I don't see how that's relevant. That's a situation where you were comparing various real pains to each other in terms of their intensity. You weren't comparing them to imaginary pains.
In any case, the sentence doesn't seem to require the imaginary pain to be equivalent (or even compared) to the pain experienced from whatever is causing the imaginary pain. I don't think that's even possible.
It just requires that the pain someone experience from imagining/actually being tortured hurts just as much, albeit likely differently, regardless of the nature or cause of the pain ("imagined"/"real").
The "profoundness" of the sentence is probably related to the already questionable concept "imagined pain"; and how the pain experienced by other people can easily, and way to often, be dismissed and classified as "imaginary".
The pain still hurts the person experiencing it though, regardless of whether some might call it imaginary (and whether "imaginary pain" even makes sense).
Right, but imagining being tortured doesn't hurt just as much as being tortured. That is why the sentence strikes me as obviously false.
>The pain still hurts the person experiencing though, regardless of whether some might call it imaginary.
Yes, people might disagree about whether or not someone is in pain. Similarly, they might disagree about whether or not someone is eating cake. That doesn't mean that "imaginary cake tastes just as good as real cake".
That might be the case, but it's probably not the relevant comparison. The relevant comparison, for the sentence to be true, would be between "The imagined pain experienced from thinking about torture" and "The pain experienced from thinking about torture".
Or to put it another way (in the same format as the sentence we're debating): "The imagined pain experienced from thinking about torture does not hurt less than the pain experienced from thinking about torture".
I think the profoundness here is more related to the word "imaginary" being unnecessary (and even harmful) as it relates to suffering. My sentence above might make it more obvious that "imaginary pain" is somewhat ridiculous in the first place, but it is however used to dismiss people who are hurting.
> Yes, people might disagree about whether or not someone is in pain. Similarly, they might disagree about whether or not someone is eating cake. That doesn't mean that "imaginary cake tastes just as good as real cake".
If a person is conscious and claim to be in pain, that person is in pain, and it doesn't matter if other people think differently.
Similarly, if someone is eating cake it's just weird for anyone else to disagree that they're eating cake, or even discuss the difference between the taste of cake and thinking about eating cake. People of course rarely question the reality and experiences associated with eating cake, but they do with people experiencing pain, which makes the sentence more insightful than you seem to believe.
In a sense this also kinda leads to the result of the study: I do see a point in the statement (and the other non-BS statements), and I think it's a lot more likely that I'll engage in prosocial behavior, such as relieving someone from pain others may describe and dismiss as "imaginary" - or for that matter giving someone the cake they want/need, whether that be real or imaginary ;)
I don't understand what the comparison is supposed to be there. You can't "experience" imagined pain. If you're saying that you can imagine being in lots of pain, and that imagining this scenario isn't itself painful, then of course everyone agrees with that. But this is a banal observation, and one that seems to contradict the original sentence.
>People of course rarely question the reality and experiences associated with eating cake, but they do with people experiencing pain, which makes the sentence more insightful than you seem to believe.
If you're saying "we should generally believe people when they say they're in pain", then sure, I agree with that. It's just not what the sentence we're discussing says.