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Best god damn avatar EVER

I completely disagree. We do know love. Maybe you don't yet. But I do. And it's not about anything that's in your post. Though again, love is a physiological response. Our body chemistry changes when we fall in love. It's nothing to do with trancendence. It's a real physical thing. Maybe some people are selfish, and claim they love another person when really they're just afraid for themselves, but that's not a universal thing and what they claim they feel isn't love.

Just look at how fiercely an animal will fight to defend her young if threatened, even if she would be better off just running off and abandoning and starting again. You can argue that it's evolution and if she doesn't defend her young then her genes die with her. But you could also say that if she was being selfish she wouldn't give a toss about her genes, they can fend for themselves she can always make some more. But there is a bond of real and unselfish love there. As there is in humans. And not everyone can be tortured to betray that love. Some people really would rather die, and do.

You speak about knowing sensations as though they aren't truly a part of us. How else are we to experience our lives if we deny ourselves our best means of doing so? We're animals. We need our emotions. We need our sensations. You shouldn't want to 'transcend' that. To do so is to deny what you are. Dogs don't feel that they need to rise above the urge to lick their bollocks. They enjoy licking their bollocks, so why shouldn't they?

There's a lot more to life than fear and psychological pain. I don't know what you've been doing so far, but if that's the way you feel maybe it's time for a lifestyle change?
 
Technically pain is both a thought and a feeling. Pain results from a series of exchanges between the peripheral nerves, the spinal cord and the brain. When the nociceptors sense harmful stimui, they relay their pain messages in the form of electrical impulses along a peripheral nerve to your spinal cord and brain. When the impulse reaches the brain, it is interpreted as pain and thus is forwarded simultaneously to three specialized regions of the brain: the physical sensation region (somatosensory cortex), the emotional feeling region (limbic system) and the thinking region (frontal cortex).

Therefore, the awareness of pain is a complex experience of sensing, feeling and thinking.

This is why fish can't feel pain, they do not have specific regions of the cerebral cortex which are used to feel pain. Also, if you gave someone a lobotomy they would'nt feel pain either.
 
I think the point here is the difference between the sensation of pain caused by physical stimuli, such as sitting on a fork or being bitten by a large bear, and pain caused by emotional stimuli such as being dumped by your lover or having your tictacs stolen by someone you thought you could trust.

While your brain is involved in the pain response, it doesn't require concious thought to know that something hurts. But without conscious thought you aren't able to run through all the terrible consequences of losing your tictacs. The potential for smelly breath, having a thirst which a small sweet could relieve but being far from any other source of refreshment, the knowledge that someone you thought you could trust is now happily munching away on sweets that are rightfully yours. It's a whole different sort of a pain.
 
I just thought that this would be a nice time to insert this:

The Girl Who Feels No Pain

Proceed, if you must ..

Cheers, Martin
Grin.gif
 
Litany said:
While your brain is involved in the pain response, it doesn't require concious thought to know that something hurts.
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Not too sure I agree with that, but no conclusive findings have been proved either way. Pain has been defined as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, ar described in terms of such damage". This definition makes a lot of sense, but it implies that if we are not aware of it we cannot suffer the effects of pain.

However the above does not take into account emotional pain as there is obviously no actual or potential tissue damage that will occur.
 
Let's try again then. I'm fully aware that the brain is involved in the pain response. I'm a biochemist. I know all this. But when you sit on a fork the pain you feel is pretty much immediate. You leap up and yell 'My arse! My arse!', you don't need to debate with yourself in your head about whether or not it hurts. This is what I mean by conscious thought. Simply that. I'm not talking about conciousness as it relates to sleeping, coma victims, self awareness or sentience. Call it active or deliberate thought if it makes you feel better.
 
I think stating that it proves that fish don't feel pain is a little strong. There is doubt on the subject, and the interpretation of results is subjective. We don't yet know so much about the brain, and especially the brain of every animal on the planet, that we can categorically state that fish don't feel pain. The jury is still out.
 
Litany said:
Let's try again then. I'm fully aware that the brain is involved in the pain response. I'm a biochemist. I know all this. But when you sit on a fork the pain you feel is pretty much immediate. You leap up and yell 'My arse! My arse!', you don't need to debate with yourself in your head about whether or not it hurts. This is what I mean by conscious thought. Simply that. I'm not talking about conciousness as it relates to sleeping, coma victims, self awareness or sentience. Call it active or deliberate thought if it makes you feel better.
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There are obviously degree's of pain, i'm not saying that you have a great internal debate as to whether you've felt the pain or not, the conscious experience of pain is created in the brain, there's no argument about that. Obviously you feel some pain a lot faster than others but it still has to be transmitted to the brain before it registers as pain.
 
Litany said:
I think stating that it proves that fish don't feel pain is a little strong. There is doubt on the subject, and the interpretation of results is subjective. We don't yet know so much about the brain, and especially the brain of every animal on the planet, that we can categorically state that fish don't feel pain. The jury is still out.
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Instead of proves I should have said 'the results concluded' :) I agree that the interpretation of results is subjective, it is in most experiments. Considering we only use 5% of our brain and we don't even know how that works properly, it would be prudent of us to assume to know the way other organisms brains work.

Just for the record I have absolutely no idea if fish feel pain or not :) All the items i've quoted came from work I did last year into the fact that fish can't feel pain.
 
Ice said:
Considering we only use 5% of our brain and we don't even know how that works properly, it would be prudent of us to assume to know the way other organisms brains work.
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Agggh. Ok, that's probably a whole other thread's worth right there, and I don't have the relevant references to hand, and I'm sleepy anyway, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, that's just not true. All the info I have is probably in the loft, so you can just choose to disbelieve me and we won't bother with the arguing, but really that is a myth.
 
Ice said:
All the items i've quoted came from work I did last year into the fact that fish can't feel pain
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Have you been torturing the animals again dear?? :p

<Sigh>

I did try and stop that nasty little habit, but i see its started up again

Phil :D
 
Idiot
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You wuv me, I can tell.

Anyway, I agree with litany on this one, the 'we only use 5% of our brain'-story is a myth. Someone once explained it to me. That said, I do only use 5% of my brain, and forgot the entire explanation.

Cheers, Martin
Grin.gif
 
Litany said:
Agggh. Ok, that's probably a whole other thread's worth right there, and I don't have the relevant references to hand, and I'm sleepy anyway, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, that's just not true. All the info I have is probably in the loft, so you can just choose to disbelieve me and we won't bother with the arguing, but really that is a myth.
Click to expand...

Don't intend to argue about it, that was something i'd heard rather than something I've researched into :) I fully agree its probably a myth :D

As for this thread, its fascinating the way different people interpret different things, I wouldn't disbelieve anyone who knew what they were talking about. It's interesting to get your perspective on things as you've obviously studied it from bio-chemists POV where as all the research i've done focuses on trying to model pain and neurological responses (neither of which can be done terribly accurately at this point in time :rolleyes:
 
Does anyone get the impression im being ignored here??

Answer me dammit!!! :mad:

Pwwweeeaaassee, im in need of attention :(

<Goes and sits in the corner to cry>

Phil
 
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