Discussion Is pain subjective?

[lixt]

What exactly is pain? If someone likes what is commonly named pain, is he or she struggling with it? Is pain subjective? Can someone be in pain while not really in pain? Like, other people see that situation as painful when the "victim" or whatever you want to call that person is not feeling emotional pain (or doesn't believe that is pain)?

 

[AbsurdAbyss]

Subjective, I think. Our understanding of it, as individuals, depends on our own perception, awareness, experience with it which influences our response to it. Just like with reality(or what we make of it anyway) - interpretations vary, but the fact remains - it exists, as do we.

 

[tbroken]

Trust me, some pain is not subjective at all. I found many people that reacted to my same problems in the same way.

 

[R_N]

Trust me, some pain is not subjective at all. I found many people that reacted to my same problems in the same way.

Can we say that they reacted in similar way but none of them felt exactly the same?

Humans are often alike just by being part of the same species ofc but no one experiences life exactly the same.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

Yes, pain is subjective. People have different tolerances to pain and also a different threshold to pain as well. Some people can go through so much and still have strength in them to push on whereas others could give up easier (and both cases are valid as people are different).

Also, yes, there can be situations in where people look at another person's suffering and think that it's painful when the victim doesn't think the same. In my case, I'm the opposite of this as people probably look at me and think my suffering isn't bad at all whereas my suffering is immense due to how I react extremely to the smallest amounts of stress and pressure

 

[R_N]

...there can be situations in where people look at another person's suffering and think that it's painful when the victim doesn't think the same. In my case, I'm the opposite of this as people probably look at me and think my suffering isn't bad at all whereas my suffering is immense...

Yup. Projection is a fog where no one is able to truly understand the other.

 

[Homo erectus]

I think it's subjective. But to facilitate conversation, people often assume certain physical signs, such as brain waves and behavior, reflect pain level. In that case, I believe different people have very different pain tolerance. Drugs and environment may also have an impact.

 

[Forever Sleep]

People have different pain tolerances but, that can actually be dangerous for someone who doesn't feel so much pain. They may have something very serious but not seek help. That kind of goes for mental maybe as well as physical. People who maybe just carry on and on and just snap with a breakdown rather than suffer with their nerves long-term. I don't know. I'm no expert but I have known strong and silent types break all of a sudden.

But yes- I'm sure that anyone suddenly dropped into someone elses life would handle it in a way unique to them. We all have histories. Some people can cope with very high stress situations and others become triggered by something many would find trivial.

It could be for all sorts of reasons. Maybe it triggers a very distressing past trauma. Maybe they have a sensitivity to noise. Maybe they have extreme social anxiety. Maybe they have sociopathic traits and very little affects them. We're all different. So, different things hurt or, don't trouble us.

I guess the level of pain we feel may relate to just how bad the past trauma, intolerance, whatever nasty thing it was is and what coping resources we have to deal with it.

 

[Z-A]

Just like with anything, every person has a different tolerance to things. So in this case, regardless whether it's physical or emotional pain, not everyone reacts exactly the same to things so it would make no sense to say that it is not subjective.

 

[theboy]

It is not. It only changes the perception of those who see someone suffering.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

Pain is subjective. Whether it's emotional or physical pain, how you experience it depends on a multitude of factors, such as context, pain tolerence, your own physiology, your mental state, etc. Your pain can only be experienced by you, not by others. This all results in pain being a subjective experience.