Chapter
Four
Neuroscience
It might help to explore another question. Where is this pain? Common sense says
it is in your arm, which is certainly where it seems to be. Identity theorists would
locate it in the brain, or perhaps also in all the C-fibres and other activated parts of
the nervous system. Dualists would say that it is in the mind and therefore strictly
has no location. There are other possibilities too. For example, British psycholo-
gist Max Velmans (2009) uses this question to help explain his ‘reflexive model of
consciousness’, in which all experiences result from a reflexive interaction of an
observer with an observed (Chapter 17). He rejects both dualism and reduction-
ism and claims that the experienced world and the physical world are the same
thing, as looked at from either a first-person or a third-person perspective. On this
model the pain really is in your arm.
areas turns out to be rather close, with fMRI and PET studies showing larger areas
of activation in ACC when pain is rated as more intense.
We all know that pain feels different when it is unexpected rather than self-
administered, and worst of all when it’s dreaded. This too shows up in ACC. Stud-
ies using fMRI have shown that activity in posterior ACC increases with externally
applied pain but not with self-administered pain, while activity in perigenual ACC
is the reverse (Mohr et al., 2009). All this suggests that there are reliable neural
correlates of both the type and amount of pain someone is experiencing.
But what does this correlation mean? Does the neural activity cause the subjec-
tive experience of hurting? Does the subjective pain cause the neural activity? Are
both caused by something else? Is pain in fact nothing other than neural activity?
Or have we perhaps so misconstrued the situation that we are led to ask impos-
sible questions?
Hold out your bare arm and give it a really good pinch. Now consider this unpleas-
ant feeling. What is it like? While you can still feel it, ask the questions above. Do
any of these possibilities really seem right?
‘and then of course I’ve
got this terrible pain in
all the diodes down my
left hand side ’(Marvin the Paranoid Android, in
Adams, 1979, p. 81)PRACTICE 4.1
WHERE IS THIS PAIN?Look out for any pain you may experience this week, whether a pounding
headache or a cut finger. Now look straight into the pain. Experience it as
fully as you can. Ask ‘Where is this pain?’
Is the pain located where the headache seems to be? Is the pain inside
the cut? Or is it in your head, or in your mind, or where? Are you anxious
about the pain, and if so where is the anxiety? Does the pain move when
you focus on it? Does it feel as though pain comes into your consciousness
and out again? What does this mean?
Odd things can happen when you stare into the face of pain. Make a note
of what happens for you.