Comments on: Baby pains

By: glucose tester

glucose tester — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 07:51:37 +0000

sugar meter…

Conscious Entities » Blog Archive » Baby pains…

By: baby names meanings

baby names meanings — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:27:54 +0000

Thats just insane. Its been scientifically proven that even plants can feel pain, so why cant human babies?

By: Croft Stanfield

Croft Stanfield — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:43:42 +0000

Most everyone confuses the human brain with the mind; they are completely separate entities. The physical body and brain are created through procreation, whereas the individual mind is created through the attachment of a name to the individual. This has been and can be proven by analyzing anyone’s name and describing their qualities of mind as well as experiences, etc.

By: bill

bill — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:24:43 +0000

hi nice post, i enjoyed it

By: Addofio

Addofio — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:31:43 +0000

“there’s no mystical component, no qualia.”

Really? Let’s try a little empirical experiment. Take a hammer and bring it down, hard, on your thumb. I’ll wait. . . .

. . . . . . .

OK, now. Did you experience any qualia?

All very well and good to argue about someone else’s qualia, or lack thereof. But I betcha anyone who’s actually willing to try the experiment gets the qualia.

By: James

James — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:40:47 +0000

I think it is important to consider this in light of early childhood development, alluded to above. Psychologists tell us that the late fetal and early infant brains are gearing up for one thing: the assimilation of sensory stimulation for the purpose of building a subconscious construct upon which later conscious experience will hang (or float, if you like the iceberg model). Many think of the subconscious as: 1. pre-conscious experiences which the brain has “remembered”, but without the benefit of conscious narrative and thus unaccessible at that level and 2. conscious experiences suppressed below the level of conscious narrative and thus beyond its direct access and control. However you like it, it is no secret that the subconscious is profoundly important to the daily life of the adult. So, it is essentially irrelevant whether the late fetus or early infant “remembers” their pain as a toddler might (assuming they do not suppress it). Why, because the infant is “remembering” their pain in the only way an infant can, as a building block for later cognition. Though it could be argued that the adult is not the infant they once were, because they do not remember this experience, they nevertheless owe everything to that infant as the incubator of their present consciousness.

To maintain perspective, I must admit that late fetal/early infant trauma probably does not impact later life in the same way as that of a toddler, because at those different levels of development it is of a different kind (i.e. like the effect of using inferior materials to build a house verses smacking a house with a wrecking ball). However, it may impact the adult in a way we do not have direct access to and thus, one should not be careless about it. In the case of birth trauma, well, its just the way of things, like teething, losing teeth at age 6, joint pains and hormonal swings during adolescence, etc, etc. Nobody said being a biological organism was going to be easy. But, why make it worse out of ignorance and false assumptions?

By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 23:00:50 +0000

There’s no discussion of infant mortality in the article – the focus there is more on whether giving fetuses anaesthesia risks the life of the mother.

Of course Rodger’s quite right about the literature on birth trauma, going back to Freud and Otto Rank: and more recently figures such as Frank Lake and William Emerson.

By: Eric Thomson

Eric Thomson — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:38:40 +0000

Do they discuss whether infants/fetuses have a higher mortality rate under general anesthesia?

By: Rodger Cunningham

Rodger Cunningham — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:31:48 +0000

Surely entire books have been written about the birth trauma, and entire psychological schools based on it? All highly dubious, and I’m probably showing my age by adverting to it, but Shankar’s comment seems to me to display amnesia of a different kind.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:04:31 +0000

There we are – restored. Thanks for that, Shankar – and thanks to Norm at MLU.

I suppose it could be that pain during birth does have some lasting bad effect, which we don’t notice because we’ve all suffered it – up till now. Or maybe the ‘natural’ pain of birth is something we’re ready for, whereas being jabbed with a scalpel is a more upsetting business. But I think the balance of probability is that you’re right, and that fetal pain has no lasting effect.

You’re certainly right that evolution doesn’t care about pain that doesn’t threaten your survival. Think of teething, to keep up the baby theme.