My 2 cents on the fish-pain...
One of the definitions of Life is a Reaction to stimuli. All life forms on the planet show this response.
Now, starting from the start; we had the bacteria+viruses, then the microbes then multicellular organisms, plant life, emergence of fish, dinosaurs, mammals, flowering plants, land animals, and us.
Now do all of these 'feel pain'?
I think the problem is we're thinking about somehing that we can't fathom.
We KNOW we can feel pain, and we talk about it, in fact we abstract about it, meaning,we remember pain from the past and can think about it and even have it affect our present state. We can also abstract as to pain we might feel in the future. this may be the textbook definiton of Fear.
But we know, or at least the evidence shows so far, that many life forms can Not abstract; that is, remember the pain of the future and posit on the possibility of future pain. These life forms feel pain, but don't have a pain 'memory' or at least dont have the brains needed to feel Fear.
For me, it's the Fear Factor. A killing that is most cruel, and hence, most 'painful' when there is maximum fear. Hence the 'Pain' we talk about.
I'd say somethings are just lower creatures and have brains but are just on a sort of sleep-state, or even coma; I mean, like Dreyfus said in Jaws, for the last couple of hundred million years, sharks have been here. Now for me sharks are perfect for this. Dreyfus said a shark basically does three things: swim, eat, and make baby sharks. I think if you include shark-shitting that's about It. Yes sharks have a brain; but like fish it lacks anything but the most simple wiring; no cerebral cortex or cerebellum for higher thought, basically just enough brains to do the above. From pictures of sharks atacking fish, and each other; well they sure as hell are reacting to stimuli and the surroundings, and they seem to know that other sharks can sometimes means 'no good', but I don't sense fear, or wondering, is this gonna hurt?! Oh man I hope not!'
Now the seal getting eaten? That seal is a mammal with a highly developed brain. Certainly more complex then the shark. We see, what we think is altruism in these mammals, and highly complex social behavior. I got the feeling they are abstracting about the sharks out there, and are scared shitless.
This is subjective for me. My opinion only, on the cruel thing. It would be nice, I think, if we died quickly, minimal pain, and minimal warning. For me, a meteor would do nicely. Seiously.
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