(November 22, 2024 at 5:13 pm)Sheldon Wrote:(November 22, 2024 at 4:45 pm)Paleophyte Wrote: Let's try a simple thought experiment involving a blow torch and your scrotum. Due to >Insert Daft Bafflegab Here< we can't know for certain that you're actually suffering from the application of a welding flame to your genitals. We cannot know what your pain is like. The only objective evidence that we have is a little testicular charring and a rather unpleasant roasting smell, but for all we know you're having the time of your life.
Or do we assume that what I've written above is utter absurdity, that any needless suffering is morally wrong regardless of variations in experience, and that anybody supporting said suffering is misguided at best and probably ought to be placed on a watch list?
Also worth noting that pain is not just subjective, but relative, since we are all born with differing pain thresholds. Very occasionally people are born with no pain threshold at all, and can feel no pain.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-h...s-47719718
"Jo Cameron only realises her skin is burning when she smells singed flesh. She often burns her arms on the oven, but feels no pain to warn her.
That's because she is one of only two people in the world known to have a rare genetic mutation.
It means she feels virtually no pain, and never feels anxious or afraid."
And of course whilst we are born with a pain threshold we cannot alter, parenthetically we can alter our pain tolerance.
Maybe she's just a very good liar @Belacqua? Then again...
"Dr Devjit Srivastava - sent her to pain geneticists at University College London (UCL) and Oxford University.
After tests, they found gene mutations which meant that she did not feel pain like most people."
Wouldn't that be objective evidence? Don't ask me I am not a geneticist...
Yes, this is a good point. In some very few cases, the normal objective tests we give to determine someone's feelings might not apply to an individual.
If she says she doesn't feel pain, when most people would, then we should be very careful in dealing with her. Maybe she's lying, but you wouldn't want to jump to that conclusion just because your objective tests failed to detect the truth in this case.
