Can inanimate objects feel pain?

[seriously disabled]

Do inanimate objects feel pain and can we even prove if they do or do not?

[Phi for All]

What would be the mechanism? We don't need to "prove" anything, we just need to look at how an object made of identifiable materials, constructed in a way that we can easily trace, could possibly have the kinds of systems that we identify with feeling pain.

 

And to forestall your next question, if they have some kind of inanimate object pain receptors we've never observed before, then our definitions aren't compatible, and the question is meaningless.

[seriously disabled]

I don't really believe that inanimate things can experience pain because they lack a functioning nervous system.

 

There was a plant, now extinct, that would make a screaming sound if it was cut.

 

This could mean that plants can feel pain but then again plants are not inanimate objects.

Edited April 10, 2016 by seriously disabled

[Phi for All]

There was a plant, now extinct, that would make a screaming sound if it was cut.

 

Citation?

[seriously disabled]

Citation?

I don't have an exact citation but several studies have confirmed that plants do feel pain.

 

Check out those links for example:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-83446,00.html

 

http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/plants-feel-pain.htm

[Phi for All]

Wow, that's pretty dodgy stuff.

 

Why would anyone assume the sounds of released gases from plants that are cut are screams of pain, and not just, you know... the sound of released gases? There are no studies provided, though the first says there have been many. I get the feeling all the studies were similarly vague and unconvincing. If you have any links to a peer-reviewed study, I think that would hold more weight than the sketchy claims of someone who claims it's pain that causes chemical distress calls in plants, instead of simple chemical mechanisms for defense.

[Fuzzwood]

Technically, the sounds we make are also due to expelled gasses, heavily modulated but still gasses.

[Phi for All]

Technically, the sounds we make are also due to expelled gasses, heavily modulated but still gasses.

 

And not all of them are used to express pain.

[Delta1212]

[The Angry Intellect]

It depends if you count certain humans as inanimate objects

[aliceinwonderland]

I think you'd need to go a bit further and define pain first. Basically, pain is a reaction of living organisms that sets off certain reactions (e.g. rise in adrenaline levels) in order to keep the organism from being destroyed. If you don't feel pain, you'll hurt yourself a lot. I might see why plants could feel pain - they do have cells too and are living organisms - but apart from that molecular structures like stone or water shouldn’t be able to feel pain. Except if molecules or atoms can suddenly feel pain, which I highly doubt

[OrionEMPIRE]

From my understanding pain is a response to certain stimuli, those stimuli being composed of certain organic molecules, of which are able to "react" to external stimuli, ie external reactions etc, causing that which is alive, etc, to instinctly (key word being instinct) react to the so called "pain" or that which is "sensation causing external or internal chemical reactions" etc.

 

 

The problem is with inanimate objects, science currently does not possess enough information to explain that force which makes us all sentient as humans, let alone the semi sentientism or non sentientism (merely being considered "living").

 

We've yet to discover what it is actuslly that gives us all the spark of life, awareness etc, aside from electricity and neural synapses.

 

So that taken into consideration, from what knowledge we have, inanimate of objects appear to us to not be living, but how can we actually prove this? Just because they do not possess respiratory systems or functioning brains or organs, does not necessarily mean they don't have these systems ordered in such a way that our science would not recognize them.

 

Food for thought. I've always thought very deeply about life etc. And I'm my experience from a scientific viewpoint, science cell is true regardless of one's religion or predisposition etc. That aside science has not discovered everything, all though what we do know alludes to the fact that there are things out there beyond our wildest dreams that exist, our science is just not advanced enough to understand these things.

 

So can objects, inanimate, feel pain, who are we to say yes or no? Our limited sciences can only attempt to guess at what they can or can't do or feel, these objects.

 

See what I'm getting at?

[seriously disabled]

So that taken into consideration, from what knowledge we have, inanimate of objects appear to us to not be living, but how can we actually prove this? Just because they do not possess respiratory systems or functioning brains or organs, does not necessarily mean they don't have these systems ordered in such a way that our science would not recognize them.

 

Food for thought. I've always thought very deeply about life etc. And I'm my experience from a scientific viewpoint, science cell is true regardless of one's religion or predisposition etc. That aside science has not discovered everything, all though what we do know alludes to the fact that there are things out there beyond our wildest dreams that exist, our science is just not advanced enough to understand these things.

This is so true.

 

I believe that science is still in its infancy.

 

It could take millions of years from now until humanity will know everything there is to know about everything... if ever.

 

That is why I often wish that I could be born in another couple million years from now where science, technology and medicine is much more advanced that it is now.

[Phi for All]

I believe that science is still in its infancy.

A nebulous determination that allows you to ignore the reality of the progress made over the last century at least.

 

It could take millions of years from now until humanity will know everything there is to know about everything... if ever.

 

That is why I often wish that I could be born in another couple million years from now where science, technology and medicine is much more advanced that it is now.

Considering how far we've progressed in the last few hundred years, I think you're exaggerating by at least a couple of orders of magnitude. You also invoke a bit of infinity into your thinking when you talk about knowing "everything". Can we ever? Is it possible if the universe is infinite?

 

It could be that we can know everything we need to know in a few thousands or tens of thousands of years. Will that be enough?

[seriously disabled]

It could be that we can know everything we need to know in a few thousands or tens of thousands of years. Will that be enough?

I don't think tens of thousands of years will be enough. So my answer is probably going to be no.

[Prometheus]

I believe that science is still in its infancy.

 

To describe something as being in its infancy requires us to know something about its lifespan. Young means nothing if we don't know what counts as old: it's a relative term. Hopefully science now is still only in its infancy, but that will be for later generations to decide.

[Phi for All]

I don't think tens of thousands of years will be enough. So my answer is probably going to be no.

 

I've mentioned before your propensity to set up situations with problems and no possible way of solving them. To you, science will continually be "in its infancy", and it will take an inordinate amount of time before we learn enough to satisfy you. When you don't like something, you phrase your dislike in such a way that there's no way to fix it.

 

You also don't answer questions that might form some sort of resolution. Is it necessary that we know "everything" in a possibly infinite universe, or would it be enough for you that we learn to understand what another 50,000 years of progress at our current exponential rate can teach us? Civilizations are only thousands of years old, and the scientific method only hundreds. Why would it take millions of years for us to learn what you think we should know?