Is It Even Possible to Accurately Measure Physical Pain?

Commenting on a recent study, Dalrymple notes that, “It is an elementary logical error to say that because part x of a person’s brain lights up on a scan when he is suffering pain he must be suffering pain when part x of his brain lights up” and offers this on one potential implication of the study:

There was a discussion in the same edition of the journal about physician-assisted suicide. By now the arguments on both sides are pretty well known, one might even say boringly so. The problem is – and there would be no problem if this were not so – the arguments on both sides are good.

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