We have a far more advanced consciousness and self awareness, that may make our experience of pain orders of magnitude worse (or at least different) than for many animals—or not.
I agree that that’s possible and worth including under uncertainty, but it doesn’t answer the “why”, so it’s hard to justify giving it much or disproportionate weight (relative to other accounts) without further argument. Why would self-awareness, say, make being in intense pain orders of magnitude worse?
And are we even much more self-aware than other animals when we are in intense pain? One of the functions of pain is to take our attention, and it does so more the more intense the pain. That might limit the use of our capacities for self-awareness: we’d be too focused on and distracted by the pain. Or, maybe our self-awareness or other advanced capacities distract us from the pain, making it less intense than in other animals.
(My own best guess is that at the extremes of excruciating pain, sophisticated self-awareness makes little difference to the intensity of suffering.)
I agree that that’s possible and worth including under uncertainty, but it doesn’t answer the “why”, so it’s hard to justify giving it much or disproportionate weight (relative to other accounts) without further argument. Why would self-awareness, say, make being in intense pain orders of magnitude worse?
And are we even much more self-aware than other animals when we are in intense pain? One of the functions of pain is to take our attention, and it does so more the more intense the pain. That might limit the use of our capacities for self-awareness: we’d be too focused on and distracted by the pain. Or, maybe our self-awareness or other advanced capacities distract us from the pain, making it less intense than in other animals.
(My own best guess is that at the extremes of excruciating pain, sophisticated self-awareness makes little difference to the intensity of suffering.)