated racist pseudoscience. Humans have instinctive behavioural and emotional responses, but as far as I can tell our brains are really only "hardwired" for a specific subset of stimuli and neural pathways, with a lot of our conscious experience being the result of much more complex, learned, and culturally conditioned and constructed brain structures.
Thanks for the video!
=8)-DX
What about when you light a bug on fire? They don’t just stand there and take it.
They will try to get out of it. But it is likely that their responses are just reflexes
This seems like an attempt to redefine pain as suffering, and then to argue that the emotional component is critical to the experience. Within the context of this specific definition as a combination of the physical and emotional reaction to noxious stimuli, do dogs feel pain? Do birds? I worry that this argument attempts to restrict the categorical scope of "pain" so that it applies almost exclusively to the human experience, but perhaps I'm mistaken.
I feel like you skipped over reflexes to harm. Do humans take action through their reflexes to move their body away from a source of harm, before or after they feel pain?
Also how did different kinds of larvae respond to a hot needle?
John Hunter Reflex is before experience, I believe it's a more primitive response like the larvae.
I know this is an old comment, but it's an interesting question. Brain processing is fast, but it's not injury fast. If you had to rely on your brain to process the reflex (ie, understanding pain and then reacting), we'd spend our lives constantly tending minor burns and cuts... well, more so than we already do. There exist nervous structures called "reflex arcs" in your arms and legs that will send any sufficiently strong pain signal *right* back down the limb to tug you away, long before you're capable of actually feeling the pain.
@@clockworkkirlia7475 Pain isn't the only ethical factor anyway... or would the people here argue that it is ethical to maim someone that doesn't feel pain? There are also plenty of ways to dull the reflexive response, the pain response is very real and while not as fast, it's far from slow. The larvae continued to try and wriggle away over time, so it does not seem to be merely the reflexive shock response.
@@zvxcvxcz Of course not! I was bringing up some interesting *human* biology in response to the opening post's question, not necessarily arguing anything in particular. The video is also specifically *about* pain, rather than other ethical concerns.
That said, you are of course correct that a more active process of wriggling away would be above and beyond simple reflexive action. In any case, my comment applies only to human biology. I'm no entomologist, but insects can probably respond to pain much faster than we can anyway because they're (a) tiny and (b) have an extremely simple nervous system that performs simple logical operations instead of human-style judgements (whether or not those human-style judgements are actually made of tons of logical operations is a little unclear).
In that vein and speaking more of the surrounding concerns, personally I don't think that the small, simplistic and highly distributed nervous system of an insect is capable of suffering in the same way that a person who can't feel pain is still capable of suffering in other ways. Equally, it seems reasonable to assume that insects are not able to *experience* consciousness quite as we do, because it wouldn't be advantageous from an evolutionary perspective. Being conscious is quite energy-intensive and only useful with a lot of time and investment, while insects tend to be hyper-optimised to be as simple and effective as possible with minimal energy wastage. They also do not live very long, and seem to have most of their abilities "programmed in" automatically, with none of the flexibility or strategy afforded to humans (and apes and corvids and octopodes and dolphins, to varying extents).
Insects are capable of incredible feats of "intellect" for their size, mind you, but they're really more like calculators programmed for a specialised set of sums. A dragonfly can't use its phenomenal abilities of predictive flight modelling to do anything other than cronch a moving target, for instance, indicating a lack of conscious, adaptive thinking. It has simply evolved to be very, very, very optimised for its niche, while humanity's niche (such as it is) *requires* a level of complexity that (maybe) supports consciousness.
Of course, I'm not an expert on consciousness, partially because basically sort of nobody is; we don't actually know why we're as self-aware as we are, but it's reasonable to expect that it's some sort of evolved trait like everything else an animal does. An evolved trait that would not, it seems, be useful to an insect. Even panpsychism, the idea that *everything* is sort of a bit conscious, wouldn't really support the idea that an insect is much more self-aware than, say, a tree.
This is really interesting to think about! Still, the science of consciousness and how it pertains to ethics is super new and I am *very much* a layman at the beginning of their journey to becoming a true student in the field... So take everything with a grain of salt.
Ok so hear me out, we know chickens and pigs feel pain for sure, when being killed they will stretch out in pain right before death and sometimes poop or push out a baby or a egg from the intense pain. Cockroaches when sprayed with bug spray will also stretch out and even poop or drop a egg sack right before death. With that observation it's hard to say that bugs don't feel pain when agony to death is so similar to more complex animals.
They look gay for each other and it's pretty cute