In biological organisms, physical pain [say, in response to limb being removed] is an evolutionary consequence of the fact that organisms with the capacity to feel physical pain avoided situations where their long-term goals [e.g. locomotion to a favourable position with the limb] which required the subsystem generating pain were harmed.
How many organisms other than humans have “long term goals”? Doesn’t that require a complex capacity for mental representation of possible future states?
Am I wrong in assuming that the capacity to experience “pain” is independent of an explicit awareness of what possibilities have been shifted as a result of the new sensory data? (i.e. having a limb cleaved from the rest of the body, stubbing your toe in the dark). The organism may not even be aware of those possibilities, only ‘aware’ of pain.
Note: I’m probably just having a fear of this sounding all too teleological and personifying evolution
How many organisms other than humans have “long term goals”? Doesn’t that require a complex capacity for mental representation of possible future states?
Am I wrong in assuming that the capacity to experience “pain” is independent of an explicit awareness of what possibilities have been shifted as a result of the new sensory data? (i.e. having a limb cleaved from the rest of the body, stubbing your toe in the dark). The organism may not even be aware of those possibilities, only ‘aware’ of pain.
Note: I’m probably just having a fear of this sounding all too teleological and personifying evolution