I agree with the point that we should be investing more into research on direct reduction of suffering(as a phenomenon that happens in brains), rather than reducing the proxies for it.
This is true for humans as well as for animals: e.g. investing into discovering direct stimulation/surgery approaches to reducing or even turning off pain (or just the painfullness of pain, see pain asymbolia) might have greater impact on life satisfaction than it’s opportunity cost for say cancer research.
I am not at all knowledgeble on the subject (and would love to be corrected), but I suspect that ever since lobotomy was declared unethical no interventions for pain other than chemical ones have been seriously investigated.
I agree with the point that we should be investing more into research on direct reduction of suffering(as a phenomenon that happens in brains), rather than reducing the proxies for it.
This is true for humans as well as for animals: e.g. investing into discovering direct stimulation/surgery approaches to reducing or even turning off pain (or just the painfullness of pain, see pain asymbolia) might have greater impact on life satisfaction than it’s opportunity cost for say cancer research.
I am not at all knowledgeble on the subject (and would love to be corrected), but I suspect that ever since lobotomy was declared unethical no interventions for pain other than chemical ones have been seriously investigated.