I’ve had bad pain. I’ve had non-bad pain (the feeling of wiggling a tooth as a child). I’ve had bad non-pain (the feeling of bumping the nerve in your elbow). I think I can pick pain apart.
It’s hurty. This is the least important part. Just a sensation, not even unpleasant on its own.
It’s loud. Even small amounts shout over everything else.
It’s intrusive. You can’t will it away. About the most you can do is match its intensity and drown it out.
And finally it makes you want to pull away. It’s a flinch, abstracted. I suspect this is the “primitive op”. All animal life flinches, even stuff too simple to have a brain. Since this is an abstract demand, you can’t satisfy it.
So, you are being overwhelmed by an insistent demand to pull away from the pain, and it’s not letting you pull away, all overlaid with a loud sensation that won’t reduce—this is why pain causes something of a cognitive crash. Also explains my other experiences above. Non-bad pain doesn’t demand a flinch, so as with the tooth it tempts you to increase it. Bad non-pain is loud and demands a flinch, it’s just not hurty.
Given all that, what’s bad about pain? I’d say the insistence and the inability to satisfy the flinch.
What we should do once we have supertech: first, make it not insistent at all, because as humans we’re capable of thinking of strategies and sometimes “jerk my hand out of the box and ignore the Gom Jabbar” is a bad strategy. Second, make it satisfiable. “I bashed my thumb, but the hammer isn’t coming back, so hush”.
I agree strongly, except that you CAN eliminate most if not all pain (all I have tested) by paying attention to the details of the sensation relating to the pain. Don’t flinch your attention away, rather, rest attention on the sensation until it wanders away from boredom.
Interesting, I’ll give it a try. Worked a bit for some minor pains I tried it on.
Any published research on this? (I hope none of it is dismissed as the placebo effect, given that this method seems to rely on the same mechanism behind the placebo effect.)
Supertech would be nice, but there are ways of achieving a limited form of this using just what we already have. To some degree it can even be trained.
(Not that I am suggesting what we have is good enough for most people to get what they need under current conditions; but the techniques and technologies exist, in the form of exercises, conditioning and drugs.)
Hmm hmm.
I’ve had bad pain. I’ve had non-bad pain (the feeling of wiggling a tooth as a child). I’ve had bad non-pain (the feeling of bumping the nerve in your elbow). I think I can pick pain apart.
It’s hurty. This is the least important part. Just a sensation, not even unpleasant on its own.
It’s loud. Even small amounts shout over everything else.
It’s intrusive. You can’t will it away. About the most you can do is match its intensity and drown it out.
And finally it makes you want to pull away. It’s a flinch, abstracted. I suspect this is the “primitive op”. All animal life flinches, even stuff too simple to have a brain. Since this is an abstract demand, you can’t satisfy it.
So, you are being overwhelmed by an insistent demand to pull away from the pain, and it’s not letting you pull away, all overlaid with a loud sensation that won’t reduce—this is why pain causes something of a cognitive crash. Also explains my other experiences above. Non-bad pain doesn’t demand a flinch, so as with the tooth it tempts you to increase it. Bad non-pain is loud and demands a flinch, it’s just not hurty.
Given all that, what’s bad about pain? I’d say the insistence and the inability to satisfy the flinch.
What we should do once we have supertech: first, make it not insistent at all, because as humans we’re capable of thinking of strategies and sometimes “jerk my hand out of the box and ignore the Gom Jabbar” is a bad strategy. Second, make it satisfiable. “I bashed my thumb, but the hammer isn’t coming back, so hush”.
I agree strongly, except that you CAN eliminate most if not all pain (all I have tested) by paying attention to the details of the sensation relating to the pain. Don’t flinch your attention away, rather, rest attention on the sensation until it wanders away from boredom.
Interesting, I’ll give it a try. Worked a bit for some minor pains I tried it on.
Any published research on this? (I hope none of it is dismissed as the placebo effect, given that this method seems to rely on the same mechanism behind the placebo effect.)
I wish I could upvote this more than once. It REALLY should be the top comment. Actually, you should probably make a top level post on this. It:
Actually answers the question, which is the goal of having these discussions. You win.
It increases understanding, both in ways that make me feel like my wisdom has increased and in ways that are practically useful.
It proposes a solution to the problem that isn’t just “kill it with fire!”.
Supertech would be nice, but there are ways of achieving a limited form of this using just what we already have. To some degree it can even be trained.
(Not that I am suggesting what we have is good enough for most people to get what they need under current conditions; but the techniques and technologies exist, in the form of exercises, conditioning and drugs.)