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--- Double Post Merged, , Original Post Date: ---
This is the arc I have been the most excited about in the history of HxH, and it's depressing to know it may never be concluded.True. I agree with you, shionoro. Furthermore, if sentient means being capable of feeling and cognition, the truth is that pigs and cows are certainly sentient. They may not be conscious of themselves to the same degree that we are (though to which degree they are not it's difficult to determine), but they are very close to us in many respects. Their frontal lobe is less developed than ours, which means they are weaker in reason. There is also very little evidence that most mammals are able to respond to mirrored images of themselves in order to manipulate objects, which would be an indicative of high consciousness. This trait is present in apes and dolphins, among other animals. However, their limbic system is very developed, and they can feel not only pain and distress, but also affection, strong attachment to offspring and many other emotions we use to think of as essential to our species. This was observed and formalized by comparative neuroanatomists and behavioral researchers in the data surrounding the Triune model of brain evolution:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triune_brain#Status_of_the_model
Also, as one can see in the current status section, to which I have linked, the model has been gradually displaced by new findings that suggest not that mammals are less capable of affection and cognition than previously expected, but rather that other complex chordate branches have evolved analogical solutions that make them able to feel and cognize in a similar fashion. Birds, who evolved directly from past Dinosaurs (they are Dinosaurs themselves) are capable of toolmaking, affection, language-like skills and social memory. Also, although your regular citizen cannot communicate with animals or understand their language, a trained zoologist, with proper preparation, can both understand their communication signs and even, to some extent, react to them in order to achieve his goals.
One does not need to become a vegetarian. Due to health reasons, I’m not one anymore. However, it’s unarguable that we kill animals that are capable of quite complex cognitive and emotional expression. Our ancestors have developed ways to ignore it or more easily cope with it. The Biblical myth that Adam was declared the ruler of the Earth by God, for instance, is one such example. The myth from Hesiod’s Theogony explaining why humans ate the flesh of the animals they offered to the gods, for instance, is another one. However, the explanations we create are nothing more than post-hoc rationalizations of our natural place in the food net as apex predators. The very reason we create them, however, is the fact that our branch of the Animal Kingdom developed the physiological ground necessary for feelings of affection and remorse. As is to be expected in evolution, many of our somewhat close cousins, including most mammals, also possess to a degree many of these emotions. Finally, as far as the involving politics are concerned, even if one does not become a vegetarian, one can still fight for more animal rights. In our current system of intensive production, many animals are sadly born under very precarious conditions and live under them for their entire lives, until they are slaughtered for human consumption. Many fight for better conditions and new solutions in the meat and dairy industries to overcome that problem without displacing the industries themselves. Of course, from this perspective, we would still be exploiting and killing animals, but our means of exploitation and killing could be far tamer than they currently are.
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. It's just a speculation ,I don't think he will return the same day.
