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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 1st, 2024

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  • You are aware systems are more than the sums of their parts…?

    A book is more than the sum of its words.

    A painting is more than the sum of its pigments

    Music is more than the sum of its sine waves.

    This is called emergence and is a very basic principle of - well anything, really. The same building blocks arranged in different ways will result in entirely different new objects.

    If you’re interested in philosophy, feel free to read a few Wikipedia articles. You’re not the first one to ask about the nature of feelings and I am not qualified to have deeper discussions about this topic.


  • It’s more the processing that’s relevant for pain. No processing, no pain.

    For instance, some humans have very specific genetic mutations that do not allow them to feel pain. The peripheral nerves still send the pain signals to the brain but it cannot process them. Therefore, no pain.

    There could be a discussion on whether very simple nervous systems (like in jellyfish) without a central component (brain) can process pain. But I’m not a biological researcher or philosopher so that’s outside my Lemmy paygrade.

    And what makes them different from any other chemical reaction is a little disingenuous. Might as well ask what’s the difference between burning a human on a stake and melting glass? Both are just chemical reactions involving heat from a certain perspective.

    There is simply no organ comparable to the brain in plants that would allow for plant pain. That’s pretty much it.


  • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.detoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.world•Not Our Gains
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    2 months ago

    Plants can feel pain the same way a machine can learn. Which means not at all outside of marketing.

    In reality they simply have mechanisms to react to damage. But that’s not pain.

    Pain is the processing of injury in a nervous system. Plants lack the nervous system required to feel anything.

    Just like a brain dead human, sponge or bacteria plants cannot feel pain in any meaningful way.




  • Germany’s app (AusweisApp2) is open source and available for literally every platform. Linux, FreeBSD and even Fdroid included.

    I’m not sure of the exact functionality and whether the government can track anything. You need to scan your ID, the app will then ask for a PIN (2fa) and then will tell you which data will be sent to whoever made the request.

    Authentication is done through an eID server which in theory anyone can set up. The requirement are quite strict though so right now there are only three providers. They check the validity of the ID and request and send the received ID data to the requestor.

    It’s quite the complicated procedure to ensure the highest possible security and privacy.

    The entire process is publicly documented and you can probably spend a few hours trying to understand it.

    As for locking people out of online communities: I don’t think it’s a problem if and only if the legislation applies exclusively to social media providers above a certain size. Such as having 5 million+ monthly users.