Newsgroups: comp.ai.genetic
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!swrinde!pipex!uknet!newsfeed.ed.ac.uk!ainews!aisb!simonpe
From: simonpe@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Simon Perkins)
Subject: Re: Evolutionary reason for incapacitating pain?
Message-ID: <D6yyH0.K0H@aisb.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: news@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Network News Administrator)
Reply-To: Simon.Perkins@ed.ac.uk
Organization: Dept of AI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
References: <brianhill-0304952108120001@brianhill.bdt.com> <sfkaplan-0404951039280001@sfkaplan.student.amherst.edu>
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 1995 10:29:24 GMT
Lines: 26

# It seems that scenarios can be developed which argue both for and against
# incapacitating pain.  I would guess that, unless it is incapacitating,
# creatures would chose to just "live with" the bad pain feeling, since it's
# not really getting in the way.  The warning signal goes unheeded.  Also, I
# would guess that the frequency of situations in which incapacitation
# serves a useful purpose is higher than those in which it is not useful.  I
# can think of many more times in my life where incapacitating pain was a
# good thing.  I am rarely chased by lions, I suppose.

It might be possible to employ both systems if the incapacitating
effect of pain was reduced by, for instance, the large flood of
adrenalin that enters your system when you realize that you're going
to get eaten by a lion if you don't start running pretty quickly. So
in non-life-threatening situations, severe pain makes you take things
easy, whereas in life-threatening situations you are able to ignore
the pain in the short term and hence have achance of surviving.

This is just a surmise. Does anyone have any evidence (anecdotal or
otherwise) of this effect in reality?

-- 
<< Simon Perkins >>          Dept of AI, Edinburgh University
                             S.Perkins@ed.ac.uk
                             http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/students/simonpe/
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