The evolution of pain.

[ignoramus]

My 2 brain cells have collided again and got me thinking about this.
What is pain and why do we need to experience it?

Does feeling pain give an evolutionary advantage?
Animals naturally hunt and kill each other for food. Do those animals feel excruciating pain whilst literally been eaten alive?
Why would nature make us suffer like that?

Is it a compromise nature makes because a better system couldn't evolve?
Why do I ask lots of fucking questions?

[Homeless Nutter]

My 2 brain cells have collided again and got me thinking about this.
What is pain and why do we need to experience it?[...]

Pain is an extremely sophisticated damage report system for most beings with a nervous system complex enough, it seems. 

There are people with a condition (Congenital analgesia), that disables their pain receptors. Their lives are always at risk, because, they often don't know, when they're hurt - especially internally - and they don't have the instinctive reactions to pain, which help most animals avoid serious damage. If you cut, or burn yourself you quickly take the part of the body that's been hurt away from the stimulant - often even if you're not conscious. If you didn't feel pain, you could take your eyes out in your sleep - and not even know it...

[Anomalocaris]

My 2 brain cells have collided again and got me thinking about this.
What is pain and why do we need to experience it?

Does feeling pain give an evolutionary advantage?
Animals naturally hunt and kill each other for food. Do those animals feel excruciating pain whilst literally been eaten alive?
Why would nature make us suffer like that?

Is it a compromise nature makes because a better system couldn't evolve?
Why do I ask lots of fucking questions?

Because nature doesn't give a rat's ass about you.

you, on the other hand, owns your very existence to your ability to suffer.

You see, if the gene pool that otherwise would have been made you did not contain the wiring for pain and suffering, then that gene pool would probably not have been passed on to make you. The reason is creatures made from genes that does not support pain and suffering would be less likely to learn to avoid injury from new circumstances. So they are more likely to have dies before passing on their genes. That means if your ancesters lacked the genes to suffer, they would have died before passing on their genes to you.

So say thank you to the wiring in your brain that enables you to suffer pain next time when it hurts.

[ignoramus]

I never would have thought that "pain" would have been such a important prime mover in evolution.
I suppose that's why most animals have this mechanism.
Those that didn't are dead.

I love the irony of blind evolution causing suffering to be part of the survival mechanism.
Except when you're someone's dinner.Then the extreme pain is just a final going away present!
Fuck you mother nature. For not coming up with a better system in 4 billion years.

This is why people are religious and try to give meaning to suffering.
Because God is testing us!
I wonder if we still have pain receptors in heaven? We've got them in hell?
What if I step on a Lego block barefoot in heaven?

[robvalue]

I appreciate having the warning system.

But I really wish it could be intermittent when it's something I literally can't do anything about, and nor can anyone else. I don't need constant reminding. Every half an hour for 2 seconds would be fine.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Put your hand on a hot stove. Evolution has provided you with the almost irresistible impulse to take your hand away. Pain - in this instance - is the mechanism whereby you can suffer temporary damage instead of permanent damage.

But, as is the nature of evolutionary systems, the pain mechanism isn't perfect (nor should we expect it to be). When it goes haywire, we get chronic pain that is clearly not a 'warning' system.

Boru

[robvalue]

I remember being taught that the action to remove your hand from a hot stove doesn't directly include your brain; signals are sent to the spine and then back again. Using the brain would take too long.

I hope I remember that right!

[downbeatplumb]

They are teaching robots to feel pain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36387563

[ignoramus]

Feeling pain is one thing. Only a living animal can suffer the pain. Maybe plants on another level?

[emjay]

I appreciate having the warning system.

But I really wish it could be intermittent when it's something I literally can't do anything about, and nor can anyone else. I don't need constant reminding. Every half an hour for 2 seconds would be fine.

Perhaps one good way of thinking about it is what it would be like for non-human animals, in the wild. There the pain would need to be constant to let them know when they'd healed (because no mirrors, doctors, or other ways to examine their own wounds other than whatever was right in front of their eyes... and then the question of whether they have self-awareness enough to recognise it as part of themselves anyway) and also as a means of allowing it to heal... like when we're in pain sometimes we'll try and get ourselves into a comfortable position where the pain reduces... for animals that's probably the only way of promoting healing (no opposable thumbs, doctors, or means to apply dressings etc). And in our own case if there is constant pain as long as it doesn't change too much we can at least sometimes tune it out... so we only really notice it when it first appears or qualitatively changes... and there it really is acting as a warning system, informing of the location and type of injury through the signature of the pain.