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Pain is a biological deterrent to actions that could result in the death or incapacitation of an organism. Something "hurts" so we learn to avoid that [action, location, thing]. But for us, the larger aspect of physical pain is emotional trauma and resulting empathy. We react with horror to the idea of being boiled alive, because we have experienced burns and see that as a decidedly painful and traumatic way to go.

It is only our ability for higher order thought and emotion, however, that produces this feeling. Only animals with some ability to form similar higher order thoughts--to extrapolate pain and anguish from the smaller amounts previously experienced and to empathize with the feelings of others--could really be said to be able to experience pain as we perceive it. This pretty much restricts it to primates and likely some other mammals.

The absence of that higher order central nervous system means our empathies are falsely placed. Maybe their response is more akin to when someone turns on a light when in a dark room. Some reflex that is not processed emotionally. We don't really know, nor can we, and our pathological need to project our feelings and emotions onto, not only other humans, but other and much lesser organisms is pathetic, and downright insulting to the real suffering experienced by millions of human beings on this planet.