Why can’t we control out own sensations ? Why is our brain not able to just turn off the feeling of pain for the moment ? “I got it, something is bad, now stop hurting !” Or to just fall asleep whenever we want to.
In: Biology
Because of evolution. Evolution will only select for mutations that benefit our chance of survival. The ability to consciously turn off a sensation is not only a very difficult mutation to evolve (in that the chance of all the right mutations happening is very very low), it’s also one that’s not beneficial and, in many circumstances, even actively detrimental.
The main purpose of pain isn’t just to report “something bad”, it’s to make you avoid the same thing in the future. If you could turn off pain the moment you feel it, that avoidance mechanism has been removed. You won’t learn not to touch the nettle again, because you know you can just turn the pain off again if you do – ie the “stick” used to prevent you doing stupid things has lost the vast majority of its impact.
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