Art by smbc-comics
Consciousness is often said to disappear in deep, dreamless sleep. We argue that this assumption is oversimplified. Unless dreamless sleep is defined as unconscious from the outset there are good empirical and theoretical reasons for saying that a range of different types of sleep experience, some of which are distinct from dreaming, can occur in all stages of sleep.
Pubmed Articles
Does Consciousness Disappear in Dreamless Sleep?
Sciencealert Article We Were Wrong About Consciousness Disappearing in Dreamless Sleep, Say Scientists
That is an interesting philosophical question.
If suffering is not remembered, was there even suffering? And if there was, does it matter? I can think of a few counterexamples of that, for example: a killer who tortures his victim before killing them.
Uhh, yes and yes? What’s stopping a rapist from anesthesizing their victims before the act and using the fact that they did as an excuse to get off charges under your logic?
Physical abuse tends to leave some physical consequences. You’d have to come up with an example where there would be neither physical not psychological consequences… but even getting anesthesized against one’s will is already a consequence.
No it doesn’t, not always. Actually it’s routine for medical students to be brought in to give anesthesitized women pelvic exams without their knowledge and consent, and no one was the wiser until universities that did this announced it… https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/health/pelvic-medical-exam-unconscious.html
That is textbook rape right there, and it doesn’t often have physical consequences. Most women didn’t even know but doctors fucking did it anyway.
How you people have any faith in any aspect of society is beyond me.
EDIT: And now I’m being downvoted over it. Imagine being downvoted for pointing out rape occurs during surgical procedures, a well-established fact. Think about the implications of that
Presumably in your scenario the victim remembers the torture though.
In the case of general anaesthetic the memory is effectively considered to be deleted in real time. On its way through the brain it ceases to exist so it never reaches the conscious mind.