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> But what when you claim to feel pain? Decrease of performance on tasks unrelated to damaged area shows that something is going on beyond physical damage and

> But what when you claim to feel pain? Decrease of performance on tasks unrelated to damaged area shows that something is going on beyond physical damage and usual stimulus processing. Worker ants, for example, continue to carry on their work even after fatal damage to their gaster. You will not continue to perform mental arithmetic with the same efficiency after your little toe has been struck by a hammer, despite it serves no purpose in doing mental arithmetic (or any purpose at all, for that matter). And if you will do, then you don't feel pain.

danbruc 7y ago
That is a good point I did not think about at all, even though it is probably one of the most universal consequences of pain, even - at least to some extend - carrying over to emotional pain. The first question I had - even if not really relevant for the topic - is what the reason might be. My bust guess would be conservation of resources and at least in some situations avoiding further damage. Also in some situations the reaction is at least initially the opposite, to suppress the pain and increase performance to help getting out of the situation. But more relevant to the topic, while generally reduced performance is strongly related to pain, I have no problem imaging a robot exhibiting degraded performance due to damage in somewhat unrelated functions for the purpose of resource conservation or something along that line. It could even be a kind of overreaction - if the damage and its consequences are not well known, then be conservative and reduce performance in general. But while building something like that into a robot makes it behave more like a human, I am pretty sure that this is not what people usually think of when they say that they feel pain, i.e. most people would still say that the robot still does not really feel pain.

danbruc 7y ago

That is a good point I did not think about at all, even though it is probably one of the most universal consequences of pain, even - at least to some extend - carrying over to emotional pain. The first question I had - even if not really relevant for the topic - is what the reason might be. My bust guess would be conservation of resources and at least in some situations avoiding further damage. Also in some situations the reaction is at least initially the opposite, to suppress the pain and increase performance to help getting out of the situation. But more relevant to the topic, while generally reduced performance is strongly related to pain, I have no problem imaging a robot exhibiting degraded performance due to damage in somewhat unrelated functions for the purpose of resource conservation or something along that line. It could even be a kind of overreaction - if the damage and its consequences are not well known, then be conservative and reduce performance in general. But while building something like that into a robot makes it behave more like a human, I am pretty sure that this is not what people usually think of when they say that they feel pain, i.e. most people would still say that the robot still does not really feel pain.