I’ve got a pinched sciatic. Know how that feels? Feels like the god damn antichrist is about to take over the world. That’s how it feels!
You are wrong. Phantom Limb Syndrome. You can feel extreme pain in arms and legs that are not there. (Just thought I would butt in.)
Are you omitting psychological pain? Where is the neuro correlate in the body? When people feel emotional pain, the same areas of the brain get activated as when people feel physical pain the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex Pain may run from the brain to the body but there is no neuro correlate from body to brain.
You are talking out of your backside again Mr. Ratty. Do you actually look into any of the garbage you assert?
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Oh come on Cog, where would be the fun in that?
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You’re disagreeing with the dictionary, and with the National Cancer Institute’s definition of the term, I can only examine evidence and you haven’t actually offered anything to suggest they are wrong and you right here. Here are some more then, Wiktionary, Wikipedia, ScienceDirect.com.), Merriam-Webster, they all sate that pain threshold is defined as the point at which someone starts to feel pain, as opposed to pain tolerance which they define as the maximum pain someone can tolerate. Since all you have offered is a bare claim, I’m not sure what it is you expect, one can hardly take a bare claim over that amount of objective evidence about what a term means, or anything else.
Based on what, to what end? Any debate, or discussion becomes meaningless if we arbitrarily define terms and words. I could arbitrarily decide that don’t agree means you agree with me, how would that go?
The citations I have offered throughout and here again, are objective evidence of the common usage of the term pain threshold, they are as we can see above sourced from mainline dictionaries and medical science, paradoxically beyond your own opinion you have offered nothing, so this claim is demonstrably duplicitous.
No, but they do not make the experience of pain objective, that someone’s brain is interpreting stimuli from their senses as what we call pain is not in dispute, only that the experience is entirely personal, and therefore subjective by definition.
“Although the neural substrates of conscious experience of pain remain elusive, the present concurrence between multiple individuals’ patterns of regional brain activation and their subjective reports of pain provides an objective context in which to assess the subjective report of any given individual. Cerebral cortical regions such as the ACC, SI, and PFC exhibited more frequent and more robust activation in individuals who were highly sensitive to pain vs. individuals who were insensitive to pain. In contrast, thalamic regions known to be critically involved in the afferent transmission of nociceptive information exhibited no statistically reliable differences in activation between highly sensitive and insensitive individuals. This dichotomy between cerebral cortical and thalamic patterns of activation provides insight into the CNS mechanisms that may account for interindividual differences in pain sensitivity.”
Note the emboldened section, it presents an objective basis that someone is experiencing pain, the experience remains subjective. This was explained some time ago as well.
It tells me they are experiencing pain, it does not tell me what that experience is as it is subjective, no one can claim they’re the same, and again people are born with different pain thresholds, this is a medical fact and I have offered several citations to support this, and people have different pain tolerances, and we can alter our pain tolerance over time. So no we cannot claim they are the same, that is just a subjective unevidenced assumption you keep making. Not one medical or scientific citation supports that, and they all state it is a subjective experience.
I offered the quotes that supported my assertions, and you waved them away, you even said you weren’t interested when those quotes specifically contradicted your claims, like the brain interpreting pain stimuli. You can’t be bothered to offer a single word from that link, and it isn’t about humans at all, so all we have is your subjective and unevidenced claim it supports your assumptions, and I read nothing in it that did this, or that mentioned or inferred human pain was anything but subjective. I asked you to go back and read the link because you were repeatedly lying I had not offered any explanation of how the brain interprets pain stimuli, even after I repeatedly quoted it doing just that.
I am not the judge, since the citations are there for anyone to read, as are the quotes, they represent objective evidence. I am not just offering my opinion, whereas you are.
All you have done is replaced your straw man fallacy, with a false equivalence fallacy, conflating the objective causes of pain with the subjective experience of it. It also again ignores the fact that we are born with different pain thresholds.
“Jo Cameron only realises her skin is burning when she smells singed flesh. She often burns her arms on the oven, but feels no pain to warn her. That’s because she is one of only two people in the world known to have a rare genetic mutation. It means she feels virtually no pain, and never feels anxious or afraid.”
So we certainly don’t all experience the same pain from the same stimuli, but for the rest of us who don’t have this rare genetic mutation and therefore experience pain, the experience is entirely subjective.
It wasn’t an analogy, you created a hypothetical of two people receiving the same stimuli, and claimed they would experience the same pain, but not only can’t you know this, as their experience of pain is entirely subjective, we also know that people start with differing pain threshold, and though extremely rare, we have an example of someone who doesn’t experience pain at all.
No it doesn’t, and you cannot objectively evidence this, since the experience is entirely subjective, and again we know that people are born with different pain thresholds, and while we can infer when someone is experiencing pain, or the point at which they start to experience pain, we cannot experience that pain ourselves, because it is subjective.
Another straw man fallacy, since no one claimed that “Failing to understand how physical processes in the brain give rise to emergent things like pain does not imply that those things are therefore subjective” , I only asserted that the experience of pain is entirely personal and therefore subjective, that has nothing to do with our understanding of how the brain interprets stimuli as pain, and everything to do with fact that no one can experience anyone else’s pain.
The last part just appears to be petulant hyperbole, since it is ludicrous to decry objective evidence in favour of your own unevidenced subjective belief. Then again you do this all the time, it seems to be a part of the theist’s mindset, an inability or unwillingness to differentiate between the subjective and the objective, almost like a safety net for their beliefs, to protect them from objective reality.
Your inference is not supported by any objective evidence, that we can infer people are experiencing pain, does not mean we can in any way experience their pain, it is entirely personal, and therefore subjective. This is the same false equivalnce fallacy you have used throughout.
Yes, it’s a platitude worded as a metaphor, it is not meant literally in most cases, as I can know how miserable my pain is, and empathise with @Old_man_shouts_at_cl and @mr.macabre13 when they are in pain, what I cannot do is experience their pain, nor them mine, because that experience is personal and subjective.
You don’t, you really don’t…
And that demonstrates again that you really don’t get it at all, as the pain we experience from that scenario is subjective, and we cannot objectively know they are the same, that it sucks doesn’t change this at all, it only means we can empathize based on our own subjective experience.
I know how it felt when I had an attack of sciatica, but I can’t know objectively what anyone anyone else experiences as it’s subjective, but I can infer it isn’t pleasant if they demonstrate symptoms of experiencing pain.
I’m glad no one else can feel my pain right now. 
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Just for the record, I’m done. Fuck this shit. People can know that they’re experiencing similar feelings to other people when the conditions for those feelings are the same.
The treatment in I’m getting from @Sheldon is likely not personal. I’ve seen him do it many times to other people not as considerate as my self to indulge his inflexible approach to everything.
For the record, and I won’t be replying on this topic any further, so if @Sheldon needs the last word take it.
when two people experience pain under the same conditions it is safe for them to infer that their pain is similar.
That isn’t a strong claim. The fact that @Sheldon won’t admit to it and is making this personal is just a testimony to his rigid way of thinking.
But you claimed it was objectively the same…looks like the goalposts are for shinty not soccer…
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You can’t know you are experiencing the same feelings? Get real. You only assume others have similar feelings as those you have had. That is called (empathy).
If you walk down the street in the morning and the first person you meet tells you that you look like shit. You can probably ignore it.If the second person says the same thing. Well, you might ignore that as well. But let’s face it ratty, after 5 or 6 intelligent people tell you that you are demonstrably wrong, they provide actual facts and evidence supporting that fact. You are an idiot for not going and looking in a mirror.
Asking for facts and evidence is not being inflexible. It is being open-minded to the possibility that you might actually have some facts and evidence instead of just talking out your butt. When you have facts and evidence and can support your assertions with anything but more assertions, then people might consider the information you are pushing and look deeper into it.
Sheldon already had the last word. He had it in his very first post to your inane ramblings. Do you imagine he was doing anything but humoring you? Unlike me, I think he imagines there is hope of pulling you out of the hole you have dug for yourself.
No, it is not. I already gave you an example. Do I have to let you punch me in the face or kick me in the shins to prove it? All you can say about the people is that the same thing happened to them. How they deal with it is individual.
It most certainly is. In your world, there is no flexibility at all. A happens and the response is B. That is not the way life or pain works.
No, making it personal is to get your attention. You are being obtuse. You are engaged in projection. You are projecting your rigidity onto others. People aren’t listening to you because you sound like a nutjob.
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Except the experience of pain cannot be experienced by anyone else, so we can’t know that what we experience is the same, and I have explained innumerable times that the objective causes are not in dispute, they do not however mean the brain’s interpterion of stimuli as pain is the same, nor can we know that they are. And people have different pain thresholds, so we have some objective evidence they are not the same for everyone.
I follow the objective evidence, if I want to arrive at the truth it is demonstrably the best method. I try to focus on the argument, and not solely on the person making it, as that is likely irrational.
Who has the last word is irrelevant, which argument has been supported by objective evidence and rational argument is all that really matters if one cares about the truth.
Firstly you have moved the goal posts from the same to similar, secondly I have explained as well as I know how that people have varying pain thresholds, and varying pain tolerance, and of course that our experience of pain is subjective, so our assumptions ought to be limited what we can objectively evidence. The first article I posted talked about the challenge pain clinicians face when trying to ascertain people’s subjective claims to be in pain, this is precisely because they have no way to know exactly what that person is experiencing.
This is not personal for me, though that comment ironically is personal, focussing on me, and not on the arguments and evidence I presented. I won’t accept your assertion that the human experience of pain is objective, because all the objective evidence and prevailing scientific medical consensus indicates it is not.
Ah you spotted that as well then, so much for me being personal.
Exactly so.
That’s the strong claim. I don’t get frustrated when people disagree with that. I get frustrated when I’m black listed from making weak claims. For example:
Weak claim:
under similar conditions, similar effects can be experienced to the degree that they can be inferred to be similar (even if they cannot be directly known)
Ie. this pertains to pain and the recognition among people that it can be “related to” - in the sense that, without knowing a particular pain in another person directly, we can infer the nature of it - having experienced similar conditions and effects ourselves. We never know it exactly or directly; none the less; we can relate to it.
Strong claim:
the neuro-correlates of a pain experience equate one to one with the experience itself.
Ie. At some point in time it may be possible to scientifically understand the emergence of pain from biological correlates to the degree that the “subjectivity” will be removed from the experience if and when our understanding amounts to a kind of determinism.
Ie. the Self is an illusion. The idea that pain is personal assumes the existence of a person. In reality there is no person, there is only pain. And that pain may be entirely explainable in physical terms.
Ie. it exists in an objective sense to the degree that there is a field of reality in which it has arisen.
This is the kind of bullshit I’m up against here with both you and Sheldon. This fucking nonsense that one persons experience doesn’t reflect another’s. When you tell me that, for example, my stubbed toe doesn’t feel the same as another’s stubbed toe, you might as well be telling me that where I see green another person sees red!
It’s bullying. You guys are a couple of bullies. Sure. Tell me I look like shit five or six times. I’m fucking wrong the minute I open my mouth. You guys are jerk offs.
I get it.
Can’t know, but can reasonably assume they’re similar given similar conditions
Okay. I’ve already contradicted myself by replying. My bad. It stops … now!
Depends on what kind of pain, and what kind of conditions. As for me, it doesn’t take much for my hands to freeze when it’s cold. And temperatures below a certain threshold induce pain. Other people can for example handle stuff that comes directly out from the deep freezer without problems, whereas I can only hold the items for a few seconds before pain sets in. Same with cold water; other people, like my wife and kids, can rinse fruits and vegetables in cold water from the faucet, whereas those temperatures induces pain in my hands. As a consequence, I have to rinse the very same fruits and vegetables in luke warm water. Thus, the same conditions do not induce the same level of pain in these cases.
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Fair enough.
When I was a child I played outside in the Fall and got my feet wet. After returning home I experienced severe pain and even running my feet under cold water was painful until my skin returned to normal.
To this day, my feet can be completely frozen and i won’t notice a thing. But the moment my back gets cold, I’m extremely uncomfortable. And my wife is the complete opposite. If her feet are cold, she’s miserable.
So, I acknowledge that pain thresholds and tolerances exist. I don’t know how they work. Something about the brain releasing opioids or adrenaline in response to the stimuli. Or even damage to the nerve endings.
I’m just pointing out commonalities. Most people will agree what “cold” feels like within a reasonable range of temperatures.
I’m saying that there are ranges between extremes where people are able to relate certain pains of their own to the pains of others.
Everything is relative. What I’m trying to say is that, for example, the colour red is red to most eyes. Some eyes may be colour blind, some eyes may have genetic mutations which alter the tone of the color, some eyes may be superior or inferior to others. Some may be human and others belonging to insects.
So it’s all relative. What exists, IMO, are common biological pathways for sensations to some extent that people are able to agree on the quality and nature of those sensations.
Where those pathways differ greatly there is more disagreement. But where they are very similar there should be more agreement.
Are you that frigging dense? Have you ever heard of color blindness? Are you completely unaware of the fact that some people can see colors that other people can not see? research has found that we experience colors differently, depending on gender, national origin, ethnicity, geographical location, and what language we speak.
Your just a frigging troll aren’t you. Do you ever think before you speak? You know there is this thing on your computer called ‘Google.’ If you learn how to use it you can stop making inane assertions. You could begin checking yourself before you speak.
The Himba are a tribe from Northern Namibia. They do not classify blue and green differently, the way we do in Western Culture, but they do differentiate between many different shades of green.
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Yes! Now you are catching on. Do you understand you just said
Do you see the FACTS I have given you? Do you understand people do not see the same colors, they do not feel the same pain, they do not think the same thoughts., WAKE UP! There is a real world out here!
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YOu can not acknowledge that in one breath and then assert people feel the same pain in the next.
More fucking moving the goal posts… You just can not have an honest discussion, can you? You open your mouth, insert your ratty tail, and then squiggle and squirm because you are choking yourself with your own words.
People imagine all sorts of shit, including that they can understand the pains of others. Do you want to know a really good way of understanding the pains of others? Ask them and don’t pretend.
You only know what it is like for you to experience pain.
People once agreed that the world was flat. Can you spot the fallacy?
I’ve addressed this above. Yes. When there are differences in the percpetual faculties, or in the brain, etcetera, then there are bound to be disagreements.
And how? Magic?
Yep. Evolutionary adaptations to the sense faculties caused by selective pressures in the environment favouring certain genetic mutations in the DNA.
You’ve missed the point entirely or you are just being a prick and dismissing me.
Hmm. Well. I got that right (fuck you, btw)
Again. Commonalities exist. That’s all I’m pointing to. Especially where the sense objects are the same, people with roughly the same genetic material are bound to closely agree on the nature of their perceptions.
Commonalities exist, especially where the sense objects are the same and the people share similar genetic materials.
Not with you, I can’t. This is how I think. I make hypothesis, I make corrections, I make assumptions, I arrive at conclusions.
So fucking arrogant to think that adjusting one’s view on a matter because it wasn’t expressed entirely at the beginning is some kind of cardinal sin.
I guess you don’t have that issue since you’re never adjusting your view point.
So let’s lump “empathy” in with “all sorts of shit” and just throw the baby out with the bath water?
Indeed. And one day I assume red will be blue and 3 will be 4.
DAMN, I’m sorry that you’ve had to deal with it for as long as it’s been, that really sucks. Did you suffer an injury, or is this just something that god has given you as a gift?
Actually…no. What is perceived as cold or warm depends on what you’re acclimatised to. What counts most is the temperature difference, typically the difference between day and night, and to a much lesser degree the absolute temperature. If for example you are acclimatised to daytime temperatures of 30°C, then 10°C is perceived as cold. On the other hand, if you are acclimatised to temperatures below freezing, then 10°C is perceived as warm. Like where I live, during summer 10°C is perceived as “cold”, but during the winter 10°C is T-shirt temperatures. I have also experienced this same phenomenon when going on vacation to places with a tropical climate.
Everyone’s pain threshold is different, our dad had a very low pain threshold. Looking back, the things that triggered him were ridiculously minor. I, on the other hand, have an extremely high threshold.
In December of '16, I ended up in the emergency department because they thought I was having a heart attack due to my symptoms. The pain was unreal and unbearable, but I gutted it out. Turns out one of the discs in my neck ruptured and presented like a heart attack.
Words alone can’t describe that experience, it was mine and mine alone. Case closed.