<story><title>The Evolution of Pleasure and Pain</title><url>http://nautil.us/issue/56/perspective/antonio-damasio-tells-us-why-pain-is-necessary</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tremendulo</author><text>Pain and pleasure may not be as distinct as common sense assumes. The purpose of both seems to be to draw one&amp;#x27;s attention.&lt;p&gt;A simple example would be eating chilli which is painful the first time. After one has learnt to enjoy it then the experience becomes pleasurable.&lt;p&gt;More controversially perhaps is when I stub my toe these days. Instead of yelling and hopping around the room I try to transfer as much of my attention to the affected toe as I possibly can. I won&amp;#x27;t say it feels exactly nice now but it&amp;#x27;s a heck of a lot better than when I was a kid trying to distract myself from the pain.&lt;p&gt;It seems plausible that if one could get very proficient at paying attention then the experience might be comparable to a highly intense pleasure (a pleasure &lt;i&gt;too&lt;/i&gt; intense to be comfortable, at least to begin with).</text></comment>
<story><title>The Evolution of Pleasure and Pain</title><url>http://nautil.us/issue/56/perspective/antonio-damasio-tells-us-why-pain-is-necessary</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>incompatible</author><text>&amp;gt;How does consciousness emerge out of nerve cells? Well, it doesn’t. You’re not dealing with the brain alone.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not sure that this gives any real insight. Perhaps some other types of cells in the body are also involved in creating consciousness, but then the question is &amp;quot;How does consciousness emerge out of cells?&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Saying the brain is &amp;quot;just a computer&amp;quot; understates the complexity of computers with arbitrary software. Just because the brain (and any other cells involved) isn&amp;#x27;t implemented as a simple Turing machine, it doesn&amp;#x27;t follow that it does anything that couldn&amp;#x27;t be alternatively implemented using a simple Turing machine.</text></comment>