The auditorium was fraught with nervous onlookers as the doctor put on his mask and gloves and prepared to take his needle and thread to the conscious patient's tied down leg. As he drove the needle through the patient's flesh, the patient let out a ravaging scream of pain. But the next second he was calm as could be. "How do you find that?", asked the doc. "Quite, fine", replied the patient with a cheery smile. "I do remember you putting the needle through me, but I don't remember any pain." "So do you have any objection if I do the next stitch?" "Not at all, I'm not anxious at all," replied the patient, much to the amazement of the crowd. The doc turns and explains, "The process I have developed does not remove the sensation of pain, like an anesthetic, but it removes the memory of the pain which was on the patient's nervous system. If you're not going to remember your fleeting momentary pain, why fear it? The patient here, just demonstrated that. This enables us to conduct surgery even while the patient is fully conscious" (Source: The Pig That Wants to be Eaten, Julian Baggini)
Thought experiments such as the ones I've been trying to analyze/think about, do get bizarre, sometimes stretching the boundaries of imagination, reason and plain comprehension. Many get me to the point of plain exasperation and agitation at just splitting hairs. This one surely qualifies as one of those. Yet, I'm aware that such excerpts also do make me confront those seemingly basic and most elementary of concepts that have been imbibed in me. It painfully makes me reevaluate and understand every single strand of reason and thought in me, makes me dig so far deep into the roots to discover that minute particle of reason, that although seems so pointless and unnecessary, does help me gain more clarity about how my thoughts have sprouted, where they've sprouted from, how they are connected, and how much pure reason is responsible for them. In the process of searching, I also end up rearranging a few to sit in the right places and brushing off the dust bunnies on those I haven't used in a long time. So, well, I'm ready to face yet another journey down the crevices.
Why is pain bad? What is pain? How is pain different from suffering?
Inflicting pain is associated with immorality since it leads to misery and suffering. Pain is not just the momentary sensation of misery, but it also forms a component of fear, due to the miserable anticipation, and the memory of going through the trauma and healing the scars. When the memory of the pain is removed, it is hypothesized that one will no longer have any fear of facing it. If my memory of the pain of scathing myself is removed, I wouldn't know how it feels like to burn myself, and hence will have little fear. If all that's remaining is just the momentary shoots of fleeting pain, will that qualify as suffering? If inflicting pain is bad, is it still wrong if the suffering associated with it is removed? I answer, YES and YES.
For one, even if I have never been subject to a particular type of pain, my knowledge that it will hurt, is enough to put me into a fearful anticipation of it. I have never had a root canal treatment, yet I wouldn't say I am fearless about it. I wouldn't care if I lose my memory of the pain, I would still be apprehensive of the anticipation, because it's common sense that it will hurt without Novocaine. The patient in the excerpt is just weird and brave, maybe masochistic. Secondly, even if the pain be fleeting, lasting just a second and I'm assured of forgetting it, time is but abstract. Those 60 milliseconds, 3600 microseconds can last an eternity in my head. And to subject any person, any animal with the argument that the person/animal will only experience a series of momentary sensations of pain, which will be forgotten, does not hold strong. In that one second, the body and mind is put through searing torture, and nothing can justify inflicting it, when it can be avoided. It still qualifies as suffering.
Maybe if all my sensations of pain (spanning my whole life) are removed, would I be any braver, because I don't even know the meaning of pain? No. I can still see people scream with pain as a needle is stuck into them, and that's enough to make me suffer with fear of anticipation. That's just me. Many times, it's not just the memory, or anticipation of the pain, it's the combined trauma of going through something unpleasant. To me surgery is unpleasant. And why would compassionate and rational human beings try to inflict something unpleasant, however brief, when it can be avoided?
Some argue that pain is merely a state of mind, and I have heard of great people going through surgeries without anesthesia. This analysis doesn't apply to such enlightened people. It concerns those people who still haven't conquered pain. It is not the least bit ethical to inflict pain on such people, when it can be avoided.
******************************
PS - My rambling does not include a major component of most pain - the emotional aspect. The thought experiment is merely concerning physical pain; whether in concept, the definition of physical pain and the fear of it will cease to exist if the sensation of physical pain is removed from memory. Doing so is obviously against the basic lessons Nature tries to teach us and survival will be pretty hard, but that is beyond this particular thought experiment. It concerns the ethics of inflicting pain, if the concept of physical pain ceases to exist.
Thought experiments such as the ones I've been trying to analyze/think about, do get bizarre, sometimes stretching the boundaries of imagination, reason and plain comprehension. Many get me to the point of plain exasperation and agitation at just splitting hairs. This one surely qualifies as one of those. Yet, I'm aware that such excerpts also do make me confront those seemingly basic and most elementary of concepts that have been imbibed in me. It painfully makes me reevaluate and understand every single strand of reason and thought in me, makes me dig so far deep into the roots to discover that minute particle of reason, that although seems so pointless and unnecessary, does help me gain more clarity about how my thoughts have sprouted, where they've sprouted from, how they are connected, and how much pure reason is responsible for them. In the process of searching, I also end up rearranging a few to sit in the right places and brushing off the dust bunnies on those I haven't used in a long time. So, well, I'm ready to face yet another journey down the crevices.
Why is pain bad? What is pain? How is pain different from suffering?
Inflicting pain is associated with immorality since it leads to misery and suffering. Pain is not just the momentary sensation of misery, but it also forms a component of fear, due to the miserable anticipation, and the memory of going through the trauma and healing the scars. When the memory of the pain is removed, it is hypothesized that one will no longer have any fear of facing it. If my memory of the pain of scathing myself is removed, I wouldn't know how it feels like to burn myself, and hence will have little fear. If all that's remaining is just the momentary shoots of fleeting pain, will that qualify as suffering? If inflicting pain is bad, is it still wrong if the suffering associated with it is removed? I answer, YES and YES.
For one, even if I have never been subject to a particular type of pain, my knowledge that it will hurt, is enough to put me into a fearful anticipation of it. I have never had a root canal treatment, yet I wouldn't say I am fearless about it. I wouldn't care if I lose my memory of the pain, I would still be apprehensive of the anticipation, because it's common sense that it will hurt without Novocaine. The patient in the excerpt is just weird and brave, maybe masochistic. Secondly, even if the pain be fleeting, lasting just a second and I'm assured of forgetting it, time is but abstract. Those 60 milliseconds, 3600 microseconds can last an eternity in my head. And to subject any person, any animal with the argument that the person/animal will only experience a series of momentary sensations of pain, which will be forgotten, does not hold strong. In that one second, the body and mind is put through searing torture, and nothing can justify inflicting it, when it can be avoided. It still qualifies as suffering.
Maybe if all my sensations of pain (spanning my whole life) are removed, would I be any braver, because I don't even know the meaning of pain? No. I can still see people scream with pain as a needle is stuck into them, and that's enough to make me suffer with fear of anticipation. That's just me. Many times, it's not just the memory, or anticipation of the pain, it's the combined trauma of going through something unpleasant. To me surgery is unpleasant. And why would compassionate and rational human beings try to inflict something unpleasant, however brief, when it can be avoided?
Some argue that pain is merely a state of mind, and I have heard of great people going through surgeries without anesthesia. This analysis doesn't apply to such enlightened people. It concerns those people who still haven't conquered pain. It is not the least bit ethical to inflict pain on such people, when it can be avoided.
******************************
PS - My rambling does not include a major component of most pain - the emotional aspect. The thought experiment is merely concerning physical pain; whether in concept, the definition of physical pain and the fear of it will cease to exist if the sensation of physical pain is removed from memory. Doing so is obviously against the basic lessons Nature tries to teach us and survival will be pretty hard, but that is beyond this particular thought experiment. It concerns the ethics of inflicting pain, if the concept of physical pain ceases to exist.
