There are many internal pains, sore muscles, stiffness, headaches, stomach aches, and pains of other organs. I don't think it's proper to call such pains a sensation of touch. — Metaphysician Undercover
These are all examples of physical touch, though? These are all situations where some physical force exerted on the pain receptors has triggered a signalling cascade to your brain. Maybe there's more to be said, but I don't see a different other than in sort of spatial locale. I can hurt my tongue by running it along the edges of my front teeth, as an example. The tongue is a muscle.
I also do not think this proposed distinction between pain and discomfort is useful. What one person calls discomfort, another would call pain. What is subjective is the proposed distinction. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think this is shying away from the real meat here. It's not a distinction. Pains are generally uncomfortable, but not always. Discomfort is largely not painful (without the former being the case, if you see what i mean). They come apart and are distinct, but I'm not trying to put them in a relation to one another.
Do you not have internal pains? These are not the result of any of the five known senses. You are not touching your stomach when you feel a stomach ache — Metaphysician Undercover
Addressed above, A stomach ache, generally, is the physical (sensory) event causing pain internally (though, you're actually describing discomfort here so I'm not sure your objection works anyway - internal "pain" is generally hte result of an actual physical aberration - say, a torn stomach lining. All of these feelings arise from sensory data, internal or external. I think you are insinuating that internal pain is not 'caused'? What could it be caused by if not sensory data (just, from within, not without)).
You start with the faulty assumption that pain is produced from the sense of touch, and you proceed from that false premise. — Metaphysician Undercover
You say it's false - i think you haven't shown that at all. I'm unsure you've even shaken my position with what you've said...
Pain is not produced from the sense of touch, as internal pains demonstrate. — Metaphysician Undercover
Dealt with, and I disagree with your account of pain. It seems
plainly wrong, empirically speaking.
If you knew some of the science about how pain is supposed to be an interaction between the brain and the inflicted part of the body, through the medium of the nervous system, you would recognize that your proposition is very likely false. — Metaphysician Undercover
I do. And that is actually exactly why it appears to be true to me. What are you specifically referencing here? I ask, because all we know about pain
seems to violate your position in many ways.
Some excerpts that are apt here:
"Nociception refers to ... processing of noxious stimuli, such as tissue injury and temperature extremes, which activate nociceptors and their pathways.
...
"The receptors responsible for relaying nociceptive information are termed nociceptors; they can be found on the skin, joints, viscera, and muscles.
...
"Pain perception begins with free nerve endings ... The multitude of different receptors conveys information that converges onto neuronal cell bodies in the dorsal root ganglion (stimulus from the body) and the trigeminal ganglia (stimulus from the face). There are 2 major nociceptive nerve fibers: A-delta fibers and C-fibers. A-delta fibers are lightly myelinated and have small receptive fields, which allow them to alert the body to the presence of pain. Due to the higher degree of myelination compared to C-fibers, these fibers are responsible for the initial perception of pain. Conversely, C-fibers are unmyelinated and have large receptive fields, which allow them to relay pain intensity.
...
"The body is also capable of suppressing pain signals from these ascending pathways. Opioid receptors are found at various sites ... The descending pain suppression pathway is a circuit composed of (
the part missing here doesn't matter, i'm just connecting the following to the whole piece) .. It suppresses information carried via C-fibers, not A-delta fibers, by inhibiting local GABAergic interneurons."
It then speaks about how in some complex pain disorders, the pathway is aberrated and signals cross, weaken, intensify etc... due to a couple of conditions, but describes them in the above terms.
This is how Tylenol is thought to work, by affecting the part of the brain which sends the pain signal. — Metaphysician Undercover
This does not seem to be the case, at all. Unfortunately, it doesn't even seem
reasonable to suggest that the brain sends a "pain" signal to the injured area. How would that even work? Where does it land? What does it do? Cause the area to simply relay more pain signals to the brain? This is getting a little silly, tbh.
It seemed to me, though I do not have the resource on hand, that the way most pain medications work (Tylenol included) is
inhibiting the brain's pain receptors so as to uptake less signal from the affected area (or, none, in some cases). I did find
this:
"...by directly inhibiting the excitatory synaptic transmission via TRPV1 receptors expressed on terminals of C-fibers in the spinal dorsal horn. Contrary to previous studies on the brain, we failed to find the analgesic effect of acetaminophen/AM404 on the CB1 receptor on spinal dorsal horn neurons."
This directly suggests that all that is happening is that the signals from the affected area are arrested along the ascending pain pathway.