[lapcat]

> Pain a warning signal from the body. It's something one should listen to, not just try to ignore and overrule.

This is vastly overstating the rationality of the human body. It's no more rational than the human mind, which is often quite irrational. Your body isn't the product of medical school, nor intelligent design, but rather random natural selection, which is decent but demonstrably far from perfect.

[vanderZwan]

Sure, but how good are you at judging if a human mind is irrational or not without engaging in conversation with it? Why not extend that logic to your body.

[lapcat]

All human minds are irrational, including mine. And yours.

[vanderZwan]

I fail to see where anything I said implied that I disagree with that sentiment.

Also, you were arguing we should not listen to pain when it's acting irrational, as in unreasonable. Then you switch to "all minds being irrational", as in actually not rational. That's not the same thing.

[lapcat]

I have no interest in playing this silly analogy game. You can't have a "conversation" with your body any more than you can have a conversation with your pet cat. Hey cat, we're trying to save your damn life, so stop resisting the veterinarians and the pills!

If you have a point to make, then make it literally, not metaphorically.

[vanderZwan]

I'm sincerely sorry for you if you are suggesting that you are completely unable to communicate with your pet cat or observe its behavior and reason about why it makes sense just because it lacks language. I assume you don't actually have that problem but that is what your comment literally implies.

I made my point and you're ignoring it: you imply that all pain is unreasonable because the body is "irrational". By that logic, you are saying that my earlier example of a sprained ankle hurting when I lean on it means my body is "unreasonable" for signalling that I should not lean on a healing sprained ankle. Quite frankly I think anyone ignoring that and harming themselves more in the process is an idiot.

The example of a cat hissing at the veterinarian because it cannot distinguish the situation from a real threat does not mean that cat's never hiss at real threats. If you cannot even be bothered to tell the difference and blame your cat on every occasion, you're being more irrational than the cat.

[vixen99]

Especially if a new one, pain is undoubtedly a 'warning signal from the body' which is a succinct metaphor we all understand and has a clear meaning. If you don't know why or from whence the pain, check it out. It may be one of those things or perhaps not.

[lapcat]

The previous commenter appears to argue that you need to diagnose every headache, which sounds absurd to me.

Occasionally I have a headache. Not frequently, and I don't necessarily know why. These things just happen. I take a painkiller, and problem solved. I've been seen by doctors over the years for physicals or other reasons, and there's no indication of any underlying medical condition. An occasional headache is not an indicator of something more serious, and the painkiller is not "masking" a larger problem.

The same goes for random muscle aches. They're infrequent, but they can happen, for whatever reason, and there's no reason to panic or to suffer when you can just make them go away.

I don't think I'm unusual here. As far as I've heard, random, infrequent headaches or other aches are extremely common.

Moreover, there are pains that we know the cause: for example, I experience a bump or a cut. My body continues to annoy me with pain unnecessarily. Yes, I'm healing, I'm well aware of that. I just need my body to STFU with the pain and stop reminding me of it.

[marcosdumay]

Unless you have migraines, that headache is caused by something and you'll be much better taking an anti-allergic, or a sinus cleaner, or whatever else actually solves the underlying issue or make the specific symptom go away.

The same goes for muscle aches. There is also specific medicine for them. And you are probably better with an anti-inflammatory for a bump. (It's not normal for cuts to hurt for a long time.)

[lapcat]

> that headache is caused by something

Thanks for the diagnosis, Dr. Internet Rando.

> you'll be much better taking an anti-allergic, or a sinus cleaner, or whatever else actually solves the underlying issue or make the specific symptom go away.

You can't even say what I should take. X or Y or... whatever else? That's not helpful at all.

[marcosdumay]

If you don't know what causes a random headache, that's a good reason to ask a doctor.

[agos]

if you go to any doctor of any specialization in any point of the world and tell them "doctor, once every three months I get an headache" I guarantee that the answer will be "does it go away with an ibuprofen/paracetamol?"

[lapcat]

> If you don't know what causes a random headache

Maybe HN commenters.

[bluecheese452]

Thank you, I share this sentiment but couldn’t quite put it into words. Sometimes it isn’t that deep.

[cleansingfire]

Yup. Try to treat the source of the pain. Of course. But dont act morally superior because you don't need acetaminophen.

[Supermancho]

> It's no more rational than the human mind

Neither is a car, but I still take it to get checked out when a warning light is on.

[lapcat]

> Neither is a car, but I still take it to get checked out when a warning light is on.

I can't believe I need to say this, but cars did not evolve by natural selection. Cars are intelligently designed (by humans, not by God) to show a warning light when there is a problem you should get checked out. So cars are actually rational in that respect.

Hacker News comments never fail to depress me.

[Supermancho]

> I can't believe I need to say this, but cars did not evolve by natural selection.

You didn't need to say that because that's not relevant. The issue was about signal to noise. The logical stance is to assume signal is signal, until you know otherwise.

> Hacker News comments never fail to depress me.

That's also a signal.

[lapcat]

> The issue was about signal to noise. The logical stance is to assume signal is signal, until you know otherwise.

I know otherwise. I have a lifetime of experience—lifetimes of experience, counting the experiences of other people—to know that pain is often just noise.

Pain is ancient. It predates rationality by millions of years, perhaps billions. The dumbest animal experiences pain. It's not a finely tuned system with documented diagnositic codes.