On Aug 7, 11:47 am, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote: > On 07.08.2011 17:12 Craig Weinberg said the following:
> It seems that pain is some brain function, see for example > > http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/651/ > > I have just searched in Google > > people that do not experience pain > > and this was the first link. It's saying that the amplification of pain is a molecular function: "It seems there are a whole series of *proteins that detect* various types of damage, be it hot, cold, pressure, etc. These seem to be integrated together by this *SCN9A, which seems to be an amplifier* that takes these small initial tissue damage signals and turns them into a much larger sodium impulse and a nerve can fire." What WE feel as pain are what our brain cells feel from other neurons when they are functioning properly. This genetic mutation affects the neuron's ability to amplify the pain, not the ability for the other cells of the body to feel the micro-pain that they might feel when repairing themselves from damage, and the proteins of the cell that detect that damage... which suggests that awareness is operating robustly at the molecular level. > > I understand the neuro-mechanical view, I just think that it's a > > prejudiced interpretation of the data. The signal that the sensor > > neurons give to the brain are none other than pain. Sure, it may get > > amplified as the brain experiences it, as it invited cognitive > > associations and memories, rattles around in the executive > > processing senate, etc., but there is no reason to assume that the > > primary input of the sense organ is anything less than sense itself. > > What is a 'signal' made of? On the outside it's orderly changes we > > can observe occurring in matter, on the inside, in our own case, we > > can experience changes in what we feel and think. They are the same > > phenomenon, only seen from two different (opposite) perspectives. The > > experience of pain spread through the tissues of the body like a > > crowd wave, including the nervous system, which is a kind of > > expressway for politicizing the experiences of the body and through > > the body. > > A signal from neuron has electrical nature (see neuron spikes). > Experiments show that brain operates at about 10 ms and this could be a > typical reaction time. Pain (and consciousness experience in general) > requires however say 200 ms. So, as I have said, first the action is > made unconsciously and only after that comes pain. Hence pain could not > be the cause for the action. The experience of pain at the organism level is not the cause of the action. It is the local sense of pain that, as you note, still eventually arrives at the brain after the fact. Had there been no original experience of pain, then there would be nothing to arrive at the conscious areas after 200ms. The action is reflex, so it bypasses the areas of the brain which we experience as 'us' and directly responds, only letting us know why later on. It may help to think of 'signals' as an analytical abstraction rather than a concrete event. There are no 'signals' only feelings and thoughts which look like electrochemical changes from a third person perspective. It's not like there are sparks flying up the spinal chord - that's just a fanciful way of understanding it. Neurons and proteins are simply doing different things in a specific orderly pattern. The pattern is what spikes, not the actual genes and cells. I realize this is not the accepted current interpretation, but I think that it is the more accurate one. > I have not meant that your theory is wrong. I just wanted to say that > when you sell your theory to other people, it might be good to start > talking their language. Well, sales is a hard problem on its own. I'm ambivalent about selling my theory to other people. They can have it for free if they want. If I had wanted to speak their language I probably would never have developed the theory in the first place. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
