Pain, Consciousness, and Morality

Pain, Consciousness, and Morality

Consciousness (sentience) evolved at a certain time on planet Earth, many millions of years ago. It didn’t emerge all at once but piecemeal: a certain type of consciousness evolved first, with additions later. What was this type? We don’t know; we can only guess. What we do know is that, whatever it was, later developments bore the stamp of it—they grew from it, modified it, extended beyond it. The machinery that enabled it to emerge was coopted in later versions of the original manifestation. The original adaptation set the course for subsequent developments. It is not to be supposed that consciousness was required for all information processing operations—the organism could respond effectively to environmental stimuli without being aware of them. I doubt that consciousness came about via primitive versions of the five senses we know today. It is not even clear that the senses require consciousness to do their job. No, the first form of consciousness would be something that is necessarily conscious—also vital. It seems to me that the best candidate is pain perception: the first glimmers of consciousness took the form of sensations of pain directed to the immediate environment. Pain perception is clearly highly adaptive, given the dangers presented to the organism—it warns of life-threatening impingements. Organisms that can feel pain will out-compete organisms lacking such sensations. One might think it was only a matter of time before pain became a standard (but not universal) feature of life on Earth. Moreover, pain is not possible without consciousness—without there being something it is like to have it. There is no unconscious or preconscious pain; sentience is built into it. Once pain exists consciousness is off and running. So, we can imagine the first sentient beings as pain perceivers, and only pain perceivers. Organisms with it became aware of the world as painful. They lived in a painful world (unlike plants and bacteria). Objects became consciously categorized as painful (or not painful). The primal phenomenology is a painful phenomenology.

Given that consciousness first arrived in the form of pain, we would expect its later forms to reflect that fact. What is the likely course of evolution for this newfound capacity? Pain and touch go together, so we would expect consciousness to extend itself into touch generally. The sharp pointy object will cause pain and be perceived as sharp and pointy, consciously so. Sensations of shape and hardness will be added to sensations of pain caused by such objects. Both sorts of sensation will be experienced simultaneously, and joined together. An association will be formed such that object properties come to be imbued with pain productivity, potentially if not actually. Objects perceived as sharp and pointy will be regarded as inherently pain-inducing. The tactile world is a world of potential pain.[1] That is, indeed, the main significance of tactile perception—the detection of dangerous objects that cause pain. Pain is always a whisker away from touching objects; touch is risky, pain-prone. Just consider handling a kitchen knife! Touch is the careful sense—burns, scratches, grazes, cuts, stabs, collisions. Thus, touch is haunted by intimations of pain. That is its phenomenology, its intentionality. Tactile consciousness is steeped in pain consciousness—even kissing can turn painful! So, this sense is not far removed from the initial pain consciousness that (we are supposing) was the first manifestation of consciousness on Earth. Smell and taste are not very different: it is important for the organism to detect bad and dangerous food—hence nasty tastes and smells. This is not pain exactly, but it has the same kind of urgent avoidance that characterizes pain—you spit that stuff out reflexively. Tasting and smelling are also geared to the noxious and dangerous—that is their prime purpose (fine dining can come later). The negative is the original function and feeling. Tasting bad and hurting are the prime modes of the corresponding senses, because most vital to survival (gene transmission). What about the distance senses? Well, both vision and hearing can become loci of pain and discomfort if the stimulus is too strong, which it can easily be. But isn’t it also true that seen and heard objects are always assessed for their danger potential? The sight and sound of a predator, the falling rock, the rough pathway ahead, the thorn, the nettle, the fire. Vision and hearing inform us of a perilous world; they are not pleasant luxuries. Pain lurks in the background; it shapes the affordances. Vision, combined with touch, informs us of a dangerous world, only too ready to deal out quantities of pain. The case resembles feathers: originally evolved for purposes of thermal regulation, later extended into devices of flight, but still bearing the marks of their thermal origins. Visual and auditory consciousness stem originally from pain consciousness, according to our hypothesis, and they never lost their association with pain. Pain is their sine qua non. Pain is what enabled them to evolve. Perhaps they would never have evolved without it (qua conscious processes). Thought and rationality take a further step away from primitive pain, but they too bear its imprint—pain is written into them, albeit remotely (like limbs and fins). In the genetic book of the dead pain is a footnote in the chapters on thought and reason (ditto language). Evolution is an essentially conservative process, with earlier traits preserved in later developments. Let me put it with maximum bluntness: the mind is riddled with pain, or the idea of it. Consciousness exists in the shadow of pain. It is an outgrowth of pain. No doubt other ingredients were added in the fullness of time, but the evolutionary history is never completely abandoned (we are still fish—though long out of water). Our consciousness is a construction out of pain, as biological raw material. Attenuated, modified, reformed—but still pain-derivative. We are built to suffer, like all sentient beings. Suffering is our biological fate. Any study of consciousness, then, should be aware of this ancient history preserved in stone.[2] What it is like to be conscious is informed by what it is like to feel pain. Could we even say that all consciousness is really a modeof pain? Physically, we have bacteria distributed throughout the body, lurking in every cell (mitochondria); mentally, we have pain distributed throughout the mind, though modified greatly over evolutionary time. Even mathematical thoughts have pain lingering in them somewhere; certainly, they are made possible by the original appearance of pain consciousness (if our hypothesis is correct). The machinery and phenomenology of pain are the origin of everything mental. Pain is a mental universal (“pan-painism”).

Why do I mention morality in my title? The reason is simple: pain is also the origin and basis of all morality. How did morality evolve (i.e., our thoughts concerning right and wrong)? It came from the reality of pain (not so much pleasure): the prime moral directive is “Cause no pain!” It is obvious to any half-way intelligent being that pain is bad—always has been, always will be. So, it is wrong to cause it. Isn’t that the most fundamental of moral principles? Other ideas can be added to it, but it is never left completely behind: increase pleasure (minimize pain), don’t torture and steal (they hurt the victim), keep your promises (don’t disappoint people), be grateful (don’t make your benefactor regret helping you), be just (don’t cause unhappiness in people unfairly), etc. It’s all about suffering and the avoidance thereof. If there is anything else, it is secondary, not of the essence. Thus, there is no morality worthy of the name without the reality of pain (suffering, unhappiness); no real point to it, no urgency. The first moral thought on planet Earth was “It’s wrong to hurt people” (though “people” might be restricted to one’s own kin, or just oneself). Pain is the sine qua non of morality as we know it. Pain is necessarily conscious, so there can be no morality (of any consequence) without consciousness. Pain is the origin and focus of morality, as it is the origin and focus of mind (not the exclusive focus). Two great things therefore owe their existence to pain: consciousness and morality. Two good things exist only because of a bad thing (though pain has its good side as an indicator of danger). Some philosophers say death is the shaper of human life; others say it is free will; others say beauty: but pain has a good title to that status. It is formative, inescapable, and terrible. We can’t live with it, but we wouldn’t be here without it. Once felt, never forgotten. It made us conscious and it made us good.[3]

[1] We might define matter as what causes pain: not extension (Descartes) and not solidity (Locke), but painfulness (McGinn). The mind isn’t painful; you can’t collide with it. Your mental state never causes you to reel back in agony (“Ouch, that belief stung!”).

[2] If we could solve the problem of how pain arises from the brain, we would have pretty much solved the mind-body problem.

[3] If we ask what consciousness (or morality) would (or could) be like without pain, we run into difficulties. Our consciousness, and that of other animals, is so conditioned by the reality of pain that it is hard to imagine what consciousness without it would be like. Even vision would have to be very different, because it would no longer be surrounded by the apprehension of pain, actual or potential. Seeing a red cube, say, would have no relation to potential collisions—what it would feel like to be struck by such an object. The consciousness of a heavenly being would be very unlike our terrestrial consciousness, being bereft of any pain-inducing danger. The world would not be experienced as adversarial. Terrestrial consciousness, by contrast, is up to its neck in an adversarial world experienced primarily via pain or its possibility. For us, consciousness is as of a world of the permanent possibility of pain; removing this leaves something unreal and barely imaginable. It would be a consciousness devoid of fear. Likewise, in a world without pain (unhappiness, negative affect) morality would be scarcely recognizable, and of little account. It might consist of pallid injunctions to return your books to the library on time and the necessity not to open your mouth while eating.