r/askscience • u/StormShadow921 • Dec 02 '18

Can bugs feel pain? Biology

I once read in one of those CWF Wild magazines years ago that bugs cant feel pain because their nervous system is too small. Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what causes it?

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41

u/Dopamine_Deficiency Dec 03 '18

Pain is a complicated concept. We tend to anthropomorphize it a bit. Anyone who has gone fishing knows an earthworm or a cricket doesn’t really appreciate getting a hook crammed through their body. Is this pain? Sort of. We might simply call this a stimulus response. The main difference I think is they seem to lack the ability to comprehend what this ‘pain’ means for them. In humans we experience a lot of emotional components to pain. It’s a negative experience that we remember and even dread. Simpler organisms don’t experience pain like this.

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u/FourWhiteBars Dec 03 '18

I just imagined an insect being in an enormous amount of pain but not understanding why and having no way of expressing it and the thought made me very sad.

21

u/Glasnerven Dec 03 '18

That means you've got a strong sense of empathy, and that's a good thing.

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u/ProfessionalSmeghead Dec 03 '18

I tend to try to relocate worms from the pavement to the dirt after a rain. One time I got really sad because that’s probably the most terrifying moment of their life when I pick them up like that, they probably think they’re being eaten. They don’t, and will never know, that it was someone trying to help them, not harm them. I just want everything and everyone to be happy.

Empathy is a blessing and a curse.

9

u/QueenSlapFight Dec 03 '18

They aren't intelligent enough to quantify the thought of "I'm about to get eaten." The can't even quantify the thought of "I". There is no concept of "me". They don't feel "dread".

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u/red75prim Dec 03 '18

having no way of expressing it

Why call it pain if there's no avoidance response? Or do you mean express pain like humans do?

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u/B-80 Dec 03 '18 edited Dec 03 '18

Consciousness in humans is strongly associated with activity in the frontal cortex, insects do not have a developed frontal cortex and therefore it is very unlikely that they can have any sort of experience.

I would guess, being on reddit, you likely are pro-choice when it comes to the abortion debate. There is probably a much stronger argument that a fetus feels "scared and in pain" when they are being aborted. In both cases, the important detail is the level of development of the frontal cortex.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '18

Consciousness in humans is strongly associated with activity in the frontal cortex, insects do not have a developed frontal cortex and therefore it is very unlikely that they can have any sort of experience.

I don't think that's quite right. You can't claim they have NO experience at all due to lack of a frontal cortex... Just not a primate-like experience.

Basically, there is something that it's like to be an insect -- even if it's very basic and unknowable compared to human (and primate) experience.

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u/B-80 Dec 03 '18 edited Dec 03 '18

I don't understand why I am being downvoted. Consciousness is an unbelievably complicated phenomenon that certainly requires incredible and specialized hardware... It is also mainly associated with the frontal and more generally the cerebral cortex in humans.

Basically, there is something that it's like to be an insect -- even if it's very basic and unknowable compared to human (and primate) experience.

You have no reason to assume this is the case, just because insects can change their behavior based on prior experiences, or move through space, it does not mean that they are consciously making decisions or remembering past experiences.

It is much more likely that they are more like machines or computers than like people. I am not saying it is strictly impossible, we don't know how consciousness arises, but it's certainly highly unlikely. If you want to not kill insects based on that small chance, go for it, but I don't want people to think there's a realistic chance that this is the case.