Referring to consciousness to understand what is missing and what living beings are seems to me a way of explaining “obscura per obscuriora”, obscure concepts through other concepts that actually are even more obscure. The concept of consciousness cannot be used to explain the difference between living and non living beings, because the concept of consciousness is even less clear than the concept of living beings. It is like trying to explain an english word by using a language that nobody knows.
I wasn’t using consciousness to explain the difference between living and non-living beings. I was simply pointing out that a) on a molecular level there is no difference between a living being and a corpse, that b) a living being is different to a corpse, and so that c) a molecular description alone is insufficient to describe a living being, and so insufficient to describe a living human.
So even if we ignore consciousness there is more to a living human than its DNA. At the very least you also need to describe the movements of all the inner parts, like the neurochemical activity in the brain, but whether or not that is sufficient to explain the experience of pain is still an open question, and cannot be dismissed simply on an appeal to “obscurity”. Perhaps the mind is obscure. There’s no good reason to believe that all phenomena in the universe is simple and easy to understand — quantum mechanics and special relativity being cases in point.
It seems to me that your statement
is exposed to ambiguity.
Obviously, molecules of water in a living being are still molecules of water after that being is dead; molecules of oxygen are still molecules of oxygen after that being is dead, and so on.
In this sense you are right.
However, position and organization of molecules in a dead being has become different from the previous stage, when that being was living. This is exactly what has made that being dead, rather than living. Science and medicine know this very well and this is why they are able to recover people who have been in a stage close to death. For example, if somebody has had a heart attack and has become unresponsive, a resuscitation intervention is able to make that person come back to life rather than die. What the resuscitation intervention does is exactly a modification of the molecular organization of that person, that is, in other words, modification in blood circulation, heart beat and so on.
It is exactly like any other mechanism. For example, if your car is not working, what the auto mechanic does is a change in the molecular organization of that car. For example, replacing a non working part of that car with a new working one is a change in the molecular position and organization of that car.
So, if we consider molecules not in what kind of molecules they are, but in their position and organization in relation with each other, change of molecules is what makes the difference between working and not working, living and not living, both in a car (working/not working) and in a human being (living/not living).
In this second sense, about position and organization of molecules, your statement
is not true; on the contrary, difference on a molecular level is what makes the difference between a living being and a corpse.
Yes I think pain exists. I think it is part of the earth experience to feel pain. Not that it can’t be mitigated or removed, but that to truly feel is to feel everything whether it be good feelings or bad feelings. I think beings naturally migrate away from pain and toward love/feeling good. That this is the natural migration of being. To move away from pain and towards resonance. I think pain is the byproduct of nonresonance. AKA experiencing something that does not resonate with who you are. Think about it, in heaven, there is no pain, and there is only enjoyable experience. When you experience something that does not resonate with who you are, you experience pain. I think pain is a “guide” assisting in helping you move into a more resonant and preferential experience.
Think of antihistamines medicines. They are made to inhibit the effects of histamine, which is produced by our body to make you feel unwell. Our body produces these substances because they, by convincing you that you are feeling unwell, they cause in you protective behaviours that ultimately help your survival. Now, I am not a doctor, there could be something not precisely correct in what I have said. What makes me interested is that our brain is able to convince us that we are unwell, that we are suffering, sometimes in unbearable ways, so that we must adopt specific behaviours that will protect us. This means that even the very perception, the very feeling pain can be just a mechanism to produce certain behaviours, rather than a real feeling. This concept can be extended to any kind of feeling that we are able to experience: smell, taste, but even more general things, such as nostalgia, sorrow. Every kind of feeling can be considered something that our brain convinces itself about. As such, this could be introduced even in computers. We can put in a computer a software that convinces that computer that it is suffering, its circuits are painful, so that it has to adopts urgently certain protective behaviours. In other words, it looks like pain, despite our usual language, such as “I have pain in my left hand”, is not in single parts of our body, but entirely in our brain. There is no suffering in our muscles, nervous system or any other parts our body. There isn’t in any part of our body an ability to suffer. A hand, a leg, a nose, a mouth, a belly, do not have in themselves any ability to experience pain. Everything happens in our brain. This would confirm that what we call “pain” in our everyday language is just a mechanism that happens in our body to convince our brain that it must do something urgently. As such, pain does not exist, it is just an illusion produced by some mechanisms.
Your argument is based on a false premise, so is false.
A mechanism is something mechanical which means moving parts.
That is not how our lives are made - merely by moving parts - so we are not mechanisms.
That is not how pain is produced. There is a complex electro-chemistry involved in the sensation of pain.
Electro-chemistry is a mechanism, which is movement and interaction of atoms, electrons, energy or any other physical entity.
No, chemistry is not mechanical. The definition of mechanical -
Pertaining to, governed by, or in accordance with, mechanics, or the laws of motion; pertaining to the quantitative relations of force and matter, as distinguished from mental, vital, chemical, etc.; as, mechanical principles; a mechanical theory
Chemical change is not the same as physical change.
The chemical change causing pain is very real and pain exists as the function of this chemical change.
It’s another example of the structure-function metanarrative governing all parts of all living organisms.
To argue that pain does not exist is to argue that functions do not exist.
The link you gave about the definition of mechanical confirms what I said: it gives many definitions, depending on the context. You chose definition 1. Have a look at definition 4: “Made and operated by interaction of forces without a directing intelligence; as, a mechanical universe”.
What is a “function” of a chemical change? Where is pain in that case? Is it in the molecules involved in the chemical change? Or where else?
Can you explain this statement?
If pain exists objectively, then it is something that happens in entities defined as objects. This would mean that objects are able to feel pain.
No, this part of the definition does not confirm what you said. To argue that an organism experiencing pain is “made and operated by interaction of forces without a directing intelligence” is a completely inaccurate description of how a living organism (the one that feels pain) makes life
In a living organism, the “function” is what happens due to the action of the structures. No, not in the molecules themselves, but what they make happen.
Feeling pain is a “warning system” in our bodies. It involves the transmission of information that looks something like this –
Injury > pains receptors stimulated > receptors release chemicals (neurotransmitters) that travel to spinal cord > brain > brain “reads” the message > brain sends messages back to body telling it to react
“Structure is complementary to function” is a biological principle. Basically, it means that every part of a living organism is “built” for the job it does - and that the “job” (function) entirely depends on the physical structure, from the molecular to the whole organism level.
It links anatomy to physiology
Only if by “objects” you mean a living organism with the structures (in the nervous system) required for the function (pain)
Why?
What or who is the subject of this feeling? Who feels pain?
This is not what I asked to explain. Moreover, this answer would have some things to explain in turn: how does the process of “building for the job” work? Who makes the decision to build something? How do they plan it?
If a living organism is an object
who does in this organism feel pain? Where is the subject experiencing pain?
Because life is not produced by an interaction of forces, but complex biomolecules involved in complex chemistry
Also - in the case of organisms with a central nervous system, there is a “directing intelligence”
? – the one who feels pain is the one who feels pain.
Billions of years of evolution
the brain receives the incoming messages and interprets them as a conscious feeling of pain
Again - it requires an understanding of function produced by structure
Let’s take this from a different angle.
If we doubt the existence of pain, which in effect is a sensory perception, then it follows that the existence of all sensory perceptions are cast in doubt.
Is this a reasonable conclusion?
Also - sensory perceptions can act as either a cause or an effect.
If something can act as a cause or an effect, it exists.