I find the argument convincing: why would evolution not include something as similar as pain in autonomous animals, and why would they have such similar behavior in pain if they were not conscious?
People who deny animal consciousness are often working with a background assumption that any thing can in principle be perceived unconsciously, and that in practice loads of unconscious representation goes on in the human brain. It’s not clear what use a conscious pain is above a unconscious perception of bodily damage.
Pain feels worse when it’s conscious than when it’s unconscious?
I mean, sometimes I have a stomachache that I barely notice and which is mostly unconscious until I look at it. And it doesn’t motivate me to change a lot. However, having someone whipping me really motivates me to move elsewhere—something I wouldn’t do if the feeling were mostly unconscious (I’d mostly just step back by reflex). Probably the same reason that wakes me up when I’m hit in my sleep.
So pain as a conscious valenced negative experience seems like a strong motivator to act on.
The fact that things can be perceived unconsciously is interesting, but if it were enough to survive in nature, I don’t see a lot of reasons why we, humans, would have developed conscious pain in the first place?
Even if the conscious states in humans are more intense, it doesn’t follow necessarily that consciousness makes them more intense. Probably some of these people would respond to you as follows more intense states have more influence in the brain, and so in humans they are more likely to attract the attention of introspective mechanisms and become conscious in particular, but in animals without introspection, having more influence does not mean being conscious, because there is no introspective mechanism to attract the attention of. (I am improvising here somewhat, I’ve never seent his combination of views specifically.)
Thanks for the post ! This is valuable.
I find the argument convincing: why would evolution not include something as similar as pain in autonomous animals, and why would they have such similar behavior in pain if they were not conscious?
People who deny animal consciousness are often working with a background assumption that any thing can in principle be perceived unconsciously, and that in practice loads of unconscious representation goes on in the human brain. It’s not clear what use a conscious pain is above a unconscious perception of bodily damage.
Pain feels worse when it’s conscious than when it’s unconscious?
I mean, sometimes I have a stomachache that I barely notice and which is mostly unconscious until I look at it. And it doesn’t motivate me to change a lot. However, having someone whipping me really motivates me to move elsewhere—something I wouldn’t do if the feeling were mostly unconscious (I’d mostly just step back by reflex). Probably the same reason that wakes me up when I’m hit in my sleep.
So pain as a conscious valenced negative experience seems like a strong motivator to act on.
The fact that things can be perceived unconsciously is interesting, but if it were enough to survive in nature, I don’t see a lot of reasons why we, humans, would have developed conscious pain in the first place?
Even if the conscious states in humans are more intense, it doesn’t follow necessarily that consciousness makes them more intense. Probably some of these people would respond to you as follows more intense states have more influence in the brain, and so in humans they are more likely to attract the attention of introspective mechanisms and become conscious in particular, but in animals without introspection, having more influence does not mean being conscious, because there is no introspective mechanism to attract the attention of. (I am improvising here somewhat, I’ve never seent his combination of views specifically.)