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FatFreeGoodness · 08-24-2005, 05:43 AM

connyosis: I posted that most of the things you think you know you really only believe. You said that if you fall on a concrete floor you know you will feel pain.

I will pass on the obvious counters that (a) no, you might die instantly; (b) no, some falls are too slight to hurt; (c) no, you may be knocked unconscious and wake weeks later in a hospital, resting comfortably. I will accept that we are talking about a fall that scrapes the skin off your elbow but does no other harm.

From experience I know I have felt pain when such things happen to me. I have your word that you also feel pain. I can observe that you act like you feel pain. I have a very high degree of confidence that you do feel something you call pain.
But, I don’t really know that the feeling you call pain is the same as my feeling, do I? Pain is how my body and brain presents the triggering of nerves to my mind… or perhaps, how my mind interprets the signals presented. Since I need to react to pain, this sensation needs to be unpleasant. But there is no requirement or certainty that my mind perceives this sensation like yours. Therefore, what you call pain may be subtly or even very much different from mine. That would explain why some people have a much higher tolerance for "pain", wouldn’t it?
I have no idea that this speculation is true, but it’s plausible, and it does cast doubt on whether you feel pain as I understand it.

You may argue that you don’t need to prove it to me; you are arguing that there are some things you know, and this is one of them.
Recall that I did not say that no one know anything, just that there are very many things that we think we know that we really only accept on the testimony of others, and these things are better called “belief”.
The example I cited was "laws" regarding the behavior of electricity as presented in an electrical engineering handbook. I am pretty sure most all of them work. But if the book is old (say, fifty years) then some of them have probably been tweaked or even radically changed. I have no reason to assume the same will not be true of a new book in fifty years.
See what I mean?

08-24-2005, 05:43 AM	#37 (permalink)
FatFreeGoodness Tilted	connyosis: I posted that most of the things you think you know you really only believe. You said that if you fall on a concrete floor you know you will feel pain. I will pass on the obvious counters that (a) no, you might die instantly; (b) no, some falls are too slight to hurt; (c) no, you may be knocked unconscious and wake weeks later in a hospital, resting comfortably. I will accept that we are talking about a fall that scrapes the skin off your elbow but does no other harm. From experience I know I have felt pain when such things happen to me. I have your word that you also feel pain. I can observe that you act like you feel pain. I have a very high degree of confidence that you do feel something you call pain. But, I don’t really know that the feeling you call pain is the same as my feeling, do I? Pain is how my body and brain presents the triggering of nerves to my mind… or perhaps, how my mind interprets the signals presented. Since I need to react to pain, this sensation needs to be unpleasant. But there is no requirement or certainty that my mind perceives this sensation like yours. Therefore, what you call pain may be subtly or even very much different from mine. That would explain why some people have a much higher tolerance for "pain", wouldn’t it? I have no idea that this speculation is true, but it’s plausible, and it does cast doubt on whether you feel pain as I understand it. You may argue that you don’t need to prove it to me; you are arguing that there are some things you know, and this is one of them. Recall that I did not say that no one know anything, just that there are very many things that we think we know that we really only accept on the testimony of others, and these things are better called “belief”. The example I cited was "laws" regarding the behavior of electricity as presented in an electrical engineering handbook. I am pretty sure most all of them work. But if the book is old (say, fifty years) then some of them have probably been tweaked or even radically changed. I have no reason to assume the same will not be true of a new book in fifty years. See what I mean?