Pain and suffering in survival dynamics
Pain is an unpleasant sensation or thought evoked by certain noxious physical or mental stimuli. In general, such stimuli evoke a relieve-avoid-prevent response from the subject.
Biologically, pain plays an important role in our welfare and survival. [I]Homeostasis[/i] refers to the biochemical equilibrium necessary for life to sustain itself. All living things are in homeostasis so long as it is alive and well. Injury, physical, chemical, etc. threatens this equilibrium and can cause death.
Pain is a detector of sorts that alerts living things of potentially life-threatening stimuli. This pain detecting mechanism is wired to responses that aim to relieve/avoid/prevent pain; ultimately saving the organism from grievous injury and death. We could, in a way, say that pain is necessary for survival.
To make my point clearer consider people who can't feel pain e.g. diabetics with neuropathy and Leprosy patients. Their inability to feel pain (due to nerve damage) makes them highly susceptible to severe injuries, ultimately resulting in disfigurement and death. So, pain plays a critical role in survival.
Given the above is true what can we say about suffering? Suffering seems to be a higher-order pain since it includes mental anguish too. However, consider the causes of mental anguish from failing in exams to losing in love - they're all critical aspects of social survival. We can literally see the similarity between physical and mental pain at a very fundamental level - SURVIVAL, either as an individual or as a member of society.
Therefore, suffering is necessary to the wellbeing of individuals alone and as members of a society.
What kind of ramifications would this realization have?
For one, we can do away with pessimistic philosophies that have, well, misunderstood the whole point of suffering. They think suffering shouldn't exist, implying that it is unnecessary, which I've shown is actually necessary for survival.
Also this view of suffering solves the problem of evil vis-a-vis god.
Biologically, pain plays an important role in our welfare and survival. [I]Homeostasis[/i] refers to the biochemical equilibrium necessary for life to sustain itself. All living things are in homeostasis so long as it is alive and well. Injury, physical, chemical, etc. threatens this equilibrium and can cause death.
Pain is a detector of sorts that alerts living things of potentially life-threatening stimuli. This pain detecting mechanism is wired to responses that aim to relieve/avoid/prevent pain; ultimately saving the organism from grievous injury and death. We could, in a way, say that pain is necessary for survival.
To make my point clearer consider people who can't feel pain e.g. diabetics with neuropathy and Leprosy patients. Their inability to feel pain (due to nerve damage) makes them highly susceptible to severe injuries, ultimately resulting in disfigurement and death. So, pain plays a critical role in survival.
Given the above is true what can we say about suffering? Suffering seems to be a higher-order pain since it includes mental anguish too. However, consider the causes of mental anguish from failing in exams to losing in love - they're all critical aspects of social survival. We can literally see the similarity between physical and mental pain at a very fundamental level - SURVIVAL, either as an individual or as a member of society.
Therefore, suffering is necessary to the wellbeing of individuals alone and as members of a society.
What kind of ramifications would this realization have?
For one, we can do away with pessimistic philosophies that have, well, misunderstood the whole point of suffering. They think suffering shouldn't exist, implying that it is unnecessary, which I've shown is actually necessary for survival.
Also this view of suffering solves the problem of evil vis-a-vis god.
Comments (49)
Sometimes our attempts to avoid suffering - such as the self-deceptive behaviour necessary for the survival of a miserly relationship - becomes the root cause of the very mental anguish that we end up prolonging through the self-deception. It is like smoking; you deceive yourself thinking the cigarette will help alleviate the stress, but it soon forms into a habit that you become dependent on that without it you fear you will suffer as it slowly kills you. The cycle of self-deceit. Subjective suffering such as anxiety and depression really only exists because our bodies and emotions are attempting to convey the truth that we are unable to articulate, just as our lungs cough out the truth about cigarettes.
I think 'survival' is self-deceptive. It is just fear.
You're right, it is fear; fear of pain, injury, hurt, anguish, death, etc. all of which are about survival - in a relationship, in a group of friends, in a community, etc.
Granted avoidance behavior perpetuates suffering but this in no way means that avoidance doesn't have a survival function.
I don't think so. You can think suffering shouldn't exist and also understand the necessity of suffering for the survival of life as you have described it. It would just require you to commit to antinatalism. Nothing wrong with that.
To get around your conclusion another way I could also claim that pessimists understand the necessity of suffering in life as well as anyone, and that's what makes them pessimists.
Well, then that makes antinatalism irrational.
Necessary things cannot be avoided, as is the case. It then becomes irrational to think it shouldn't exist.
Quoting WhiskeyWhiskers
Some would think it irrational to be so overly concerned with an inevitable.
The antinatalist thinks suffering is not necessary; we could simply cease to exist.
The entire point behind antinatalism (and pessimistic philosophy in general) is that suffering is necessary and, more importantly, it is not worth it. As pointed out, mere survival for survival's sake is pointless. We want existence to go somewhere. If there is no really worthwhile goal to go towards or something that makes the suffering worth it, then there is something there. However, the pessimist says that life is not worth it and that, at a fundemental level, nothing can change this fact. If you do not challenge this assumption, then you are not dealing with the pessimist.
What's necessary to well-being is performance of right action and avoidance of wrong action. I'm not sure that pain and suffering are absolutely necessary for that, but they sure are part of the way that comes natural to creatures like us.
Quoting TheMadFool
What is a good reason for suffering?
You've pointed out a few in this conversation. Stubbing your toe is a good reason for suffering, because it warns you to retract your foot from some hard object, and in the long run it teaches you to walk around mindfully. Failing a test may be a good reason for suffering, if it warns you that you haven't been working hard enough, and in the long run teaches you to work harder and smarter toward ends you value.
An account of the role that suffering with good reason plays, and must play, in animal nature and human life, is perfectly compatible with a moral outlook that aims to avoid causing suffering without good reason, and that aims to minimize suffering without good reason, in oneself and in others.
I presume an accomplished practitioner of arts like those associated with the Stoic or Buddhist feels a pain when he stubs his toe, much like the pain most of us feel when we stub our toe, but reacts to it somewhat differently than many of us do. If that practitioner has ceased to suffer pangs of regret when he fails tests, and has ceased to suffer pangs of pride when he passes tests, I suppose it's because he's spent decades training his appetites and emotions, his desires and aversions, his impulses and intentions... so that he may live in harmony with his own conception of right action, without being perturbed by the unruly passions that tend to push and pull us from what we ourselves conceive of as the right course. The same practitioners may aim to reduce the unnecessary suffering of others, and to divert all natural suffering to flow toward suffering for good reason.
Suffering is necessary in life, but life is not necessary. So suffering can be avoided, and that can be desirable depending on your moral framework. I don't see what's irrational about that. Want to provide an argument instead of an adjective?
Quoting TheMadFool
Then again, some might not. As for inevitable, see my above paragraph.
A rose has its thorns and yet the blossoms are beautiful to behold. Evaluating a rose soley on the basis of its pain-inducing thorns is a morbidly constricted worldview. It ignores the other significant side of the coin viz. happiness. In rational analysis it is mandatory to understand the whole issue to have any chance of a fair and reasonable evaluation. Since pessimistic philosophies obviously fail in this deparment by unduly focussing on suffering, I consider them as irrational.
The expected retort of the pessimist would be that, in life, suffering is far greater than happiness. There's a simple but effective reply to such a POV - that most people are content with what life has to offer, the clearest indication of which is the absence of mass suicides. Of course one could say that this is because people haven't given much thought to the issue and thus go on living their lives despite the immense amount of suffering. My reply to this is that it is not a lack of deliberation on the issue. If it were that then there should be a conspicuous absence of pessimists. Yet, we seem pessimistic people happily selling their philosophy to the world. As you can see, pessimistic philosophy is self-contradictory and so, is irrational.
What I was attempting to convey was that sometimes survival itself is imagined, so while the function is there, it doesn't necessarily need to be there. A cognitive, instinctual confusion. The fear of pain and hurt can lead to an avoidance of what the actual reasons are that are causing you the pain and so one simply prolongs the suffering.
The fact you picked a rose for your example in the first place shows you're beginning with the conclusion that life is actually comparable to a rose; that on balance it's more positive in spite of its negatives. And life isn't necessarily roses and a few thorns for a lot of people in the world, and I could just as easily point to lots of things as symbolic of life that we could easily agree we would be better off without. But we can throw dumb analogies at each other all day.
But anyway, why is the weight pessimists give to suffering undue? They give suffering a different moral value than you do. Why do you have the correct valuation and they don't?
Quoting TheMadFool
How are you not just playing chess against yourself at this point? We're all winners at that mate. While they could, depending on the argument, a pessimist doesn't need to argue from subjectivity to make their case (see Benatar, 2006). Personally I'd rarely bother to go down that rabbit hole, because human psychology is so fraught with biases/coping mechanisms/adaptive traits/cultural influences that they make untangling that mess hopeless. It's empirically false that people are rational animals (in spite of their "rational analysis" posturing) so I wouldn't expect their views to be rational either, generally speaking.
Quoting TheMadFool
This will be my last post in this conversation because we've seen enough of these pessimism-vs-not debates before. The posts become longer while the posters become more close-minded and unreasonable. Life's too short. So I'll end my input here on a few remarks, partly because your lack of charity irked me. As much as you'd like to write pessimism off as irrational, it's a perfectly defensible world-view even if you disagree with it - and it doesn't need to be irrational for that to happen. You can hold those two thoughts at the same time. There's lots of views I find perfectly sensible (and sometimes I'm even impressed by some arguments that I don't have responses to) that I ultimately don't agree with. But frankly, and no offence meant, your challenges are some of the least convincing and least interesting I've come across, and I've seen some good ones (which inevitably end in me having to argue for moral realism against an implicitly assumed anti-realism - "but who is it good for?" - and that's a whole other debate). It looks like you've not really taken the time to engage with the relevant literature because your arguments are common stock objections that have all had responses over the years. And if you have read the literature, you should already know this. That's probably why you're being premature in calling it irrational, which I realised when you used the rose analogy, and it makes me less willing to carry on. I've heard all these points before, and they bore me. But I get that that's not really your fault, or problem. That's me. I only posted in this thread to correct some holes in your logic which I'd done by my second post, but now things are getting carried away into a classic case of an internet debate. Past a certain point I simply don't believe in them. But feel free to write a response to this post anyway. (And between me and you, you might want to drop the "rational analysis" and "fair and reasonable evaluation" stuff. It's pretentious (like naming logical fallacies in lieu of an explanation), especially when your arguments aren't that good. I'm only telling you for the sake of your own self-awareness. Because I care.)
Do you mean some people have an avoidance behavior that prevents them from facing the real cause of their suffering?
By that do you mean suffering fails to achieve what it was evolved for?
Well, no system can be perfeclty foolproof - there will be times and places where this basic survival scheme fails to produce the desired effect. Nevertheless, in general, suffering is about survival.
So some find life more painful than joyful. Indeed I agree because it is as expected given the apathetic world we live in and our demands re happiness being so great in number and kind. However, such people form only a fraction of the population. Not everyone finds life so miserable as to think it pointless and not worthwhile. They quite enjoy living. There's evidence for this - the simple fact that people seem content and happy to carry on living. In fact I won't be wrong if I were to attribute this positive attitude mentioned above to the majority of the populace. This attitude is not based on failure to consider the dark side of life. Rather, it is based on a good balanced reckoning - life has ups and downs and so enjoy the cusps and survive the troughs. Isn't that a mature response to what life throws at you? Should we whine about our predicament, especially when this does nothing to solve the problem at hand?
Quoting WhiskeyWhiskers
Well, my problem is how pessimists claim to be objective. Isn't that why they present arguments in the first place? If the claim to objectivity were absent then pessimists would have held their tongues. They talk. So they claim to be purveyors of truth.
I have no issue if pessimists live their lives attuned to their philosophy - it's their life. However I reject their view if their claims are presented as if universally applicable. That's what I'm doing.
Quoting WhiskeyWhiskers
Thank you very much.
Suffering exposes nothing but the failure of evolution.
The suffering itself is imagined by fear that becomes the very cause of their suffering. They create their own suffering. As per my previous example, when one is in a relationship where they feel miserable and unhappy but continue with that relationship because they fear being alone - since being alone will cause them to 'suffer' - all they are doing is prolonging the actual reasons for their misery by remaining.
There is no instance where one can say physical suffering is a good thing. It is shit and the only thing it produces is pain. Subjective suffering, however, is vastly more interesting and it is the instinctual faculty of mind [think Freudian or Triune brain model] that automatically alleviates tension and anxiety that it considers negative. If you instinctually want to have sex with a girl you find attractive, this is managed by the [superego] mind that reminds you of an external world and you repress the instinct; a mind that fails to do this has cognitively not evolved. Fear is another instinct. We automatically repress the angst fear produces in order to alleviate the tension. It then comes out in different ways, depression or anxiety, anger, sadness, whatever. Only when we face the actual problem are we able to find peace.
I don't think evolution has failed at all. Just survey the natural world. All animals have a pain system. What we don't see are painless organisms - did they lose the survival race? I think so.
Assuming pessimist philosophers have never considered pleasure in their thinking is folly.
Quoting TheMadFool
While I do think there may be something to this line of thought, I do not particularly find it a good reply.
First, regardless of the actions of pessimist philosophers, their arguments and ideas stand and fall by their own merits. Even if someone's philosophy argues that you should commit suicide, the fact that the proponent has not committed suicide is unrelated to the argument. To say it does is to commit the ad hominem fallacy; the merits of the pessimists' arguments ultimately fall on the arguments themselves, not the pessimists presenting them. This, of course, assumes all pessimist philosophers argue for suicide, which they may not.
Second, bringing the opinions and positions of the masses is not exactly good. Appealing to the masses is not a very good argument. If the vast majority of people, regardless of their qualifications or actual arguments on the subject, believe that "x is true," then it does not follow that "x is true". People may be bad at evaluating the quality of their lives or they may have an incorrect view of reality.
Survival for survival's sake is pointless. What makes survival worth it? That is the question. I also agree with much of WhiskeyWhiskers said.
Good point.
Good point.
Yes, but why is survival automatically something we ought to cherish? You're right that suffering is necessary for survival, but this is exactly the pessimistic point. Survival for the sake of survival and with no endgoal in the linearity of time (re: Cioran's "stationary oscillation") makes survival ultimately meaningless, and as a byproduct makes suffering pointless.
You have to go through a grueling hell of an education to get a university degree. If you don't want to get a university degree, all that work and effort becomes pointless. There's no other way to get a university degree without going through four or more years of hell, but this is hardly any comfort to anyone who does not wish to get a university degree to begin with. In fact, it is probably one of the reasons why they don't wish to get a university degree. The costs are too high and returns are too low or even non-existent.
You're right. As WhiskeyWhiskers would have me do, I'll be charitable and get right to the point. Pessimists claim that life isn't worth the suffering one has to endure. In other words they think that the moments of joy/pleasure one has pales in comparison to the amount of suffering one has to simultaneously endure. Am I right? Is the above the best rendition of a pessimist's argument?
If no, kindly furnish one that we can discuss.
If yes, then let's cut to the chase. I agree that if one examines the human condition (even animals for that matter) one will invariably end up a pessimist - there really is a vast desert of suffering one must endure and the oases of happiness are few and far in between. Add death to all that and we have a very depressing picture of life - ''a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing''.
However, this pessimistic belief, as detailed above, has or should have, visible consequences in the world. Off the top of my head I can think of increased number of depression cases, suicide and general apathy. For better or for worse these predictions aren't actualized. Also, pessimistic people continue to live, their deadly beliefs notwithstanding. At this point I think you accused me of committing an ad hominem. Allow me to point out that these predictions (depression, suicide, apathy) are inevitable consequences of pessimism. Therefore their absence in the populace is logically relevant. The pessimist must explain why people and they aren't committing mass suicide, afterall it necessarily follows from their pessimism.
It could be that the most people haven't given any thought on the matter. This seems unlikely - if you look at ancient literature and religion you'll find their main goal is the alleviation of suffering. In other words, just as the pessimist has given due consideration to happiness, those who choose to live have weighed in the dark side of life.
It could also mean there's a difference in how people evlaute happiness and suffering; perhaps giving more weightage to happiness.
There could be a multitude of explanations for the paradox (pessimism is true and people still want to live). Can you think of one that allows pessimism and simultaneously provide a drive to live? I can't. Therefore, pessimism is self-contradictory; pessimism leads us to think life is not worth it while simultaneously, the pessimist continues to live.
Perhaps there is this other thing that resolves the paradox. I don't know what it is. Could it be hope? Hope for a better tomorrow?
Also, is it possible that pessimists are wrong about life?
Lastly I'd like to remind pessimists that the living conditions of homo sapiens have been improving over time. There was more suffering in the past - famine, drought, floods, war, disease, predators, etc. The situation has improved - there is less suffering now than in the past. This trend will continue amd there will come a time, all things being equal, when suffering will be less than happiness and pessimists would lose their job.
Alas, the body's neural apparatus which tries to avoid unpleasant stimuli can be afflicted by harmful stuff we couldn't, or didn't, avoid -- like a nail in the foot, a cancer in the jaw, a hammer hitting a thumb, an infection in the gut, the death of a lover.
We could be like trees and be ripped open by a lightning bolt, and just keep maintaining the leafy green as well is we might.
I quite specifically stated the truth of the pessimist position is irrelevant of the one presenting the argument. Even if no one claimed they supported the argument, the argument would still hold ground on its own merits and would have to be dealt with as such.
When I said I argee with WhiskeyWhiskers, I was also agreeing to the notion of you playing chess with yourself. You do not deal with people's specific arguments, but use replies as a spring board to continue arguing your point.
Yes, I agree that an argument stands on its own merits. I'm also admitting there's truth in pessimistic beliefs.
However, what's interesting is that pessimists, despite their philosophy, continue to live their, supposedly miserable lives. What gives here? There's a deep chasm between theory and praxis. After all, if you're a pessimist you should be killing yourself asap.
Either pessimism is wrong or there's something else at play here. Can you think of a way to resolve the paradox of the living, thriving pessimist?
When I had a car accident, my leg was in incredible pain and I suffered from severe angina-like pain induced by myocardial contusion [together with anxiety] for several months afterwards. Having no car and being on my own, I had to walk 4k in that pain just to get something to eat. Add PTSD to that, constant trembling, fear, unable to sleep, weight loss. The latter was entirely subjective and the worst experience I have ever had.
I did not need to suffer so much in order to survive.
I think, yes, we need physical pain to stop ourselves from chewing our fingers off. But suffering?
I read this on a T-shirt:
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is an option.
What say?
See, the problem here is that sometimes going through subjective or mental anguish enables you to transform or transcend toward something much better that protects you from ever experiencing the anguish again. Suffering is an option, yes I agree with that, but sometimes a necessary one. Like getting injected with a disease that actually protects you by training the immune system from fighting the disease should you ever contract it; the mental suffering trains you to become strong enough to never suffer again.
I believe you consider 'negative reinforcement' (ie Pain, ..) and the avoidance of, as maintaining survival in organisms.
I propose that it is quite the opposite: Survival through 'positive reinforcement', eg Seratonin, endorphins, enkephalins, etc. If survival was left to 'Pain Avoidance' alone, an organism might simply opt for the option of dying.
I don't think I said negative reinforcement is the only way survival can be ensured.
:chin: I said pain maybe necessary for survival. That's about all I can say.
While I agree that the existence of suffering (experiencing pain, humiliation, loss/lack) is necessary for survival, I disagree that survival is necessary to existence.
When we die, we don’t cease to exist, we simply cease to survive. The false equivalence of survival (a duration of physicality) and existence leads to the inaccurate conclusion that avoiding suffering is essential to our existence, as much as this equally inaccurate conclusion (disputed by anti-natalists) that the experience of suffering is essential to existence.
I use Google. Doesn't always take me to the best resources but is still quite helpful.
Hmmm. So would p-zombies be less fit than the humans they are suppose to be "identical" to in every way except that there isnt any experience of pain? Sounds like p-zombies are an illegitiment argument for the "hard problem".
How would the p-zombie argument be inappropriate to the hard problem based on p-zombies not feeling pain?
That's exactly what the p-zombie thought experiment is about - beings identical to us in every way but lacking any consciousness and that includes an inability to feel pain, pleasure, etc.
If p-zombies are possible then physicalism is false for the reason that consciousness is an additional feature.
Quoting TheMadFool
So are p-zombies identical to us in every way but lacking any consciousness and that includes an inability to feel pain, pleasure, etc. when what they lack has a causal impact on their survival?
It seems to me that the assertion that p-zombies can be "identical to us in every way but lacking any consciousness and that includes an inability to feel pain, pleasure, etc." is just plain false when you account for the causal impact having a mind has on your survival compared to not having a mind, as you have shown.
The same thing can be said about blind-sight patients. They don't behave identically to humans with normal sight.
The fact is that minds play a causal role in your behavior. If you don't have one, then your behavior won't be identical to something that does have one.
Just as it is insane to do the same thing over and over and expect different results, it is just as insane to expect the same result from doing different things.
After the female departs for the sea and the male takes charge of their egg, he spends the dark, stormy winter incubating the egg in his brood pouch, balancing it on the tops of his feet, for around 65-75 consecutive days until hatching. By the time the egg hatches, the male will have fasted for around 120 days since arriving at the colony.[65] To survive the cold and savage winds of up to 200 km/h (120 mph), the males huddle together, taking turns in the middle of the huddle.
It's possible to construct a robot with sensors tailored to prevent injury to the robot. The robot isn't conscious like we are but even without it, it can look after itself reasonably well. Surely, a physical system sans the consciousness can perform orders of magnitude better.
What are you doing?
You just contradicted your OP:
Quoting TheMadFool
Well, it would lighten the burden for us but the robot probably won't make it through the day.
Quoting Harry Hindu
We don't need the pain. There's no need for and it's probably impossible to have the subjective experience of pain.
You keep contradicting your OP in your attempt to argue for the sake of arguing with me.
Quoting TheMadFool
So it seems to me that pain is necessary for survival. What is survival if not the continued existence of the thing as a primary result of the thing's own functioning?
There must've been a time in your life when you put something in your mouth and immediately spat it out.
By the way, where's the contradiction? Sorry.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Pain is necessary for our survival for it's the only means by which we detect harm/injury. That doesn't mean that a different method of detecting harm doesn't exist.
I don't understand. Are you saying that there are times in our lives where we do things without having an experience? Are you saying that you spat out something in your mouth for no reason at all?
Quoting TheMadFool
Again, what does survival mean? Why would it only apply to carbon-based systems and not silicon-based systems? Seems to me that you have a limited scope/definition of life and survival - an anthropomorphic one.
I'm unable to clarify any further. Quoting Harry Hindu
I just introduced robots and harm/injury sensors divested from pain into the discussion. Anthropomorphic?