That’s an excellent point. If analgesics also reduce reflex responses towards noxious stimuli, then in some cases analgesics could be diminishing nociceptive responses while not inhibiting conscious (reportable) pain.
I don’t know much about how analgesics affect nociceptive reflexive responses in humans. According to the abstract of this study on non-human primates (haven’t looked into the study in detail), “depending on the dose, nociceptive reflexes [are] facilitated or inhibited” by morphine. So this possibility might prevent us from updating too much to “analgesics are preventing pain when they inhibit nociception” to the extent that the analgesics are inhibiting reflexive nociceptive responses.
One way this might not be an issue is if someone thinks consciousness is “smeared spatially and temporally” or if they think nested minds are possible. For them, through analogies in function, they might think the reflexive responses themselves could be in pain. But then again, there are probably fewer people who think like this than people who think invertebrates feel pain.
That’s an excellent point. If analgesics also reduce reflex responses towards noxious stimuli, then in some cases analgesics could be diminishing nociceptive responses while not inhibiting conscious (reportable) pain.
I don’t know much about how analgesics affect nociceptive reflexive responses in humans. According to the abstract of this study on non-human primates (haven’t looked into the study in detail), “depending on the dose, nociceptive reflexes [are] facilitated or inhibited” by morphine. So this possibility might prevent us from updating too much to “analgesics are preventing pain when they inhibit nociception” to the extent that the analgesics are inhibiting reflexive nociceptive responses.
One way this might not be an issue is if someone thinks consciousness is “smeared spatially and temporally” or if they think nested minds are possible. For them, through analogies in function, they might think the reflexive responses themselves could be in pain. But then again, there are probably fewer people who think like this than people who think invertebrates feel pain.