When the robots take over, and they want to extract all of our secrets to use against us, I imagine their torturous methods will include paper cuts.

That, and being forced to listen to James Blunt and Damien Rice on repeat, until you eventually burst your own eardrums for respite.

But yes, paper cuts are painful to the point of seeming a little excessive, considering the size of the skin slice itself.

With the help of The Conversation, let’s shed some light on why that is.

Physically, paper cuts hurt as much as they do for a variety of reasons. They typically occur on parts of our bodies that are the most sensitive, such as the fingers, lips or tongue. The nerve networks of these body parts can discriminate with exceptional clarity and specificity, sensations of pressure, heat, cold and injury. Our brains even have specialized [sic] areas to receive signals coming from these parts in high definition. The exquisite sensing abilities that makes our fingers, lips and tongue so good at what they normally do, also makes injuries all the more painful.

These same highly sensitive areas are also parts we use all the time. Cuts on fingers, lips and the tongue tend to reopen throughout day dooming us to relive the pain again and again. Finally, the depth of the wound is perfect for exposing and exciting the nerve fibers of the skin without damaging them the way a deeper, more destructive injury can severely damage the nerve fibers impairing their ability to communicate pain. With a paper cut, the nerve fibers are lit, and they are fully operational.

Hell, it’s all making sense now.

That’s the physical damage, but what about the emotional damage that comes with never being able to confidently handle a piece of paper again?

Turns out the emotional response to paper cuts might take us down a few pegs, which is beneficial in the long run:

…for a moment think back to the feelings you may have had about your paper cuts: surprise that the mundane act of licking an envelope could result in an injury (and so much blood!); shame that your body didn’t coordinate such a simple task (why does this always happen to me?); anger for hurting yourself (arrrgh!); anxiety that it will happen again (I still have 200 more envelopes to go!). Paper cuts are trivial, but they may invoke a complex emotional response.

Paper cuts remind us that no matter how many times we have performed even a simple task we are capable of accidentally hurting ourselves. If that makes us a little more sympathetic to our neighbor’s pains, and a little more humble, then maybe paper cuts do us some good too. Maybe.

Paper cuts show us we’re human after all, man.

Which will be of little consolation when we’re under the control of the robot overlords, but we’ll fight that battle when we get there.

[source:conversation]