psychological and phenomenal pain

Chalmers (and others that accept qualia) make a distinction between the :

• phenomenal quality
• psychological quality

Together, both types of qualities (properties) cover all the domain of the mental properties.
This distinction can be exemplified by the feeling of pain. It is clear the psychological component of pain can be said to be : that state which is produces by some damage, and that makes us react in a certain way (ie. a certain set of facial expressions) – if we give a functional definition to pain. The phenomenal component consist in the “experience of pain” (ie. the sharpness of a toothache).

I think that here we need some epistemological clarifications, regarding the “knowledge that I am in pain” :

Let’s consider that we have our brains enhanced in some way, that we could have a second way of knowing when we are in pain.
At this moment just accept the fact that we are in pain. It will become clearer later that this assumption needs further clarification.

We migth imagine the situation when we have a device conected to our brains that, it can tell us when we have a toothache, headache, etc. with a very good precision.

Let’s suppose someone cuts one of my fingers with a knife. In this situation, I would have :

1. the phenomenal state : the experience of pain (that sharp ache)
2. the psychological state : the state that makes me to move my hand by reflex, etc.
3. the screen of the device prints the message : “You have a finger pain; the second finger; the right hand”

But if I’am anestethised, then I would like to consider three hypothetical types of anesthetics:
1. that eliminates my experience of pain
2. that eliminates my psychological state of pain
3. that eliminates both the phenomenal and the psychological state of pain

When we use anestethic no. 3 all I know about the alleged state of pain is the fact that I see a message on the screen.
I’am not sure that this would count (at least as for the common usage of the term) as a corect usage of the term “pain”.
Maybe “damage” would be a correct substitute. This happens, because there isn’t anybody there (“in there” – not “out there”). There is no subject that either : (1) feels the pain OR (2) acts as someone who is in pain. So, it seems that for a correct usage of “pain” we need either a (1) phenomenal subject OR (2) a psychological subject.

In the second scenario (anestethic no. 2) we have the most unusual situation. I would feel pain, but my hand woulnd’t retreat at all. Just feeling, no behaviour. This would count as knowing that I’am in pain. But I’am in pain only as a phenomenal subject. Not as a psychological subject.

In the third scenario we would use anestethic no. 1. In this scenario pain would have no phenomenal quality. I would just behave as someone who has a pain. I would just retreat my hand very quickly. It is not very clear here, if I know that I’am in pain. I act as someone who is in pain, and maybe I know the “pain” as a zombie would know that it is in pain.

The conclusion :
When we say that we “know” that we are in pain there isn’t any clear border between psychological, phenomenal and external sources that allows us to say that we “know”.