Pain & Pleasure Purpose?

**Kumar** · 09-09-07, 02:32 AM

Hello,

All can experiance pain or pleasure on different events. Commonly pain is indicated may be related to "withdrawl" and pleasure with "coming closure" (though pain from a slap or otherwise can do both in some cases).

Anyway, can you tell physiological basis of getting "pain & pleasure" and mutual relations in between these, if any? Chronic pain, habitulity, tolerance, resistance and adaption to these can also be considered here.

Best wishes.

**redarmy11** · 09-09-07, 03:01 AM

We're getting down to basics now, aren't we. Exams coming up?

**Kumar** · 09-09-07, 06:12 AM

Originally Posted by redarmy11

We're getting down to basics now, aren't we. Exams coming up?

There can be some oversights in understanding of basics. That is what I am trying to understand/indicate by discussions.

**ashpwner** · 09-09-07, 06:38 AM

i always thought it was just to make us do thinkgs like mate we do it cuase it feels good pain is to know that it's hurting us and make it stop.

**Kumar** · 09-09-07, 06:51 AM

Pain is an unpleasant sensation. It is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage”.
Pain is part of the body's defense system: it triggers mental problem-solving strategies that seek to end the painful experience, and it promotes learning, making repetition of the painful situation less likely. The nociceptive system transmits signals that usually trigger the sensation of pain, it is a critical component of the body's ability to react to damaging stimuli and it is part of a rapid-warning relay instructing the central nervous system to initiate reactions for minimizing injury.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_and_nociception

Pleasure is commonly conceptualized as somehow opposed to pain or suffering, though it has received much less scientific attention. Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th Century German philosopher, understood pleasure as a negative sensation, as it negates the usual existential condition, that of suffering. Pleasure can be brought about in different ways, depending on how every individual senses the feeling of pleasure. Some feel this phenomenon through music, sexuality, drugs, writing, accomplishment, recognition, service, and any other imaginable activity; even pain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure

Pain is related to attention, withdrawls and repetitions, pleasure should be opposite. But above or other links do not tell about physical/physiological purpose of pain and pleasure.

Can we think about following:-

1. These can be relating to Autonomus nervous system, pain with fight or flight and pleasure with "rest and digest"..SNS and PNS.

2. Pain invites attention and concentration of defence/inflammatory responses at paining site Whereas pleasure opposite...narrow-mindedness and broad-mindedness.