Two kinds of tools

I picked up this beauty on Saturday from a generous person in Austin who was selling it on Craigslist, but gave it to me for free when it became clear that I'd be actually using it rather than reselling it. (The image on screen is a one-shot capture of the electricity generated by a DC motor when you set it spinning by hand and then let it slow down. Surprisingly linear down-slope, by the way.)

Anyway, thinking about this led me to a curious distinction between two kinds of tools. A tool is used for affecting something. We can distinguish tools into:

• Tools designed to affect minds.
• Tools designed to affect the extra-mental world.

An oscilloscope, a calculator, measuring tape, a book, binoculars and an anti-depressant are all tools designed to produce mental effects, of a particularly calibrated sort, whether by leading to beliefs about the results of measurements, or certain kinds of perceptions, or the like. On the other hand, a bulldozer, a vacuum cleaner, a test-tube and a roof are all tools designed to affect the extra-mental world. Of course, the affecting of the mind in the case of the first kind of tool might in some instance only be a means to affecting the extra-mental world (you might read a book about how to fix a car), while the affecting of the extra-mental world in the case of the second kind of tool might in some instance only be a means to affecting the mental world (the test-tube is used to contain chemicals in order to find out something). Nonetheless, the direct intended effect of the tools is, at least in the primary intended application, as stated.

Pain and machines

Some of Descartes' followers are accused of treating the noises animals make when to all appearances in pain  like the grating of a machine and hence as unconscious.  But someone could have the reverse attitude:

"The pump," said Mma Potokwane.  "It is making a very strange noise.  The water comes all right, but the pump makes a noise as if it is in pain."
"Engines do feel pain," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "They tell us of their pain by making a noise." (Alexander McCall Smith, Tears of the Giraffe)

Without endorsing Matekoni's conclusion, doesn't it feel like one is causing pain to a tool if one uses it in such a way that it complains by creaking, grating or binding?