Speakpigeon
Valued Senior Member
Do you think there is a scientific theory that explains the quality of pain in terms of the physical universe?
EB
EB
Evolution? Pain is unpleasant feedback from our body, accompanied by an emotional and physical response, elevated respiratory and heart rates, increased Adrenalin; all in preparation for a physical confrontation or flight from the source.Do you think there is a scientific theory that explains the quality of pain in terms of the physical universe?
EB
Do you think there is a scientific theory that explains the quality of pain in terms of the physical universe?
EB
A 'theory?' Not as such.Do you think there is a scientific theory that explains the quality of pain in terms of the physical universe?
EB
It is possible that pain in social or group living animals also sacrifices the "self" organism for the benefit of the genetic population.Pain plays a valuable role in self-preservation, and as such is a conserved phenotype.
Empathy is not restricted to the conceptual level. The empathic flinch is a "physicalist" topic.Pain is something akin to a sensory experience about one's bodily state (associated with an intense innate avoidance response), while thinking is something very conceptual and maybe associated with the language functions.
As a point of logic, it seems to me, if the quality of pain depends on the quality of the brain then either there isn't any scientific theory of the quality of the brain, or there should be a scientific theory of the quality of pain.The quality of pain depends on the quality of brain...
I voted:
The question doesn't make sense.
I used the expression "quality of pain", to signal I'm talking about our subjective experience of pain, not about any objective manifestation of pain.Have we a definition of pain?
These may be legitimate questions but this thread asks just one question.For starters there is physical vs mental and then there are gradations such that pain bleeds into pleasure or just plain sensory experience.
Is it all about fulfilled or unfulfilled expectation?
Can pain be more than fleeting (Does it renew itself at every moment of conscious awareness?)
Is there such a thing as unconscious pain?
I would agree that evolution is our best explanation for most if not all objective manifestations of pain and that it is a scientific theory despite it's limitations.Evolution? Pain is unpleasant feedback from our body, accompanied by an emotional and physical response, elevated respiratory and heart rates, increased Adrenalin; all in preparation for a physical confrontation or flight from the source.
Evolution would not be expected to specify like that. If there are other qualities pain could have, and still function as required for selection, they may well have just lost out by chance. Whatever works, and shows up first.I don't think the theory of evolution explains the quality of pain, i.e. what it feels like to be in pain.
Sure, but none has been answering them yet.You've been posting some very good thread topics, Speakpigeon. I'm impressed. They are questions that professional philosophers ask.
Whatever the subject can say about pain is irrelevant to the quality of pain. The quality of pain is from a first person perspective. It's what the subject experiences subjectively. What he would say about pain or the quality of pain is essentially considered from an objective perspective, exactly in this respect as would any behaviour the subject may show when in pain. The quality of pain, as from a first-person perspective, is for each of us to know from experience independently of each other. I'm not asking whether science can explain the quality of pain as I experience it but whether you think there is a scientific theory that explains the quality of pain as you experience it.I'm aware of the (so-called) 'Hard Problem', Frank Jackson and 'Mary black-and-white', but I'll stubbornly persist in saying 'yes'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument
I don't think that we currently have such a theory but I do think that one is possible in principle.
What a scientific theory of pain would explain is everything that one could say about pain.
That's indeed the question.The obvious objection is that the complete set of every scientific fact about pain would leave out one vital thing: what pain feels like (or in Mary's case, what color looks like). So (the argument goes) no physicalist theory can be a completely satisfactory account of mind's place in the universe.
I can understand why feeling pain should be different from thinking about pain, but I don't think any science can explain how the two experiences are produced to begin with. The experience of thinking is just subjective as the experience of pain, although both have apparently equally objective manifestations science can study.My reply (it's a work-in-progress) is that the scientific theory of pain can potentially describe why feeling pain would be very different than thinking about the nature of pain. Presumably these two tasks would be have very different kinds of neurological correlates. Pain is something akin to a sensory experience about one's bodily state (associated with an intense innate avoidance response), while thinking is something very conceptual and maybe associated with the language functions.
Again, the question would be as to how the difference gets to be experienced.If pain is a particular set of neurological stimulations, or the self-reflexive awareness that one has been so stimulated or something like that, then thinking conceptually about the nature of those neural stimulations wouldn't be the same thing as being so stimulated. That difference would still be subject to scientific description and explanation.
Sure, I was responding to spidergoat's suggestion that the theory of evolution maybe explained the quality of pain. I don't think so myself although it's at least conceivable that it is in fact the quality of pain which explains our behaviour when in pain. Again, not what evolution says but it remains conceivable.Evolution would not be expected to specify like that. If there are other qualities pain could have, and still function as required for selection, they may well have just lost out by chance. Whatever works, and shows up first.
???A 'theory?' Not as such.
Pain plays a valuable role in self-preservation, and as such is a conserved phenotype. Organisms who can feel pain live longer, and can reproduce more successfully, than those who don't.
In the terms you have outlined I will lean towards "No" since subjectivity is not a scientific discipline almost by definition.I used the expression "quality of pain", to signal I'm talking about our subjective experience of pain, not about any objective manifestation of pain.
As such, I would assume that we all know the quality of pain as we experience it. This doesn't assume we all feel the same or that one pain is the same as any other. It only assumes that we all know the quality of the particular pain we experience whenever we are in pain. So is there a scientific theory that would explain the quality of pain in terms of the physical universe.
These may be legitimate questions but this thread asks just one question.
If the question doesn't make sense to you, I can always try to be more explicit, or you can just vote accordingly.
EB
In the terms you have outlined I will lean towards "No" since subjectivity is not a scientific discipline almost by definition.
The whole raison d'etre of the "scientific method" is to steer the observer away from any trace of subjectivity.
Sure, but none has been answering them yet.
Whatever the subject can say about pain is irrelevant to the quality of pain.
The quality of pain is from a first person perspective.
I did not claim that.???
You don't think the theory of evolution is a theory?
Again, I didn't claim that. Not sure what you are talking about.Or that it doesn't explain how pain plays a valuable role in self-preservation and why the phenotype exists?!
Evolution supports the retention of the ability to feel pain. Again, not sure where you got the other stuff.The question is not about pain as a phenotype but about the subjective quality of pain. So, either the theory of evolution explains this quality or it doesn't. Which is which?
That's like the experience of color. Evolutionary theory explains how it came to be as it is physically structured - the photodetection mechanism, the neural processing, etc. It also explains the properties of the experience that "cause" behavior, which is selected. But it does not necessarily explain the exact basis or embedded context of those properties - any subjective "feel" associated with directing attention to red objects as food or warning would in principle do, as elongation of any finger bone to support a wing membrane would (presumably) do. Anything from qwerty phenomenon to happenstance to direct selection on alternatives could be involved.The question is not about pain as a phenotype but about the subjective quality of pain. So, either the theory of evolution explains this quality or it doesn't.
Roger Penrose proposes that physical experiential events begin with Quantum Mechanics, where crossing a quantum threshold produces a "bing", a physical reaction to a quantum change of superposed potentials (a phase shift).I did not claim that.
Again, I didn't claim that. Not sure what you are talking about.
Evolution supports the retention of the ability to feel pain. Again, not sure where you got the other stuff.