And pain is always loss. A burned finger means that the body has lost the cells on the surface of that finger. They are dead. A blow on the head means the death of scalp and other cells in the area. The whole organism is thus warned of the proximity of a death source and so attempts to get away from it.
The loss of a loved one is also a loss of survival. The loss of a possession is also loss of survival potential. One then confuses physical pain and the loss of survival organisms or objects. And so there is such a thing as “mental pain.”
But life, in its whole contest with the physical universe, has no patience with failure. An organism so foolhardy as to let itself be struck too hard and so depressed into unconsciousness stays in the vicinity of the pain-dealing object. It is considered to be nonsurvival if it fails so markedly to survive.
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