>11. Imagined pain does not hurt less because it is imagined.
I guess I can see how this might be classed as "not bullshit", but I don't see how it's profound at all. It just seems false to me.
I agreed with all the other classifications.
edit: I know complaining about downvotes is verboten here, but seriously, that's just my take on it. I'd be interested to hear an explanation of what the profound meaning is that I'm missing here.
Based on the other comments further down, you seem to be caught up on whether the statement is technically true for specific definitions of pain, rather than the underlying point of the statement.
The underlying point is that whether you think that someone's suffering (physical or emotional) has a real or imaginary cause, that doesn't make them suffer any more or less, because you are not in their head, and they are not in yours. Their degree of suffering depends on their perception of reality, not yours, or even objective reality.
I agree with the "underlying point", but it simply isn't what the sentence says. If you're willing to put that much effort into interpreting it, practically any statement could qualify as profound.
You've already put far more effort into debating that everyone else's interpretation isn't "simply what the sentence says," when their (and my) interpretation tend to hover around the same approximate meaning.
If you're going by effort, it seems that your interpretation is anything but simpler or lower effort.
If you're trying to make the point that the statement could have been phrased better, I don't think anyone would disagree with you.
>If you're going by effort, it seems that your interpretation is anything but simpler or lower effort.
Hmm? You seem to be mixing up the effort required to reach that interpretation with the effort required to argue with other people about whether it's the correct interpretation.
I participated in various research experiments at the local university (to earn a bit of money on the side while in high school). The ones that paid the most where usually pain experiments, so I've been through quite a few of those.
One thing I found interesting is how incredibly subjective and relative painful experiences are. Increasing and varied types of pain would typically be inflicted over the course of an experiment, while I had to perform various tasks and grade the pain on a scale from 0-10.
Very often I'd grade the initial pain around 6-7, and increase that to the maximum of 9-10 during the experiment. The pain I experienced by the end would however be much more severe, and if I could've corrected the initial grading it'd have been closer to 2-3.
I guess you could say that I was unable to imagine the level of pain I'd later experience, and how relative pain is perceived in this type of experiment.
Just a tangential anecdote, but I didn't call BS on that statement :)
I don't see how that's relevant. That's a situation where you were comparing various real pains to each other in terms of their intensity. You weren't comparing them to imaginary pains.
Sure it's a bit of a tangent, but related in the sense that I was hurt more, or less, based on my ability to imagine pain (which in my experience was easier after experiencing it).
In any case, the sentence doesn't seem to require the imaginary pain to be equivalent (or even compared) to the pain experienced from whatever is causing the imaginary pain. I don't think that's even possible.
It just requires that the pain someone experience from imagining/actually being tortured hurts just as much, albeit likely differently, regardless of the nature or cause of the pain ("imagined"/"real").
The "profoundness" of the sentence is probably related to the
already questionable concept "imagined pain"; and how the pain experienced by other people can easily, and way to often, be dismissed and classified as "imaginary".
The pain still hurts the person experiencing it though, regardless of whether some might call it imaginary (and whether "imaginary pain" even makes sense).
>It just requires that the pain someone experience from imagining/actually being tortured hurts just as much, albeit likely differently, regardless of the nature or cause of the pain ("imagined"/"real").
Right, but imagining being tortured doesn't hurt just as much as being tortured. That is why the sentence strikes me as obviously false.
>The pain still hurts the person experiencing though, regardless of whether some might call it imaginary.
Yes, people might disagree about whether or not someone is in pain. Similarly, they might disagree about whether or not someone is eating cake. That doesn't mean that "imaginary cake tastes just as good as real cake".
> Right, but imagining being tortured doesn't hurt just as much as being tortured. That is why the sentence strikes me as obviously false.
That might be the case, but it's probably not the relevant comparison. The relevant comparison, for the sentence to be true, would be between "The imagined pain experienced from thinking about torture" and "The pain experienced from thinking about torture".
Or to put it another way (in the same format as the sentence we're debating): "The imagined pain experienced from thinking about torture does not hurt less than the pain experienced from thinking about torture".
I think the profoundness here is more related to the word "imaginary" being unnecessary (and even harmful) as it relates to suffering. My sentence above might make it more obvious that "imaginary pain" is somewhat ridiculous in the first place, but it is however used to dismiss people who are hurting.
> Yes, people might disagree about whether or not someone is in pain. Similarly, they might disagree about whether or not someone is eating cake. That doesn't mean that "imaginary cake tastes just as good as real cake".
If a person is conscious and claim to be in pain, that person is in pain, and it doesn't matter if other people think differently.
Similarly, if someone is eating cake it's just weird for anyone else to disagree that they're eating cake, or even discuss the difference between the taste of cake and thinking about eating cake. People of course rarely question the reality and experiences associated with eating cake, but they do with people experiencing pain, which makes the sentence more insightful than you seem to believe.
In a sense this also kinda leads to the result of the study: I do see a point in the statement (and the other non-BS statements), and I think it's a lot more likely that I'll engage in prosocial behavior, such as relieving someone from pain others may describe and dismiss as "imaginary" - or for that matter giving someone the cake they want/need, whether that be real or imaginary ;)
>The relevant comparison, for the sentence to be true, would be between "The imagined pain experienced from thinking about torture" and "The pain experienced from thinking about torture".
I don't understand what the comparison is supposed to be there. You can't "experience" imagined pain. If you're saying that you can imagine being in lots of pain, and that imagining this scenario isn't itself painful, then of course everyone agrees with that. But this is a banal observation, and one that seems to contradict the original sentence.
>People of course rarely question the reality and experiences associated with eating cake, but they do with people experiencing pain, which makes the sentence more insightful than you seem to believe.
If you're saying "we should generally believe people when they say they're in pain", then sure, I agree with that. It's just not what the sentence we're discussing says.
There's a definition of bullshit given in the paper. It does not relate to whether the statement is true or false (indeed quite the converse, it relating to an absence of concern with truth) and it does relate to whether the statement consistently has an unambiguous meaning.
Consider that you understood the statement without complaint of ambiguity, enough to question the truth of the assertion and discuss that with other people without your having to impart your own meaning that you construct. And consider the gyrations and gymnastics that people are applying in this very discussion to impart their own meanings to the other statements that are without consistent unambiguous meaning.
I said that I'm ok with calling it "not bullshit", so I'm not sure what you're getting at. I was questioning whether or not it could properly be called profound.
On the contrary, you've spent almost every post in this sub-thread questioning whether it is true.
To question whether it should properly be called profound would be, conversely, to question the paper's methodology. There is, as I said, a definition of bullshit. There is no equivalent definition of profundity. Nor were test subjects asked to evaluate the sentences with an explicit profundity criterion. The so-called profoundness-receptivity metric was actually a measurement of bullshit-receptivity of non-bullshit statements.
Profundity is best understood as the quality of leading to a better understanding of situations. The profound statement itself doesn't have to be 100% literally true. "All models are wrong; some models are useful."
#11 counters people's default assumption that imagined pain doesn't hurt, because it's not real. You gain more understanding of people who report imagined pain by assuming it hurts the same (even if it might actually hurt a little less) than by assuming it doesn't hurt at all.
In the book Dune, Paul Atreides' hand is put in a pain-simulating device and he has to demonstrate his humanity by resisting the urge to pull it out or he'll be killed by a cyanide needle in the neck. You can only understand that scene by assuming the simulated pain hurts as much as real pain.
“I must not fear. Fear is the mindkiller. I will face my fear. I will let it pass through me. When it is gone, there will be nothing, only I will remain.”
Imagine you are paranoid and you suspect someone is deceiving you. The reality of whether or not they are actually deceiving you does not have an impact on how much pain you feel.
Alternatively, someone with a mental condition that leads them to believe they are in pain would conceivably feel the same pain as someone who is actually being physically hurt.
As malloryerik said in another comment, that seems to be confusing the cause of the pain with the pain itself. The paranoiac's pain is real, even if the cause is imaginary.
It does. But read what the sentence says about "imaginary pain"—that it still hurts. That feeling of hurt is pain. So the sentence is saying that "imaginary pain" is just "pain". So pain that you might think is imaginary, is actually real.
Or, equally, pain that you might think is real is actually imaginary. (If the two terms are equivalent, substitution should work in either direction.) Seems obviously false to me.
> No, the sentence talks about imaginary pain, not real pain with imaginary causes.
That's exactly what you're getting wrong. "Imaginary pain" does not mean "imagining a situation where imaginary-you is in pain". It means pain with imaginary causes that applies to the real you.
Imaginary pain is pain in your imagination, just like an imaginary car is a car in your imagination. If you stub your toe, you are really in pain and not just imagining it. If you imagine stubbing your toe, you are only in imaginary pain (assuming that you imagine it to be painful).
I didn't downvote any of your comments, but I didn't understand your gripe until this post, and I agree with you that the question is not worded well. Imaginary's primary definition is only existing in your imagination, so it's technically correct on one level, but if you look at synonyms for imaginary, and the way that people commonly use it, you get words like nonexistent, made-up, fictional, unreal, etc..
I think the disconnect here is on what imaginary means in this sentence.
Most people in this thread see it as real physical pain conjured up by one's imagination - so things like psychosomatic pain, pain caused by mental illness, pain caused by fears, etc. So think of someone getting dizzy from their fear of heights, or a hoarder doubled over retching because someone is throwing away parts of their hoard.
Whereas you in essence think that it's an oxymoron - if it's real pain, it by definition can't be imaginary. So it's just a thought exercise or a theatrical performance.
So maybe the sentence would be less bullshitty if it read "irrational pain" or something like that.
But as most people read "imaginary pain" as "real pain felt, without reason" instead of "fake pain you're just imagining about", I think your reading of "imaginary" is too parsimonious.
>Whereas you in essence think that [imaginary pain] is an oxymoron
No, I think that there is such a thing as imaginary pain, just as there is such a thing as an imaginary elephant. You can imagine being in pain. You can imagine an elephant. But if someone said "imaginary elephants weigh just as much as real elephants", I would be confused (unless they just meant that the imagined weight of the imagined elephant was equal to the weight of the real elephant).
Sorry, I could have been more clear, and kthejoker explained it better (I think). If you use the primary definition, the question makes sense. If you use definitions like 'nonexistent,' the question doesn't make sense. The question basically asks you to infer that it means only existing in your imagination. It's too ambiguous for my taste - for no good reason.
My wife and I have very different pain thresholds. A few days ago, I was stung by a bee. I told my wife about it after a while, and she was shocked, asking if I wanted a pain killer, but to me it was just a curiosity. To her, a bee sting is a relatively major source of discomfort.
You can't grade pain on an objective scale based on what caused it. It's a subjective experience, and therefore if you truly imagine it, it exists.
That has nothing to do with comparing imagined pain to real pain. You and your wife experience different degrees of real pain in the event of a bee sting. Imaginary pain doesn't come into it.
>It's a subjective experience, and therefore if you truly imagine it, it exists.
Nope, I can imagine being in pain without being in pain. Similarly, taste is subjective, but I can't satisfy my appetite for chocolate by imagining eating it.
I don't think so. The sentence seems to be accepting the distinction between imagined pain and real pain, and saying that the imaginary nature of the former does not cause it to hurt less than the latter (technically leaving open the possibility that it does hurt less for some other reason).
Also, we clearly can distinguish imaginary pain from real pain. For example, there's a difference between the real pain I feel if I stub my toe and the imaginary pain I "feel" if I imagine myself stubbing my toe.
We're just talking about cases where people suffer pain because of false beliefs, which can easily happen to people who have no mental health issues. If you heard that a loved one died, you'd be in a lot of pain, regardless of whether or not that report was true (so long as you believed it).
1) It doesn't make sense to call that "imaginary pain". The pain is real -- that's why it's a problem.
2) Do we know that phantom limb pain does not hurt less than the corresponding non-phantom pains? It seems entirely possible that while phantom limb pain is very acute, it's not as actually as bad as the pain associated with losing the limb in the first place.
3) Even waiving 1 and 2, that would be one rather obscure instance of an imaginary pain and a real pain having the same intensity, which would in no way establish the truth of the general statement.
The question isn’t whether the statements are true or false, it’s between “bullshit” and “not bullshit” - not bullshit being something like “maybe has an element of truth or is a reasonable position to take”
Believing pain to not be lesser because it comes from psychosomatic sources is reasonably - Most people will act similarly in my experience, and in any case the statement is saying something
Contrast that with the bullshit statements - “The whole silence infinite phenomena”
it seems that the point isn’t whether the “profound” sentences are true, nor whether you agree with them.
The point seems to be more about being able to detect that the “bullshit” sentences are completely and utterly meaningless despite being (for the most part) grammatically correct and sounding similarly woo-ish to the “profound” ones on the surface.
I love this comment thread so much! In challenging whether the statement is profound, you've triggered a lively and thoughtful debate on whether or not it is actually profound, and in doing so proved it to be profound (at least to the HN readership) :)
I guess I can see how this might be classed as "not bullshit", but I don't see how it's profound at all. It just seems false to me.
I agreed with all the other classifications.
edit: I know complaining about downvotes is verboten here, but seriously, that's just my take on it. I'd be interested to hear an explanation of what the profound meaning is that I'm missing here.