Suffering - Causes, Effects and Solutions
I don't think it's any mystery that pessimism is a controversial, touchy, and yet ripe topic to discuss here on PF. We've also had quite a lot of conflict related to it lately as well. A lot of the conflict seemed, at least to me, to be from a mutual misunderstanding of how each person viewed suffering and the causes, effects, and solutions of/to it. So I have decided to make a thread dedicated to this very topic.
What follows is my personal take on this:
At the root of pessimism lies the phenomenon of suffering. It is why a pessimist is a pessimist. Everyone suffers.
Suffering can be defined as the feeling of discomfort. If a sentient being experiences discomfort, then they experience a desire to cease this experience. Suffering can be juxtaposed against pleasure, but neither exist as a balance to the other; for example, you can eat a piece of cake and prick your finger at the same time.
The cause of suffering:
There are several sources of suffering.
The first source of suffering is Ta?h?, which in Pali translates as "thirst". Other words to describe Ta?h? are "dissatisfaction", "craving", or "desire". The feeling you get when you see a warm doughnut out of the oven is an example of Ta?h?.
There are three types of Ta?h?:
1.) Kama Ta?h?, (sense craving), or the desire for sensual pleasures, such as a warm doughnut, sex, a new cellphone, a vacation home, etc.
2.) Bhava Ta?h? (craving to be), or the desire to be something one is not; i.e. to have an concrete soul (self), to have a past and a future, to be dominating over others, etc.
and
3.) Vibhava Ta?h? (craving not to be), or the desire for extermination, destruction [being the wish to be separated from pain], or any kind of existence that does not include certain aspects of the current existence (I wish I didn't have so much anxiety!)
Ta?h? is perpetuated by ignorance, attachment, and aversion, in respect to each of the three types of Ta?h?. This means that this kind of suffering is perpetuated by the person, not the environment. Although the environment may begin the initial spark of suffering, the individual themselves ends up becoming a slave to Ta?h? if they allow themselves to.
Now, on to the second kind of suffering, environmentally-caused suffering. This is suffering that is not caused by the person themselves, but rather by the world around them. A falling tree branch may break a person's leg and cause them to suffer; this was not their fault and was merely the result of the chain of causality.
This type of suffering is typically far more sharp than the anxiety-like suffering of the previous type. It is caused by firing nociceptors transmitting to our brains. Although this helped us survive quite well in the past, it also means that we have the problem of being able to suffer tremendous amounts of pain without doing anything about it (we can't just turn off nociceptors). This type of pain is what leads me to my antinatalistic stance, one that views birth as an unnecessary action.
Theoretically, we could make AIs or even humans that don't feel pain and are able to cope with Ta?h?. I would be willing to discuss this further.
Ultimately, my view on life is that it is mostly an itch and a bit underwhelming, although I do admit this seems to change sometimes depending on the day of the week. The Buddhist philosophy on Ta?h? that I talked about above does nothing more, in my view, than mitigate our eventual suffering. It cannot lead to nirvana, for nirvana does not exist outside of a conceptual goal. Happiness is the state of eudaimonia and relief from any noticeable aches.
I have said my thoughts on the nature of suffering. I have a few things to say about the pessimist's treatment of suffering as well, but I hope this won't become the center of the topic.
The recognition of suffering as a fact of life is a bold but true statement by the pessimist. However, it often gets blown out of proportion a bit. Romanticized, so to speak. Suffering becomes the structure of reality, instead of a part of reality.
It is interesting, though, how a person who has shit to do usually doesn't have time to complain too much. Schopenhauer, one of the greatest pessimistic philosophers, wouldn't have been able to live his extravagant, aristocratic life without the laborious work of the common man. As I said above, Ta?h? is not out of our control, and Schopenhauer spends most of his time ranting about this type of suffering. Whereas the common man breaking his back in a coal mine actually has something to complain about because, well, his back fucking aches!
To have a poor temper as Schopenhauer apparently did is to fail to see the conflict between our expectations and reality. Being a pessimist does not mean one has to be depressed. The facts of life do not have to cause angst. The only reason they would do so is because one has not let go of past expectations or values.
I've said my bit. I want to hear yours.
What follows is my personal take on this:
At the root of pessimism lies the phenomenon of suffering. It is why a pessimist is a pessimist. Everyone suffers.
Suffering can be defined as the feeling of discomfort. If a sentient being experiences discomfort, then they experience a desire to cease this experience. Suffering can be juxtaposed against pleasure, but neither exist as a balance to the other; for example, you can eat a piece of cake and prick your finger at the same time.
The cause of suffering:
There are several sources of suffering.
The first source of suffering is Ta?h?, which in Pali translates as "thirst". Other words to describe Ta?h? are "dissatisfaction", "craving", or "desire". The feeling you get when you see a warm doughnut out of the oven is an example of Ta?h?.
There are three types of Ta?h?:
1.) Kama Ta?h?, (sense craving), or the desire for sensual pleasures, such as a warm doughnut, sex, a new cellphone, a vacation home, etc.
2.) Bhava Ta?h? (craving to be), or the desire to be something one is not; i.e. to have an concrete soul (self), to have a past and a future, to be dominating over others, etc.
and
3.) Vibhava Ta?h? (craving not to be), or the desire for extermination, destruction [being the wish to be separated from pain], or any kind of existence that does not include certain aspects of the current existence (I wish I didn't have so much anxiety!)
Ta?h? is perpetuated by ignorance, attachment, and aversion, in respect to each of the three types of Ta?h?. This means that this kind of suffering is perpetuated by the person, not the environment. Although the environment may begin the initial spark of suffering, the individual themselves ends up becoming a slave to Ta?h? if they allow themselves to.
Now, on to the second kind of suffering, environmentally-caused suffering. This is suffering that is not caused by the person themselves, but rather by the world around them. A falling tree branch may break a person's leg and cause them to suffer; this was not their fault and was merely the result of the chain of causality.
This type of suffering is typically far more sharp than the anxiety-like suffering of the previous type. It is caused by firing nociceptors transmitting to our brains. Although this helped us survive quite well in the past, it also means that we have the problem of being able to suffer tremendous amounts of pain without doing anything about it (we can't just turn off nociceptors). This type of pain is what leads me to my antinatalistic stance, one that views birth as an unnecessary action.
Theoretically, we could make AIs or even humans that don't feel pain and are able to cope with Ta?h?. I would be willing to discuss this further.
Ultimately, my view on life is that it is mostly an itch and a bit underwhelming, although I do admit this seems to change sometimes depending on the day of the week. The Buddhist philosophy on Ta?h? that I talked about above does nothing more, in my view, than mitigate our eventual suffering. It cannot lead to nirvana, for nirvana does not exist outside of a conceptual goal. Happiness is the state of eudaimonia and relief from any noticeable aches.
I have said my thoughts on the nature of suffering. I have a few things to say about the pessimist's treatment of suffering as well, but I hope this won't become the center of the topic.
The recognition of suffering as a fact of life is a bold but true statement by the pessimist. However, it often gets blown out of proportion a bit. Romanticized, so to speak. Suffering becomes the structure of reality, instead of a part of reality.
It is interesting, though, how a person who has shit to do usually doesn't have time to complain too much. Schopenhauer, one of the greatest pessimistic philosophers, wouldn't have been able to live his extravagant, aristocratic life without the laborious work of the common man. As I said above, Ta?h? is not out of our control, and Schopenhauer spends most of his time ranting about this type of suffering. Whereas the common man breaking his back in a coal mine actually has something to complain about because, well, his back fucking aches!
To have a poor temper as Schopenhauer apparently did is to fail to see the conflict between our expectations and reality. Being a pessimist does not mean one has to be depressed. The facts of life do not have to cause angst. The only reason they would do so is because one has not let go of past expectations or values.
I've said my bit. I want to hear yours.
Comments (66)
Using examples of the "working class", "third world", and "hunter-gatherers", as some sort of ideal model of the un-existential man, simply "living his life" is inaccurate and a cliche of itself. In fact, in its attempt to undercut the "existential" thinker, it becomes its own cliche.
Just curious if this is trolling for a flame war. Clearly there are only about three or so people on here that care about this. I am willing to take the bait cause I enjoy it, but again, it's just odd to me the fervent need to be anti-pessimism. It makes sense for things like realism vs. idealism, because those are by and large common arguments that a majority of those in the philosophical community debate. Also, to be pro-pessimist makes sense to me in terms of being a bit of the gadfly to the majority who usually don't consider it. However, to be the gadfly to the gadfly seems to me to be in trolling territory as it is specifically seeking out only one or two people who this really pertains to.
I don't think so, actually. And I wasn't limiting it to the "working class" "third world" "hunter gatherers"; anyone who has anything to do, whether that be washing the dishes or running a marathon, is using more energy doing that activity than they are thinking about existential problems.
Certainly, these problems still exist, I'm not denying that. And they are worth discussing. But they do not pose the same threat of harm as, say, a stab wound or a car crash.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Curiously, when Thorongil posted his argument against the existence of the Christian god, you didn't seem to get all up in arms.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, this is not trolling nor a flame war. Why do you keep asking that?
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, rather, it's just the fervent need to discuss philosophical topics. May I recall to you that you also made some threads regarding pessimism.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is the some real martyrdom going on right here. (oh, you're the outcast!, the gadfly!) If I have a problem with pessimism (which I don't inherently, I have a problem with the attitudes of pessimists), then I post a thread about it. If I have a problem with realism, than I post a thread about realism. There's no discrimination here between what is okay to discuss and what is not.
But you didn't answer the main question. Why post it if it only pertains to three people? I'm one of them so yeah I do feel this is more directly aimed at me more than say a poster who only posts on wit metaphysics and politics or what not. It's not so martyrish to suspect this based on the evidence of there being very few pessimists, albeit ones that post a lot on pessimism.
Now as for the activities that consume time, well yeah, peolple can concentrate on the little details. I think of the Buddhist monks making their sand mandelas and then ruining the creation after all the hard work as a practice in impermanence and non attachment. Anyways, as you yourself mentioned, the problem doesn't go away but rather presents itself at some points- usually loneliness, boredom, angst, etc. As pointed out, we have so much self awareness we can have these thoughts at all as a species. As I mentioned in another thread, the response to the situation by those with a groundless metaphysics (the absurd camp) is to delve more deeply into details and activities so as to not focus on the bigger picture. I would argue several things:
1) some temperaments are simply prone not to focus on the bigger picture (most actually) and some are. This isn't attitude mind you but constitution.
2) the struggles of life are present no matter what. It just becomes acute, more refined, and nuanced as the person focused their attention on this or that.
3) eventually almost everyone will confront existential issues at some point.
4) the cat is already out of the bag. The justification for doing anything becomes more troublesome as one is faced with the prospect of the absurdity of survival and desires and goals
5) the environmental pain (which I refer to as contingent pain) will always be there.
I posted this question because I wanted to discuss it. Even if only one person participated I would have posted it.
As it stands, though, more than three people have been participating in the pessimism-related threads.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Agreed. I think most of us here on PF would fall into the camp of focusing on the little details.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Sure.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Agreed.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What are you saying here? I don't understand.
Quoting schopenhauer1
...in various amounts of intensity. It's not as if we are going through hellfire on a daily basis. The potential for hellfire is there, though. But so is the potential for really great experiences.
What would it mean to say that suffering is the structure of reality? I'm afraid that doesn't make any conceptual sense to me. It is viewed by most pessimists as an intrinsic feature of reality, a necessary result due to the nature of reality, which might then be given as a shorthand such as the first noble truth in Buddhism.
Quoting darthbarracuda
This is ad hominem attack, though I very much doubt Schopenhauer would disagree with you on this point. In fact, I think he makes it himself when speaking of civilization and genius.
Quoting darthbarracuda
One could say that this is to romanticize reality far more than the pessimist does. Life does not have to cause angst? Find me a sentient organism where this is the case.
Quoting darthbarracuda
A bourgeois sentiment, this. Life will catch up to you, rest assured.
Meaning, for example, Schopenhauer's "Will"; the personification of striving, suffering, boredom, etc. These are qualities of existence. I might even say that they constitute a rather "natural" state of man. But suffering itself is not an intrinsic part of the universe. The cosmos isn't strung together by suffering.
Quoting Thorongil
It was not meant to be an ad hominem. It was meant to show that Schopenhauer wouldn't be able to write his philosophy without having all that extra time and money. If you are struggling to survive, you don't have time to think about boredom or angst. These are problems that arise due to decadence.
Quoting Thorongil
My dog. LOL.
But really, there is no correlation between the facts of life and the attitude of the individual. Camus' Absurd Man is an example of this; i.e. just because there is no meaning does not mean everything is hopeless.
When I look at myself in the mirror, I realize that I am not a "self". I am an organism but I never was an never will have a concrete ego. For many people this will cause great angst, and in the past this has caused me great angst. Thomas Ligotti, pessimist/nihilist writer, thinks this way, when he writes that the lack of having a self is the worst thing that could happen to us. The only reason it causes him pain, though, would be because he desires having a self.
Quoting Thorongil
Aye, but until then, viva la vida.
That doesn't amount to saying suffering is the structure of reality. Suffering is a result of the will.
Quoting darthbarracuda
The universe, in terms of stars, gas clouds, gravitation, etc exhibits the lower grades of the will's objectification. The higher the objectification of the will, the more the will suffers. Hence, human beings suffer the most, whereas a rock suffers very little if at all. So Schopenhauer would agree with you that suffering is not a distinct feature of much of the universe, at least in terms of its degree, but it is still an intrinsic part of reality, since all reality is merely the manifestation of the will.
Quoting darthbarracuda
No, not necessarily. I think it's quite clear that boredom and angst are present in all sentient organisms. Perhaps you want to argue in terms of the degree they are present, but to reject their presence outside of those living in affluence is absurd.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I would legitimately love to meet this dog who never feels boredom or anxiety. It would be a rare specimen for scientific study!
Quoting darthbarracuda
Why?
Quoting darthbarracuda
I assume you're speaking of the illusoriness of the empirical ego, in which case, I fail to see how realizing this could cause angst. Are you and Ligotti disappointed there's no such thing as an immortal soul? If so, that is nothing more than petulance and egoism, not angst. Hence, you affirm and expand your ego by realizing that it doesn't exist, which is most ironic.
I don't see the value of hypothesizing the existence of a metaphysical Will. Is it not enough to just say that sentient organism on planet Earth have the neural capacity to suffer?
Quoting Thorongil
Which is why I said that I don't deny that they are problems. Existential problems do exist, I'm not denying that. The magnitude of the problems is what changes depending on the circumstances a person is in. Circumstances, that, for the most part, can be changed by the person themselves.
Quoting Thorongil
It was meant as a joke. My dog is abnormally happy though.
Quoting Thorongil
Why not?
Quoting Thorongil
This was merely an example. I don't feel angst about the lack of an ego anymore. But this is not the only existential realization.
I don't care about the value of it either. I care about whether it's true or not.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I know. I had an exclamation mark.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Hey, man, you asserted the affirmative first.
Does Schopenhauer's metaphysical Will have any explanatory power over anything that isn't already covered by evolutionary biology? Occam's Razor seems to apply here.
Quoting Thorongil
Okay, fine, touche. You and I and everyone else here are alive and unless we have the guts to kill ourselves we might as well make the most of it and mitigate as much suffering as we can. Viva la vida.
The unexamined life is a literal waste of time, kicking the can down the road, hopscotching from one desire to the next while suffering the aches and pains and burdens of existence. To examine life, understand the dilemma of it, and actually know what kind of circus it actually is, and still consciously decide to keep living (i.e. living authetically; not-committing-suicide-every-day is a choice, not the null position), is rebellious and enough to fill a man's heart. Anybody can live...but it takes a certain kind of person to live absurdly, and that is worth some merit.
Being depressed because one's leg is broken and one suddenly is cut off from one's daily exercise is a negative emotional state, for sure, but I wouldn't call that state suffering per se either. It's a real problem and it's not negligible, either. All of this will eventually get better; one will runs again. One will stop being depressed
I would prefer to define "suffering" as experiences which cut one off from one's sources of meaning, satisfaction, and happiness. Take a different kind of problem: arthritis, chronic serious edema, and severe obesity (this is a real case). These three chronic, not easily treated, and serious conditions cut Marie off from the activities from which she had previously derived meaning in life, satisfaction, and intellectual stimulation--work, theater performances, concerts and travel. She was essentially immobilized at home (and poor). There were no real cures for any of these conditions: She was not a good candidate for bariatric surgery or knee replacement. As her life became more restricted, her mental health gradually deteriorated. Habits that were not in themselves significant became problematic.
Marie "suffered" rather than merely experiencing pain, discomfort, and disappointment. She wasn't merely depressed, merely uncomfortable, merely inconvenienced. Her meaning in life had been lost, essentially, cutting her off from that which makes life worth living.
Suicide wasn't even an feasible option. Her drugs were monitored, and she had lone since become unable to climb out of a window (to fall) or to jump off a bridge (to drown). She was trapped and had little future. That's suffering.
Marie was diagnosed with cancer, and to some extent, welcomed the diagnosis. Cancer could be counted on to produce death -- maybe not as quickly as one would like, but it did offer a way out. So she declined treatment and the cancer killed her. Tragic? No. What was tragic was the way her life was drained of meaning, enjoyment, and interest.
Couldn't she have solved these problems? Well sure, if she was somebody else -- if she wasn't the person she was other forms of satisfaction, enjoyment, interest, and meaning could be found. But Marie didn't/couldn't/wouldn't because she was Marie and not a different person.
I think I agree with you that meaning is ultimately what gives the a person's life value. No (reasonable) amount of pain or pleasure can make or break a life, it's up to the individual to make it worth its while.
However, I disagree with your assessment that pain is not suffering. If physical or psychological pain was not uncomfortable to us, than we would not have a problem with it. Each day we deal with a lot of things; life is a kind of burden that requires meaning to keep going. So it is worthwhile to look into mitigating these kinds of experiences.
I don't see the relevance of this, unless you're simply assuming that scientific materialism is true, which would be begging the question.
Quoting darthbarracuda
No offense, but I don't see any arguments here. You've merely restated your original claim in more words. Correct me if I missed something.
Pain can be suffering. I guess it depends on the degree and the significance. I can feel discomfort going for a long walk, but I wouldn't consider that suffering. The net result is that I feel good. But if my car broke down in the middle of nowhere and I had to walk for hours when I needed to be somewhere, then it would be considered a greater discomfort. Not suffering per se, but an inconvenience I'd be upset about, at least for a little while, depending non how important being somewhere was.
Quoting darthbarracuda
That's true. Life isn't ideal for most of us. The question is whether it needs to be ideal to be worth living, which sounds like a ridiculous standard. It can be worth living and problematic at the same time. The question becomes at what point do problems overwhelm a person's life and make it not worth living?
You asked for why. So I replied. I don't think there really was an argument per se.
~ Darth Barracuda
What does that actually mean? Nirv??a is elusive and indeed ineffable, but many a practicing Buddhist will know it regardless. That doesn't mean they have become a 'world-conquering hero' or 'one perfectly enlightened by themselves'. But your depiction of Nirv??a as either conceptual or a distant light at the end of a long tunnel is not based on experience, put it that way.
I got drawn towards Buddhism because I learned meditation practice. I got taught by a group a long while ago now who were kind of New Age, but also quite 'spiritual', but with a fairly secular orientation. So their type of teaching was how to clear out all your inner obstacles, the things you tell yourself that constantly undermine you - that kind of thing. And they also taught meditation, similar in style to the TM movement - 20 minute sessions morning and evening, mantra and visualization.
I got a lot out of that (although I have to say that what one does get out of it is often impossible to relate to others - it is something you have to see it for yourself.)
Which leads me back to Buddhism - one description of which is 'ehi-passiko', meaning literally, 'come and see'. So after learning meditation I read up on Buddhist meditation, vipassana in particular, and started learning about that. I got drawn to Buddhism because it made overall sense out of the various and disparate bits of understanding I had gotten through learning meditation and through reading spiritual books, which I had done a lot of.
So I've stayed with that practice ever since - actually more than 30 years now - I get up in the morning and sit. I don't really have any relationship with a Buddhist cultural institution apart from a Buddhist library where I meet bi-monthly for a kind of workshop session. But I'm not a 'temple Buddhist' or aligned with a traditional Buddhist sect (but feel the most affinity for Soto Zen).
But the important point that I'm trying to get to is that you do learn through meditation, in the Buddhist sense of dhyana, to understand and penetrate those 'causes of suffering' in the here and now, because it is something that we're actually doing. It is not something absrtact or remote. Of course we have to be willing to take that on, but really there's nothing stopping us except our habitual thoughts.
Buddhism, and all forms of yogic spirituality, understand mind as citta, which has certain innate qualities and attributes. These are generally obscured by vritti or by vikalpa which are habituated mental patterns and constructions; basically, just the continual play of thoughts. And those thoughts go a long way to constituting our day to day existence. So sitting meditation is simply learning to be aware of those - that is all. Just to see them as they are. In some ways it's simple, but it's not that easy, because our habituated attitudes have a life of their own and they don't appreciate having anyone notice them. They're 'hiding in plain sight' and they want to stay that way.
So - it's good you're aware of some of the theory behind Buddhism, but really it's a practical skill and discipline for the abatement of dukkha and the cultivation of sukha (ease, happiness.) And it is actually not that far away, it's not at the mythical end of the rainbow or in some future state. It's right here, but you have to reach for it.
Oh, pain is a pain, no doubt about it. The thing is, we can stand pain. I've broken 5 different bones, had bad abrasions from wiping out on the bike, tore muscles in my thigh--and all these accidents were VERY painful. Like a lot of people, I've had bad headaches from time to time. An eye surgery was very painful. Etc. But the thing is, they were sort of tolerable (sometimes with a little help) AND they weren't going to last too long, and they didn't.
Pain that doesn't go away, like chronic and severe herpes zoster (shingles) is suffering. Shingles is only painful -- there are no other consequences. Very severe pain, even if we are perfectly ambulatory and can still think straight counts (in my book) as "suffering" and not "just pain". There's no standard line, either. What is tolerable for one person may be actual suffering for somebody else.
But pain alone, even severe pain (10/10), that is short term is endurable and doesn't deprive one's life of meaning. It might even give it some meaning. Somebody getting some ghastly dental procedure that will be over in 20 minutes and will leave one with only a sore mouth--however painful it was at the moment the heavy duty iron file was shoved up under one's gum into the base of one's brain and then slowly twisted--isn't suffering because it is over quickly. Is it worth complaining about? Absolutely! Is it worth getting out of the chair and kicking the dentist in the balls? Quite possibly. Suffering? No.
Did you try editing the re-post, and just deleting everything and then "posting" nothing?
Hmmm, maybe that doesn't work. Never mind. Ax a modulator.
I was drawn to Buddhism because of the "Middle Path" it advocated between extreme sensual pleasures and extreme asceticism. I like it as a philosophy because I can live my life in a much more peaceful, calm, and happy way without actually changing much in terms of actual lifestyle; i.e. I don't have to join a temple, live on a mountain, reject all sensual pleasures (asceticism), etc. I would characterize Buddhism as a philosophy of balance and understanding, one that stems from compassion and a desire for the end of suffering.
Quoting Wayfarer
It seems like every day or so I learn some new wisdom from Buddhism. This is one of them it seems. One doesn't even have to actually accept citta, vritti or vikalkpa as actual entities for them to be usual as concepts to understand how we operate.
But if you want to know why there is suffering to begin with, the question is in a way wrongheaded. Suffering is by nature superfluous, and the notion of causation itself seems to be born out of it, as a response to having to deal with it, in order to attempt some sort of control or power over the way that one suffers.
I would answer by referring to
Quoting The Great Whatever
What causes suffering is sufficient to explain why it is here. Like you said, much of suffering is unnecessary. Much of it could be avoided.
"Tanha" isn't familiar enough for me to use confidently. But... pain, suffering, dissatisfaction, thirst, hunger--all those conditions where "things" are out of balance or intensely unpleasant, whether they be transitory or permanent, merely painful or suffering-which-deprives-ones-life-of-meaning, have a physical basis (like physical trauma) or are psychological (like psychosis), SHOULD ALL BE RELIEVED, MITIGATED, REDUCED, STOPPED, CURED, or whatever word seems to fit. I wouldn't think of getting my teeth drilled, or undergo any sort of ghastly dental procedure without local anesthesia being injected first. And I wouldn't want a ghastly, disfiguring, life-and-meaning-depriving cancer to go untended either.
There is a significant worldwide shortage of narcotic pain killers and there is no good reason for this. Poppy growing areas produce enough opium for the various opium-derivitives to be manufactured to meet world wide requirements--at an affordable price. Further, synthetic analgesics like lydocaine (and various other similarly named compounds) are inexpensive.
In 2015 no one anywhere should be required to suffer unendurable pain with no prospect of relief. There are newer pain killers which are effective against difficult pain (which might not be inexpensive yet). Lyrica, Neurontin, and Tegretol (anti seizure drugs), antidepressants, nerve blocks, and biofeedback are all of some benefit to various people.
For suffering caused by existential crises, severe mental illnesses (like bi-polar or schizophrenia) have equivalent but less effective "pain killers" but the main treatment for this kind of suffering is interpersonal -- social support, kindness, psychotherapy (not for a cure, but for better coping), and the like.
But it's also true that Nirv??a has been mythologised, insofar as, for example, in some of the SE Asian monastic orders it is believed that nobody has attained Nirv??a for centuries and that the best that can be aspired to is a 'favourable rebirth' in auspicious circumstances. Other schools interpret the idea more subtly - Mahayana Buddhism teaches that Nirv??a and samsara are not ultimately separable, although that is something that needs to be interpreted carefully. But in any case, the essential point is that Buddhism presents its basic truth as 'the cause and the end of suffering', in the broadest possible terms.
This is very Buddhist.
I agree that the physical pain can and should be relieved.
From what I got from your response is that existential pains are contingent upon the mentality of the individual. How much of that mentality requires willful ignorance, if any?
I also think that physical pain is something that we try to escape from, we seek to get beyond whatever it is that is causing the pain. This need to escape pain, to transcend pain, becomes our need to go beyond and transcend one set of ideas over another.
I wouldn't want to rashly impute "willful ignorance" to people who are suffering existentially. The extremely alienated, discouraged, and miserable person probably didn't get there willfully, whether from ignorance or something else. The society of humans can alienate, discourage and immiserate people, and quite often does.
When a beloved person is suffering from terminal and painful disease, their nearest and dearest lovers, relatives, and friends suffer -- not in pain, but from the witness of inexorable pain. Buddha on his death bed is supposed to have said to his disciples, "Decay is inherent to all compounded beings. Therefore, press on with diligence."
I have found that to be both comforting and good advice. But those who mourn at the passing of one they love are not suffering from willful ignorance; they are suffering from grief--an existential condition. That all compounded beings decay (often painfully) and die in pain puts death in perspective but it doesn't reduce grief.
For the person who is dying in pain and knows he is dying, there is suffering not softened by morphine. He also grieves for those he loves, has regrets that can not be acted upon, has wishes unfulfillable, and so on. Perhaps there is the fear (or the hope) of an afterlife, and whatever that might entail.
This efficiently summarizes the situation.
This is the peculiar inversion of thinking that has happened because of biological materialism. Whereas for the Greeks our distinction was our rational nature - which enables discovery of such things as scientific law - whereas in the Biblical religious man is imageo dei, now we're simply a species, part of nature, doomed like everything else to death and decay, and driven only by the urge to pro-create.
And hey, if that's your 'thing', then welcome to it. Just don't call it 'philosophy'.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/anything-but-human/?_r=0
But, really, there is no reason to think we are anything more than "simply a species"; the hubris involved in thinking of ourselves as more than simply (another) species is probably the greatest danger to our (likely) tenuous chances of survival.
Unacceptable as this seems to be to some, we have no reason to suppose that we are not part of nature and "doomed like everything else to death and decay", but to suggest that we are driven solely by "the urge to procreate" exemplifies a terribly pessimistic and narrow view of human life and nature; a view that is closed to vast riches of meaning.
I posted this on the other philosophy forum and reproduce it here because I think it is apposite to the question of the kind of de-meaning influence of certain forms of religious thinking:
As Bitter Crank so well expressed it in his earlier post (the one that tells about Marie) suffering comes predominately from having the love, the care and the interest, that is the meaning, sapped out of, or in some other way taken from, our lives; and the futile search for transcendent meaning may be one of the most effective ways of doing just that.
Since Kant it should be obvious that it is thinking that concerns itself with transcendence (of the vertical not the horizontal kind) that is precisely the "thing" that should not be called 'philosophy'.
It is interesting, and instructive, I think, that the publishing house that specialises in publishing a large number of very well-written and argued books against any kind of generally 'spiritual or religious' ideas, is called Prometheus Press. Prometheus was, of course, the figure in Greek mythology who 'stole fire from the Gods', and whose ultimate punishment was very grisly. But here, seeing ourselves as a 'superior species' always reminds me of the Promethean impulse. I think the reason why scientific atheism, and positivism such as that of the Vienna Circle, is so hostile to religion, is because essentially they're putting man, and science, into the place formerly occupied by God.
So, it's basically professional jealousy. Man, the measure of all things, declaring that the Universe is 'devoid of intention' - and why? Because science says so.
But it's not hubris. It is scientific materialism that is hubristic, and which has brought us to the edge of the abyss. We have devised technology that can destroy the entire planet, without a philosophy that accords any particular value to human life (save what it inherited from Christian humanism.)
Again, the reason for the hostility to 'religion' on the part of materialism, is that 'God' is imagined as some kind of uber-designer. I recall well Eagleton's eviscerating review of The God Delusion:
The fact of our difference from other animals, is in one sense simply that no other animal thinks 'what am I? Why do I suffer? What is the meaning of my existence?' (although, perhaps some of the higher animals have some inkling.) So the advent of self-consciousness, the ability to make moral judgements, and to ask such questions, is surely one of the distinguishing feature of humans. And that doesn't even require any particularly religious sentiment - it is a matter of empirical fact, that humans have rational and imaginative abilities that are entirely beyond that of animals. I mean, look around you. Look at what you're doing when you reply. It is something no animal could ever do (and bugger the 'millions monkeys!')
I think the motivation to deny this, is part of what Fromm calls 'the fear of freedom'. Part of us realises that our potential as humans might be beyond what we can imagine.
Well emotion is a very flimsly basis for a philosophy. And I'm not in saying that suggesting one should be apathetic, in the ordinary sense - 'apathea' as a classical virtue, was the 'transformation of the passions to wisdom', by realising a state of detachment from the purely personal. Even the stoics, who were no friends of theism, understood that.
Either view can lead to absurdities. We end up being machines, in the case of some versions of materialism, and Man created by God to have dominion over all the earth has had difficulty figuring out the downsides of his decision making. He's getting the picture now and it's not good.
The paradigm that artificially separates reason and emotion is the arch engine of the very notions of 'higher' and 'lower' which lead to the absurd ideas of transcendent meaning and human divinity.
The passions should certainly be rationally understood; some are life-affirming and others life-denying , but no rationality at all is possible without emotion, so the very idea of detached rationality is nonsensical.
I think your 'professional jealousy' idea is way off the mark. It is no accident that science arose in a Judaeo-Christian culture, and the biblical idea of ' in the image of God' is a hangover that we are yet to recover from.
We are not a "superior" species, and a good dose of ecological understanding should cure us of such hubris. Clinging to god(s) will only perpetuate the fantasy even if the god is science, inappropriately understood.
"Your West" doesn't include everyone, by a long shot. There is a range of views. Among the disbelievers (who are a minority) materialism is de regueur (and why wouldn't it be?) and among believers there are some who deny evolution and materialism and live in some sort of early 19th century la la land. Most believers, however, in the west find ways of fitting science into the divine scheme of creation.
The West is animated by a kind of anti-faith... Well, there are people who have lost faith in Christianity and haven't picked up another faith; there are a lot of people who did not lose their faith in the first place. There are some who never had any faith to begin with.
I'm not quite sure whether we would put the same people on your list of those who are animated by anti-faith. Not precisely sure of what anti-faith is either -- please detail it a bit more.
[quote=John]The paradigm that artificially separates reason and emotion is the arch engine of the very notions of 'higher' and 'lower' which lead to the absurd ideas of transcendent meaning and human divinity.[/quote]
It's a curious thing that I had the exact same debate on the Buddhist forum I post to last week. A poster there also denied that there were 'higher and lower truths'. Actually it caused me to stop posting there for the time being.
I am adamant that there are higher truths. Take as an example, the Platonic epistemology and the various divisions of knowledge (doxa, pistis, dainoia, noesis and so on). I'm not highly skilled in classical or Greek philosophy, but I do believe those distinctions are real and have been generally lost or forgotten in the intervening centuries.
And in any case, we are not continuous with nature, no more so than your pet parrot being actually a raptor on account of it having descended from dinosaurs. As soon as h. sapiens got to the threshold of being able to recognize abstract reason, art, beauty, and so on, he stepped through a threshhold that was at once evolutionary and also existential - and not simply biological, nor something that can be explained biologically.
Because to 'explain' it biologically is always - always - to reduce it to 'what the genome does to survive'. And why does the genome survive? Why, to replicate. To parody Descartes, 'I f***, therefore I am'.
Apart from the fact that I can't think of any convincing and coherent alternative, a fact which makes any pretense to think otherwise a non-starter, thinking otherwise would be hubristic even if it could be coherent, since the apparently, but I think exaggeratedly, vast differences between us and our closer animal relatives can be explained by linguistic capability and opposable thumbs alone.
Of course. I understand many people think that way. I've been debating on Philosophy Forum since 2009, how could I not understand that? And I disagree. Basically I see it as 'biological reductionism' - but it is so widespread and embedded in our culture, that most people just assume it as a kind of 'gospel' (irony alert!)
Have a look at that opinion piece I mentioned a few pages back. The writer is a specialist in Heidegger, he has no particular theistic ax to grind - here it is again:
Anything but Human, Richard Polt
Another good essay along similar lines:
It Ain't Necessarily So: How much do evolutionary stories reveal about the mind? Anthony Gottlieb
Nah, just joking...I meant what I said. But having said it, I should qualify that I of course meant 'philosophically adequate' as an account of our basic nature, and this is not to say that our technical and linguistic natures (which we obviously do not share with other animals) can be reductively and exhaustively understood in biological terms; they must be understood in their own terms, in other words. The human must be understood in terms of the human, and cannot be understood in purely physical terms; but this does not entail that there is anything 'non-physical' or immaterial' going on.
As an analogy this is to say no more than to say something like, for example, that cell anatomy, geology or of course biology itself cannot be reductively and exhaustively understood in terms of quantum physics. But just as the fact that these things cannot be understood in terms of QM does not warrant a conclusion that therefore there must be something more fundamental going at or below the microphysical level than what can be understood in QM terms, so no extra magical or supernatural element need be invoked simply because the perfectly natural technical and linguistic dimensions of our natures produce phenomena which are irreducible to lower level descriptions.
The whole problem, philosophically speaking, with invoking the magical or supernatural is that no coherent philosophical (or any other kind of) account can be given of 'it'. Metaphysics in this mystical sense, as Kant was (probably) the first to point out, remains an exercise in unintelligibility, and so can carry no philosophical weight at all.
Earlier you cited Eagleton who is a Marxist materialist, and Polt, in that essay you cited is not making, or even attempting to make, any supernatural claims. So, it seems to me that you are polemicizing against a faux-position held by a faux opponent, both of which are of your own devising.
When I went to Uni, a mature-age student, late 20's, I was intent on finding out about whatever 'enlightenment' was, pursuant to which I enrolled in philosophy, psychology, anthropology, history and religious studies (i.e. 'comparative religion', not 'divinity'). I formed the view, which I still have, that the phenomenon of spiritual awakening or enlightenment, is a cross-cultural and largely a-historical phenomenon which is depicted in various ways in various cultures. So mine both is and isn't a 'religious view', insofar as I basically regard religions as being means to that end, or different expressions of a philosophia perennis (an attitude which is much more characteristic of India than Europe).
Accordingly I have the most affinity with people like Huston Smith and Bede Griffith and Thomas Merton, to mention a few names - but they're very, very different kinds of people to William Lane Craig or American evangelicals. I am not a church-goer, although through this journey I have come to re-appreciate the 'inner meaning' of Christianity (which I hasten to add, is often startlingly different from its outer manifestations.)
During that period of study I noticed, especially in studying the history of philosophy, what I think Jean-Paul Sarte was referring to by the expression the 'god-shaped hole in the heart' of Western thinking (although at the time I was entirely unable to understand Sartre.) I formed the idea that at the centre of much of the history of Western thinking, is a centuries-long movement away from their religious creeds (notwithstanding the fact that liberalism in the broad sense continues to recognize religious freedom). But I don't think you can deny that a major plank of the European Enlightenment was to essentially try and replace religious and metaphysical ideas with the scientific. And in some respects that is quite a sane thing to do, but in other ways, it isn't. I believe that there are ideas of crucial importance that are part of the Judeo-Christian code, and that aren't amenable to scientific 'explanation'. It should be recalled that Renaissance Humanism (Pico de Mirandola, Erasmus and Ficino) were all deeply religious men, but in very non-conformist ways. And they lost out to (in my view) fanatics like Luther and Calvin. This has happened time and time again in Western thinking; actually many of the most inspiring Catholics were on the fringes of, or actually convicted of, heresy.
Anyway I've gone of on a tangent here, tilting at windmills again, as I am prone to do. But the point is, that out of all of this, 'secularism' has emerged as a kind of faux-religion, the religion of scientism. Now I do know there are many scientists who don't adhere to any such thing at all; but I think it is also fair to say that the default view of the secular intelligentsia, is much nearer to scientific naturalism, to use its genteel name, than any form the philosophia perennis. And that's what I mean by a kind of 'anti-faith'. (I noted in the UK there is an argument that the new nationally-approved curriculum units in study of religion ought to be forced to include units in 'secular values' as an alternative religion.)
[quote=John]The human must be understood in terms of the human, and cannot be understood in purely physical terms; but this does not entail that there is anything 'non-physical' or immaterial' going on.[/quote]
What! Spooks under the bed!
What I think more likely is that we have simply lost the cultural metaphors and tropes within which any idea of 'the spiritual' can be meaningfully discussed. it is true that the attempt to enclose the 'spiritual', however conceived, in the garb of discursive language, is notoriously fraught. Yet, it is a return to that sense of wholeness, a 're-enchantment of the world', that is precisely what is needed as an antidote to the kind of dessicated materialism that insists 'you're just an animal'. The dynamics underlying that attitude have metaphysical roots, and until we learn to discern them they will continue to hold us in thrall. Because, it is an obvious falsehood, as far as I am concerned, and the fact that a great many people cling to it with something approaching religious dogmatism, is, in my view, indicative of a cultural malaise.
Incidentally, I do appreciate and generally admire Kant, and in fact consider myself a neo-Kantian, but bear in mind my introduction to Kant was via a (nowadays often deprecated) book called The Central Philosophy of Buddhism by T R V Murti, an Indian scholar who had a sound grounding in Western philosophy. Buddhism, like Kant, also eschews what is often described as metaphysics - but does so, from a point beyond the merely physical!
"Metaphors and tropes" are one thing (well two things really), which, like poetry may evoke 'numinous' feelings in those that have not 'lost the feel', but assertions (in the propositional sense) of the existence of god(s) are, in my view inherently incoherent, because we literally do not know what we are talking about or thinking when we make, or 'believe', such assertions.
Any "re-enchantment of the world" comes about through poetic feeling not through propositional belief. so I am not sure what you are trying to argue for here. Materialists do not commonly say "you are just an animal" unless they are incredibly stupid. We obviously have attributes which are not shared (to any obvious degree) by the other animals. I actually don't know anyone who thinks that we are 'merely animals', so I struggle to understand how you have persisted for so long in bashing this absurd straw man version of materialism.
What is the "point beyond the physical" that Buddhism eschews metaphysics from? Our feelings and thoughts cannot be meaningfully reduced to descriptions in physical terms, as though they were objects; to attempt that would be to commit a category error. But this fact does not entail that there is any "point beyond the physical"; I think that to think so is to commit another kind of category error; both being instances of a "fallacy of misplaced concreteness" to echo Whitehead. One of those kinds of instances is an inversion of the other; both are errors of dualistic thinking.
So, do you yourself think there is anything that is not physical?
I don't know what it could mean to say that there is something that is not physical; for me such a statement could have literally no sense.
That doesn't mean I think we are nothing but chemical robots or whatever; to say that would be to betray a hangover of Newtonian style mechanistic thinking.
A convenient metric for our time is the hemorrhage of Christians from the formal church in the 1960s--and ever since--50 years of departures which have not returned. But one has to ask what exactly happened. Was it rejection, boredom, or searching that lead to the departures? Take the most serious of believers -- the professed religious nuns and monks of the Roman Catholic Church: They left the orders in droves -- presumably not for casual or trivial reasons. Were they seeking more authenticity, or were they just fed up with rigidity? Both? More besides? What?
My guess is that many of the people who left their catholic and protestant churches did so because what they were hearing from the pulpit, what they were doing during the service, the kind of social life the church provided, and the way church teachings meshed with contemporary social problems no longer matched the realities of their lives.
The growing denominations -- the evangelicals and fundamentalists -- are sometimes a sensitive response and frequently a crude reaction to modernity. The fundamentalists, especially, have taken up positions which are at odds with modernity of course, but also at odds with much of mainstream traditional Christianity.
My personal view is this: Most people today--having sustained a lifetime of hammering from advertising, mass media, low grade education, less-than-subtle approaches to human psychology, shit hole experiences of employment, steady declines of purchasing power and income, growing wealth disparities (and the good things that wealth can buy)--are just plain bewildered by what all is happening to and around them.
Very eloquent post BC. That is exactly the kind of confusion that the New Age - what used to be called the 'counterculture' - was determined to break out of. When I set out on that path, the last thing I thought it would be was any kind of religion - religion was part of the problem, I thought. But there is that line from Elliott, that after a long journey 'we arrive where we started to know the place for the first time'. That is something like what happened to me (although the prospects of returning to any kind of ol'time religion are about zero, I think. But if you have leisure time, I recommend you google an essay called Cults and Cosmic Conciousness by Camille Paglia. It's out there in pdf, a very long essay, but well worth the effort of reading from a social history perspective.)
As you note, fundamentalism is one of the reactions to modernity (and consequently very much part of modernity although longing for some mythical past). It is one of the reactions to the 'shock of the new', the fact that the world is changing more quickly than ever before. 'there's too much confusion; I can't get no relief'. So we have to find a way to cut through.
I acknowledge the limitations of all 'levels' of explanation, whether purely physical (in the sense of 'physics'), chemical, geological, biological, when it comes to levels 'above' (emergent from) them.
All explanations are given in material terms, including subjective explanations of experience, whether they be accounts of emotion, desire, aspiration or whatever.
There is not the kind of confusion or dilemma in this situation that you seem to be tendentiously seeking to impute to it.
As to meditation; I have practiced that for more than forty years, on and off, but consistently for periods of up to ten years. Sure, it is "a different way of being", as is practicing martial arts, painting, carpentry, stone masonry, writing poetry, playing music, doing science or philosophy, or in fact any activity at all. The idea that meditation can put you in touch with a 'wisdom of the ages' is pure romantic fantasy, in my view. What will such wisdom do for you, in the end? You will still die just like all other other organisms do. And even if there were an 'afterlife' there is no reason to think that it would be reliant for its existence on whether or not you had meditated; as in Gurdjieff's ridiculous notion of "growing a soul" or whatever. I like some aspects of Buddhism, but karma and rebirth make absolutely no rational sense to me.
I have no issue with religious faith of whatever kind, provided it is not fundamentalist, in other words provided that it is acknowledged as being simply faith (that it is purely affective and not propositional) and no more. Of course usually, and sadly, that is not enough for people; and we all know what the consequences are.
Anyway, none of this mystical stuff, however moving it might be, has anything to do with philosophy; being ineffable it simply can have no application.
And yet (I hope you'll all pardon me for jumping in) if we go back to the point of this thread, the meaning of human suffering, its causes and if any its solutions, it does seem to me - a downright atheist - that many religions and many religious people have a good stab at confronting this sort of question. Indeed it's somewhat in the nature of religion to grapple with the nature and meaning of suffering. So it seems to me that religion, notably religious experience, has 'application' to this sort of question in a way that, say, referring to our place in the evolutionary scheme of things offers no help or insight. We must go on. Fail better. Bleakness. A regime of feel-better pills.
I think there is also an honourable tradition of mysticism from William James onwards which doesn't demand transcendence or belief in divine beings. I don't personally sympathise with telling religion to get back in its box labelled Faith; people with religion have often thought more clearly about their intellectual commitments than the non-religious, and my version of liberalism works with those of all creeds and none. People who believe they have been granted unique insight into the rational by virtue of their atheism and superior intellect have, in my experience, been as intolerant and frustrating to work with as 'fundamentalists'.
Not that I'm thinking of becoming religious any time soon! To me mutuality in kindness, through societies and groups of people, can provide a similar sort of community to the one a religious person might find.
Indeed, I think much of what concerns non-material/non-real has to do with two fundamental topics:
1) Philosophy of Mind- how is it that the biology and neuroscience and the building blocks of explanation that are its foundation (chemistry, physics, etc.) explain interiority of the phenomenon it explains. What its like to be a network of neurons is different than the network of neurons. [Note: The same can be said of any naturally occurring process]. This may lead to panpsychism or it may lead to eliminative materialism, functionalism, emergentism or some variation of these four. Eliminative materialists have to account for the "illusion" of the interiority, functionalism and emergentism have to explain how it is that interiority exists when certain things combine a certain way. Additionally, emergentism has to answer how it is that material can have interiority from non-interiority. It would seem a category error to say material emerges into interior subjective states unlike many material things that build into other material things. Panpsychism has no real physical object or phenomena to point to other than the assertion that the other pole of matter/energy is interiority so their empirical toolkit is limited.
2) Metaphysics of the Whole and Aesthetics of Metaphysics- This is my own term, but by this I mean that metaphysically, the world may be monistic at its essence or it may be pluralistic without any connecting principle. An example of this might be Schopenhauer's will- which has a metaphysics whereby existence is ultimately Will and thus everything has a connection via Will. An example where it is pluralistic is any metaphysics without a connecting principle. In this case the world is absurdly nihlistic in the literal sense. Though laws of nature and processes follow patterns, it has no connection on a level other than necessary patterns of nature interacting with each other in contingent ways. The aesthetics of these kind of metaphysics can give a sort of meaning to the observer. For example, a groundless metaphysics composed of necessary patterns interacting in contingent ways brings about the idea of the Absurd as there is no points of "real" connection with everything else. A metaphysics with a ground might have more of an aesthetics of connectedness or completeness. There may even be an inbuilt purpose or meaning in this type of aesthetic.
Yes, I would day it is in the nature of religion to devise meanings for, that is reasons for, suffering. Dissipation of ability seems to be the prime agent of diminishing meaning and growing feelings of unworthiness, uselessness, helplessness and despair; the anguish of nihilism. This is what it means to suffer. Pain, however terrible, is bearable if there is an end in sight; a return of power. Meaninglessness and the worst suffering consists in the negation of all our possibilities.
If this weakness of disempowerment can be justified ( "the meek shall inherit the Earth"), a meaning is found.
It's not a matter of "telling religion to get back in its box labelled 'faith'. Faith is meaning, given via feeling, and that is what religion does. It is not an instrument of knowledge like science or an inventor of new ways of thinking like philosophy. Only poetry, as a medium of meaning, is like religion, but the difference is that the meaning in poetry is ever newly created, not enshrined by culture and tradition. Of course new interpretations of religion are always possible, and it is when this occurs that it comes closest to poetry and even surpasses it in its cultural and existential embeddedness.
As you say a sense of community and kindness also give meaning to those who are suitably receptive, but such things usually flourish in a medium of shared values, which brings us back to faith.
Well, it worked for me.
How do you know it is a 'wisdom of the ages' you are in touch with as opposed to merely unfamiliar ideas or a fantasy?
I have experienced altered or 'heightened' states of consciousness during meditation just as I have during sexual encounters, when painting, when writing, when playing or listening to music, when dreaming, when trekking in the wilderness (particularly when alone for more than a few days), when surfing, with LSD, Mescaline, Psylocybin, MDMA and even Cannabis or alcohol . What am I supposed to believe the fact that I can alter my brain chemistry in these various ways is pointing to?
'"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."
~ Abraham Maslow