One of My High Technology Contributions to Microchip Design

The advantage is that it actually **atomizes**, which allows much
better dispersal than the heated varieties, which tend to have "hot
spots" of odor :-(

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

We are all biased in general, but as far as scientific based, not a
chance. My opinions are based on simple and verifiable axioms.

This was a Phd study for the title of doctor in

This is not possible in principle. Tell me how a cat tells us that it is
feeling pain.

How the neural nets function is completely irrelevant. What maters is
*proving* that certain signals are directly related to a conscious
emotion.

You simply don't understand the issues involved. As I explained, it is
impossible to form a definition of pain, irrespective of what may or may
not physically causes it. There us no way to distinguish a well
programmed non conscious computer from a conscious individual. That is,
a machine can be made that to all intents and purposes duplicates the
output from a conscious individual, e.g. one feeling pain. Since this
duplicate machine can say, "I feel pain", there is no way of knowing if
in fact it does. Therefore the whole concept of a pain detector is
completely bogus. It is not possible, in principle. e.g.
http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/thehardproblem.html

Irrelevant as there is no way to prove that such a machine can in
reality detect the pain of foetuses. What to you propose the featus do,
"oh, I say, that hurts". Get real dude.

Kevin Aylward

http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

Medical practice, and scientific practice, are full of empirical procedures. I'm no epistemologist, but these are probably valid scientific methods. A scientific method should not require "understanding" (I would be even tempted to say that it rules it out), and a theory does not "explain" either.

Let me be more formal about what I guess was the method in this study (again: I only heard about it for a few minutes, and have no references.)
let there be
- a group A of people who you admit have the ability to suffer, and the ability to express that they suffer.
- a group B of people who you admit have the ability to suffer. ( I use the term "people" rather than "person". Put there "patients" or whatever groupname you like that can include preborn babies.)
- a the set P of physical manifestations that can be detected/measured by medical staff.

With statistical work on A, one can get correlations of P to pain. With clinical records, it is possible to verify that those correlations hold true for group B for every cause C (from "a set C of causes of pain" >

By applying that method, one can create a "pain detector" that is good enough for medical purpose.
It does not adress the problem of a definition of pain, it does not deal with the problem of wether a foetus has conscience. Pain is here empirically defined by the persons in group A. Wether the foetus has conscience or not, the medical tool is reliable as long as those foetuses have the same physiological reaction to pain as, say, 10 month old babies. For all you know, there may even be a well programmed computer that sneaked into group A and participated in the implicit definition of pain.
In the end you have a good-enough "detector", which I would be glad to see happen and be developped in clinical practice before all those steaks I ate give me cancer. Not to mention the radiation dosis I receive from my CRT while flaming on c.c.c !

 

I read in sci.electronics.design that fogh <cad_support@skipthisandunder
scores.catena.nl> wrote (in <40fd47b6$0$88490$
4all.nl>) about 'still very much offtopic ! (Re: One of My High
Technology Contributions to Microchip Design)', on Tue, 20 Jul 2004:

Indeed. Elevated breathing rate (possibly indicative of non-specific
stress) and adrenalin/nor-epinephrine levels in blood, and the
appearance of heat-shock protein, I believe.

The human perception of pain is quite complex. There is a serious brain
condition in which the patient is aware of a pain but does not associate
it with him/herself.

 

You *still* miss the fundermental point.

{snip 101 stuff}

Sure, we can make an "reasonable" correlation between different speaking
individuals in similar circumstances and obtain a fair guess on pain
verses output. We rationally make the assumption that we are all
conscious and have similar responses to the same stimuli. This fails
completely in setting up a control with foetuses for which *no* controls
can be established whatsoever. There is simply no way to know whether or
not a foetuses experiences pain or not. It can't tell us. Its that
simple.

We simply do not have an understanding of how the level of pain is made
"aware" to the conscience "mind" as the brain develops. One can argue
that a foetus doesn't experience pain at say, 6 months, or we could
argue that it does. There is simply no way to tell. In fact, some
philosophers claim that a born baby doesn't feel pain, ant that it takes
months before they feel pain "as we do". Ok, I don't hold to that view,
but the point is a valid one. There is no way to prove conclusively
otherwise. This is because consciousnes is fundamentally not derivable
from the laws of physics. You are under the false illusion that the
argument is about understanding the physical mechanics of how we feel
pain. This issue is simply not relevant to the discussion. We cannot
define pain. Without a definition of the basic variables, science can
say *absolutely* nothing about the matter.

Kevin Aylward

http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

There is an argument about understanding: you state that understanding is necessary before one can come to a proof, a defendable thesis. I would rather say that the a demand of research is to be able to deal with what is not understood. A study that comes from a situation where "pain" has no metaphysical definition and no clinical definition, and arrives at a point where there is at least a clinical definition is AOK in my book. Generally speaking, I would not think that science provides "understanding" or "explanations". Being able to follow a theory, read some specific formalism an jargon, or assess wether a theory has the required properties to be scientific (cartesian reasoning, refutability, etc.) do not bring "understanding". ( It a nice kick sometimes though )

It has been probably stg like 70 years since physicists have agreed that the question of conscience is not relevant to their theories, i.e. physics theories can hold independently of the outcome of philosophical questions of conscience, reality, existence. It is a feelgood fairytale we tell kids that physics explains reality, and that it has thus a strong grasp on technology. But try saying that to a physicist and you ll be confronted to a grin and a long silence, at best. And conversely physics theories have nothing to say about those questions. So you can hold assured that I did not at anytime believe that there is a mechanically provable relation between pain and physical manifestation. The relation between pain and metabolic manifestations that can be defended by a medical thesis is not a "mechanical" relation. The relation does involves conscience: the conscience of all individuals from so-called group A and the conscience of the Phd student. So, indeed, you can not f
rom such a study create a machine
that detects pain, or a machine that calculates the dosis of opium to give a preborn. Even if you put a well programmed computer in that machine. But you can create a medical procedure, since the procedure involves the conscience of the medical staff.

Medical practice is not too concerned with conscience either. Who ever saw veterinarian having a big dilemma on prescribing a painkiller " Oh, no. Wait ... I can t prescribe these, Fifi is not an alter-ego and it is not proven that it has conscience. OK, lets tear off this slip and put more expensive antibiotics instead."
Hence, I still _miss_ the point and so far I keep accepting that a doctor in medicine studies, treats, influences, or causes pain without understanding what it is, and still be considered a scientist.

BTW, why do you find conscience to be so closely related to pain ?

 

And so it would for me too, unfortunately, such a definition would be
arbitrary, and therefore meaningless.

Convince me that you actually hurt when I kick you in the balls. All I
hear from you are the screams and whimpering. This proves nothing.

Science provides explanations, essentially by definition.

I agree. Understanding and explanations are not the same. An explanation
may be considered the black and white description e.g. mathematical
equations that make predictions based on axioms. "Understanding" is that
*emotion* we feel when we go Eureka!

Physics does explains reality, by making explanations based on arbitrary
axioms. The axioms, of course are not explainable.

"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not,
however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world." -
Einstein.

For example, we *invent* the concept of mass. We then "explain" motion
with reference to that invention. In principle, we could invent some
other quantity and have different explanations.

Agreed. There is no *provable* relation between the electro-chemical
construction of the brain with emotions such as pain. However, emotions
are indeed only a sole result of such physical construction. This is an
example of a Goedal Statement. A relation that is true, but not provable
or derivable.

Yes, but not one for foetus that has meaning. There is no way to set up
the control system. We simply do not know whether or not 6 month
foetuses feel pain at all. They cant tell us. Any result is pure
supposition.

It is concerned with pain, which is de-facto consciousness.

My issue is regarding situations where we cannot with any reasonable
doubt conclude that something feels pain or not. Most "older"
individuals can mutually agree that a kick in the balls hurts. We can
discuss it such that, even without absolute proof, we can reasonable
conclude that there is no "reasonable" doubt. For a 6 month foetus this
is not possible.

Its trivial. Without conscience awareness there can be no pain. Period.
Pain is something that is directly attributed to conscience awareness.
Consciousness is the ability to "feel" emotions. Its essentially a
definition of conscience, although of course, a circular one. One cannot
define emotions (pain, laughter etc) without introducing consciousness.
If we were not conscious, pain would have zero meaning. That is why
consciousness is not derivable from the laws of physics. There is no
independent way of defining it without referring to itself in its
definition (http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/consciousness.html)

Kevin Aylward

http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.