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The concept of pain is universal to any life form as it's a very basic survival tool. The ability to detect and sense light is also widespread and doesn't becom

The concept of pain is universal to any life form as it's a very basic survival tool. The ability to detect and sense light is also widespread and doesn't become something else just because an organism handles it slightly differently.

Dylan16807 9y ago
Are you arguing against the idea of non-pain negative stimuli? Because I can prove that wrong by poking you in the side of the head. The difference in reaction between pain and non-pain is often slight, but whether it's cruel to subject you to two minutes of it is affected a lot more.
- richmarr 9y ago
  'I can poke you in the side of the head, therefore fish don't feel pain' Is that your argument?
  - foldr 9y ago
    No, the point is that there are all kinds of negative stimuli that are not actually painful.
    - richmarr 9y ago
      If it's not a counter to the parent commenter's suggestion that the ability to feel pain is widespread then I don't see the relevance of this line of discussion.
      - Dylan16807 9y ago
        As far as I can tell, geezerjay's argument is that pain is universal because response to negative stimuli is universal. "and doesn't become something else just because an organism handles it slightly differently" This argument only works if pain and negative stimuli are the same thing. And they trivially are not. My argument is not "fish don't feel pain". My argument is "proving fish dislike something is not enough to prove they feel pain".
        richmarr 9y ago
        The argument that the existence of negative stimuli disproves the ubiquity of pain only holds if "response" is a single atomic thing, which it isn't. Animals don't respond in the same way to being prodded in the head as they do to being, say... eaten alive, so the existence of other forms of negative stimuli doesn't prevent you learning about pain responses. For example, fish have been reasonably shown to feel pain by comparing their responses under painkillers to their natural responses. Personally I don't think our experience of pain is universal, it'll be different with each combination of neurological and biochemical apparatus, but to me the idea that pain must somehow be proved rather than assumed in higher order is somewhat disturbing and indicitive of our continuing hunger for exceptionalism.
        Dylan16807 9y ago
        > The argument that the existence of negative stimuli disproves the ubiquity of pain It doesn't disprove it, it just demolishes that particular argument. > Animals don't respond in the same way to being prodded in the head as they do to being, say... eaten alive, so the existence of other forms of negative stimuli doesn't prevent you learning about pain responses. That sounds like a good start to an argument, but "different" isn't to the point of "definitely pain". > For example, fish have been reasonably shown to feel pain by comparing their responses under painkillers to their natural responses. And that is also a good start to an argument, but "painkillers" have a lot of weird effects, so it needs more work. But neither of those is related to geezerjay's over-simplistic argument. > to me the idea that pain must somehow be proved rather than assumed in higher order is somewhat disturbing and indicitive of our continuing hunger for exceptionalism I'm not sure exceptionalism is the right word, considering how broad the category of "clearly feels pain" is. But I'll remind you there are certain humans with a mutation that makes them unable to feel pain, while mostly leaving their other senses intact. And naked mole rats have a vastly different and muted pain response from their relatives. It's completely plausible to say that an animal might not experience pain.
        richmarr 9y ago
        > It doesn't disprove it, it just demolishes that particular argument. geezerjay made the point that the ability to experience pain is a useful survival trait, so we should expect it to be widespread. Filling in some gaps in your argument (please correct me if I get them wrong), you're arguing that there are other negative stimuli that could have equivalent usefulness and therefore pain itself is not beneficial for optimising survival. Any equivalent stimulus would do. Since there's no way to tell what anyone feels, the entire subjective experience of pain can only be defined by looking at analogous physiology and response. We can look at things like whether a species has nociception, whether their nociception system interacts with their central nervous system, whether they respond to painkillers, how they make choices about negative stimuli, adaptive avoidance, etc. To have the same survival value, your 'negative stimuli' must be indistinguishable from pain. They have to be because you imply they illicit the same response in the same situation, and (barring species that are clearly missing key parts of nociception) the response is all we can look at. Your argument seems to rest on redefining the (admittedly vague) biological understanding of pain to mean a unspecified subset of 'things that are indistiguishable from pain'... which I don't buy as being anything other than an existential conundrum and in my opinion doesn't seem like a basis to call geezerjay's comment "over-simplistic".
Momquist 9y ago
> The concept of pain is universal to any life form Plants respond to anesthetics, some can react to touch/electricity/heat with rapid movement(thigmonasty), they can sense when they are being damaged, some can even display short-term memory. But do they feel pain? They have no pain receptors. They have no nervous system. They can feel pressure/vibrations, and even respond to it, but that's it.
- Valmar 9y ago
  Is a nervous system explicitly necessary to feel physical sensations? Why should we presume that a nervous system is necessary? They may have pain receptors that we haven't identified yet. Plants have consciousness... but it is quite different to animal consciousness, because their bodies are vastly different to our. I feel that we should presume consciousness, pain, emotions, etc, in all living beings, until most rigorously proven otherwise, because just because we may not understand non-human, non-mammalian or non-animal living beings as well as ourselves does not mean that they cannot experience whatever equivalents their consciousness, bodies or minds allow them to.
  - red75prime 9y ago
    What basis do we have to call presumable feeling associated with negative stimulus "pain" and not "tingling" or "shame" or "irresistible urge to move away"?
    - Valmar 9y ago
      On what basis do we have to deny them being able to feel pain without having truly proven it or not?
      - red75prime 9y ago
        Because word pain loses any meaning then. You can't prove that your toilet bowl doesn't feel pain when you violate its homeostasis by flushing.

Dylan16807 9y ago

Are you arguing against the idea of non-pain negative stimuli? Because I can prove that wrong by poking you in the side of the head. The difference in reaction between pain and non-pain is often slight, but whether it's cruel to subject you to two minutes of it is affected a lot more.

richmarr 9y ago
'I can poke you in the side of the head, therefore fish don't feel pain' Is that your argument?
- foldr 9y ago
  No, the point is that there are all kinds of negative stimuli that are not actually painful.
  - richmarr 9y ago
    If it's not a counter to the parent commenter's suggestion that the ability to feel pain is widespread then I don't see the relevance of this line of discussion.
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      As far as I can tell, geezerjay's argument is that pain is universal because response to negative stimuli is universal. "and doesn't become something else just because an organism handles it slightly differently" This argument only works if pain and negative stimuli are the same thing. And they trivially are not. My argument is not "fish don't feel pain". My argument is "proving fish dislike something is not enough to prove they feel pain".
      - richmarr 9y ago
        The argument that the existence of negative stimuli disproves the ubiquity of pain only holds if "response" is a single atomic thing, which it isn't. Animals don't respond in the same way to being prodded in the head as they do to being, say... eaten alive, so the existence of other forms of negative stimuli doesn't prevent you learning about pain responses. For example, fish have been reasonably shown to feel pain by comparing their responses under painkillers to their natural responses. Personally I don't think our experience of pain is universal, it'll be different with each combination of neurological and biochemical apparatus, but to me the idea that pain must somehow be proved rather than assumed in higher order is somewhat disturbing and indicitive of our continuing hunger for exceptionalism.
        Dylan16807 9y ago
        > The argument that the existence of negative stimuli disproves the ubiquity of pain It doesn't disprove it, it just demolishes that particular argument. > Animals don't respond in the same way to being prodded in the head as they do to being, say... eaten alive, so the existence of other forms of negative stimuli doesn't prevent you learning about pain responses. That sounds like a good start to an argument, but "different" isn't to the point of "definitely pain". > For example, fish have been reasonably shown to feel pain by comparing their responses under painkillers to their natural responses. And that is also a good start to an argument, but "painkillers" have a lot of weird effects, so it needs more work. But neither of those is related to geezerjay's over-simplistic argument. > to me the idea that pain must somehow be proved rather than assumed in higher order is somewhat disturbing and indicitive of our continuing hunger for exceptionalism I'm not sure exceptionalism is the right word, considering how broad the category of "clearly feels pain" is. But I'll remind you there are certain humans with a mutation that makes them unable to feel pain, while mostly leaving their other senses intact. And naked mole rats have a vastly different and muted pain response from their relatives. It's completely plausible to say that an animal might not experience pain.
        richmarr 9y ago
        > It doesn't disprove it, it just demolishes that particular argument. geezerjay made the point that the ability to experience pain is a useful survival trait, so we should expect it to be widespread. Filling in some gaps in your argument (please correct me if I get them wrong), you're arguing that there are other negative stimuli that could have equivalent usefulness and therefore pain itself is not beneficial for optimising survival. Any equivalent stimulus would do. Since there's no way to tell what anyone feels, the entire subjective experience of pain can only be defined by looking at analogous physiology and response. We can look at things like whether a species has nociception, whether their nociception system interacts with their central nervous system, whether they respond to painkillers, how they make choices about negative stimuli, adaptive avoidance, etc. To have the same survival value, your 'negative stimuli' must be indistinguishable from pain. They have to be because you imply they illicit the same response in the same situation, and (barring species that are clearly missing key parts of nociception) the response is all we can look at. Your argument seems to rest on redefining the (admittedly vague) biological understanding of pain to mean a unspecified subset of 'things that are indistiguishable from pain'... which I don't buy as being anything other than an existential conundrum and in my opinion doesn't seem like a basis to call geezerjay's comment "over-simplistic".

Momquist 9y ago

> The concept of pain is universal to any life form Plants respond to anesthetics, some can react to touch/electricity/heat with rapid movement(thigmonasty), they can sense when they are being damaged, some can even display short-term memory. But do they feel pain? They have no pain receptors. They have no nervous system. They can feel pressure/vibrations, and even respond to it, but that's it.

Valmar 9y ago
Is a nervous system explicitly necessary to feel physical sensations? Why should we presume that a nervous system is necessary? They may have pain receptors that we haven't identified yet. Plants have consciousness... but it is quite different to animal consciousness, because their bodies are vastly different to our. I feel that we should presume consciousness, pain, emotions, etc, in all living beings, until most rigorously proven otherwise, because just because we may not understand non-human, non-mammalian or non-animal living beings as well as ourselves does not mean that they cannot experience whatever equivalents their consciousness, bodies or minds allow them to.
- red75prime 9y ago
  What basis do we have to call presumable feeling associated with negative stimulus "pain" and not "tingling" or "shame" or "irresistible urge to move away"?
  - Valmar 9y ago
    On what basis do we have to deny them being able to feel pain without having truly proven it or not?
    - red75prime 9y ago
      Because word pain loses any meaning then. You can't prove that your toilet bowl doesn't feel pain when you violate its homeostasis by flushing.