Phenomenal consciousness or the subjective experience of feeling sensory stimuli is fundamental to human existence. Because of the ubiquity of their subjective experiences, humans seem to readily accept the anthropomorphic extension of these mental states to other animals. Humans will typically extrapolate feelings of pain to animals if they respond physiologically and behaviourally to noxious stimuli. The alternative view that fish instead respond to noxious stimuli reflexly and with a limited behavioural repertoire is defended within the context of our current understanding of the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of mental states. Consequently, a set of fundamental properties of neural tissue necessary for feeling pain or experiencing affective states in vertebrates is proposed. While mammals and birds possess the prerequisite neural architecture for phenomenal consciousness, it is concluded that fish lack these essential characteristics and hence do not feel pain.

中文翻译：

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鱼不会感到疼痛及其对理解现象意识的影响

现象意识或感觉感官刺激的主观体验是人类生存的基础。由于他们的主观经验无处不在，人类似乎很容易接受这些心理状态对其他动物的拟人化扩展。如果动物对有害刺激做出生理和行为反应，人类通常会将疼痛感外推到动物身上。在我们目前对精神状态的神经解剖学和神经生理学的理解的背景下，鱼类反而反射性地对有害刺激做出反应并且具有有限的行为曲目的另一种观点得到了辩护。因此，提出了在脊椎动物中感受疼痛或体验情感状态所必需的神经组​​织的一组基本特性。