THE PHILOSOPHY OF PAIN: BEHAVIOUR WITHOUT MIND
All of us, like Russell, are hugely impressed by the mind. Since we are here to consider pain, we should define precisely the point at which the mind is aware of pain. Are there important processes which can precede the mental awareness of pain? Because most of us are champions of the mind and sing its praises, 'intellectuals' tend to reserve a series of derogatory words for body processes which do not penetrate the mind, calling them automatic, mechanical, reflex or instinctive. Quiet breathing is just such an event, proceeding for hours and days accompanied by mental ignorance. Yet, if a drop of fluid is inhaled, the mind pounces into action. Furthermore, if you wish to blow your trumpet, you override your normal breathing with skilled control. Breathing is only an automatic, mechanical reflex when operating in preset limits. However, the mind is involved as soon as the limits are exceeded. How were those limits set? By genetics? By learning? The threshold for switching from automatic to mental is variable and under control.
Many of us have had the experience of driving a car while in conversation with a friend or in silent thought and have suddenly become aware that miles have gone by and we have no recall of the route but remember the conversation perfectly. Was the driving automatic? If by 'automatic' one means the execution of a preset programme of motor movements, the answer is no, this is not automatic driving. In the course of the journey, the driver had to react to stop lights which could not have been preprogrammed by the driver. Therefore, this 'mindless' episode involved the reception and analysis of sensory signals, as well as the execution of motor orders.
The greatest exponents of this feat are professional athletes. They repeatedly report that their highest achievements were attained at a time when they had entered 'the zone'. In the zone, they report that the mind switched off from all detail and they experience a feeling of exhilaration and freedom. In the case of a 100-metre sprinter, one could propose that the entire race had been preprogrammed during training so that, from the starting line to the finishing tape, a repeated pattern of motor orders were issued to the muscles and the sensory system was completely switched off. This would then be the achievement of an automaton. For those of us who are inactive slobs, it may comfort us to downgrade athletic achievement by downgrading the athlete to robot.
However, this explanation could certainly not apply to champion tennis players, who are obviously reacting to the sensory challenge presented by the flight path and spin of the ball as well as generating precisely appropriate motor responses. This is not an intellectual achievement because no thoughtful cognition was involved at any time. When the athlete watches his performance on video, he does not relive the experience. He watches himself for the first time.
It is true that the most impressive of these mindless behaviours usually involve complex motor movements. In order to preserve intact the glories of the cognitive speaking mind, it has become common to assign them to a special category: motor learning. It is true that professional pianists describe how they perform a sonata while thinking at most of a broad general structure and certainly not note by note. It is also true that, in their infancy, those same pianists did think and play note by note. The transition from unskilled to skilled movement is accompanied by this ability to stop thinking from point to point and to achieve a whole. I do not believe that we can put these astonishing achievements to one side by labelling them motor learning.
The chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov will play twenty gifted amateurs at a time and beat most of them, walking from one board to another and taking only seconds to make his move. He reports that he makes his mind blank during these multiple games. I take this as a superb intellectual assessment of the patterns of the pieces, although the actual motor movement itself is trivial and could be carried out without skill. When the sensation of pain engulfs the mind, elaborate processes of analysis of which we are not aware may accompany the appearance of pain in cognitive awareness.
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Pain Relief