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I think you've overstated the extent to which this argument "demolishes" geezerjay's. You're right, there could exist a tier of organisms that do have centrall

I think you've overstated the extent to which this argument "demolishes" geezerjay's. You're right, there could exist a tier of organisms that do have centrally nervous nociception etc. but don't feel "pain", depending on which set of criteria you use to define what is and isn't pain (you didn't say which of the competing sets of criteria you subscribe to). As far as I see it, geezerjay put forward a reasonable argument and this adds a possible (but so far unsupported) nuance.

Dylan16807 9y ago
Again, there are humans that feel some types of negative stimuli but not pain. It's not theoretical! It doesn't matter what my exact definition is for pain as long as we can agree that there is a difference. (We can agree that soft pokes to the head don't hurt, right?) And because there is a difference, it's not nuance to say "You can show that avoidance of stimuli is nearly universal, but that's not good enough to show pain". Without that equivalence, the argument is half-finished or less.