Michael: Multivalent experience: Some members of the list have argued, with
justification, that (as I understand their arguments) everything is in or
mediated by the brain. A, to me, extreme position would separate body and
brain (a la Descartes). My intention was not to dispute the "philosopical"
"truth" of those arguments but to introduce into the discussion the function
of speaking of the pain being localized in a particular part of the body.
There are philosophical truths and "truths" it's wise to use in everyday
conversation. Or, if you've just put your hand on a hot element on the
stove, it's not "efficient" to recognize that your brain is receiving a
particular kind of signal from sense receptors in your hand but instead to
get your hand the hell off that element just as fast as you can. Consider
the physiology/philosophy of it all later.
Geoff C
From: Michael Brady <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Consciousness Assayed
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 13:01:48 -0400
On Oct 5, 2008, at 12:43 PM, GEOFF CREALOCK wrote:
The point is in the phenomenology of pain - that it is experienced,
possibly in the head (say if a tooth is being drilled) or it may be
located elsewhere in the body - and for these purposes, being Cartesian
or philosophical is not the point.
You're using "experienced" in a multivalent way. Do you intend to make me
think that the pain *occurs* outside the brain (in the tooth or leg,
e.g.)? Or do you mean to say that the experience of pain occurs by way of
how the brain processes the sensory signals? You know, you cut your finger
with a knife. Immediately, your finger sends *really urgent* neural
signals to the brains saying "Alert. Dermis breached. Bleeding occurring,"
which your brain processes as "Kee-rist, that hurts!" and tells your eyes
to look at your finger, tells your arm to flap back and forth, etc.
As I understand how anaesthesia (pain amelioratives) works, the
medications work on the nervous system or brain to alter the responses to
pain, either by altering or diminishing the neural signals or by changing
the brain reactions (endorphins, serotonin uptake receptions, etc.).
