Is pain subjective or objective thing?

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DIAMONDfire: Seems to be both but I don't want to find out. Perhaps its mental? in the mental sense people go through pain that they hardly feel but yet describe it as pain. It would appear then to have a mental and physical dimension, I suppose that it works the same mentally and physically like a cut is intense. and intensity in the mind is how its lived. It seems to be a decision to an extent? then the decision to take pain or not to? Is it more painful to see it coming? In other words is it more painful to know or need to know the truth in a way? But without truth what have you??

People commit suicide when they are young, but it seems life is a suicide machine anyway!!

Its an irony..

NunNewton: I have got something to add of which I've been recently thinking.


My points raised due to the topic at hand: Now i am not thinking of any self-harm and this has come naturally into question as I have recently injured/hurt my leg and so i feel pain in terms of a physical sense. Now if one is to deduce this to being a perceptive idealized setting of a sensory state that is made up of how we interact with the environment (Our bodies included). Is it that my mind is subjecting itself to a physical sense of pain and is trying to internalize my pain being within my body even further by telling me it needs to heal or am i not feeling any external pain on this at present due to me feeling it internally.



My question: Henceforth due to this recent finding. FOR myself (Note), there could be a real questionable question on whether the body is transfixed by the minds ability to heal and spare itself away from pain/suffering of both body/mind via the use of self-medical alleviation by internalization of traumatic physical ailment and mental suffering of internalizing this physical ailment. If so WHY? is the mind transfixed into doing this and not correlating it to the brain via different channels so as to totally alleviate us and not set body clocks that are generally shortened brief electrical impulsed reminders to usher that we need to rest and heal in the form of pangs and sensations that one would propose to be "pains" or "traumas" both in the physical and mental sense.

Conclusions i have to yet reach: I'd like to see if anyone else with physical ailments find this to be their case too (that the mind transfixes itself with internalizing pain in a means to alleviate stress points on the body in order to heal more effectively) and if so how and why they've felt the need to have done it this way and not by other means?

In Short: Please feel free to add to this discussion i've taken up in my arms. Apologies for my English. as its not my genealogical first language.

telicat77: It can largely be subjective. Lots of studies on that, even on healing, and I do believe in divine physical health. When I say the Jesus Prayer I often get healing and pain relief (Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on me). Bjork wrote a song about it!

axocanth: I'd offer a few thoughts from the perspective of the philosophy of mind. But first, in case anyone is unfamiliar with the jargon -- very common thus inevitably encountered -- two words need to be explained:


𝑶𝒏𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒚 (adj. ontological or ontic) pertains to the study of what exists.

𝑬𝒑𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒚 (adj. epistemological or epistemic) pertains to our beliefs or knowledge; how and what we can 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘.


To clarify, whether something exists or not is obviously quite a different matter from whether we 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 this.



Now, is pain subjective or objective? A fairly standard position, I daresay, would be to say that pain is 𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒔𝒖𝒃𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆. That is to say, its existence -- unlike that of trees and rocks, say -- is "mind-dependent"; its existence depends on there being a 𝒔𝒖𝒃𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕 (i.e., the person/animal/etc. feeling the pain). Without a subject, without 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒔, there is no pain.

Meanwhile, there are statements we can make or beliefs we can hold about pain, the appraisal of which are 𝒆𝒑𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒐𝒃𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆. That is to say, unlike "Mangoes taste great", it is not a matter of opinion whether "Frank is in pain" is true or not. There is a 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓, whether any of the rest of us know it or not.



In the modern zeitgeist where materialism holds sway, at least in the sciences, there are many who seek to 𝒓𝒆𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒆 pain to something physical. For example, attempts have been made to "identify" pain with some physical state or other (e.g. a particular neuronal configuration or event), that is, to show that the "two" are identical, the "two" are in fact one (i.e., two 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔 for one 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈).

If successful, this would not "get rid of" pain; it is not an "eliminative reduction". It would just be like discovering, thanks to science, that what we call 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 in the vernacular is actually H20. Water survives the reduction; it's just that we now know what water 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 is.

(See Saul Kripke's "modal argument" for an ingenious attempt to show that any such "identification" is doomed to failure.)



You may have heard of the school of behaviorism in psychology. Not so long ago, the behaviorists, driven by the prevailing trend at the time of restricting science only to that which is observable, tried to do something similar: to reduce pain to 𝒃𝒆𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒓 (e.g. wincing, screaming, etc.). Quite counterintuitively, what they're saying is all that screaming and wincing is not 𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 that Frank is in pain; rather, that wincing and screaming 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒔 the pain!




There are even those, believe it or not, who seek to get rid of pain altogether -- the so-called "eliminativists". On their account, pain -- just like all other mental states (beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, etc.) -- 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒔𝒕. We are all massively deluded!

As John Searle, clearly not an eliminativist, enjoys observing, "When you hear people say things like this at philosophy conferences, you just wanna go up and pinch them."

I suspect he really means "punch" them. After all, if they're right and pain does not exist, they won't feel a thing!

lori100: Kreskin makes people feel their chairs are hot and then they get pinched from his suggestions

NunNewton: I do like these arguments for and against. However the pinch point of objectively looking subjectively at is that if we must pinch ourselves to be realistically appraised for our subjective thought from and be objectified against by those that realistically be appraised by prior thought of observing it subjectively. Then what hope do we have? We have every hope. Thus being HOPE itself as left by Pandora herself.

Conclusions of manners of self-thought: the zeitgeist being helplessness aids us in the ability to rise above it all by means of thinking one is healthier in a means that minds suggestive purpose propels us into thinking ourselves into betterment. The decaying body is a mere means to ascertain the helpless feeling and turn it into something far better. If one knows they are healthy THEY will be the healthier for longer. Power of mind over matter always prevails. Mainly because the attractive nature of which gives us purpose is in essence what we strive to commit to. A happy relationship with the self and others around us. Mesmerising onself into a steady surreal sense of idealistic doing undermining the essence of being physically ailed. Is blissful.

NunNewton: That is a party of two evidenced evaluations. However a good example. Thank you for that.