For example, it
>>is very reasonable to suppose that the capacity for suffering
>>depends on the existence of a nervous system of sufficient
>>complexity.  This already rules out carrots and other vegetation.
>Interestingly, the Tibetan Buddhists eat meat, and the principle they cite
is
>that just as many creatures are killed in agriculture - no matter how
careful
>one is to avoid that.   So, instead they simply pray that the sustenance
they
>receive enable them to do good works.

I have read  in the book : the life of plants ( i am not sure of the title)
many evidences of the capacity of plants to feel without nervous system.

>But what does that mean if in the common western meat production about
>10 times as much agricultural area is used, feeding one person
>from meat than directly from crops? 10-fold bugs?

An established  grass field ( composed of many species) will support a wide
variety of animal  life forms( microscopic or macroscopic)  . Very different
than in  annual vegetables or grains field  that require the destruction  or
removal of many  animal life forms every year ( thru tilling) . specially
true in monoculture and even more so in farming including the use of
chemicals.

>Actually suffering is not the same as pain, as is evidenced by the
existence of
>BDSM.

i don't know what is BDSM! but i completly agree.



>> Suffering is simply the experience of something happening that is not
desired
>> (which, by the way, is more easily dealt with by eliminating the desire
than by
>> eliminating the circumstances).

>I think this is a gross oversimplification.  The frustration of
>some desires is too trivial to be called suffering, as for
>example when a shoelace breaks.  But if you insist on calling
>this suffering, then it would be odd to say that it is easier to
>deal with it by ceasing to desire tied shoes.

I think it depend of the level of Attachement we have to our desires.
losing a shoelace is rarely experienced as suffering but losing the use of
one's leg can be experience as suffering even when there is no pain

>If I apply a glowing coal to my skin, I will reliably feel pain.
>That pain will likely be correlated with certain behaviors on my
>part, as well as with certain neural processes.  The same
>stimulus will produce similar responses in other humans, who
>report that they also feel pain.  If I do the same thing to a
>dog, the dog will engage in similar behaviors and these will be
>correlated with similar neural processes.  What reason do I have
>to doubt that the dog feels pain under this circumstance?  I
>can't think of any.

We humans are rarelly able to feel pain we mostly right away interpret the
feelings and translate it into suffering .
responding  to "painfull" stimuli don't leave any room to experience
suffering . suffering come from not being able to respond spontanously or
instinctively to feelings and dwelling in the feeling that doesn't find a
resolution.
there is many exemples of wounded peoples too busy in dealing in action with
the situation to experience any suffering , only when they can become self
conscious,  the suffering start. there is cases of peoples  badly wounded in
state of shock after a car accident  that detach themselves from their body
and watch from outside the intervention of the nurses doctors and surgeon
who take care of the body. without any pain at all  .
there is the case of somebody without a leg who experience pain in it
because in their mind he or she  still incude that member as part of him or
herself.

>Have you never stepped accidently on a dog's foot, or slammed a door on a
>cat's tale? If you are willing to argue that the resulting wailing and
>moaning is not empirical evidence of suffering in animals then you place
>yourself in the absurd positions of either the philosophical solipsist, or
>of the radical behaviorist who denies the reality of subjective experience
>in all animals including humans.

There is no way to know what is the experience of the cat or the dog in that
situation , all what we can do is to project  our own experience when we are
wounded . Because our humanness makes us wish we will be experiencing
something else when it happens and lead us to suffering it is extrapolating
to think animals do that too . i believe that they experience feelings that
can't be denied because of the intensity and they respond to it .and it
doesn't come in their mind to wish the experience to be different.

i have been vegetarian for many years mostly because of my own fear of death
and suffering. it was one more step in my avoidance strategy to feelings.
life caught me back and when i was cornered to experience my own death and
pain on an hospital bed , and surrended to that feeling i started to
experience how feeling of anything could be an enjoyable journey. The
avoidance was the source of my suffering not the feeling of what i was
trying to escape. I did that kind of rediscovery over and over in my life in
some occasions .
i came to peace with killing to eat  because eating is based in the
diparition of one life form to be integrated in an other one so is based on
killing  .and i believe that death can be as blisfull ( or painfull) as
birth all depend on the attitude. I reported here the blissfull experience
of an hunter at the moment he was going to be bitten by a lion and got
rescued at the last moment by his friend ( by killing the lion ) he
surrendered there to his own death . Not to say that he didn't feared or try
to avoid the situation but when it was time to be eaten and "nothing" could
be done from his part he surrendered and experience the bliss of the flow of
life .
I saw that surrendering many time in the rough life of the horses that i
raised in the pyrennees. If caught in a situation where escape was seen as
possible by them they will fight with all their strengh ( even to the point
of hurting themselves in the example of being caught by a barbwire) but in a
situation hopeless from their point of view ( like when caught in such way
that movements were useless and didn't change the situation they surrendered
and waited peacefuly death. ) i saw this same resignation when caught in a
snow fall so thick that they could not moved ( at least they thought so
because we manage thru lot of dificulty to convince them  to try it and it
works for most of them,  they came back safe in the valley. But some decided
to not move and  died there even refusing the hay that the helicopter
dropped close to them.

jean-claude