explain
pain
section
1
page
10
Pain is normal
It’s themost powerful protective device we have
O
f course things hurt; life can hurt. There
aremany kinds of pain. In the unlikely event
that amonkey happens to bite your nose, as
it has bittenNorman’s, then your nose will
really hurt and youwill probably remember
the incident for the rest of your life –
Norman probably won’t show off like this to
his son next time they go to the zoo; the
story of Norman’s nose holes will be retold
at countless family gatherings; it will change
the way the family thinks about monkeys; it
may even become the topic of nursery
rhymes (eg. ‘Norman’s nose got bit by the
chimp… ever since then the chimp’s had a
limp, Norman’s son knows dad is a whimp…
Poor oldnoseyNorman’). You get themessage.
You can have painwithmuch less obvious
damage. Painmay just emerge over time, as
it has with the computer-boundMr Lee. Pain
is useful here andwill hopefully encourage
him to get up andmove. But pain is often
unpredictable, which canmake us frightened
of it. Sometimes you can lift an object a
thousand times without a problem. Then,
all of a sudden, one lift causes extreme pain.
Why would Sidney (on the next page) ever
want to throwRene Descartes’ bust into the
bin again if it gives him back pain to do so?
By the way, Rene is the French philosopher
who invented themind-body split,
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the idea
that themind (and sometimes brain) are
different from the rest of you. There is no
doubt that Rene was extremely clever, but it
is 400 years since he proposed his theories
and those theories still provide the basis for
most treatments for pain. We now know
enough to be sure that thismind-body split
does not exist and that there are better
theories onwhich to base our treatments.
