2. Pain Asymbolics Cannot Detect the Location of Noxious Stimuli

Ben Gibbs SET #4

1. According to Ring, Grahek is wrong when he says that the sensory discriminative aspect of pain does not represent bodily damage in pain asymbolics.

2. Pain asymbolics cannot detect the location of noxious stimuli.

3. According to Grahek, in order to be in pain, one needs onlyan awareness of their objective bodily states of affairs.

4. The hard problem of consciousness refers to the possible distinction between painfulness and pain sensation.

5. According to Grahek, pain’s representational aspect (its affective components) causes its motivational force(the motivation to flee or protect oneself from stimuli).

Ben Gibbs SET #4 - Answers

1. According to Ring, Grahek is wrong when he says that the sensory discriminative aspect of pain does not represent bodily damage in pain asymbolics.

True. Grahek asserts on page 89 that for the pain asymbolic, “the sensation of pain does not carry by itself any message or representation of bodily damage”. However, as Ring pointed out in class, this seems wrong. More probably, the pain sensation does carry a message or represent a state of affairs and it is the person in question who fails to interpret that message.

2. Pain asymbolics cannot detect the location of noxious stimuli.

False. Pain asymbolics retain the sensory discriminative aspect of pain. As such, they can describe the sensation and its location accurately. It is the painfulness without pain (PWP) patient who lacks this specificity. When doctors attempted to induce pain on a PWP patient’s arm, the patient reported, “a ‘clearly unpleasant’ intensity dependent feeling emerging from an ill-localized and extended area ‘somewhere between fingertips and shoulder’ that he wanted to avoid.” (Grahek p. 110)

3. According to Grahek, in order to be in pain, one needs only an awareness of the objective bodily states of affairs.

False. On page three of Grahek’s work, he describes this interpretation of pain as the objectivist view. However, he goes on to point out that pain asymbolics and PWP cases, “threaten the objectivist’s claim.”

4. The hard problem of consciousness refers to the possible distinction between painfulness and pain sensation.

False. Ring pointed out in class that the hard problem of consciousness refers to how chemicals and cells can create a conscious, that is become a self aware being. Grahek also outlines this on page 157.

5. According to Grahek, pain’s representational aspect (its affective components) causes its motivational force(the motivation to flee or protect oneself from stimuli).

True. Grahek says, “The second lesson is that pain, once deprived of all its affective, cognitive, and behavioral components, loses all of its representational and motivational force: it no longer a signal of threat or injury…” (p. 2)

Jacob W. BaumgartnerSET #4

1. Pain asymbolia is the only condition that produces complete, thoroughgoing indifference to pain.

2. Patients who suffer from painfulness without pain (PWP) feel pain upon harmful stimulation, but their pain no longer represents danger or threat to them.

3. C-fibers are fast moving nerve impulses that respond to fast, sharp, or pricking pain.

4. According to Grahek, Pain asymbolia helps to prove both the subjectivist and objectivist theories.

5. Grahek disagrees with the arguments put forth by the Churchlands, Tye, and Nelkin that there is no common or uniform felt quality that would unite the class of pain sensations.

Jacob W. BaumgartnerSET #4 - Answers

1. Pain asymbolia is the only condition that produces complete, thoroughgoing indifference to pain.

Answer: True. According to Grahek (Grahek p. 3) pain asymbolia, “...is the only clear-cut case in which severe pain is not experienced as unpleasant, and in which there are no traces of any other aversive attitude toward it.”

2. Patients who suffer from painfulness without pain (PWP) feel pain upon harmful stimulation, but their pain no longer represents danger or threat to them.

Answer: False. On page 2 of Feeling Pain and Being in Pain, Grahek uses the latter to describe pain without painfulness or better known as pain asymbolia. Painfulness without pain is the opposite of pain asymbolia in which, “one is able to be in pain but is not able to feel pain” (Grahek p. 1).

3. C-fibers are fast moving nerve impulses that respond to fast, sharp, or pricking pain.

Answer: False. It is A-nociceptive fibers that are fast moving nerve impulses. C-fibers are slower in comparison and respond to slow, dull, or burning pain. C-fibers are also described as second pain or remembrance pain. (Grahek p. 11)

4. According to Grahek, Pain asymbolia helps to prove both the subjectivist and objectivist theories.

Answer: False. As Grahek explains on page 3, “Pain asymbolia threatens the objectivist view that the sensation of pain, that is, its distinctive phenomenal content or quality— the “what-it-is-likeness” of pain—is the essential component of our total pain experience and plays the central or fundamental role in it. Pain Asymbolia also threatens the objectivists’ claim that the feeling of pain is just the awareness of an objective bodily state of affairs: that it is the perception or sensory representation of bodily or tissue damage.”

5. Grahek disagrees with the argument put forth by the Churchlands, Tye, and Nelkin that there is no common or uniform felt quality that would unite the class of pain sensations.

Answer: True. On page 105, Grahek explains, “But this argument will loosen its grip to the point of full release the moment we realize that the qualitative differences between pain sensations that the Churchlands, Tye, and Nelkin refer to and base their arguments on, are actually intramodal differences within the modality of pain: that is, the qualitatively distinct sensations of sharp pain and dull pain or sensations of stinging and burning pain are experiential determinates of the experiential determinable modality of pain.”

Peter Johns

SET #4

1) Pain asymbolics feel no pain

2) Specific lesions on the brain may be the cause of pain asymbolia.

3) Grahek believes pain to be Mother Nature’s most precious gift.

4) Different pain qualities have different and distinctive roles.

5) Despite all of it’s idiosyncratic traits, Grahek believes pain to be quite simple.

Peter Johns

SET #4 ANSWERS

1) Pain asymbolics feel no pain

False. Pain asymbolics feel pain but it does not cause them discomfort.

2) Specific lesions on the brain may be the cause of pain asymbolia.

True. Patients who had all of the specific traits of pain asymbolia all had the same six lesions on their brain. (Grahek p. 41)

3) Grahek believes pain to be Mother Nature’s most precious gift.

True. Grahek states this on page 7.

4) Different pain qualities have different and distinctive roles.

True. Grahek elucidates on this beginning on page 95.

5) Despite all of it’s idiosyncratic traits, Grahek believes pain to be quite simple.

False. Grahek states that pain is very complex on page 73.

Samantha TomilowitzSet # 4

1. Descartes claims the idea, “I have a pain sensation, but it doesn’t hurt” is self-contradictory.

2. Nikola Grahek argues in his book, Feeling Pain and Being in Pain, that people suffering from the disease pain asymbolia do not have the emotional-cognitive, so that their behavior is affected.

3. If unpleasantness is intrinsic to pain, then it is impossible to separate sensory-discriminative from the affective/representational force because pain leads us all in “the avoidance direction”, if you will.

4. Grahek points out that pain asymbolics have pain sensations, so they must have pain suffering as well.

5. David Lewis, author of “Mad Pain and Martian Pain”, believes that the Mad Man is not in pain.

Samantha TomilowitzSet # 4 – Answers

1. Descartes claims the idea, “I have a pain sensation, but it doesn’t hurt” is self-contradictory.

True. Descartes maintains that if it doesn’t hurt then it is not pain. His definition of pain does not follow the above statement. Descartes believes it’s a priori true that all pain hurts (Class Notes, April 12, 2011).

2. Nikola Grahek argues in his book, Feeling Pain and Being in Pain, that people suffering from the disease pain asymbolia lack the proper emotional-cognitive component affecting their behavior.

True. Pain asymbolics lack the symbolic meaning of meaning, who can “recognize pain but lack appropriate motor and emotional responses to painful stimuli applied anywhere on the body surface” (Berthier, Starkstein, and Leiguarda 1988, p. 41).

False. People suffering from pain asymbolia lack representational/motivational force. Patients with pain asymbolia “are generally unable to learn to avoid or escape pain” because they don’t find it threatening (Grahek p. 47).

4. Grahek argues that pain asymbolics have pain sensations, so they must have pain suffering as well.

False. Grahek carefully clarifies that pain sensations alone do not guarantee pain ‘suffering’ as well. The insular cortex of the brain generates pain. Pain sensations do not hurt. It has to be some other part of the brain that issues the ‘threatening response’ (Grahek p. 107).

5. David Lewis, author of “Mad Pain and Martian Pain”, believes that the Mad Man is not in pain.

False. The opposite is true of this statement. Lewis writes that the Mad Man “feels pain but his pain does not occupy the typical causal role of pain.” (Lewis p. 229).

Carl Maclean

Set #4 – Questions

1. According to Grahek sensory discriminative, emotional- cognitive and behavioral components can never exist separately.

2. Because patients that have painfulness without pain cannot localize or identify it as pain, the identity theory does not hold for them.

3. Pain asymbolic patients suffer from the lack of the causal effects of pain functionalism.

4. According to Grahek, pain contains two subsystems which are the avoidance system and behavioral component.

5. According to the subjectivists view, Grahek argues sensation’s alone to not be necessary in carrying motivational force for pain.

Carl Maclean

Set #4 – Answers

1. According to Grahek sensory discriminative, emotional- cognitive and behavioral components can never exist separately.

False. Grahek states “These components are normally linked together, but they can become disconnected and therefore, much to our astonishment, they can exist separately.” In addition, Pain asymbolia patients are the perfect example and do not appear to be moved in any way by painful stimuli. (p. 2, Grahek)

2. Because patients that have painfulness without pain cannot localize or identify it as pain, the identity theory does not hold for them.

False. According to the identity theory, it is described as the firing of C-fibers. Patients that have painfulness without pain even though they cannot localize the pain there are still C-fiber messages being sent to the brain which is why they can correctly determine that their experience is unpleasant. (Notes on Mad Pain and Martian Pain)

3. Pain asymbolic patients suffer from the lack of the causal effects of pain functionalism.

True. According to Mad pain and Martian pain, functionalism describes anything that fits the needs for the causal relationship to its desired function. Pain asymbolic patients do not appear to contain any representational or motivational force thus lacking the function desired for pain. (Notes on Mad Pain and Martian Pain)

4. According to Grahek, pain contains two subsystems which are the avoidance system and behavioral component.

False. The avoidance system is necessary however the behavioral component for pain is not a subsystem for pain. Grahek describes that the restorative system is the other subsystem for pain which is necessary for preventing further injury to the location. It is involved in reacting to chemicals that were released in response to initial injury of pain. (p. 10-13, Grahek)

5. According to the subjectivists view, Grahek argues sensation’s alone to not be necessary in carrying motivational force for pain.

True. Grahek does not require that sensation themselves be required to carry representational force. “If that is the case, one can safely claim that the sensation of pain does not carry, by itself, any representational force; that, when present alone, it comes to nothing in the sense that it in no way carries the "meaning" of physical damage or at least threat to physical well-being.” (p. 80, Grahek)

Tony Vu

SET #4

1. It is never a gift to have pain experience.

2. The subjectivist view of pain claims that for someone to be in pain, ONLY a sensation of pain would be sufficient.

3. “To the being who is mad, alien, or unique, if it feels to him like pain, then it is pain, if it doesn’t, it is not.” According to David Lewis, he finds that it is that simple.

4. Armstrong and David Lewis’ proposed materialist theory of mind is one that joins claims of type-type psychophysical identity with a behaviorist or functionalist way of characterizing mental states.

5. The MAIN reason patients that have pain asymbolia smile or laugh at the pain they feel is to reassure the neurologists that they are not being tortured.

Tony Vu

SET #4 – Answers

1. It is never a gift to have pain experience.

False. Pain experience helps us to stay away from the danger in the future, and while the area of pain is healing, the painfulness reminds us to not use that area or allow it to go into further bodily damage. (Grahek, p. 7, paragraph 1)

2. The subjectivist view of pain claims that for someone to be in pain, ONLY a sensation of pain would be sufficient.

True. Subjectivists say that you do not need the whole experience of pain to be in pain. (Grahek, p. 76, paragraph 1)

3. “To the being who is mad, alien, or unique, if it feels to him like pain, then it is pain, if it doesn’t, it is not.” According to David Lewis, he finds that it is that simple.

True. David Lewis said that it is pain whatever its causal role or physical nature be. He considers it a mistake to consider whether a state is pain while ignoring what it is like to have it. (Lewis, p. 233, section 8)

True. (Lewis, p. 230, section 3)

5. The MAIN reason patients that have pain asymbolia smile or laugh at the pain they feel is to reassure the neurologists that they are not being tortured.

False. Grahek says that the main reason those patients laugh at the pain they feel is that they are not experiencing or perceiving it as a threat, a danger, or as damage to the integrity of their bodies. They do also smile and laugh for possibly other reasons, including as an expression of reassurance, but that is not the main reason. (Grahek, p. 74, paragraph 1)

Jeremy Hill 28April 2011

Professor Ring

True/False Set #4

Set #4

1. According to Graheks, pain asymbolia patients had a lack of response to possible bodily damage.

2. According to the Identity Theory pain = whatever occupies the causal (functional) role of pain.

3. As with the martian pain example the Identity Theorist would believe that the martian would indeed be in pain.

4. Pain asymbolia patients experience pain without painfulness.

5. Behaviorism believes that a persons mental states are important in finding if a person is feeling pain.

Jeremy Hill

28 April 2011

Professor Ring

Set #4 (Answers)

1. According to Graheks, pain asymbolia patients had a lack of response to possible bodily damage.

True. Pain asymbolic patients showed a total lack of withdrawal response, and showed signs that are usually not associated with pain (smiling, laughing…). (Grahek p.43)

2. According to the Identity Theory pain = whatever occupies the causal (functional) role of pain.

False. Actually Functionalism finds the pain = whatever occupies the causal (functional) role of pain, and the Identity Theory finds that pain = the firing of C-fibers. (David Lewis Notes)

3. As with the martian pain example the Identity Theorist would believe that the martian would indeed be in pain.

False. According to the Identity Theorist pain is equal to the firing of C-fibers, and in the martians case he has no C-fibers, so the Identity Theorist would say that the martian is not in pain. (David Lewis Notes)

4. Pain asymbolia patients experience pain without painfulness.

True. The patients that suffer from pain asymbolia can feel harmful stimulation, but this harmful stimulation represents no danger to them. These patients also do not mind pain some even volunteer their limbs to endure painful stimuli. (Grahek p.3)

5. Behaviorism believes that a persons mental states are important in finding if a person is feeling pain.

False. Behaviorism believes that mental states are not important only observable behavior.

Valentia Villetti SET # 4

1. According to Ring, the pain assymbolics do not have the same brain neurology as a normal person.

2. In cases of pain asymbolia as described by Grehek: the patients do not find the pain threatening, but they are capable of learning how to avoid the pain in the future.