(January 27, 2021 at 12:06 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: The body control model of pain does not require and is not premised on the experience of pain. There are many other ways that living creatures appear to leverage a body control model without any evidence that they feel pain (and, fwiw, good reason to believe that ours is more like theirs than we'd care to consider). Pain isn't a blessing, pain isn't a curse. It's a function, there are many like it, but this one is ours. There's no particular reason that we couldn't leverage those other models (and no clear evidence that we don't), aside from the accidents of heredity.
In a conscious creature, I believe the pain is a requirement. They are part of the oldest part of our brain, indicating that they are fundamental to survival. It can be built into reflexes, but our mind can counteract reflex, so it requires a conscious qualia. Conscious bad experience teaches us what not to do, and plan ways to avoid pain in the future.
