Talk:Pain (philosophy)

Philosophy: Ethics / Mind Mid‑importance

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A summary of this article appears in Pain.

history[edit]

This article was moved here from the article Pain about physiology of pain.

"what does not kill me, makes me stronger"[edit]

What about cancer?

-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.158.83 (talk) 22:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wittegenstein's View on pain[edit]

I just deleted a large paragraph from the article because it was fundmentally wrong. The 'beetle in the box' example was never Wittgenstein's position - he used it as a reductio ad absurdum of the view which he was opposing. Also, the argument had nothing to do with behaviorism or the reality of the private experience of pain - it was about the meaning of linguistic terms such as 'pain'.

Finally, the attempt to tie this in with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics is extremely pseudo-scientific

--GordonRoss 9:45, 11 Dec 2006 (UTC)

Sweet. My knowledge of Wittgenstein is really very far from complete, so cool. The section as written was essentially based on something a professor of mine at Stanford told me in a philosophy of mind course, but, alas, a PhD I have not. I'm a little unclear about what you're saying - I figured it was indeed a reductio against the argument that terms like "pain" can have essentially identical meanings between uses by person A and person B. Thus, Wittgenstein's position was that words like that are essentially private in meaning (i.e. he proved the absurdity of the opposite position). I further figured that this position could be extended not only to the meanings of words, but to the qualitative experiences of things (at least this was as I perceived it to be relayed to me - it's very likely I misunderstood entirely). So, have I characterized his views at all correctly, or am I off base? Wittgenstein doesn't believe minds are fundamentally private things? ILikeThings 09:42, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(also, a clarification - the many-worlds thing wasn't me. It's perhaps worse than pseudo-scientific.) ILikeThings 09:45, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Drastic overhaul![edit]

I'm editing the hell out of this page. It wasn't really good, wandered around a lot, and had no structure. I'm trying to retain as much of the material as possible, but some of it simply does not fall into the category. If you can find a way to re-work the stuff I'm deleting into some sort of structure, I welcome you. I'm trying to streamline this article to actually talk about what various philosophers have written of pain, and not just mention various texts that happen to mention pain. --ILikeThings 10:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Limits to Pain?[edit]

more topics for the article:

What is the evolutionary survival advantage conferred by unending pain? Why should the human body be capable of unending pain, except if it is an inherent and necessary attribute of consciousness? Are there any Guiness World Records associated with pain? Which human has experienced the most pain, involuntary or voluntary? Can emotional pain be greater than physical pain? Was the pain of Jesus prior to crucifixion greater than the actual pain of crucifixion?

There's probably no evolutionary advantage to unending pain, as such. But pain itself is a strong evolutionary advantage - it alerts us to injury that left unchecked could be fatal. It can warn us against repeating actions that hurt us in the past. The important question is not whether we should be able to experience unending pain, but, from a biological perspective, why should be not be capable of unending pain. If we could simply decide to turn off pain, most people in pain would do so. While it would be of benefit, it would undermine the purpose of pain. Also, our body simply does not know the difference between necessary and unnecessary pain - what criteria does the body have to determine that it should no longer generate pain signals?--RLent 22:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pain collaboration - input requested[edit]

Pain is currently Wikiproject Medicine Collaboration of the Week. If any editors here would like to contribute to Pain you may assist in creating an accurate portrayal of human misery. (This sort of thing looks really good on a CV.(humour)) SmithBlue (talk) 06:49, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Opposite of pain?[edit]

For some philosophers this was the most important aspect of "pain" - something to be avoided.Richiez (talk) 18:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]