How would you explain to a person who could never experience pain, what pain is?

Do the following:

1. Get a dairy food that is extremely spoiled.

2. Get the person to fill his or her mouth with this delightful food.

(ESSENTIAL: The food has to remain in the person’s mouth! Under no circumstances can the person spit out the food and clean his her mouth.)

3. Chew the food.

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This test is a good model for the nature of pain.

Pain is aversive. We want to avoid pain. Eating spoiled food is the same: we want to avoid at all costs putting, much less chewing and swallowing, bad food.

Having a really bad taste in your mouth is like having a pain in your body.

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