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From: departed@netcom.com (just passing through)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
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References: <departedD4HIr4.4Ir@netcom.com> <3ilku4$hip@news.u.washington.edu> <departedD4J4EG.Gvn@netcom.com> <D4sEqG.KLB@gremlin.nrtc.northrop.com>
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 1995 23:51:30 GMT
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In article <D4sEqG.KLB@gremlin.nrtc.northrop.com>,
Martin Cohen <mcohen@charming.nrtc.northrop.com> wrote:
>In article <departedD4J4EG.Gvn@netcom.com> departed@netcom.com (just passing through) writes:
>>In article <3ilku4$hip@news.u.washington.edu>,
>>Gary Forbis  <forbis@cac.washington.edu> wrote:
[...]
>>>
>>>Pain is a feeling just as red is a color.
>>
>>Ah, that's a tempting point of view.  I sincerely believe that that's just
>>the result of being conscious several levels above the hierarchical layer 
>>where pain is first construed as a feeling.  But it's intuitively appealing!
>>Still, out of context, it won't be pain ... (I know, you disagree.)
>>
>>Try this on:  why do you feel pain _more_ when you are helpless?  How can
>>you feel anguish (just as immediately!) at someone else's suffering?
>>Pain is not just your pain, not just this thing ... a lot of things (unexpected
>>from your worldview) can alter pain, which I believe you're trying to say
>>exists in isolatio.
>>
>
>A minor question - How does the existence of people who do not
>feel physical pain (and they do exist) but can feel emotional
>pain and anguish (and, possibly, people who are the other
>way around (psychopaths?)) affect this discussion?
>
>IMWTK
>
>-- 
>Marty Cohen (mcohen@nrtc.northrop.com) - Not the guy in Philly
>  This is my opinion and is probably not Northrop Grumman's!
>          Use this material of your own free will

I think that points out that pain, real as it is, is just as contingent
and depending on circumstance as any other psychological phenomenon.  I.e.
it's a made-up thing, but hardly more artificial than anything else we
perceive.  It depends, like everything, on how we perceive it.   What we
make of it, is what it is.

Gary would disagree.

-- Richard Wesson.
(departed@netcom.com)

