Reply to comment

            Pain seems to me to be one of the most interesting sensations that we have.  Although all sensations are subjective, pain to me is interesting because it is such a strong and internal sensation and because we do believe that there are very common differences (we talk about everyone having a different “pain tolerance”).  It is easy for me to accept that individuals are able to deal with pain in very different ways and thus deal with very different levels of pain in their everyday lives; however I wonder if there is an actual “threshold” that may be somewhat evolutionarily conserved where we actually pass out from pain.  It is entirely possible that this is again totally individual (can’t find any studies on it-would be difficult to do ethically obviously) however it seems plausible to me that our bodies ultimately have similar limits where it is necessary physically rather than emotionally to deal with pain.

            I also wonder why it is that certain people might have higher “pain tolerances” than others.  Is this a natural phenomenon that has to do with our physical, bodily differences or is it a learned threshold based on past social and personal experiences?  As with most scientific dichotomies I expect it is a mixture of both but it would be interesting to know even what experiences effect pain tolerance and in what way.  Do painful experiences dull your sensation/make you more accustomed to dealing with pain and thus reduce your threshold or do they do the opposite and make you more aware of what pain is and feels like and thus make you more sensitive to it.  Also, do pain experiences at different times in your life affect you differently and how do the reactions of those around you affect your experience and thus threshold.  It seems that the reaction of other definitely affects us, examples are especially obvious when we are young and are taking many emotional cues from our parents but I believe these “environmental” factors (or social factors) affect us even when we are older, just in more subtle ways.