> If someone hits me with a bat with sufficient force, I have no control over whether my bones break or not.
If we follow your argument, you do have control over whether you let the pain affect you. Pain is just a mental state after all. And who cares about broken bones if you could just will the pain away?
I obviously think this is a bit silly and could be used to justify just about anything.
> And who cares about broken bones if you could just will the pain away?
Even if you could ignore the pain, you wouldn't physically be able to move your arm well if the bone is broken, which would be an inconvenience for most people that they would care quite a bit about.
Listen, I don't agree with the "words will never hurt me" thing but trying to argue that by denying the utility difference of a broken arm is a lost cause for them.
Someone who's decided that the mental and physical pains and debilitations are wholly separate, especially here, will probably want cited studies and actual scientific evidence that the psychological community no longer believes that. Until that is presented no amount of semantics is gonna work.
If we follow your argument, you do have control over whether you let the pain affect you. Pain is just a mental state after all. And who cares about broken bones if you could just will the pain away?
I obviously think this is a bit silly and could be used to justify just about anything.