kpreid comments on Pain - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Alicorn 02 August 2009 07:12PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (195)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: kpreid 03 August 2009 04:48:28AM 1 point [-]

I have no particular well-structured reply to this. Miscellaneous thoughts.

  • Let's just attribute that preference to bias and move on :) (That is: This is an extremely “unnatural” scenario involving rather primitive brain hardware.)
  • No lasting aftereffects? I think you'd have to turn this into an “and you don't remember afterward” scenario.
Comment author: [deleted] 03 August 2009 03:28:55PM 2 points [-]

No lasting aftereffects? I think you'd have to turn this into an “and you don't remember afterward” scenario.

Indeed. Pain causes operant conditioning; removing the operant conditioning makes the pain be something very unlike pain. In fact, according to a theory I vaguely remember, the idea of pain is, to a great extent, a rationalization of aversion: "I don't want to do X. I guess I don't want to do it because it will cause me pain." If this vague rememberance were completely true, it wouldn't be pain at all. But this vague rememberance ignores the fact that we know whether we're in pain or not at the time we are or not in pain.