What would the world be like if pain dissappeared?

Outlander

Imagine it. One day you wake up and stub your toe on a shelf. Only to notice you didn't feel a thing. Odd you might think then continue about your day. Then perhaps while cleaning up the mess you made last night you cut yourself on a shard of broken glass. No pain either. Well it's pretty sharp that's not uncommon you think to yourself. You bandage yourself and continue about your day further. Then you decide to cook something unfamiliar using an equally unfamiliar cooking device. You go through the motions before grabbing something and noticing your skin starts to blister and discolor. You immediately stare at it in disbelief then wonder what the heck just happened. You start getting phone calls from friends who report similar occurrences and then turn on the news to see people in equal disbelief.

How do you think this would this change society as we know it and why? Feel free to compare and contrast the possibilities that physical injury (which if severe enough would lead to death regardless of pain sensation) would not occur.

If you need inspiration please use this real example as reference. Is this the transhumanist dream or a very real human nightmare? Discuss.

I would have potentially written this as a story but seeing as I have not posted a discussion in several months, why not.

javra

↪Outlander

I'd one day maybe smell flesh burning, turn my head around, and see my arm on fire. Or, maybe, even worse: see a loved one's arm on fire.

No physical pain either way. But there would yet be suffering. And I find it easy to conclude more suffering on account of there being no physical pain.

Nils Loc

How do you think this would this change society as we know it and why? — Outlander

As the condition/development/prognosis of these girls in the documentary show, it would perhaps be a terminal setback for the species given enough time. We'd all become much more risk averse and dependent on technologies to do basic labor. But how could we adapt so quickly if pain was suddenly taken away. Those babies do not have the freedom to learn by simple pain mediated engagement with the world.

It' be an awful way for the species to die out but at lease we wouldn't feel pain.

Agent Smith

Pain (physical) is just a warning system like a tsunami alert station. The problem is our nervous system is so-structured to make pain (the warning) an unpleasant experience. There's no hard and fast rule saying we can't delink danger detection and the distastefulness that accompanies it. Equipment, for instance, can detect dangers to itself (high temperatures, low battery or fuel) by simply turning on a red LED. The equipment "knows" it's in trouble without actually having to feel the disagreeable sensation we call pain.

Even if pain is removed, we'll still be alright so long as we replace it with a painless danger detection system.

In addition, even though some might be under the impression that our nociceptive system (pain system) is a good one and serves us well, it isn't perfect e.g. cancer pain usually means the cancer is now untreatable (stage III or stage IV): the warning comes too late, there's nothing we can do about it. There's plenty of room for improvement.

Outlander

Even if pain is removed, we'll still be alright so long as we replace it with a painless danger detection system. — Agent Smith

Will it though. Logic doesn't seem to register as much as a faint blip on the radar for some.

Agent Smith

Will it though. — Outlander

Yes, it will. The crucial point is danger/threat has to be detected. Pain is just one of many other, less unpleasant, ways of achieving that end.

Logic doesn't seem to register as much as a faint blip on the radar for some. — Outlander

Logic is the second level threat/danger detection system.

Pain: Elicits reaction/response to threat/danger.
Logic: Dedicated to avoidance of threat/danger.

Response (pain/ex-post) + Avoidance (logic/ex-ante) = A complete self-preservation mechanism.

Agent Smith

Pain
1. Experience (what it feels like): Unpleasant.
2. Function (what it's for): Danger/threat perception.

Is it possible to separate/delink 1 from 2? Machines don't experience anything unpleasant and yet they can detect threats/danger. We can learn a thing or two from our own creations.

Another question: Why were 1 & 2 connected to each other in the first place? Put differently, why didn't we take the machine route (no disagreeable sensation but adequate threat/danger detection)?

Without pain, much of what we call ethics would become meaningless. We can still feel pleasure, yes, but ethics is more about not hurting people and ameliorating pain than making them happy and/or feel pleasure.

Let's look at pleasure to complete the set as it were.

Pleasure
3. Experience (what it feels like): Agreeable.
4. Function (what it's for): Detect and capitalize on opportunities.

We can disconnect 3 & 4 too I suppose but no, we don't want to do that. If so, does that mean 1 & 2 have to go together too?

Outlander

Yes, it will. The crucial point is danger/threat has to be detected. Pain is just one of many other, less unpleasant, ways of achieving that end. — Agent Smith

Again I ask, will it though. Sometimes the most damaging pain, is that which is not physical and so does not heal with time. Nor can it be detected by the measures which you speak. Otherwise, how could it occur?

Agent Smith

Again I ask, will it though. Sometimes the most damaging pain, is that which is not physical and so does not heal with time. Nor can it be detected by the measures which you speak. Otherwise, how could it occur? — Outlander

The OP doesn't mention anything about nonphysical pain. Even if it did, nonphysical pain (psychological pain?) has the same format i.e. it's not something you enjoy, plus it serves a function (social/interpersonal wellbeing). We could do with psychological pain what we could do with physical pain. Wouldn't it be absolutely fantastic if we could simply do away with all the unpleasantness?

Am I making sense?

Agent Smith

Here's a paradox: If pain is a problem (religious & secular ethics thinks this is so) then leprosy & other conditions that diminish or completely destroy the ability to feel pain shouldn't be considered as diseases. Is nirvana/heaven a leper's colony?

Outlander

nonphysical pain — Agent Smith

Isn't all sensation metaphysical at the end of the day.

Am I making sense? — Agent Smith

Does it matter? If it does there will always be someone who can make less sense than you yet completely mess with your sense of sense itself. I hope this makes sense.

Agent Smith

Isn't all sensation metaphysical at the end of the day. — Outlander

What does that mean?

Does it matter? If it does there will always be someone who can make less sense than you yet completely mess with your sense of sense itself. I hope this makes sense. — Outlander

Take a deep breath and calm down.

Regarding what you said about nonphysical pain, there are differences when compared to physical pain no doubt but the fact remains these differences don't matter to the way we deal with it, no?

Also, been working for now 2 decades and what I've noticed, for better or worse, if there's no pain/threat of pain involved, everybody just wants to laze around in the office doing nothing at all. When my boss pulls me up, it's because he's feeling some form of mild to moderate discomfort which he then transfers onto me and that forces me to get my act together.

It seems mother nature knows us inside out - we're not the kind who'll take action if we're not put in the hot seat so to speak.

Why I wonder?

Agent Smith

:broken:

Raymond

Is nirvana/heaven a leper's colony? — Agent Smith

:lol:

When my boss pulls me up, it's because he's feeling some form of mild to moderate discomfort which he then transfers onto me and that forces me to get my act together. — Agent Smith

He feels discomfort because production stagnates.

Agent Smith

↪Raymond

:up:

Raymond

It seems mother nature knows us inside out - we're not the kind who'll take action if we're not put in the hot seat so to speak. — Agent Smith

Is that why my ascendants created pain? To get my ass moving?

Agent Smith

Is that why my ascendants created pain? To get my ass moving? — Raymond

It looks like the answer to your question is a big yes!

What/who are ascendants?

I like to view the matter through a Darwinian lens. There were those who couldn't feel pain (psychological/physical) but they became extinct for an obvious reason (they couldn't perceive danger and even if they could, the warning came too late - that's a huge drawback if survival is the name of the game). Those that lived were like us: pain-sensitive. The day we stop suffering we achieve, in Buddhist terms, nirvana variously translated as "blown out as of an oil lamp" (euphemism for death in my book).

Agent Smith

To add...

A world devoid of (physical) pain becomes indistinguishable from a dream. We do suffer psychologically in our dreams (nightmares) and so mental anguish can't be used to make the dream-reality distinction.

Pains occupy a distinct and vital place in the philosophy of mind for several reasons. One is that pains seem to collapse the [illusion] appearance/reality distinction. If an object appears to you to be red it might not be so in reality, but if you seem to yourself to be in pain you must be so: there can be no case here of seeming at all. — Wikipedia

Is transhumanism (abolishment of suffering) looking to sell us a dream world?

Existential Hope

Pain (and pleasure) definitely feel real.

I love Chom-choms

↪Outlander

I'll just focus on one aspect for now, babies. Without the ability to percieve pain, the ability of a baby to grow and develop would severely diminish. I cant even imagine how they would grow and learn and if they cant grow then well..... goodbye humanity. That is why, this would become a crucial problem which would need to be addressed immediately
Such a baby would have to be taught the lessons in a very different method. The one I propose would be to teach that baby through psychological fear(nonphysical pain).
How would that work? I dont know.
First of all, is feeling the non-physical pain in our essence? Is it something that a new born would understand?
I think we can make him understand. If not pain, some emotions are intrinsically linked to a baby. A normal baby feels attachment to its mother, its caused by a hormone, Oxytocin. We could then define pain for the baby as the absence of that attachment. Actions which take mother away-BAD.
This would be a start in the direction to educate a physically insensitive baby.

EDIT
Another significant point would be the loss of the sense of touch which can have catastrophic effects.

What would the world be like if pain dissappeared?

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Categories

More Discussions