I believe that the pain signal is materiality from the sense organ to the brain, and in the brain there occurs the arising of mentalities, starting from consciousness derived from contact.
I’ll bring to this discussion the phenomenon of phantom perception. This occurs when a person has a part of the body amputated or damaged to the point that it loses sensitivity. Due to the lack of sensory stimulation in that body part, the individual begins to experience hallucinatory sensations and perceptions related to it, as if it were still present or receiving external stimuli.
The phantom limb is a well-known example — a bodily structure (e.g., a leg) is absent, yet the individual perceives that such a structure is still present. Another example is phantom images, which occur in blind people who were previously sighted.
The source of these perceptions is not sensory contact but the brain itself. It is possible to have certain sensory experiences without the corresponding sensory organ, provided that the related cerebral area remains intact.
On the other hand, sensory consciousness does not occur, even with an intact sensory organ, if the corresponding cerebral area is compromised or if there is an interruption in the circuit between the sensory organ and the brain. In extreme cases, people may not even recognize the affected body parts as their own.
These facts provide strong evidence that the mental processing of sensory experiences is correlated with the brain.