Disembodied Pain and the Limits of Armchair Philosophy

Thought Experiments [Part 3]

Go on… pinch yourself.

Not too hard, but hard enough to make it hurt — a little.

Philosopher Brie Gertler proposed a new thought experiment that asks us to do just that. And then ask — Could that pain you feel exist without your body?

I suspect you may have a strong intuition as to whether such a scenario is possible or not.

This article is part 3 of our series on the thought experiments in the philosophy of mind. Thought experiments like Gertler’s Disembodied Mind and David Chalmers’ P-Zombies (discussed in Part 2) rely on the conceivability argument.

Such arguments assume that if we can conceive of something, it is possible. They start with a claim that something is conceivable (e.g., p-zombies are conceivable, or disembodied pain is conceivable) and then move to the second claim — that what is conceivable is possible.

We’ve discussed the controversy and potential problems with this approach in Parts 1 and 2, so we won’t rehash those issues here. Instead, we’ll use Gertler’s Disembodied Pain argument to examine the proper use and potential consequences of misusing such arguments.

The Disembodied Pain argument is ideal for this task because, in the paper that outlines the thought experiment, Gertler provides a test for evaluating when conceivability arguments are appropriate in philosophical discussion.

For our series on thought experiments, this article is a bookend to our discussion on conceivability arguments, but it also marks a shift in our exploration of perception. Recently, we’ve been discussing the potential importance of having a body for perception. Last week, we discussed visual perception. Gertler’s thought experiment has us consider a different type of perception — pain — and whether it might be conceivable to experience pain without a body.

Conceivability arguments are, of course, not the only type of argument found in thought experiments in the philosophy of mind. So, the next article in the thought experiment series will explore a different type of argument — the knowledge argument.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

This week, we’re asking: When (if ever) can we legitimately use the conceivability argument?

To find out, let’s ask three questions:

1. What is the Disembodied Pain thought experiment?

2. What standard does Gertler set for the use of conceivability arguments? and

3. Do any conceivability arguments meet this standard?

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Notes:

If you want to read more about conceivability arguments, I recommend Gertler’s paper. It is refreshingly clear (it doesn’t read like a typical philosophy paper).

And, if you’re interested in a fantastic discussion on the controversies surrounding conceivability arguments, I recommend checking out the comment sections in Part 1 (Is Everything We Imagine Possible?) and Part 2 (The P-Zombie Argument). There’s a goldmine of insightful comments to be found there.

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Is Everything We Imagine Possible?

The P-Zombie Argument

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Q1: What is the Disembodied Pain Thought Experiment?

The Disembodied Pain thought experiment begins by self-inflicting a little pain. Unlike many philosophical thought experiments that start with pure thinking, this one asks you to create a real sensation.

So, gently pinch yourself, perhaps the inside of your leg or the underside of your arm. The pain shouldn’t be severe, just noticeable enough to focus your attention.

Once you’re feeling this sensation, the mental exercise can begin.

Imagine experiencing this exact same pain — its intensity and quality — but without having a body at all.

In this imagined scenario, you feel the pain, but you don’t have a leg or an arm. You don’t have any physical form whatsoever.

The challenge is to conceive of this pain existing in a completely disembodied state. You are simply a consciousness experiencing pain without any associated physical structure.

Once this imagining is done, the argument unfolds in a similar way to most conceivability arguments.

Here’s the structure outlined in Gertler’s paper:

P1: Even though I know I have a body, I can conceive of experiencing this pain while having no body. In other words, I can conceive of experiencing this very pain while disembodied.

P2: If I can conceive of a particular scenario occurring, then that scenario is possible.

So,

C1: It is possible that this very pain occurs in a disembodied being.

P3: If this very pain was identical to some physical state, then it could not possibly occur in a disembodied being.

So,

C2: This very pain is not identical to any physical state.

So,

Conclusion: The identity thesis, which says that every mental state is identical to some physical state, is false.

Here, Gertler focuses on attacking the Identity Theory, but a similar argument could be levelled against other physicalist theories, too.

If you’re familiar with conceivability arguments, you’ll recognise the structure of Gertler’s argument. Regular readers of this newsletter will note its similarity to Chalmers’ P-Zombie argument. Unsurprisingly, many criticisms levelled against the P-Zombie argument have also been raised against the Disembodied Pain argument.

Gertler anticipates these criticisms and addresses them in her article. We won’t review all of her arguments here. Instead, we’ll focus on her response to one of the main criticisms levelled at the conceivability argument — that conceivability is too broad a criterion for possibility.

People can imagine all sorts of fantastical scenarios that we wouldn’t consider possible. For example, we might imagine a universe where time flows backwards, gravity repels instead of attracts, and conscious clouds of cotton candy engage in philosophical debates while floating through rainbow-coloured oceans of liquid music. But that doesn’t mean it’s possible. Gertler addresses this concern by proposing a stringent standard for when conceivability can be taken as evidence of possibility.

Q2: What Standard Does Gertler Set?

The allure of thought experiments lies in the idea that they can be conducted from the comfort of your favourite armchair. They don’t require going out into the world to collect empirical evidence. Instead, they rely on our ability to imagine and reason about scenarios purely in our minds. But this very characteristic is also a common point of criticism for such arguments.

The main critique of the conceivability argument is that it requires what some might consider intellectual overconfidence. All reasoning, whether in philosophical discussion or everyday conversation, relies on concepts. Concepts define what we are discussing. We simply can’t communicate meaningfully without some shared understanding of what we’re talking about.

For instance, consider water. In ancient Greece, before modern chemistry, people considered water to be one of the four fundamental elements, alongside fire, earth, and air. Based on their understanding and observations, the Greeks discussed water by relying on this shared understanding of water.

But our concepts can change.

Nowadays, water is understood to be a compound of hydrogen and oxygen (H₂O), not a fundamental element. Because our concept of water has changed, our discussions about water have also changed.

Since all our discussions involve concepts, some philosophers argue that we should be sceptical of conceivability arguments in general. These critics point out that there’s always a possibility that our concepts don’t perfectly align with reality. So, while we might be able to conceive of something, and that conception might reflect a real possibility, it’s equally possible that our concepts are flawed because we have an incomplete or mistaken understanding.

Gertler, however, cautions against completely rejecting the conceivability argument. She argues that the argument has merit so long as we only use it under certain conditions. Specifically, Gertler suggests that arguments based on the conceivability argument, like the Disembodied Pain thought experiment, will only succeed if the concepts involved in that thought experiment are sufficiently comprehensive.

Gertler is not the first to make this claim. Indeed, Descartes (who relied on the conceivability argument for his substance dualism claim) acknowledged that, for his argument to work, the concepts must be ‘complete and adequate’.

So, what does it mean for a concept to be sufficiently comprehensive?

Gretler recognises that sufficiently comprehensive is a very high bar. Most of our concepts do not meet this high standard.

Water, she suggests, is a great example of a concept that fails to meet this standard. We might say that we can imagine water without H₂O. But, of course, water without H₂O is impossible — water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, so it cannot be without it. So, even the concept of water — a concept we think we know well — is not sufficiently comprehensive to be used in the conceivability argument.

The reason that water fails to meet the high standard of being sufficiently comprehensive, Gretler argues, is that water has a hidden essence that ‘can be discovered only by careful scientific investigation’. Our concept of water as H₂O cannot be known from the convenience of our comfy armchair.

Q3: Does the Disembodied Pain Argument Meet This Standard?

So, what about pain? Can we conceptualise pain from that cozy armchair?

Gretler argues that pain, unlike water, has no hidden essence. If we feel pain, then we know pain. Our concept of pain doesn’t require careful scientific investigation.

Gretler claims that this observation that the feeling of pain is pain means that our concept of pain is sufficiently comprehensive for use in conceivability arguments.

But let’s discuss that little word… ‘is’. The tiny, seemingly unimportant word found between the word ‘pain’ and the phrase ‘the feeling of pain’.

We discussed the word ‘is’ in the article on The Identity Theory. It's worth recapping here what we covered there.

The philosopher U.T. Place explains that we use the word is in three different ways.

The is of definition.

To use ‘is’ in the definitional sense, the statement will be necessarily true by definition. The statement — a square is a shape with four equal sides — is true based on the very definitions of the terms square and four equal sides. Just like a mathematical equation, everything on the left side of the word ‘is’ must be identical to everything on the right. Notice how the is of definition is argued on logical grounds (we can make these arguments from that comfy armchair). Arguments made on logical grounds are often arguments about the meaning of words.

This can be expressed as:

X is (by definition) Y

The is of composition.

Using the 'is' of composition means stating something about a thing's composition or the nature of that thing. The statement, water is H₂O, is a statement about the nature of water. The statement is true, but it’s not true by definition. We can’t use logical grounds to prove this statement right or wrong. In most cases, we need empirical evidence to support (or refute) such claims.

This can be expressed as:

X is (composed of) Y

The is of predication.

To use the is of predication is to describe a feature or attribute about a thing.

For example, Superman is six feet tall. Here, we are not saying that Superman is, by definition, six feet tall — the concept of Superman is not identical to the concept of six feet tall. But we are also not saying that Superman is composed of six feet tall.

The phrase six feet tall simply describes the height attribute of the noun Superman. We’d need empirical evidence to support (or refute) these types of claims, too.

This can be expressed as:

X (has the attribute of) Y

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When Gertler argues that pain is the feeling of pain, she's using the is of definition. She's claiming something about the definition of pain — pain is defined by how it feels.

Pain is, by definition, the feeling of pain.

For the Disembodied Pain argument to meet Gertler’s high standard of being sufficiently comprehensive, the concept of pain must use this type of ‘is’. Any other conceptualisation of pain (that uses a different type of ‘is’) would imply that pain potentially has a hidden essence. And if pain has a hidden essence, it can’t be discovered by armchair thinking alone.

We know Gretler conceptualises pain using the ‘is of definition’ when she claims pain is the feeling of pain, but here’s the question:

Does the Disembodied Pain thought experiment use the same ‘is’, or does it use some other type of ‘is’?

Let’s review Premise 1:

Even though I know I have a body, I can conceive of experiencing this pain while having no body. In other words, I can conceive of experiencing this very pain while disembodied.

This claim doesn’t seem to be questioning the definition of pain. If it were, we might expect the premise to be, ‘I can (or can’t) conceive of pain without the feeling of pain’.

In other words, we’d expect Premise 1 to be a premise that questions the statement pain is the feeling of pain.

But that is not what we find in the Premise 1.

The underlying ‘is’ statement being questioned in Premise 1 might be something like pain is physical or pain is not physical. These statements use the is of composition — not the is of definition.

In fact, the entire disembodied pain argument is designed to question the nature of pain.

Anytime we question the nature of things, we are susceptible to the problem of concepts outlined by Gertler herself — our concepts may not perfectly align with reality.

So, does Gertler’s own thought experiment inadvertently fail to meet her own high standards?

If it does, what does this say about other thought experiments that rely on the conceivability argument?

Is there ever an appropriate use of the conceivability argument?

In their simplest logical form, conceivability arguments are structured like this:

• Premise 1: I can conceive of X

• Premise 2: If I can conceive of X, then it is possible that X

• Conclusion: It is possible that X

Conceivability arguments seem appropriate for definitional issues. For example, if we consider a square is a shape with four equal sides, we can easily conclude from our armchairs that a square without four equal sides is inconceivable and thus impossible. But this use, while logically sound, feels trivial.

In the philosophy of mind, conceivability arguments frequently appear in thought experiments about dualism.

Typical premises are either:

• I can/can’t conceive of a conscious experience without a physical body (e.g., Disembodied Pain) or

• I can/can’t conceive of a physical body without conscious experience (e.g., P-Zombies)

These statements are about the nature of consciousness, so we might question whether we can legitimately accept or reject Premise 1 based solely on armchair thinking.

When we make such armchair-based claims about conceivability, especially when those claims are claims about the nature of things, we risk smuggling in concepts that are not sufficiently comprehensive. In other words, to assess Premise 1, we might unknowingly smuggle in assumptions based on our incomplete understanding and our biased intuitions.

This would be a problem. Our reasoning can become circular if we inadvertently insert our conclusions into Premise 1. We might find ourselves begging the question.

Whether or not all conceivability arguments in the philosophy of mind beg the question is the subject of much debate. But, given the concerns, many find the thought experiments that rely on the conceivability argument unpersuasive. It's worth noting that this criticism can be applied to both physicalist and non-physicalist positions.

This scepticism raises an important point about the relationship between conceivability and different types of possibility.

In Part 1, we discussed logical, metaphysical, and physical possibilities. Conceivability arguments seem most reliable when dealing with logical possibility, which is closely tied to definitions and conceptual truths. But when we apply conceivability to other forms of possibility, they become far more contentious.

If conceivability arguments are only persuasive when dealing with statements of logic, what can we confidently say about the category of metaphysical possibility?

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You might be wondering what this all means for our understanding of pain.

Given the challenges of using conceivability arguments, we might be sceptical of relying solely on conceivability to understand pain. If so, it's worth exploring what we could learn when we get up from our philosophical armchairs.

So, next week, let’s explore what neuroscience has to say about pain.

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