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Some sauropod dinosaurs had sensory afferent neurons over 50m in length. So if a sauropod accidentally touched a hot stove with its tail, it would take the brain over 25 seconds to realise it was burning itself (assuming C fibre conducting at 2 m/s). app.pan.pl/archive/publis… #pain 
Presumably evolution figured out a way of being quicker than this - perhaps by using fast myelinated A fibres or very fat C fibres for nociception instead.
But the point stands that throughout evolution, sensory afferents have had to increase & shrink their length by many orders of magnitude, while still staying quick enough to actually trigger a reflex or pain percept in a useful enough time frame for an organism to get away safely
