What's your take on insects?

[Hog]

Here is my opinionated opinion on insects. Unless you are bored out of your mind, do not read further. Maybe you really do not want to subject yourself to the turgid mess of an essay that awaits you. But, you cave in to your curiosity anyway because "resistance is futile."

Did anyone ever watch the Start Trek episodes about the Borg?

The Borg were a group of alien life forms joined together in a hive mind. The collective of individuals connected to the hive mind numbered in the billions. The borg was not inherently evil. Their experience of reality was merely different.

Suppose that someone gave me the opportunity to connect into the Borg hive mind for a week or a month or a year. I would not pass up that opportunity to experience new wonderous perceptions of the universe. I would also crave instant access to the vast treasure troves of information available to the hive mind. The experience would dwarf the thrill of browsing Wikipedia, Youtube, and social media.

The hive mind in the insect world must feel glorious at moments. Insects, probably feel interconnected in a way that we can not begin to imagine. While the information processing power of each individual insect might appear low, the processing power of the hive must possess an immense capacity. Likewise, while the emotions of the individual insect might seem simplistic and nearly non-existent, the hive must experience pain, joy, and love in ways that we can not fathom.

The human body has 37.2 trillion cells. Each cell exhibits individual agency. They have different jobs. Many of them make choices and think in and make choices. They react and respond to the environment as individuals. Our brain has 87 billion cells. It is so complex that we really do not know how the brain works. Yet, we could think of our brain as a collective of 87 billion little brains. From these 87 billion little brains, a single conscious self arises.

We typically think of ourselves as having only one brain. According to Wikipedia, "Dual consciousness is a theoretical concept in neuroscience. It is proposed that it is possible that a person may develop two separate conscious entities within their one brain after undergoing a corpus callosotomy." I am not sure if this is true. However, I recall having a student in special education who had problems with their corpus callosotomy. He frequently said that one hand would want to do one thing and the other hand would want to do something else. He talked about an internal battle that took place within himself.

I am not a bee. Thus, I have no concept of how a bee constructs a perception of reality. Nevertheless, the experience of being a bee is real. We can not simply dismiss the reality of a bee's experience because we can not comprehend it.

The vegan movement is much more than just a simple idea that we should not harm animals unnecessarily. It is an appreciation of alternative perceptions of reality. A lion experiences the world in a way that is different than a fish. And a fish experience reality in a way that is different than a bee. All three animals experience reality in a different way.

The reality is in the experience. Even if my experience of reality is different than yours, the experience is still real. That is the paradigm shift that veganism symbolizes.

 

[silva]

Here is my opinionated opinion on insects. Unless you are bored out of your mind, do not read further. Maybe you really do not want to subject yourself to the turgid mess of an essay that awaits you. But, you cave in to your curiosity anyway because "resistance is futile."

Did anyone ever watch the Start Trek episodes about the Borg?

The Borg were a group of alien life forms joined together in a hive mind. The collective of individuals connected to the hive mind numbered in the billions. The borg was not inherently evil. Their experience of reality was merely different.

Suppose that someone gave me the opportunity to connect into the Borg hive mind for a week or a month or a year. I would not pass up that opportunity to experience new wonderous perceptions of the universe. I would also crave instant access to the vast treasure troves of information available to the hive mind. The experience would dwarf the thrill of browsing Wikipedia, Youtube, and social media.

The hive mind in the insect world must feel glorious at moments. Insects, probably feel interconnected in a way that we can not begin to imagine. While the information processing power of each individual insect might appear low, the processing power of the hive must possess an immense capacity. Likewise, while the emotions of the individual insect might seem simplistic and nearly non-existent, the hive must experience pain, joy, and love in ways that we can not fathom.

The human body has 37.2 trillion cells. Each cell exhibits individual agency. They have different jobs. Many of them make choices and think in and make choices. They react and respond to the environment as individuals. Our brain has 87 billion cells. It is so complex that we really do not know how the brain works. Yet, we could think of our brain as a collective of 87 billion little brains. From these 87 billion little brains, a single conscious self arises.

We typically think of ourselves as having only one brain. According to Wikipedia, "Dual consciousness is a theoretical concept in neuroscience. It is proposed that it is possible that a person may develop two separate conscious entities within their one brain after undergoing a corpus callosotomy." I am not sure if this is true. However, I recall having a student in special education who had problems with their corpus callosotomy. He frequently said that one hand would want to do one thing and the other hand would want to do something else. He talked about an internal battle that took place within himself.

I am not a bee. Thus, I have no concept of how a bee constructs a perception of reality. Nevertheless, the experience of being a bee is real. We can not simply dismiss the reality of a bee's experience because we can not comprehend it.

The vegan movement is much more than just a simple idea that we should not harm animals unnecessarily. It is an appreciation of alternative perceptions of reality. A lion experiences the world in a way that is different than a fish. And a fish experience reality in a way that is different than a bee. All three animals experience reality in a different way.

The reality is in the experience. Even if my experience of reality is different than yours, the experience is still real. That is the paradigm shift that veganism symbolizes.

That was so well said!
I've learned to not dismiss your writings here--and how could I refrain from reading when you used the work "turgid"?

 

[Jamie in Chile]

I am not sure individual insects really have a hive mind, or whether it just feels that way as each individual acts in a certain way? Maybe no one knows.

You also reminded me of the movie Star Trek: First Contact, not a huge star trek fan but it was a decent movie. Just gone on Youtube to watch a few clips of it.

 

[Lou]

Hive minds??

the Borg for sure but what about the things in Ender's Game. or Clarke's Childhood End.

Two more things just to get this totally off track.

Just started learning about the Enteric Nervous System. These are the neurons that in your gut. Comprising of 500 million neurons. About the same as a starling or a rabbit. Or like ten times the number of bees in a hive.

The other thing you have reminded me of is the fairly new science of Plant Neurobiology. One aspect is the way forest trees are all linked together by a mycorrhizal network.

 

[Tom L.]

I love science fiction too, and am familiar with the Borg; I read Childhood's End quite some time ago (I thought it was very sad) and am only slightly familiar with Ender's Game. But E.G. might be the most intriguing of them: If I have it right, the invading aliens turn out to have been so savagely violent because they could not grasp that an organism not living as part of a collective consciousness could be sentient at all, and they come to regret their actions.

I have great difficulty imagining a hive-mind type consciousness would be desirable long-term, although once assimilated/absorbed, presumably one would not be able to choose to leave without outside assistance. As @Hog mentions above, it might be interesting to experience such a different way of being. Still... when captain Picard was assimilated, and later freed from the Borg collective, he said he remembered everything about when he was Locutus the Borg- and didn't want to go back. Ever.

And remember the ST:TNG episode where the Enterprise had captured a Borg, and planned to infect him with a computer virus and send him back to the Collective, hoping that the whole Hive Mind would become infected and die? As this Borg (who became known as Hugh to the crew) spent time away from the Collective and conversed with Geordi Lafarge, his individuality began to re-assert itself. At one point, Geordi tells Hugh that he thinks assimilation would be "almost worse than death"; and even Guinan, whose people had suffered horribly in a Borg attack, begins to doubt that Hugh is a Borg any longer. Eventually, Hugh freely chooses to be re-assimilated because he cares about the Enterprise crew, and knows that the Borg would keep trying to track him down and take him back to the Collective, endangering the Enterprise. But... at the very end, as he and the Borg drones are vanishing in the Borg transporter beam, he turns his head and makes eye contact with Geordi- something that would not have even occurred to a true Borg.

I wanted to sob and cheer at the same time. But I think in one of the ("unofficial") books inspired by the series, it turns out that there is a whole colony of free-thinking former Borg, with Hugh as its founder.

ETA: I was going to add something about sentience, but I see I said it already in this thread back on Mar. 31.

 

[Hog]

"Two more things just to get this totally off track." - Lou

You are not getting off track. We are talking about the essence of veganism. Tom took your idea a step forward in the right direction. We are talking about appreciating the differences in the thought processes of all life forms. I hope more people comment on this thread and advance the discussion.

 

[Deleted member 3018]

I need advice.
I got an amaryllis for a Christmas present from school. Today I noticed that it had... I dunno how many... It looked like a lot of insects. Those are some sort of flying insects that live in the soil for at least some of their lives. Now they probably have also laid their eggs on my two other plants as well.
I don't enjoy living with them at all. But they are mostly harmless. Only really bothering thing is when they attempt to fly into my food. I have had them before, but not to this extent.
I probably already killed most of them. I threw the amaryllis with the insects still in it out of the window and it's freezing cold out there. I just did it by a reflex. I didn't even think twice. It was really cruel of me. I was not being compassionate.

And...I'd want to throw away my other plants too and capture and throw away the insects. I'm a bad person. I don't know what to do.

 

[KLS52]

You are not a bad person for not wanting to live with bugs.

 

[Deleted member 3018]

You are not a bad person for not wanting to live with bugs.

Thank you for your compassion. However, I think I am a bad person for killing the insects as mentioned in my other post. That was really bad.
The rest of them I'll just let be. Lets see what happens. I moved my plants to the sleeping alcove which is empty because I sleep in my kitchen/living room area. Maybe that'll encourage them to live in the alcove and will leave my food alone.
I was thinking about getting a pet. Now I have several. Goddammit.

 

[Tom L.]

I suspect they're probably fungus gnats. If I'm correct, they live in the soil but don't feed on or otherwise harm your plants. I don't believe they are known to spread diseases, either- but if they're creeping you out, that's a problem.

In my experience, they eventually just leave- I'm not sure why, and I don't remember how long it takes them to buzz off. (Annoying though the gnats may be, my humor is probably worse).

 

[Tom L.]

On second thought... I don't remember fungus gnats flying around my food. But the brightly-lit upstairs hall is where I keep most of my plants, while the kitchen and dining room are downstairs.

@StrangeOtter What you could do if your plants can be propogated by taking cuttings: You could take cuttings of your plants (if they're still alive) and try to root them.

 

[Deleted member 3018]

Thank you for your insights, @Tom L. Now that you mentioned it, I remember reading a little bit about fungus gnats before and those are exactly it.
I wonder if they actually aren't that interested in my food, but attracted to the glimmer of light that shines from the plate? If they think that it's a source of water or something like that? I have seen them walking on water before. But I don't have any idea why they would be interested in water, since they lay their eggs into the soil... Doesn't make much sense..? Hmm.
Maybe they are Jesus gnats.

Summer came way too soon. And inside my apartment too.
Maybe this is an opportunity to become more compassionate and understanding towards the insects that I don't like and don't understand?

 

[Tom L.]

I think they have to drink, but I didn't know they could walk on the surface of still water. (I'm sure even very tiny wavelets would give them difficulty, given the gnats' small size). Then again, the surface tension of still water is enough to support very tiny objects... so I guess I was just surprised that they would deliberately walk on it. I thought they could get what water they need from wet soil or dew. (Your comment about them walking on water occurred to me too!!)

I don't know if they're attracted to light; I know they hang out in or near moist soil, and in my house, that's only in or under the flowerpots. My plants need light, so that's where I've always seen the gnats. If I grew mushrooms, which need soil and moisture but not light, I think the gnats would REALLY make themselves at home- but I haven't tried to grow 'shrooms yet.

ETA: one other thing about insects: I've developed a bit of a soft spot for many of them, such as grasshoppers, moths, and homopterans such as cicadas. And I've learned that if someone tries too hard not to harm animals so small and so ubiquitous, it would be easy to go bonkers. I honestly don't know how the Jains do it. I've come to a sort of fuzzy, squishy, poorly-defined attitude toward insects: I don't focus as much care on them as I do toward birds or mammals, or even cold-blooded vertebrates (which often don't have a cerebral cortex)... but I make some effort not to harm them.

 

[Tom L.]

This thread seems to be mostly about insects overstaying their welcome in our houses, but @Lou posted about this interesting device recently in another thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/q8yh9i

Possibly something roughly similar could be devised for giving bugs in our houses the (realtively-humane) boot. I think there is some sort of trap which lures insects and then kills them, but it should be relatively simple to design something which just imprisons the critters until we release them. It would have to be checked fairly regularly, of course, just as those "Havahart" cage traps must be.

 

[Graeme M]

Here is my opinionated opinion on insects. Unless you are bored out of your mind, do not read further. Maybe you really do not want to subject yourself to the turgid mess of an essay that awaits you. But, you cave in to your curiosity anyway because "resistance is futile."

I don't think that was a turgid mess, but I don't agree with your idea of a shared hive mind. I doubt insects individually experience some collective consciousness rich with universal knowledge. Nor is it likely to be the case for individual human cells. What goes on in brains is a kind of computation enabled by complex connectivity between cells. Consciousness is the information states that are formed from the computations connected cells perform (personally, I'd go further than this and say that your everyday experience is really a memory of what just happened, so consciousness in the sense of experience is a simplified story for future recall). Many many insects doing stuff probably don't share some kind of collective consciousness though I suspect that what they do experience is deeply informed by the collective behaviours.

In terms of different realities, I think my own position is that there isn't really much difference between the experiences of insects and other creatures. To an extent I think that's also true for people - I think we tend to tell ourselves we have this vastly rich world of experience whereas I feel it isn't much different from any other animal. What's different for us is language upon which we construct elaborate structures of "thought". In that way, humans are an order of magnitude different from all other animals. But at the end of the day, I honestly doubt there is much difference between me and a snail in terms of the experience of day to day stuff.

 

[Deleted member 3018]

I think they have to drink, but I didn't know they could walk on the surface of still water. (I'm sure even very tiny wavelets would give them difficulty, given the gnats' small size). Then again, the surface tension of still water is enough to support very tiny objects... so I guess I was just surprised that they would deliberately walk on it. I thought they could get what water they need from wet soil or dew. (Your comment about them walking on water occurred to me too!!)

I don't know if they're attracted to light; I know they hang out in or near moist soil, and in my house, that's only in or under the flowerpots. My plants need light, so that's where I've always seen the gnats. If I grew mushrooms, which need soil and moisture but not light, I think the gnats would REALLY make themselves at home- but I haven't tried to grow 'shrooms yet.

ETA: one other thing about insects: I've developed a bit of a soft spot for many of them, such as grasshoppers, moths, and homopterans such as cicadas. And I've learned that if someone tries too hard not to harm animals so small and so ubiquitous, it would be easy to go bonkers. I honestly don't know how the Jains do it. I've come to a sort of fuzzy, squishy, poorly-defined attitude toward insects: I don't focus as much care on them as I do toward birds or mammals, or even cold-blooded vertebrates (which often don't have a cerebral cortex)... but I make some effort not to harm them.

Water does seem to be fatal to their fragile bodies. One of them wandered into my cooking pot. I tried to get it out with wet hands and the poor thing went all soggy and died.

 

[Deleted member 3018]

one other thing about insects: I've developed a bit of a soft spot for many of them, such as grasshoppers, moths, and homopterans such as cicadas.

This is quite relatable. I still have entomophobia, but it's slowly dying down. The worst part is usually when the Summer is in its full bloom, the amount of insects become quite overwhelming, but I always force myself to go into nature and just live with the anxiety. I try to see through the anxiety, because I know there is nothing to be anxious about. The insects probably don't even know that I'm there. They are just doing their own thing. And if I get bitten or stung, then that happens and it sucks. Anyways, I have better changes of not getting hurt, if I'm chill about the wasp that has landed on my neck. It'll do what ever it does, probably cleans its self and then flies on its merry way.
And some bugs, like ladybugs, dragonflies, bumblebees and such are really cool. I think I'm starting to like the gnats too. One of them just casually landed on my finger one day. That kinda warmed my heart.

 

[Rory17]

I'm just wondering how others approach insects. Obviously, vegans don't eat them or support silk or bee products, but there are other situations which, to me, are less straight forward.

If you have harmful insects in your home (cockroaches, for instance) or an insect infestation, what do you do? Especially for insects who tend to come in a group? Do you kill them? Release them? Set traps or poison? Exterminate them? Obviously, the best thing to do is to create an inhospitable environment by not leaving food or water out, but if that's not enough, what do you do?

How about insects who like to bite, such as mosquitoes? Do you kill them? Swat them away? Passively allow them to bite you? Again, if this is still an issue after spraying insect repellent on yourself?

When you're referring to an insect or other bug, do you say s/he or it? Do you believe bugs are sentient enough to be called who/s/he? Do you think of bugs as sentient? Is there evidence that they feel pain, fear, curiosity, joy, etc?

I'm genuinely curious about all of this and would love to know what you think.

I would not kill insects unless absolutely necessary (or by accident). I save bugs from drowning and other dangerous situations.
As for harmful/“pest” bugs (e.g those that are in peoples homes), I would support the humane removal of those bugs, and the use of repellents. Even if you are too scared to pick them up, you could get someone else to remove them humanely.
Swatting away a mosquito without killing or harming them is not the same as swatting them and killing them.

 

[tlc1976]

I have plenty of insects on my property, and they are free to do as they wish. Spiders and birds eat the bugs, bees pollinate the flowers, and whatever else goes on in the ecosystem. They only need to be gone from my house and garage, and I will kill them if I find them. That way they don’t keep breeding either. My reason for going toward veganism is to be healthier, and it’s counterproductive if I have to live with bug bites, mouse droppings, etc. West Nile was not fun.

However I take great measures to keep them out in the first place. Eliminate standing water. Spray the siding so they know they’re not welcome. Keep doors closed and screens intact. Seal up gaps. Keep humidity in the basement low enough where they can’t thrive. If I’m working outside I put DEET on myself and cover up to keep the bugs off me in the first place.

 

[vegan89]

There are vegans who think eating honey is ok. They call themselves Beegans. In one really good article I read about them they made some very strong points. (if you would like to read it let me know, I think I can find it). however the other side of the argument is if we don't use the biological definition of an animal to keep things off our plate, then where do we re-draw the line. If Bees are ok, what about bivalves. Or lobsters? I'm not a big fan of absolutes but I dislike the slippery slope even more. ( I also have articles defending lobsters and bivalves - if you're interested).

I always thought lobsters would experience excruciating pain as a result of people eating them considering restaurants boil them alive. Why would eating lobsters possibly be considered acceptable to someone concerned with animal suffering?