I think what I had in mind was more like the neuroscience and theories of pain in general terms, or in typical cases — hence “typically” —, not very specific cases. So, I’d allow exceptions.
Your understanding of the general neuroscience of pain will usually not affect how bad your pain feels to you (especially when you’re feeling it). Similarly, your understanding of the general neuroscience of desire won’t usually affect how strong (most of) your desires are. (Some people might comfort themselves with this knowledge sometimes, though.)
This is what I need, when we think about looking for experiences like ours in other animals.
On your specific cases below.
The fallible pain memory case could be an exception. I suspect there’s also an interpretation compatible with my view without making it an exception: your reasons to prevent a pain that would be like you remember the actual pain you had (or didn’t have) are just as strong, but the actual pain you had was not like you remember it, so your reasons to prevent it (or a similar actual pain) are not in fact as strong.
In other words, you are valuing your impression of your past pain, or, say, valuing your past pain through your impression of it.[1] That impression can fail to properly track your past pain experience.[2] But, holding your impression fixed, if your past pain or another pain were like your impression, then there wouldn’t be a problem.
And knowing how long a pain will last probably often does affect how bad/intense the overall experience (including possible stress/fear/anxiety) seems to you in the moment. And either way, how you value the pain, even non-hedonically, can depend on the rest of your impression of things, and as you suggest, contextual factors like “whether it’s for worthwhile reasons”. This is all part of the experience.
Really, ~all memories of experiences will be at least somewhat off, and they’re probably systematically off in specific ways. How you value pain while in pain and as you remember it will not match.
Thanks, this is helpful!
I think what I had in mind was more like the neuroscience and theories of pain in general terms, or in typical cases — hence “typically” —, not very specific cases. So, I’d allow exceptions.
Your understanding of the general neuroscience of pain will usually not affect how bad your pain feels to you (especially when you’re feeling it). Similarly, your understanding of the general neuroscience of desire won’t usually affect how strong (most of) your desires are. (Some people might comfort themselves with this knowledge sometimes, though.)
This is what I need, when we think about looking for experiences like ours in other animals.
On your specific cases below.
The fallible pain memory case could be an exception. I suspect there’s also an interpretation compatible with my view without making it an exception: your reasons to prevent a pain that would be like you remember the actual pain you had (or didn’t have) are just as strong, but the actual pain you had was not like you remember it, so your reasons to prevent it (or a similar actual pain) are not in fact as strong.
In other words, you are valuing your impression of your past pain, or, say, valuing your past pain through your impression of it.[1] That impression can fail to properly track your past pain experience.[2] But, holding your impression fixed, if your past pain or another pain were like your impression, then there wouldn’t be a problem.
And knowing how long a pain will last probably often does affect how bad/intense the overall experience (including possible stress/fear/anxiety) seems to you in the moment. And either way, how you value the pain, even non-hedonically, can depend on the rest of your impression of things, and as you suggest, contextual factors like “whether it’s for worthwhile reasons”. This is all part of the experience.
The valuing itself is also part of the impression as a whole, but your valuing is applied to or a response to parts of the impression.
Really, ~all memories of experiences will be at least somewhat off, and they’re probably systematically off in specific ways. How you value pain while in pain and as you remember it will not match.