The chicken that lived for 18 months without a head | Hacker News Reader

The chicken that lived for 18 months without a head

bbc.co.uk

90 pointsSimplyUseless41 comments

This would definitely be classed as animal abuse today.

To quote the article:

> Reports indicate that Mike's beak, face, eyes and an ear were removed with the hatchet blow. But Smulders estimates that up to 80% of his brain by mass - and almost everything that controls the chicken's body, including heart rate, breathing, hunger and digestion - remained untouched.

So in effect the chicken was still alive and potentially suffering the whole 18 months. Lovely.

Well, yes. The chicken was definitely alive. None of us can know whether it was suffering. Once you remove parts of the brain, all bets are off. In a human, the front of your brain (such as the prefrontal cortex) is where a lot of what makes you "you" lives.

>None of us can know whether it was suffering.

you must be kidding. Until of course under "suffering" you mean a suffering of a Victorian girl who can't communicate her love to that fine Navy officer.

> Once you remove parts of the brain, all bets are off. In a human, the front of your brain (such as the prefrontal cortex) is where a lot of what makes you "you" lives.

if you google something like "brain pain perception", you'll find that the front of the brain is responsible for conscious reaction to pain, like planning action to avoid it. The pain itself is very primal, ie. like amygdala primal.

Pain and suffering are clearly very different things. I'd suggest that 'conscious reaction to pain' is a good working definition of 'suffering'.

it already has definition :

suffering - "the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship."

Introducing new definitions like yours is just an implicit attempt to advance anthropocentric exclusivity, pretty much the re-worded equivalent of that religious dogma of "only humans have soul"

According to your own definition, I think the GP argues whether there is a state to talk about without consciousness.

the "state" in the definition is just a general word, like vapor state of water, state of things, etc... Feel free to google on your own.

There is no general word. Philosophy itself is the art of putting the wrong words in the right order.

> Introducing new definitions like yours is just an implicit attempt to advance anthropocentric exclusivity, pretty much the re-worded equivalent of that religious dogma of "only humans have soul"

Oh man, I hope you realize how /r/iamverysmart you sound right now. The poster you're replying to has a very good point that is often discussed by philosophers[1]. Your anti-theist quip doesn't serve your point either. It just makes you seem like more of an asshat.

Let me explain: since pain is (trivially) a subjective experience, does X still experience pain if it no longer has the capability for a subjective experience? For example, if I got hit by a car and ended up brain dead, it's intuitive to claim that I would no longer be able to experience pain even if you decided to cut off one of my limbs.

Was the chicken in a similar state of being? I don't know -- maybe, but probably not. Either way, it's an interesting question.

[1] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pain/#second

>Let me explain: since pain is (trivially) a subjective experience

no. Pain has basic objective component, basic common denominator - it is the specific reaction of nervous system, specific set and intensity of signals going through it in reaction to tissue damage. More complex nervous systems build more complex constructs on top of that foundation, like the expectation of pain, memory of pain, etc... and many of that additional constructs are subjective in nature, no argument here.

>For example, if I got hit by a car and ended up brain dead, it's intuitive to claim that I would no longer be able to experience pain even if you decided to cut off one of my limbs.

does your amygdala still function - fully "brain dead" would mean no, so no pain.

I linked you a very reputable source that contradicts what you're saying. In other words, you're simply wrong.

it frequently happens to a "very reputable sources" in very politically charged situations :) I mean we have pain as feedback machinery driving behavioral adaptation in natural selection vs. subjective experience. The same old fight.

Oh man, I hope you realize how /r/iamverysmart you sound right now.

A bit OT: what is the purpose of that subreddit? The last thing our braindead modern culture needs is further normalization of the belittling of intelligence.

The purpose of the subreddit is to make fun of pompous self-aggrandizement ("my IQ is 150++") or pseudo-intellectual nonsense often found on the internet.

Sounds like /r/iamverysmart itself belongs on /r/iamverysmart .

...and 'distress' means the conscious awareness of pain or discomfort?

pain OR distress

Agree on all bets are off But I am unsure if "being aware of oneself as a being that suffers" is needed to "be able to suffer".

Bits of it were. The head was probably dead.

I don't really understand; the images in the article show a chicken with its entire head and neck removed, which doesn't jibe with that description. Am I just mistaken about chicken anatomy, or is there something missing?

It's probably not the actual chicken for one.

That is the chicken[1] in the photo. According to the article, a lot of a chicken's brain is in the very back of the head / beginning of the neck. I believe in the photo, that's still got the entire neck there.

Comparison photo of a full chicken[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken [2] http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130606165306/animalcros...

So if self survival isn't required, the brain is of no use ?

I believe the precision anatomical cartoon associated with this "The Straight Dope" article is closer to the actual head proportion left, "..he chopped off just the top two-thirds of Mike's head..": http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/991/is-it-possible-...

Considering that we literally grind male chicks alive in factories, pump animals with a ton of chemicals to increase their weight and so on...not sure if anyone would think it is animal abuse even today

I've seen those video clips: It's a horrifying glimpse at the consequences of our desire for low-cost meat products, and one of the (many) contributing reasons that I'm almost entirely vegetarian these days. But I've also thought about that grinder a lot: I'm not sure there's a lot of suffering involved -- that grinder thing is moving fast, and those chicks go from "la la I'm a baby chicken" to a red mist in, I'd guess, less than half a second. I reflexively object to the practice, but I honestly can't come up with another way of getting that done if it's necessary to do.

Anyway, if I had the choice of being ground up nearly instantaneously or to have the front half of my skull removed with a hatchet, I'd have to pick the grinder.

I'm know nothing about the subject, and maybe the current way is perfect in its speed, but "I honestly can't come up with another way of getting that done if it's necessary to do" - using drugs to knock them out before killing them is surely an obvious idea, even if it might not (I've no idea) be practical for other reasons

The grinder is more cost effective, and is endorsed as humane.

I would just say that it isn't necessary to do. That makes the problem much simpler.

Yeah, as bad as that image is it's pretty much the best ways to get it done.

The only better way I could think of, other than somehow stopping male eggs from being viable somehow, would be to use nitrogen suffocation. Most animals and humans don't register a lack of oxygen but an excess of CO2 and actually get a bit euphoric (at least humans do and pigs that were tested would willingly go back into the environment for apples). That would have it's own issues with it being a more batch-y process than the grinder, and how to you keep them from just waiting in packed conditions before being euthanized.

There's a BBC documentary on capital punishment and alternatives that explores this iirc.

Here's a video if anyones interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wajmdD97nk

It's not safe for work nor kids and could be regarded as FUD (as I have no verification on the facts in the video). This is purely for intellectual curiosity; I'm not trying to start a heated debate on animal cruelty.

I know in general there's no room for pity when it comes to animals for food. But just felt sad reading this, especially the attempts to replicate Mike's case. It frustrates me that while we make a strong legal case against cruelty towards animals, we don't give a thought about those animals that are turned to food for humans. Of course, you could argue why harm vegetables/plants for food, but I guess animals suffer much more because of higher consciousness.

Actually we give a lot of thoughts. There are both care and butchering standards - sadly the later, as usual for religious people and law, is opt in. There are exceptions for kosher and halal.

In Europe the animal well being is also codified into laws and regulation.

And a lot of small farms do care about their chickens and livestock.

I read about this years ago on http://www.damninteresting.com/superflous-brain/ which is one of the most accurate domain names on the Internet.

I wonder what'd happen with a similar experiment on Hans the Counting Horse?

Yup. And here's 7 more damn awesome articles:

1. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-birth-control-of-yesterye...

2. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-clockmaker/

3. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-derelict/

4. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-earth/

5. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-zero-armed-bandit/

6. http://www.damninteresting.com/spies-on-the-roof-of-the-worl...

7. http://www.damninteresting.com/undark-and-the-radium-girls/

Full archive: http://www.damninteresting.com/archives/

I skimmed around Google...what's the next longest record for a chicken? The OP mentions rumors of scientists trying to repeat the phenomenon though none apparently successful...unless Mike had a extraordinarily unique anatomy...wouldn't this kind of thing been seen before, among all the billions of chickens killed since then? (Obviously, many billions more are killed every year, but probably not with an ax). Doing it as a science experiment seems cruel...but not nearly as seemingly cruel as many other kinds of animal experiments.

If it is possible to be alive without a brain, then if you think about it that explains Donald Trump.

I skimmed through the article, but I couldn't find anything about how the chicken was fed.

It mentions "Mike was fed with liquid food and water that the Olsens dropped directly into his oesophagus."

You didn't skim well enough then.

Just keep skimming that chicken.

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