Pain and Emotion

On the third of October, I watched a blowfly buzz past me and land on the cement floor of my patio. I imagined someone’s ginormous foot cast a shadow over the fly and step ever so carelessly on it. I could hear a sickening crunch to the flies back and the squish of its organs being scattered about across the ground.

     When I imagined a fly being stepped on, I questioned, "Do flies feel pain?" To answer my question, I did some research. According to Neurophilosophy, "humans have emotional aspects which are processed in the association areas of the cerebral cortex." Scientists don't even know if flies have emotions to the point where they could feel pain like humans do (isn't that crazy?!). Someone can step on a fly, and the insect may not feel it at all! Since no one has figured out if flies even have emotions, than the human or animal killing it wouldn't know if the fly would be angry or feeling hurt when the human or other animal is killing them.

     If a person thinks about flies not having emotions, wouldn't the person feel bad for the fly? Having no emotion is like being a robot. If someone was to hit another and that person wouldn't react with anger or sadness at the thought of being hit because they don't know what to think of it, wouldn't there be so much shock from the person who did the hitting? Without any emotions, can one consider a human a human? With that question in mind, when I think of humans, the word "emotions" pop up because people are basically walking emotions, having expressions that indicate if they are sad, happy, angry, etc. How can humans interact and get to know one another if they can't compare and contrast their feelings and figure out if they like each other without emotions getting involved? Emotions are very important in making decisions and choices, so wouldn't the world be chaotic without them?

     Think of humans not having emotions, If they don't, than humans would probably end up being categorized as flies or insects. But if flies have emotions, and a human were to be a fly for a day, they would figure out how it feels like to be a fly and see that flies are just as valuable as humans perhaps.     

     Flies are very interesting creatures, they can't feel pain like humans do and with that single concept in mind, it's something that fascinates me to no end and I can't wait for the day when scientists figure out if flies can feel pain or not and if they have emotions.

                                                          Works Cited

Mo. "Do insects feel pain?" Neurophilosophy. ScienceBlogs. Dec 1. 2007. Web. Oct 12. 2014.