" Maybe lobsters, who are also without frontal lobes, are detached from the neurological-registration-of-injury-or-hazard we call pain in just the same way. There is, after all, a difference between (1) pain as a purely neurological event, and (2) actual suffering, which seems crucially to involved an emotional component, an awareness of pain as unpleasant, as something to fear/dislike/want to avoid. [...] To my lay mind, the lobster's behavior in the kettle appears to be the expression of a preference; and it way well be that an ability to form preferences is the decisive criterion for real suffering. "
― David Foster Wallace , Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
![David Foster Wallace quote : Maybe lobsters, who are also without frontal lobes, are detached from the neurological-registration-of-injury-or-hazard we call pain in just the same way. There is, after all, a difference between (1) pain as a purely neurological event, and (2) actual suffering, which seems crucially to involved an emotional component, an awareness of pain as unpleasant, as something to fear/dislike/want to avoid. [...] To my lay mind, the lobster's behavior in the kettle appears to be the expression of a preference; and it way well be that an ability to form preferences is the decisive criterion for real suffering.](/image/1888574.jpg)