I really appreciate your kind words. I’d be happy to discuss the topics you’re interested in—whether in a web meeting or through ongoing message exchanges here, whichever you prefer.
Your idea of an app addressing all suffering-related questions is excellent. We hope that the results from the Pain Atlas Project can serve as a valuable source of information for such an initiative. We continue working on this project—let’s see where it leads us.
I wish I had time to discuss definitions of pain and suffering, but it seems that all I can say for now is that all those who want to study pain or suffering scientifically should collectively adopt a new technical term for referring to all unpleasant feelings.
Thank you very much Robert for all the links and sources—I really appreciate it. It’s great to hear that our work on animal suffering is being considered within your quantification efforts at the Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering and the World Center for the Control of Excessive Suffering.
Regarding the definition of pain, we have actually proposed one, and it has been operationally useful. We designed it to be as universal as possible while explicitly addressing the need for special attention to higher manifestations of pain:
”Pain is a conscious experience, evolved to elicit corrective behavior in response to actual or imminent damage to an organism’s survival and/or reproduction. Still, some manifestations, such as neuropathic pain, can be maladaptive. It is affectively and cognitively processed as an adverse and dynamic sensation that can vary in intensity, duration, texture, spatial specificity, and anatomical location. Pain is characterized as ‘physical’ when primarily triggered by pain receptors and as ‘psychological’ when triggered by memory and primary emotional systems. Depending on its intensity and duration, pain can override other adaptive instincts and motivational drives and lead to severe suffering”
Hi Robert,
I really appreciate your kind words. I’d be happy to discuss the topics you’re interested in—whether in a web meeting or through ongoing message exchanges here, whichever you prefer.
Your idea of an app addressing all suffering-related questions is excellent. We hope that the results from the Pain Atlas Project can serve as a valuable source of information for such an initiative. We continue working on this project—let’s see where it leads us.
Thanks again, Wladimir.
What you do about animal suffering is already taken into account in our efforts concerning quantification at the Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering, and I hope that more of it will soon figure in the chapter Suffering-Focused Animal-Centered Initiatives within the World Center for the Control of Excessive Suffering. Incidentally, I recently came across https://www.ixo.world/ and I wonder if this impact-focused organization could be relevant when you say “the Welfare Footprint Framework has been applied to quantify welfare impacts in animal production systems, guiding policy decisions and reforms.”
As to Creating an AI App to Answer Questions About Suffering, I ask everyone to let me know if, by chance, anyone around them might be interested in contributing to the very early stages of this project.
I wish I had time to discuss definitions of pain and suffering, but it seems that all I can say for now is that all those who want to study pain or suffering scientifically should collectively adopt a new technical term for referring to all unpleasant feelings.
Best regards.
Thank you very much Robert for all the links and sources—I really appreciate it. It’s great to hear that our work on animal suffering is being considered within your quantification efforts at the Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering and the World Center for the Control of Excessive Suffering.
Regarding the definition of pain, we have actually proposed one, and it has been operationally useful. We designed it to be as universal as possible while explicitly addressing the need for special attention to higher manifestations of pain:
”Pain is a conscious experience, evolved to elicit corrective behavior in response to actual or imminent damage to an organism’s survival and/or reproduction. Still, some manifestations, such as neuropathic pain, can be maladaptive. It is affectively and cognitively processed as an adverse and dynamic sensation that can vary in intensity, duration, texture, spatial specificity, and anatomical location. Pain is characterized as ‘physical’ when primarily triggered by pain receptors and as ‘psychological’ when triggered by memory and primary emotional systems. Depending on its intensity and duration, pain can override other adaptive instincts and motivational drives and lead to severe suffering”