Comment on That other kind of status

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:45:14 GMT

Moving away from a hot pan is a reflex action. You're not seeking anything, it's done before "you" even enter the picture. But in the general case, it's a combination of consciously avoiding bodily damage (you don't want your skin burnt off), and avoiding pain, which is a correlate of bodily damage.

Avoiding pain is probably the stronger motive, since lower animals who can't think far enough to worry about long-term bodily damage will do the same and since something that causes pain but not damage (that Bene Gesserit box in Dune Paul had to stick his hand in, for example) will cause the same effect.

The buck-stopping problem is a confusion of levels. On the conscious, human level, goal is to minimize pain (the human doesn't even know there's such a thing as pain receptors unless ze knows some neuroscience). On the unconscious inhuman level, "goal" is meaningless, and it would be better to talk about transmitters moving down electrochemical gradients and such.

Discuss