Pain

Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli, such as stubbing a toe, burning a finger, putting alcohol on a cut, and bumping the "funny bone". Because it is a complex, subjective phenomenon, defining pain has been a challenge. The International Association for the Study of Pain's widely used definition states: "Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage." In medical diagnosis, pain is a symptom.

Pain motivates the individual to withdraw from damaging situations, to protect a damaged body part while it heals, and to avoid similar experiences in the future. Most pain resolves once the noxious stimulus is removed and the body has healed, but it may persist despite removal of the stimulus and apparent healing of the body. Sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage or disease. Simple pain medications are useful in 20% to 70% of cases.

Pain (philosophy)

Philosophy of pain may be about suffering in general or more specifically about physical pain. The experience of pain is, due to its seeming universality, a very good portal through which to view various aspects of human life. Discussions in philosophy of mind concerning qualia has given rise to a body of knowledge called philosophy of pain, which is about pain in the narrow sense of physical pain, and which must be distinguished from philosophical works concerning pain in the broad sense of suffering. This article covers both topics.

Historical views of pain

Two near contemporaries in the 18th and 19th centuries, Jeremy Bentham and the Marquis de Sade had very different views on these matters. Bentham saw pain and pleasure as objective phenomena, and defined utilitarianism on that principle. However the Marquis de Sade offered a wholly different view - which is that pain itself has an ethics, and that pursuit of pain, or imposing it, may be as useful and just as pleasurable, and that this indeed is the purpose of the state - to indulge the desire to inflict pain in revenge, for instance, via the law (in his time most punishment was in fact the dealing out of pain). The 19th-century view in Europe was that Bentham's view had to be promoted, de Sade's (which it found painful) suppressed so intensely that it - as de Sade predicted - became a pleasure in itself to indulge. The Victorian culture is often cited as the best example of this hypocrisy.

Pain (Puff Daddy song)

"Pain" is a song on Puff Daddy's 1997 album No Way Out.

The song is about tragedies from Puff Daddy's life, including the murder of his father Melvin Combs in 1972, the New York City College Stampede of 1991 and the death of his label-mate and friend Notorious BIG in 1997.

The song features audio from Notorious BIG which was recorded before his death when the song was made.

There is a completely different song also entitled Pain on the follow-up album Forever.

Gremlins

Gremlins is a 1984 American comedy horror film directed by Joe Dante and released by Warner Bros. The film is about a young man who receives a strange creature called a mogwai as a pet, which then spawns other creatures who transform into small, destructive, evil monsters. This story was continued with a sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, released in 1990. Unlike the lighter sequel, Gremlins opts for more black comedy, balanced against a Christmastime setting. Both films were the center of large merchandising campaigns.

Steven Spielberg was the film's executive producer and the screenplay was written by Chris Columbus. The film stars Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates, with Howie Mandel providing the voice of Gizmo, the main mogwai character. Gremlins was a commercial success and received positive reviews from critics. However, the film was also heavily criticized for some of its more violent sequences. In response to this and to similar complaints about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg suggested that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) alter its rating system, which it did within two months of the film's release.

Gizmo (DC Comics)

Gizmo (also known as Mikron O’Jeneus) is a fictional character, a supervillain from DC Comics. He was created by George Pérez and Marv Wolfman, and he first appeared in The New Teen Titans #3 (January 1981) as a founding member of the Fearsome Five, a supervillain team that frequently fought the Teen Titans and the Outsiders.

Fictional character biography

Mikron O'Jeneus

A bald dwarf who flies around on a jet pack, Gizmo is a genius inventor who can turn seemingly innocuous objects like vacuum cleaners into dangerous weapons. Gizmo created a corporation which supplied technology to various people, including criminals. Hoping to increase his wealth, Gizmo joined the Fearsome Five through an ad placed in the Underworld Star, a criminal underground newsletter, by the psychopathic criminal Doctor Light.

After a number of unsuccessful conflicts with the Teen Titans, (and Superman in Adventures of Superman #430) Gizmo went straight for a while, and took a job at S.T.A.R. Labs, until his former Fearsome Five teammate Psimon, after having been seemingly killed by his teammates, resurfaced looking for revenge, and shrank Gizmo to microscopic size. Years later, Gizmo found a way to revert to his normal size, and took up a life of crime once again, partnering with his former teammate, Mammoth.