I don’t think that pain requires consciousness, but not in a way you probably think I am right now. I think that we don’t feel pain either. It’s a combination of a prediction and a sensation that assembles to pain. And when you split pain into parts, interesting things happen.
First, it is a unconditional limb/muscle reaction that is hard-coded. It’s uncomfortable but doesn’t constitute “suffering”. Then there is a sensation: burning, broken, cold, etc that makes you do something in the range of acting to reduce the damage to screaming (message danger to others and maybe get help) and kicking erratically (to counteract a predator). It’s more close to “suffer”, but short episodes don’t really add up to long-term or intensive “anguish”. Some people have high pain tolerance, but it doesn’t mean they don’t feel it, they simply don’t change their state of minds so much. And then may come the understanding that you’re going to unfair die or become disabled for life, and these feelings and thoughts may be comparable to a situation of no physical pain at all, e.g. if you end up with an unfair life sentence. So basically my idea is that dying in pain is just a very negative sum of these negative components, but consciousness is not the key. It only helps to see your fate, whatever it is.
Which parts of “pain” we are trying to reduce by these laws is unclear.
First, it is a unconditional limb/muscle reaction that is hard-coded. It’s uncomfortable but doesn’t constitute “suffering”. Then there is a sensation: burning, broken, cold, etc that makes you do something in the range of acting to reduce the damage to screaming (message danger to others and maybe get help) and kicking erratically (to counteract a predator). It’s more close to “suffer”, but short episodes don’t really add up to long-term or intensive “anguish”. Some people have high pain tolerance, but it doesn’t mean they don’t feel it, they simply don’t change their state of minds so much. And then may come the understanding that you’re going to unfair die or become disabled for life, and these feelings and thoughts may be comparable to a situation of no physical pain at all, e.g. if you end up with an unfair life sentence. So basically my idea is that dying in pain is just a very negative sum of these negative components, but consciousness is not the key. It only helps to see your fate, whatever it is.
Which parts of “pain” we are trying to reduce by these laws is unclear.