Pain is an emotion

Our new column in Scientific American Mind is out today and it's about the illusory nature of pain, and how pain perception and severity varies with mood and circumstances.

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American



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Dennis Rogers keeps two USAF planes from taking off with strength or with insensitivity to pain?

Our new column in Scientific American Mind is out today and it's about the illusory nature of pain, and how pain perception and severity varies with mood and circumstances. The story centers around an unlikely subject, Dennis Rogers, "The World's Strongest Man". Can Rogers achieve his feats of strength through mutant abilities, or due to the ability to ignore pain and push through it, instead? As Seneca said, "“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.”

Please check it out and let us know what you think!

Stephen L. Macknik is a professor of opthalmology, neurology, and physiology and pharmacology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Along with Susana Martinez-Conde and Sandra Blakeslee, he is author of the Prisma Prize-winning Sleights of Mind. Their forthcoming book, Champions of Illusion, will be published by Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

More by Stephen L. Macknik

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