No, of course not, it’s a football I hear you say. But let me tell you you’re wrong.

You have correctly observed that this object is a regulation size 5 football. And my toe would indeed remain unaffected if I dropped this football on my toe. But you’re still wrong.

And to see why we need to switch viewpoints. What if my question was about the football? I’ll rephrase it for you: Would this football feel pain if it collided with my toe?

Now you might still think the answer is no. But I’m sure a few of you are now thinking about what happens to the football.

This football suddenly falls from my hand, now falling is an inbuilt fear for all of us, so why not for the football?

The football falls uncontrollably towards the ground. For us this one meter fall seems like nothing, but remember that we are two meters tall. The football is only 20 centimetres tall. For the football this fall is the equivalent of you or me falling from a five story building.

While the football uncontrollably falls, it spots my toe out of the corner of its eye. The impact causes most of its mass to continue toward the ground, causing massive displacement of the internal organs. While the small area in contact with my toe has nowhere to go and takes the full crushing impact.

And now you all think that the football would be in unimaginable pain.