Pain Explored.

[gerry the neck]

This is a generalised attempt to rationalise the phenomenon of pain. An injury or infection occurs at some location in the body, coded nerve signals are transmitted through the nervous system to the brain, and we become aware of a sensation of pain. What we’ve got there are 2 conscious events, i.e. an injury/infection and a sensation of pain, linked by sub-conscious coded nerve signals. The purpose of the sub-conscious nerve signalling is to prompt our conscious being into an appropriate reaction. The nerves, as pre-programmed defensive mechanisms, may have interpreted the injury/infection as one which requires further assistance other than a reliance on default self healing properties, already embedded in the cell structures, and so, they summon our conscious being to intervene.

Perhaps the nervous system has evolved, over many centuries of experiencing horrendous medical experiments, to have reason to mistrust our conscious reactions to it’s signals, and so it retains the option of control over the intensity of the pain sensations it instructs the brain to create, just in case our conscious reactions are not appropriate. That’s hypothetical, but possible just the same. It could also be argued that the pain sensations are simply the nervous system screaming at us that we are not de-coding it’s signals intelligently. Perhaps, all the information we need to know about healing the problem, is already encoded into the signal and we simply don’t know how to de-code this into our conscious reactions. The pain sensation is simply how the nervous system expresses its frustration at our ignorance. Hypothetical, but possible. It wouldn’t be the first time we failed to see the obvious.

It would seem that there would be greater complexity involved in the creation and transmitting of nerve signals, other than to simply create a sensation of confusing pain, which might lead to inappropriate conscious reactions. It just doesn’t make sense that this would be its only intention, and when it comes to sub-conscious activities such as these, one thing is for sure, they are conducted with absolute purpose. There is no allowance for wastage in these processes. Yet there is obviously a missing link between the sub-conscious and conscious activities, an inability to de-code from one to the other, which throws the whole process into a panic state. Again, hypothetical, but possible. In the future, we may well find a way to copy nerve signals onto a software programme, which de-codes them properly, and thus we could react properly, as instructed by our best advisor….the nervous system.

If we assume that our sub-conscious nervous system is always one step ahead of our conscious reactive system, which in all rational thinking, as our primary defense mechanism, it must be, then we can see that it is probably capable of using tactics to counteract our possible irrational reactions. The pain is likely to get worse if we don’t react intelligently. The nervous system is really fighting on two fronts. On one, it is encouraging local healing processes to kick in, and on the other it is engaged in a battle of wits with our conscious awareness. It could be argued that, over time, the nervous system should have evolved a less complicated way to instruct its host and thus achieve best results. Unfortunately, it doesn’t need to refine its systems, its already perfect, and we shouldn’t expect it to lower its methods to accommodate our ignorance. It is our conscious awareness which needs adjusting to make the equation work properly. We only have to look at our own conscious history of failures and inappropriate reactions to know who’s responsible for that broken link.

Gerry

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[gerry the neck]

Pain……A restraint on conscious reactions ?


When we look at ‘pain’, we have very few, if any, relative experiences to compare it to which might help us to consciously understand its nature. Mostly, we fall back on assuming a purpose for ‘pain’, and that gives us a framework of sorts for building concepts of what is actually happening during a ‘pain’ event. If we assume an incorrect purpose, then we end up constructing concepts on a false premise, and subsequently all conclusions arrived at are disposable. If we can’t prove a purpose for ‘pain’ then all theories, concepts or notions are of equal speculative value…..unless proved otherwise.

Seems to me that the purpose of ‘pain’ has never been defined without contained assumptions which are difficult, if not impossible, to prove. Those assumptions must be challenged vigorously. I think it’s only natural for anyone to want to assume a purpose onto ‘pain’, if only to help direct all our interactions with such an enigmatic event. Almost everybody will tend towards the assumption that pain must be part of some kind of warning/protective system, because of its common association with the fact that it might be instigating a conscious awareness of an injury. It’s easy to see a connection, and it’s easy to make an assumption which most will tentatively agree with. I know there are also some ideas around which suggest that ‘pain’ is a conscious mind output, and as such is vulnerable to conscious mind alterations, but nonetheless the purpose is still perceived as a warning which is manifested according to an individual’s conscious mind settings. I see a need to challenge this assumed purpose of pain, simply because it is an assumption, and it must be challenged before acceptance in any sense.

So, I’m going to put forward an argument which suggests an alternative possible purpose for ‘pain’, just to see if this new ‘purpose’ can hold its own against previously described assumptions. There will be no proof, just as there is no proof for assuming otherwise. My argument is that “the purpose of ‘pain’, as we know it, is to restrain inappropriate conscious mind reactions to an injury” . In support of that argument, I’m going to list several pros and cons for both types of assumptions, and try and ascertain which seems the more plausible :

On ‘pain’ as a warning:

Pain causes confusion, irritability.
Pain creates a sense of wanting to negate our awareness of it.
Pain creates a sense of wanting to evacuate our conscious mind.
Pain doesn’t help directly with healing in any sense.
Pain might even obstruct healing, because it can encourage irrational decision choices.
Pain could drive us insane in a crisis which needs attention.
Surely there should be less distressing ways of drawing our attention to a threat.
There is no need for pain in the nonconscious state.
Healing continues in the nonconscious state without pain.
Why would there be a requirement for a warning after an injury has already happened ?
If we’re already consciously aware of an injury, why do we need a continuous warning ?


On ‘pain’ as a conscious reaction restraint

Pain causes confusion, which slows our conscious reactions.
Pain dominates our consciousness and confuses decision making processes.
Pain possibly alternates its intensity in direct relation to how much consciousness it requires to be negated..
Severe pain can cause a nonconscious state where pain becomes irrelevant, and healing is possibly better served.
The conscious mind is capable of reacting dangerously to a threat, and so it must be restrained to avert further possible threats.
Pain draws attention to itself, not to an injury….if we have an internal injury we are only aware of the pain, not the nature of the injury.
Pain is a tool utilised to influence conscious mind reactions…a tool which is surplus to requirement in the nonconscious state.
The conscious mind has no influence over autonomic reactions to an injury. However, it does have the ability to choose to interfere with the injury, whether wisely or not. Pain may well be the autonomic system’s defense against perceived inappropriate interference.
Pain fits the description of something designed to confuse reaction, better than it fits a description of something designed simply to warn.



Obviously, this is a hugely biased argument, and intentionally so in order to highlight the differences in alternative perspectives. There is probably a natural reluctance to view the purpose of pain as anything other than a warning, and that comes at the expense of not fully considering alternative concepts which conflict with already held opinions. But if those opinions aren’t questioned for the assumptions they obviously are, then we are just restricting ourselves to groping in the dark. Assumptions only allow for the building of possibility concepts, which are valid concepts until proved otherwise. Science requires facts. The conceptualising of the purpose of pain is still in the assumptive phase.

I think there is good argument for conceptualising the purpose of ‘pain’ as being an unpleasant but nonetheless necessary means of controlling or influencing the conscious mind from making inappropriate decisions. Compared to how we tend to assume the purpose of ‘pain’ , there would be implications to accepting, or even considering as an equally possible valid assumption, an alternative overview.


I'm not overruling the possibility that pain may have two purposes...to warn, and to restrain. But, as the 'restraint' issue is generally so conveniently overlooked, I think that needs my support more.