Comments on: Your Name Isn’t Aristotle? You’ll Still Find This Info About Pain and Your Brain Intriguing http://www.howtocopewithpain.org/blog/51/your-name-isnt-aristotle-youll-still-find-this-info-about-pain-and-your-brain-intriguing/ Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:18:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: jeisea http://www.howtocopewithpain.org/blog/51/your-name-isnt-aristotle-youll-still-find-this-info-about-pain-and-your-brain-intriguing/comment-page-1/#comment-463 jeisea Sat, 24 Mar 2007 03:04:18 +0000 http://www.howtocopewithpain.org/blog/51/your-name-isnt-aristotle-youll-still-find-this-info-about-pain-and-your-brain-intriguing/#comment-463 Of course you're right in considering that pain hasn't a clear, viewable, manifistation. Lorimer Moseley (interviewed here recently) and David Butler in their book Explain Pain state that "the threat value of pain contributes directly to the pain experience." If you are a violinist and crush a finger chances are your suffering might be more than someone who's livelihood and creative expression isn't tied up with their hands. Your perception of the pain the violinist is experiencing would also be tied in with your relationship to the person, the way you value your hands (you could also play violin), your previous hand injury (or lack of) etc. Because it is known that the brain's pain message is a result of a collection of stimulus information, physical, chemical and emotional, the person feeling the pain will have a unique set of inputs and therefore a different pain message from any other person. With that in mind it is quite understandable that you cannot know another's exact pain. That does not take away from the fact that in a compassionate society we can have some degree of empathy for the suffering of others. You do not need to experience starvation to feel for the starving. Of course you’re right in considering that pain hasn’t a clear, viewable, manifistation. Lorimer Moseley (interviewed here recently) and David Butler in their book Explain Pain state that “the threat value of pain contributes directly to the pain experience.” If you are a violinist and crush a finger chances are your suffering might be more than someone who’s livelihood and creative expression isn’t tied up with their hands.
Your perception of the pain the violinist is
experiencing would also be tied in with your relationship to the person, the way you value your hands (you could also play violin), your previous hand injury (or lack of) etc.
Because it is known that the brain’s pain message is a result of a collection of stimulus information, physical, chemical and emotional, the person feeling the pain will have a unique set of inputs and therefore a different pain message from any other person.
With that in mind it is quite understandable that you cannot know another’s exact pain.
That does not take away from the fact that in a compassionate society we can have some degree of empathy for the suffering of others.
You do not need to experience starvation to feel for the starving.

]]> By: Churchland http://www.howtocopewithpain.org/blog/51/your-name-isnt-aristotle-youll-still-find-this-info-about-pain-and-your-brain-intriguing/comment-page-1/#comment-252 Churchland Thu, 15 Mar 2007 11:51:59 +0000 http://www.howtocopewithpain.org/blog/51/your-name-isnt-aristotle-youll-still-find-this-info-about-pain-and-your-brain-intriguing/#comment-252 I've got to congratulate you on this being perhaps the most clear piece of philosophical writing I've read in a long, long time. With that said, you must realize that talk of phenomenal pain will disappear when we've developed a suitably robust scientific vocabulary. Mental vocabulary in general, pain or otherwise, will go by the wayside, becoming an artifact of history. I’ve got to congratulate you on this being perhaps the most clear piece of philosophical writing I’ve read in a long, long time.

With that said, you must realize that talk of phenomenal pain will disappear when we’ve developed a suitably robust scientific vocabulary. Mental vocabulary in general, pain or otherwise, will go by the wayside, becoming an artifact of history.

]]> By: Plato http://www.howtocopewithpain.org/blog/51/your-name-isnt-aristotle-youll-still-find-this-info-about-pain-and-your-brain-intriguing/comment-page-1/#comment-249 Plato Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:43:51 +0000 http://www.howtocopewithpain.org/blog/51/your-name-isnt-aristotle-youll-still-find-this-info-about-pain-and-your-brain-intriguing/#comment-249 It's so refreshing to see some real philosophy on your blog. Keep these kinds of posts coming. It’s so refreshing to see some real philosophy on your blog. Keep these kinds of posts coming.

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