Is Dishbrain Conscious? If the firing neurons in the dish resemble a part of the neurons involved in the brain when ýou feel pain it might be that pain ho(o)vers around in the dish.
The question is if we can cut the pain out. If we have a drawing of the brain, we can cut the region, involved in feeling pain, out with scissors.
You can remove working structures from a functional brain-body-surrounding, and it will still be functioning. If what you remove will still be functioning, say the neurons responsible for smell, the dish will not possess the smell of rotten eggs. That can only be experienced by the creature experiencing.