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Looper's Delight
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----- Original Message ----- My answer to the question "How do we "know" the feeling of pain" or more aptly, how do we know when someone else is feeling pain, was simple: If you get knocked about the head with a bat, let's say, do you not understand, nay, know, the feeling of pain? If so, you can logically assume that another person, "C" in this case, would feel pain if s/he were to befall the same unfortunate circumstances. That's the end of the inquiry as far as I'm concerned. Please help me: Is there something more to this? ***** Basically, there isn't much more to it, Harry. You have shed light on an age old philosophical problem, called "The Problem of Other Minds". Your statement, how do we know when someone else is feeling pain, is really an extension of the more general question of how do we know other minds exist? There are a lot of convoluted arguments for this, but the two most basic in my mind are: 1) Argument by analogy: That you feel pain after being hit with a baseball bat, talk in such a such a manner (that suggests intelligence), etc, and so when you observe another body being hit with a baseball bat, or uttering similar words that suggest intelligence, you can infer by analogy (not logic), that the other person is feeling pain and also has a mind as you do. 2) Argument by Causation and Probability: You have complex thoughts and ideas and are able to communicate them with language; you hear this language spoken by things (sensory data that appear like human bodies) other than yourself; so either something is just randomly generating the language in such a way that is sounds intelligent, or the language is indeed being "caused" by another mind. We can argue that the former argument, though possible in the realm of ideas, is highly improbably, so we infer that there are other minds. People get annoyed with these little arguments and debates or what seems to them completely obvious. But the point is that in the above two simple argument, the conclusions are not "deduced" from the premises, meaning they are logically certain and necessary, but are inferred. And all inferences of this nature are not certain, but are believed with a degree of probability. So, we never truly "know" in the strict sense of the word that other minds exist or that other beings feel pain; we can only infer this with a high degree of probability. This is one of the beauties of philosophy, in my opinion. It keeps us from elevating ourselves so high in the world that we think we are prefect and can have certain knowledge of the world, when in fact we are very limited, and our very nature that allows us to comprehend millions of possibilities, also thwarts any attempt for us to make claim to certain knowledge. And this is exactly why science, being a discipline based on inference and induction, makes no claim to the truth or certainty, but only degrees of probability. The only people you hear boasting that they know truth are a certain school of philosophers (the non-empirical or Rationalist sort) and religious fanatics. They only believe they know the truth, yet none can withstand the acid test of doubt. Kris