Speaking at Forum2000: Pain is a Protector, not a Monitor of Tissue Status

Waiting 18 months to give my lecture

On 8 August 2019, I received an email inviting me to deliver a lecture on a topic of my choice at Forum2000. Forum2000 is a public lecture series that has been running for forty years. Talks take place on Wednesday mornings in Horsforth, Leeds, and cover a wide range of topics.

I decided to deliver a provocative talk that I had previously delivered at the Leeds International Festival: Is Pain Real?. The talk was scheduled for 18 March 2020, but I received an apologetic email 5 days before the event cancelling the talk because of Covid lockdown. Over one year later I received an email inviting me to deliver my talk on 24 November 2021; I was delighted!

Refining my talk

The focus of my talk was how pain can create an illusion of tissue damage. I decided to incorporate my involvement with Flippin’ Pain to emphasise how knowledge about pain neuroscience can help people with persistent pain live better lives. 

The audience puts me on the back foot

I started my talk by asking the audience to answer the question “Is Pain Real?” and their raucous response “Yes!” suggested this was going to be a tough gig! When I asked, “So why have you come to listen to a talk about something that you already know the answer for?” a lone voice shouted, “To watch you make a fool of yourself trying to convince us otherwise!”, and the audience fell about in laughter. I was on the backfoot, and I was only on slide one!

Consciousness as a controlled hallucination

My talk asks how do know what is real? I use the science fiction movie the Matrix, where humans exist in a virtual reality believing that it is real life, when in fact it is not, to frame the possibility that conscious human experience may be a type of ‘controlled hallucination’ rather than a reflection of ‘objective reality’. I challenge our beliefs that sensations and perceptions create a true reflection of energy and matter i.e., physical reality. I offer examples of when pain does not signal tissue damage. 

Logic and reason to challenge who you think you are

I argue that pain is entirely subjective so the experience of pain and the reality of being in pain are the same thing. In other words, there needs to be a ‘real person’ present to be the subject of the painful experience. So, if you are real and you report pain, then pain must be real – even in the presence or absence of observable tissue damage. This is exactly what the audience wanted to hear –  I had confirmed their answer to my opening question. They began to applaud in celebration of being correct.

However, I intervened, “Don’t clap, there’s still one remaining assumption. How real are you?”

How real are we?

I explained how research suggests that the majority of atoms and cells of most tissue in your body (i.e., the ‘real stuff’) are replaced every 7 to 15 years. That means you are not made up of the same ‘stuff’ that you were earlier in your life. So, how are memories of your childhood stored, and what gives you that sense of ‘self’? Perhaps, you are not as real as you would like to think. The silence was deafening!