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Originally Posted by David Bailey  Great - I think at last we are talking on the same wavelength!
Is the question as to whether the theorem is known beforehand very important?
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It would be completely irrelevant wouldn't it?
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So only the execution of the program can actually experience the pain - but how do you show that?
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I suppose they would say that the brain is essentially a super sophisticated computer. The brain experiences pain. Therefore the execution of an appropriate program must experience pain.
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What about computers made of clockwork, or even bureaucratic computers (run by people) - do they feel pain?
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Yes, absolutely anything that can reproduce the function associated with pain will experience that pain. It could be some device consisting of tin cans, or whatever.
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Why exactly does a gadget running through all the steps that prove the 'pain theorem' cause that pain to be felt?
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It's just a brute fact about the Universe.