A model of suffering
I think we can agree that many people suffer while they don't want to suffer, and many people kill themselves, despite the enormous resources spent on mental health research and practice. On this board several people have pointed out problems with the current practice of psychiatry, and outside this board it seems the anti-psychiatry movement is getting stronger, with more and more people becoming critical of the widespread practices used on people who suffer. There is the feeling in the air that we could do much better to help those who suffer get better.
Engineers and physicists create models of the world in order to build tools to reach some specific goal that is desired. In a similar way, we can create a model of suffering in order to build tools and practices to prevent suffering and help people who suffer get better.
This thread is an attempt at creating a model of suffering, through observation and reason, by looking at all the instances in which people suffer, and attempting to find out how suffering comes about and how it disappears. The model won't be perfect right from the start, but we can see it as a work in progress, changing it and tweaking it until we get something that works well, so we can build an effective tool to help people better than we do now.
I can anticipate two objections to this.
The first is that people have been looking at alleviating suffering for ages, the current mental health practitioners have followed years of training and some of them have dedicated decades of their life to help people get better, why would some random individuals on a forum come up with a better model to solve suffering? My answer is that scientific training forces people to think within a set of dogmas and beliefs that they never put into question, they may be very adept at thinking and finding solutions within these dogmas, but the range of solutions they can find are inevitably limited by these dogmas. The people who made great breakthroughs didn't do it by following the status quo but by thinking outside the box against the dogmas of the time. And while some philosophers function also within a set of beliefs they never question, I think that some of those who philosophize are much more used and able to question beliefs and to think outside the box. And while being a good philosopher is not a sufficient condition to make breakthroughs, I believe it is a necessary one.
The second objection is that suffering is not necessarily something unwanted, people sometimes put themselves willingly through suffering to reach something that they want (physical training to have a better body or feel better, mental training to have a better brain or feel better, masochism to have sexual pleasure). This is why I want to make a distinction between the suffering that is wanted and the suffering that is unwanted, the suffering that can be willingly stopped and the suffering that one endures and doesn't know how to escape. I want to make a model of the suffering that people desperately want to escape but don't know how to, the feeling that makes life worse and that sometimes leads people to kill themselves when they can't bear it anymore.
This leads me to define suffering as "an experience that one wants to stop experiencing but doesn't know how to stop experiencing while staying alive". This is a temporary definition that might evolve depending on what we find.
And now the aim of this thread is to attempt to make a model of this suffering, how it comes about, what makes it disappear, so we can better prevent it and better help those who suffer get better.
Engineers and physicists create models of the world in order to build tools to reach some specific goal that is desired. In a similar way, we can create a model of suffering in order to build tools and practices to prevent suffering and help people who suffer get better.
This thread is an attempt at creating a model of suffering, through observation and reason, by looking at all the instances in which people suffer, and attempting to find out how suffering comes about and how it disappears. The model won't be perfect right from the start, but we can see it as a work in progress, changing it and tweaking it until we get something that works well, so we can build an effective tool to help people better than we do now.
I can anticipate two objections to this.
The first is that people have been looking at alleviating suffering for ages, the current mental health practitioners have followed years of training and some of them have dedicated decades of their life to help people get better, why would some random individuals on a forum come up with a better model to solve suffering? My answer is that scientific training forces people to think within a set of dogmas and beliefs that they never put into question, they may be very adept at thinking and finding solutions within these dogmas, but the range of solutions they can find are inevitably limited by these dogmas. The people who made great breakthroughs didn't do it by following the status quo but by thinking outside the box against the dogmas of the time. And while some philosophers function also within a set of beliefs they never question, I think that some of those who philosophize are much more used and able to question beliefs and to think outside the box. And while being a good philosopher is not a sufficient condition to make breakthroughs, I believe it is a necessary one.
The second objection is that suffering is not necessarily something unwanted, people sometimes put themselves willingly through suffering to reach something that they want (physical training to have a better body or feel better, mental training to have a better brain or feel better, masochism to have sexual pleasure). This is why I want to make a distinction between the suffering that is wanted and the suffering that is unwanted, the suffering that can be willingly stopped and the suffering that one endures and doesn't know how to escape. I want to make a model of the suffering that people desperately want to escape but don't know how to, the feeling that makes life worse and that sometimes leads people to kill themselves when they can't bear it anymore.
This leads me to define suffering as "an experience that one wants to stop experiencing but doesn't know how to stop experiencing while staying alive". This is a temporary definition that might evolve depending on what we find.
And now the aim of this thread is to attempt to make a model of this suffering, how it comes about, what makes it disappear, so we can better prevent it and better help those who suffer get better.
Comments (60)
- Feeling hungry or thirsty but not knowing where to find food or water to stop that feeling
- Wanting to feel loved but feeling rejected, while not knowing how to be loved
- Wanting to feel considered but feeling ignored, while not knowing how to be considered
- Wanting to have biological children but not being able to have biological children
- Wanting some person to be alive while that person is dead
- Wanting to feel free but feeling enslaved, while not knowing how to free oneself
- Wanting to stop experiencing physical pain, while not knowing how to make that pain stop
- Wanting to reach some goal while believing that this goal can't be reached
- Wanting to avoid something while believing it can't be avoided
In all these examples there is something that is wanted, while there is the knowledge or the belief that this thing can't be had. When there is hope one can cling onto the hope and not suffer, but it seems that it is when one loses hope or doesn't have hope that what is wanted can be attained, when one finds oneself helpless to reach what is wanted, that suffering appears.
One thing to take into account is that there are various degrees in what we desire, there are things we want strongly and feel we can't do away with, while there are things we desire but don't mind that much if we don't have them. For instance I want to eat sushi, but even if I believe I can't get sushi I won't suffer much, unless I desire sushi so much that it comes to occupy all my thoughts and I feel like I can't live without it.
The examples above might not represent all the situations in which people suffer, but a temporary conclusion that can be gotten from them is that suffering seems to come about when something is wanted while it is believed that it can't be attained, and that the intensity of the suffering seems to be a function of the intensity of the desire for what is believed to be not attainable.
Two potential solutions to alleviate suffering follow directly from this. One is that suffering can be reduced by managing to desire less something that cannot be had, for instance by finding other objects of desire that can be had to focus on. The other is by managing to change the belief that what is wanted cannot be had: maybe there are possible ways to get what is wanted that weren't thought of, and then focusing on these ways would make hope return and reduce suffering.
I will keep thinking about all this, but meanwhile your thoughts are much welcome, for instance if you have examples or sources of suffering that aren't included in the examples above, or if you have any thought that can contribute to making a working model of suffering.
Of course, this isn't a novel suggestion, and maybe there are ways to deal with this already, such as the zen approach to Buddhism.
Well the point I was going to bring up was, "how much does suffering contribute to joy?" The yin and yang so to speak. Is joy greater if we have experienced the lows of suffering?
I think Terrapin's point is related, but more useful. We need to learn to deal with suffering more than we need to eliminate suffering.
Quoting leo
I view the bolded ones as those deserving a plan of elimination (assuming they are actually enslaved not just "feeling"). With the rest just being stuff we have to learn to deal with (I am not saying that is easy).
Another point which I think could be made, is what Jung meant when he refers to 'voluntary suffering' (which the OP touches on.) There is a certain amount of suffering to which human beings are susceptible to just on account of being born. Being able to bear suffering for a cause - like, the suffering women undergo in childbirth, the suffering that those caring for others take on, and so on - is also an essential part of the human condition. (It doesn't mean necessarily choosing to suffer, but more like 'forbearance'.)
I think one problem in contemporary culture, is that there's no real way to make sense of suffering. Western medicine is unbelievably effective at treating and reducing physical suffering, of that there can be no doubt. But there are kinds of suffering or sorrow that it can't begin to treat. Whereas in Buddhism and in other traditional frameworks, there is a sense that suffering does indeed have a cause, and also an end; what is 'beyond suffering' is held to be heaven (in Biblical religions) or Nirvana (in Buddhism.) There's no orienting concept of that kind in modern secular culture - after all that's one of the reasons it's 'secular'. And so that amounts to a kind of 'crisis of meaning' - a sense that life is futile, but also that it, and I, exist for no reason. There's no light at the end of the tunnel. I think that lies behind a lot of the existential angst of modern culture.
You seem to want to eliminate the single easiest way to end the suffering...allow the individual to commit suicide.
Why?
Suffering happens. If a person wants to end the suffering...allow that to happen. Facilitate it.
This thing we humans call "the universe" has existed for over 13 billion years. If a giant asteroid were to impact the Earth and tear it to pieces so that the planet and everything on it ceased to exist...it would be a nothing burger in the grand scheme of things.
We could take the approach of Plato. The Gorgias, and the Protagoras, if memory serves me, provide the best examples. What Plato does, (Socrates in the dialogues) is to separate pleasure from pain such that they are not in dichotomous opposition to each other. Placing pain and pleasure as opposite to each other in the same category, proves to be a problem because then pleasure can only be derived as a relief from pain. Then pain and suffering are required necessarily, as prior to, in order to have the goal of bringing about pleasure. So Socrates wants to put pleasure into a different category, such that we can bring on pleasure without the pain and suffering which would be required as prior to pleasure if the two are opposed.
Does this sound reasonable to you, that pain and suffering are categorically distinct from pleasure? The distinction becomes important when we look at pleasure as that which is desired, the goal or end. When they are dichotomously opposed, then the goal or desire for pleasure is necessarily the desire to end pain and suffering. When they are distinct, then the goal, what is desired, pleasure, is not necessarily to bring an end to pain and suffering.
The question now is why do you have a desire to model suffering. If we can bring about pleasure without ending suffering, then why focus on the suffering? The desire, what is wanted, is always based in some form of pleasure, the good, and this is categorically distinct from suffering. Why bring yourself down by focusing on the suffering, when this is unnecessary for bringing about pleasure and good?
The point in building a model of suffering is precisely to come up with techniques to have a better control over suffering (such as to prevent or reduce it), in a similar way that building models of the world allows to come up with techniques to have a better control over the world (such as to communicate or travel more quickly across the world).
What you guys refer to as dealing with or making sense of suffering is what I see as examples of techniques to have more control over suffering (to make it more bearable, which essentially amounts to making it less intense, to reduce it).
It is easy to build a model of suffering that doesn't work well, but it's a bit harder to build a model of suffering that works well.
Frank proposes the model that suffering is something that happens to people who are alive, and proposes that the easiest technique to end this suffering is to help people kill themselves. In fact an even easier technique would be to kill them directly. It would be fine if our only goal was to end suffering, but as it turns out people also want to live. Presumably people wouldn't want to kill themselves if they had the tools/techniques to stop suffering while staying alive. People have been talked out of suicide. Most people don't need help to kill themselves, there are many ways, what they lack is tools to help them stop suffering while staying alive.
A model of suffering that works well would allow to have a better control of suffering while staying alive.
There are two main types of suffering I want to distinguish:
- The suffering that is accepted/borne, seen as temporary and as a step towards something that is wanted (masochism, childbirth, experiencing the lows to make the highs greater)
- The suffering that is not accepted/borne, that one is unable to escape and doesn't see as a step towards anything wanted, on the contrary what is wanted is to make this suffering stop.
Plenty of people go through the first type and don't mind, they don't feel like they need help at all (or maybe very temporarily with painkillers). On the other hand those who go through the second type don't have painkillers to help them out of their predicament, they suffer and see no end to it, no help in sight, and when it becomes too unbearable what they see as their only way out is to hurt/kill themselves and/or others.
There are plenty of people who need help to stop this suffering but they find no tools/techniques to help them. Telling them that their suffering is a learning experience or that they need to deal with it won't do, they can't deal with it on their own, they need help. Telling them that the easiest way is to kill themselves is not the answer that they want or need, but it might be what they end up doing if they see it as the only way out.
There is the model that suffering is due to demonic possessions and that the technique to eliminate it is the ritual of exorcism. I haven't looked much into it but I doubt it is very successful.
There is the model that suffering comes from the brain, and that since painkillers are useful to reduce some suffering then presumably all suffering could be solved in this way and it's just a matter of finding the right drug for each suffering. It has helped some people, like exorcism has helped some people, but how many it doesn't help? Many have felt worse after taking their prescribed drug, many have killed themselves after taking their prescribed drug, many have their suffering reduced at the cost of having all their feelings numbed, the long-term effects of these drugs often cause suffering of their own, people who were told they needed to take some drug their whole life managed to get better without the drug. That's a model of suffering that doesn't work well.
There is the Buddhist model, according to which the cause of suffering is attachment to desire, and the technique to end this suffering is a series of practices called the Noble Eightfold Path. It has definitely helped people, but it demands a strong commitment to its practices and beliefs that many people aren't in a position or willing to make. Also I agree that attachment to desire is sometimes a cause of suffering, but I disagree that it is the cause: one can be attached to a desire and not suffer or suffer little, working towards making the desire a reality while being hopeful about succeeding. Many people function fine while being attached to desires, and it demands a strong commitment to give up all attachment. I see this as an instance of a model that provides useful techniques to reduce suffering, while being embedded in some beliefs that are not based on empirical evidence.
It is interesting to note though the similarity between what Buddhism sees as the cause of suffering (attachment to desire), and what I described as a potential cause in the second post of this thread (that suffering seems to come about when something is wanted while it is believed that it can't be attained), they are not equivalent but they partially intersect.
Actually I see these three bolded ones as a subset of another one I listed: "Wanting to reach some goal while believing that this goal can't be reached".
When we "feel hungry or thirsty but don't know where to find food or water to stop that feeling", we want to reach the goal of satisfying our hunger or quenching our thirst while not believing we can reach it.
When we "want to stop experiencing physical pain, while not knowing how to make that pain stop", we want to reach the goal of not experiencing physical pain, while not believing we can reach it.
When we "want to feel free but feel enslaved, and don't know how to free ourselves", we want to reach the goal of feeling free while not believing we can reach it.
Note that you could be enslaved and not suffer because of it, if you don't feel enslaved or if you don't want to feel free. Suffering is linked to one's desires, beliefs and perception. You can put two people in the same situation and yet they would suffer differently, one suffering and the other not, because they are not going through the same experiences in what appears to be the same situation from our point of view. That's what leads me to think that the desires and beliefs of the individual have to be taken into account when attempting to make an accurate model of suffering, they are linked to suffering.
Ultimately, "dealing with suffering" refers to a technique that helps reduce or eliminate a suffering.
Interesting comment, thanks.
I don't necessarily see the lack of pleasure as suffering or the lack of suffering as pleasure, there are varying degrees of each and there are experiences that could be qualified neither as pleasure nor suffering, and even experiences that could contain both at once. So in that sense I can view suffering and pleasure as categorically distinct.
But in desiring to model suffering, I don't necessarily attempt to bring about pleasure, rather I want to help people suffer less, give them the tools to escape a feeling that they want to escape without dying but don't know how to escape without dying. Someone who has escaped this feeling doesn't necessarily experience a constant state of pleasure, but they don't experience the terrible feeling anymore.
On the other hand, people who focus constantly on pleasure and attempt to experience relentless pleasure can't keep up forever, at some point it usually comes crashing down, and then they find themselves suffering but without the means to escape it, as they find their former means to experience pleasure not working anymore.
So it seems to me that if we focused on bringing about pleasure then many people would still be stuck in unescapable suffering. Today's society is focused on providing pleasure in many ways, and yet many people suffer and kill themselves.
I don't see focusing on the suffering as bringing myself down. It's like suffering is seen by many as this contagious thing that we must avoid talking about to not risk being contaminated by it, as if not thinking about it somehow kept it at a distance and rendered us immune to it. After all we give drugs to people who suffer as we give drugs to people who are sick, as if suffering was a disease. But then by the time we come to face it we don't know how to deal with it.
I’ve been thinking outside the box on this concept of ‘suffering’ from a number of different angles recently, and I’ve noticed a few things.
First of all, if we look at the above examples, many of them have two related situations in common: there is a particular belief/lack of knowledge that prevents someone from coping with a particular feeling/experience they don’t want, or want the opposite of.
This suggests that education and awareness would be a significant part of any potential solution - especially in relation to what these feelings are, why we feel them, and how this amounts to suffering.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that there seems to be three main experiences associated with suffering: Pain, loss/lack and humility/humiliation. Sometimes the suffering consists of a combination of these experiences.
All three appear closely related to consciousness, especially to self-consciousness. Animals that we recognise to be lacking in self-consciousness do not appear to suffer from pain, loss or humiliation.
As humans, we tend to have a complicated relationship with these experiences. That is to say, there are times when we consider experiences of pain, loss or humiliation to be bad, evil or unnecessarily harmful, and other times when they are a clear indication of one’s humanity, a reminder that we’re alive, or the ‘stuff of life’ itself. And there are those who determine that both of these are true, and so they understandably seek to ‘opt out’.
But there are also those who find the significance or the very joy of being alive in experiences where they embrace the risk of pain or death, and the humbling sensation of putting their abilities at the mercy of nature’s power.
Why do we both suffer and feel alive in experiencing pain, loss and humiliation? Is the difference in the value of the experience, or the level of awareness? Is it then our suffering or feeling alive that is a misinterpretation of the experience?
The way I see it, it is how people relate to their desire/attachment - and the experiences of pain, humiliation and loss that come from that relationship - that lead to suffering. According to the Buddhist perspective, all is suffering. So it’s not so much a matter of ending suffering as learning to relate to pain, loss and humiliation in a very different way so that the concept of suffering from these experiences effectively disappears.
Take pain, for instance. We tend to view pain as a signal that something is wrong and needs fixing. We experience pain when there is tissue damage, as a warning to stop, or when a relationship breaks down. But pain is also a signal that our muscles are developing, that we are focusing on the present moment, that progress is happening. If we look at all experiences of pain, it could be understood as an awareness of change that requires the experiencer to adjust in some way. The problem is that, in many cases, we don’t want to make those adjustments, or we don’t believe that we should have to make them. This is where suffering occurs.
In modern science, we understand everything in the universe as process. Change is always happening, and every ‘thing’ comes and goes, undergoing many changes along the way and bringing about changes in interactions with the rest of the universe. We are part of that, not separate from it. When we act, we impact on elements of the universe, which adjust in response, bringing about more changes as these elements interact with other elements, and so on. So why is this awareness of change and the necessity of adjustment a source of ‘pain and suffering’ for those of us who are self-aware? Why do we resist change? Why do we refuse to adjust?
Do you see the presumption in this statement?
That suffering can be modeled? I don't see what you are hinting at. As soon as we attempt to relieve someone of their suffering we are applying an implicit model of suffering (hypotheses/beliefs as to what causes it and what can relieve it).
Quoting leo
That suffering can be controlled?
But that's precisely what psychotherapy, psychiatry, Buddhism and other practices attempt to do, with some limited success. We have plenty of evidence that suffering can be partially controlled, what I have pointed out through this thread is that the models of suffering commonly applied are flawed in several ways. My only presumption there is that it is possible to come up with a model that works better. But in order to find out we have to try, thinking outside the boxes delimited by the beliefs of the other models. It is the presumption that we can't do better that forces us to not look for and thus not find anything better.
(by the way I will reply to your previous posts, I just need some time to ponder on them)
Man suffers because he desires.
Having eaten the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, man desires good and if he does not acquire it, he is left with evil.
It is like a man running on a treadmill, he must continue running or he will fall off.
The object of man's desire has taken hold of him and his freedom goes away.
Man smells a bad smell and says: "Oh, how foul!"
So with images, sounds and touch that doesn't feel right.
This is because these stand out. They are sharp.
Like a drop of ink on a blank page.
So the problem lies with permanance.
Man assumes the state of permanance, and anything that damages his sense of permanance causes suffering.
For man to hold his state of permanance, as I have said, one must keep going and displace oneself.
It is this constant displacement which tires man out, and this fatigue - which is suffering.
If man should simply observe, all ills would pass him by.
That’s what I’m getting at. A certain kind of suffering - actually, very many kinds - can be managed through medicine - but I don’t know if that is applicable to what you might describe as existential anxiety.
And I agree with that. Conventional medicine (in the form of drugs) is little effective to treat many kinds of suffering, such as existential anxiety. It can be more effectively treated by changing one's beliefs about existence (then it's a matter of finding an effective technique to change one's beliefs). There actually exist some drugs that can help with existential anxiety (some psychedelics), but they are not prescribed by mental health professionals, and these past decades it has been mostly taboo to conduct research on them as a healing tool.
Yes, and that's an important useful insight. What I mean is that suffering is to a significant degree a mechanical issue which when true makes the subject far simpler than complex psychological and philosophical theories etc.
1) Suffering is made of thought.
2) Control the volume of thought and we control the volume of suffering too.
3) The volume of thought can be managed through simple exercises patiently applied.
No, this is not a magical cure all for all problems, nor a permanent solution. But if we aren't serious enough to do the simple stuff, there's really not much point (other than casual entertainment) in discussing all the fancy stuff.
The issue though, is that fulfilling a desire is equivalent to, or the same thing as pleasure. Pleasure is fulfilling a desire. So if you have a desire to model suffering, then to do this will bring you some sort of pleasure. If you desire to model suffering because this will help people suffer less, then this is what will bring you pleasure. This is not about bringing pleasure to others, it is about pleasuring yourself. You think that it is good to help others with their suffering, so to do so will bring you pleasure.
You say that you want to help people suffer less, but suffering is particular, unique to the individual. How do you think you can model suffering in general, when there are so many different ways that people suffer? Each person who suffers needs care specifically designed for that person. Don't you think that helping a person to suffer less requires attending to that individual on a personal level?
Quoting leo
I think the point is that pleasure is something wanted, desired, so it is always in the future. It is something to look forward to. But suffering is due to past misfortune. So to focus on pleasure is to focus on the good which the future may bring, and doing what we can to bring about that good, while focusing on suffering is to focus on a past which really cannot be changed. I think that suffering cannot be avoided because it is already present, caused. But by looking to the future, things desired, pleasures, we can distract ourselves from the suffering. And wounds heal with time.
Good luck.
If wage labor is slavery I agree. If 1800s American South slavery is what we are talking, one's mindset may reduce the suffering, but eliminate seems wrong.
Quoting leo
Notice that "reduce" seems far more realistic than "eliminate". I am not convinced that humans could even understand a universe without suffering (it is such an inherent part of life, can I even start to guess what life without suffering would look like? Notice that eliminating death would be an obvious requirement).
I just read on wikipedia about the World Health Organization (WHO) and how it redfined ''health'' in 1948 as not only the absence of disease (suffering) but also a state of wellbeing in which one could fuflill one's potentials in the world.
An ancient model of suffering I'm familiar with is Buddhism which basically states that ignorance is the cause of suffering: when we don't know the truth of impermanence (nothing lasts forever) we tend to attach our selves to people, objects, etc. and when these fade into nonexistence, naturally, we suffer from the loss. It's a good model I believe. I think philosophy in general subscribes to this model because it is, in essence, an enterprise to gain knowledge i.e. dispel ignorance.
That said one thing that I do want to put across is that knowledge isn't required to make us happy i.e. some truths like disease, evil, etc. are sad to know. I guess sometimes truth or happiness is an exclusive disjunction. Perhaps such dilemmas are a few and far apart and a quasi-universal model of suffering can work in a therapeutic sense.
So, concluding my sermon and grandiose belief that suffering can be thought away through the application of reason and mindfulness towards inner struggles, I must say that the task is futile for N>1.
There is a lot to consider and answer, and it will take some time to think about it all carefully, so I won't reply to everything right away but I will eventually reply to everything.
As a general comment suffering is subjective, so indeed an accurate model of suffering will have to take into account the subjective experience of the individual rather than treating the individual as some objective blob of matter. That's not an impossible task, psychotherapy already applies a model of suffering that makes use of the subjective state of mind of the individual, with some limited success. Interacting with the individual through speech can help reduce/eliminate/prevent some suffering.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Indeed it does, an accurate model will have to take into account the individual, and a technique that works well will have to interact with the individual. We can build a model that depends on factors that are particular to the individual. We don't have to see suffering as some objective thing that we can model and control without taking into account the individual.
Quoting Possibility
To the masochist who doesn't want to avoid pain, pain is not suffering.
To the one who doesn't want what he loses/lacks, this loss/lack is not suffering.
To the one who doesn't want to be accepted/respected, humiliation is not suffering.
This suggests to me that what is wanted is a more fundamental factor in suffering. There is a desire involved in suffering. But it's not the act of wanting something that causes suffering.
To the one who wants to avoid pain, there is suffering when there is an experience of pain.
To the one who wants to avoid loss/lack, there is suffering when there is a perception of loss/lack.
To the one who wants to avoid humiliation, there is suffering when there is a perception of humiliation.
So both individual desire and perception are factors in suffering. There seems to be suffering when what is perceived contradicts what is desired.
But in fact, both desire and perception can be partially controlled.
When there is a perception of loss, that perception is not the same whether it is believed that what has been lost can be gained back or not. When there is a perception of lack, that perception is not the same whether it is believed that what is lacked can be obtained or not. The perception of something can be threatening or not depending on what we believe that thing to be and what we believe it to be capable of.
What is believed has an influence on what is perceived.
Hope is the belief that what is wanted can be obtained. When there is hope, there is less suffering than when there is no hope. Belief acts on hope, so belief is a factor in suffering. And beliefs can be partially controlled.
This is a start, but here we have the beginning of a model. There is an interplay between what is desired, what is perceived and what is believed. Suffering seems to occur when what is perceived contradicts what is desired. And we can act on this conflict by acting on desire, perception and belief.
Then you are not talking about "a model of suffering", you are talking about modeling a particular instance of suffering.
Quoting leo
So how can you call this a model of suffering, if it is a method of dealing with particular instances of suffering? I would say that it is not accurate to say that psychotherapy is applying a model of suffering, rather they have a method for dealing with suffering.
Do you see a difference between reducing/eliminating suffering and preventing suffering? The first is to deal with an existing condition, and the second is to avoid an unwanted condition. The latter, preventing suffering, I think is an unrealistic goal. This is because suffering is unintended, it is accidental, the result of mistake, and other things which are unintended. So as much as we make all the safeguards that we can, to avoid the unintended problems, the very nature of suffering is that it comes about from the things which we are unaware of, the unknown, thus it cannot actually be avoided. Therefore preventing suffering is like preventing mistakes or accidents. We naturally try to avoid these things, but by the time we see the particular instance taking shape, it is already too late to avoid it. We can live prudently and cautiously, but a human being is an active being, and limiting our activities for the sake of avoiding the possibility of mistake, accident, or suffering, may itself be a mistake, and a cause of suffering.
The more realistic approach I think, is to deal with suffering as an existing condition, one which is unwanted. Since it is existing, present, then it must be caused. To understand the condition itself would require understanding what caused it. Each instance of suffering, being particular and unique must have had it's own distinct causes. As explained above, the causes of suffering are unintended, things we were unaware of, and were unknown at the time of causation, and this may remain the case even after the suffering is caused, if one cannot pinpoint the exact time the suffering started. So I believe that the difficult first step of any procedure, or method for dealing with suffering would be to determine the causes.
Quoting leo
I think that this is naïve, and not a true representation of what suffering really is. If suffering were the interplay between desire, perception, and belief, and resulted when what is perceived contradicts what is desired, as described, then we could satisfactorily deal with suffering by altering our beliefs. We could prevent ourselves from desiring what contradicts our perceptions, by adjusting our beliefs. So for example, if you had a physical pain, suppose you crushed your finger and you were suffering, then you could deal with your suffering by altering your desire to perceive no pain, when you are actually perceiving pain. You could theoretically desire the pain, tell yourself that the pain is good, and this would produce consistency between perception and desire, releasing you from the suffering.
I think that to describe suffering in terms of conscious acts like "desire", "perception", and "belief", is a mistake. This is because, as described above, suffering is derived from the unintended, the unknown, what we are unaware of, so it is largely unaffected by the conscious activities of desire, perception, and belief. The conscious mind has a very limited amount of influence over the human body, constituting a relatively small part of the human physiology, and suffering is perceived, apprehended by the conscious mind, but as something outside its control. So suffering is more like an unwanted perception.
I think you're playing on semantics here.
When you apply a general model to a particular instance, you're dealing with a particular instance. If you apply the model of Newton's laws to the trajectory of a ball, you have a method for dealing with the trajectory of this ball, that doesn't mean you're not applying a model.
Psychotherapy has hypotheses/beliefs as to causes of suffering and ways to relieve it, there is a general model implicitly being applied to a particular instance when they are dealing with a particular individual.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If you put your hand in a fire, and your hand burns, and you suffer, you can analyze the situation and infer that you can prevent a particular type of suffering by not putting your hand in a fire. In a similar way, you can try to analyze in the general case how suffering comes about and prevent suffering by not behaving in ways that will lead you to suffer.
I don't see as unrealistic at all to gain the ability to prevent more suffering than we do now. I don't have the goal of building the perfect model that eliminates and prevents all suffering forever, I simply have the idea that it's possible to come up with a model that works better than the ones we have now.
I can agree that having the desire to prevent all suffering can be something that could lead one to suffer more by having this desire than by not having it, but then this is something that would be taken into account in a model of suffering that works well.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I agree, but that's precisely the point in building a model of suffering that works well, to derive from it methods for dealing with suffering that work well.
First step is to list all instances in which people suffer, then find similarities between them to hypothesize underlying causes.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And there is evidence that we can. Many people who suffer from the idea they are going to die find relief in the belief that death is a new beginning, that they keep living after death in a different way. People who suffer from the death of a loved one can find relief in the belief that they will be reunited with them. People who suffer from the belief that no one can love them find relief when someone shows them enough love that it changes their belief. There is plenty of evidence that changing one's beliefs can provide relief from suffering. But it's not always easy to change one's beliefs, especially when they are deep-seated ones we cling to.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Masochists do get pleasure from pain inflicted on them, not suffering. Most of us are wired to not desire pain, but some people desire it, and they don't suffer from it.
Pain is an intense sensation, and because we usually desire to avoid it we suffer at the same time as we feel the pain, and so we come to see pain and suffering as the same thing, but they are two distinct things.
The desire to perceive no pain presumably won't stop you from perceiving the pain, but sometimes there are ways to not perceive it, by focusing on other things. The more people focus on their pain the more they suffer (when they don't want the pain), but if you can divert their attention by asking them unrelated questions, they can forget about the pain momentarily, they stop perceiving it and stop suffering meanwhile. There is evidence of this.
In my own experience there were several instances where I was so focused on something that I didn't even notice I hurt myself, although I should have perceived a sharp pain if my thoughts weren't absorbed on something else.
It's not always easy to act on what we desire, perceive or believe, but they are involved in the act of suffering. And in that view, drugs can work because they act on perception. Psychedelics can work because they act on perception and beliefs. Psychotherapy can work because it acts on beliefs. Then there are also experiences that can make us change what we desire, and then the suffering associated with the old desire disappears.
So the only way to eliminate experiences of pain, loss and humility is to cease living - I think it’s important to recognise this if our aim is to find a way to model and then control, reduce or eliminate suffering while continuing to live.
I question this need to ‘control’ everything. Despite every effort and every elaborate illusion we construct, I can potentially control my thoughts, my words and my actions, and you can potentially control yours. That’s it, at best.
That doesn’t mean we do, however, but it’s a start to recognise where our individual capacity for control starts and finishes. As a human being, as an animal, we can literally do nothing else in isolation. Everything else we achieve requires a relationship: awareness of interconnectedness and potentiality beyond ourselves.
I may assume, for instance, that I ‘control’ the axe I am using to chop wood, but that sense of control is dependent upon my body’s awareness of certain interconnective properties of the molecules that form the axe and its handle and their collective capacity to split wood, the combination of situational properties (position of the wood, angle of impact, force, arc of swing, grip, etc) that will achieve the desired effect on the wood, as well as my body’s capacity to lift and swing the axe in the required manner every time. Even if I don’t have to consciously think about all of this detail to make it happen, my body still has to take all of this into account to appear to ‘control’ the axe. If I have misjudged or incorrectly assumed any one of these relationships (beyond a certain margin for error), I may ‘lose this control of the axe, as what I intend or desire to happen with the axe fails to occur as intended or desired. But there was never any ‘control’ as such - there are a number of interconnected relationships at work as a result of awareness.
I think perhaps this idea of ‘control’ is where we have a misguided view of our relationship with the world. When we don’t feel like we have control, when what we intend or desire fails to occur as desired or intended, we experience suffering. When what we believe should happen doesn’t, when we incorrectly assume the properties of a relationship with our environment, we experience suffering.
I agree with this, but laws of physics can't be applied to acts of living beings because living things are self-moving. So it's not semantics that I'm arguing. What type of universal model would be adequate for understanding intentional acts? It's fundamental to a living being that it's motives are unique to itself. Sure you can make generalizations, like if you strike someone with a hammer or similar object you will cause pain, but I really don't think that this sort of generalization is helpful in dealing with the particular nature of the individual instances of suffering which you seem to be interested in.
Quoting leo
I do agree that some general statements can be made about the cause of suffering, such as the hitting with the hammer example, and there are many other straight forward causes of suffering. Also, there are drugs to relieve pain, as well as some forms of suffering, but you seem to be looking for something more than this. If you believe that the tools which the doctors already use are inadequate for dealing with suffering, then what more do you want, other than to throw away these models and deal with the peculiarities of particular instances?
Quoting leo
Yes, that's obvious, but most actual cases of suffering are caused accidentally. No matter how well I know that the fire will burn me, this won't prevent me from getting burned when I slip and fall into the fire while stoking it. This is what I meant when I said that suffering is caused by accidents, things we are unaware of, unknowns. I can know that walking down the street is dangerous, a car might hit me, but this doesn't prevent me from doing it, because there are things which I value that require taking this minimal risk. But if a car is hitting me it's already too late to prevent the suffering which will follow.
If you're familiar with Aristotle's ethics you'll know that he talks about a balance, "the mean". Virtue is found in the middle (the mean) between the two extremes, both of which are vises. So courage for example is the mean between being rash and being timid. If we refrain from behaving in ways which could lead to suffering we will fall into that extremity of being timid, and this could increase the possibility of a different sort of suffering.
The key points here are "possibility", and "the unknown". If we avoid any situation where there is the possibility of suffering arising, then we wouldn't do anything. But suffering comes about when you least expect it because there will always be possible causes of suffering which are unknown to you, and therefore not avoided by you. So if you do nothing, because doing anything causes the possibility of suffering, you might find that doing nothing could actually cause suffering itself. This is why we need a healthy balance, the mean between trying to avoid the possibility of suffering arising, which drives us away from doing things, and living an active life.
Quoting leo
If this is your approach, then I think the first step would be to categorize different types of suffering. I think that you will find that there are a number of different types which are not at all similar. Being not at all similar, they have completely different underlying causes, and need to be classed separately. So for instance the person who accidental put a hand into the lawn mower has one type of suffering, and the young man who is having trouble finding a woman for a date has a completely different type of suffering. I believe that these two are so completely different with respect to causation, that it's difficult to understand why we even call them by the same name, "suffering". The problem I see, is that we will go on and on, determining many different types of suffering, each being a different type according to its mode of causation, until we hit numerous forms of suffering which we cannot say what the cause is. These of course are the most difficult forms of suffering to deal with. At this point we will have identified some difficult forms of suffering to deal with. But since we do not know the causes of them, how does this help us? In other words, the forms of suffering which we can identify the cause of, the doctors already know this, and have ways of treating them. And the forms of suffering which we cannot identify the cause of, we cannot help the sufferer because we cannot identify the cause of the suffering.
Quoting leo
I agree with all this, and that's why I first suggested separating pain from pleasure. I believe that if we can focus on things which we enjoy, and things which we are doing because we want to do them, we can put any suffering which we have, in the background. And, I believe that in most cases suffering is similar to pain, which is caused by an injury, and injuries heal with time. So if we can focus away from the suffering, and occupy ourselves with the things that we enjoy doing, we can give the injury and the suffering time to heal. The problem is to understand the particular source of the suffering, just like understanding the physical injury, because we can very easily reinjure in the same spot and then the wound just festers without healing. Therefore we often must avoid certain activities which we enjoy because these activities are not conducive to healing, but we need to be able to identify which activities are likely to reinjure the weakness which has been created by the injury.
Well, I was really struggling to conceive of life without suffering, so this all sounds good to me.
Quoting Possibility
I think I am on board when it comes to eliminating pain. But to compromise with Leo's position a little, I am comfortable with suggesting significant reductions in suffering is possible. I think your next paragraph indicates you might be ok with that too? (although determining EXACTLY how much we can reduce suffering is probably very debatable)
Quoting Possibility
I agree with this, I might even add that we can potentially learn to control MOST of our thoughts, feelings, actions, but complete control is unlikely even for the zen master. I also question the need for control; but it is more questioning why my own mind can understand it cannot control everything, but still desire to control everything. Stupid brain :smile:
Quoting Possibility
I guess I didn't need to add my last few lines, you were already there :smile:
Quoting Possibility
I feel like I understand this part, but also not. Based on your final paragraph (I will add a short response) I think I am understanding you, but I also feel there may be some specific aspect that you are trying to get across that I may not be picking up. In reading my responses, I think you will know how much I am understanding. Definitely let me know if I am missing anything as the parts I am getting seem good, haha.
Quoting Possibility
For me, this paragraph describes our emotional suffering well (it includes how we could reduce suffering and why our desires cause suffering). But we have not addressed direct physical suffering as much. Would you count someone born into extreme poverty or hereditary slavery as suffering in the exact same way? Can we apply the same model to ease their suffering?
I will try to clarify one point for you:
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to reduce suffering - only that our current perception of suffering is that it is inherently bad. But we don’t understand it enough yet to make that judgement. I think that understanding how we cause others to experience suffering by ignoring/denying relationships could go a long way to reduce suffering in the world, as a start.
Once we recognise that everything we do depends on our awareness of relationships with the universe, we can apply this approach to other people and to our own bodily systems, as well as to the environment. The more aware we become of these relationships, the more connected we become with the universe. But we need to be careful to continually balance our awareness of the universe with our awareness of our own bodily systems. Too much focus on relationships with the universe and those around us, and we suffer by misjudging our body’s capacity to cope, its need for rest, nutrition, etc. Too much focus on the relationships with our own physical or emotional systems, and we suffer by misjudging the state of our relationships with those around us, which also increases the suffering of others by thoughts, words and actions.
When we recognise the suffering of those born into extreme poverty, for instance, we need to try and understand why we’re responding the way we do. There is a difference between compassion and pity, and many religious groups don’t acknowledge the difference.
Pity is when we respond to poverty because we imagine what it would be like to experience lack or loss to such an extent, and this conflicts with our firm belief that no-one should experience such lack. So we give what we can spare to ‘the poor’ in order to ease our own suffering, not theirs. We effectively give until we are aware of our loss, and then we stop - because we believe that no-one should have to experience loss. This is the system upon which most charities operate. It is effective because it doesn’t require us to be aware of any relationship with a poor person, and enables us to avoid suffering ourselves.
Compassion, on the other hand, means ‘to suffer with’. When we respond with genuine compassion, person to person, we acknowledge that we are not more entitled or deserving than they are to a life without loss or lack - which I already suggested is not even possible (without ceasing to live). Genuine compassion seeks to level the experience: to endure more loss ourselves - not so they experience less, but so they experience no more loss than we do, even if only for the time that we interact with them. Compassion is sharing a meal (instead of tossing them scraps), giving the coat off our back (instead of donating our cast-offs), etc.
But there can be pain, loss, humility and change without suffering, so surely they cannot be the root causes of suffering.
Quoting Possibility
Indeed we encounter these experiences, but they are not necessarily associated with suffering. And it is possible to prevent many of them (such as the example where we don't put our hand in a fire to prevent ourselves from suffering). We can't control everything so total elimination sounds more like something we might asymptotically reach rather than a goal, but I still believe that our current models fail in helping many people who suffer, and that we could do better.
Quoting Possibility
Yes we can't control everything. However some control over nature has brought technology, and some control over suffering has helped people live better. Do we have to stop there, or can we do better? Do we have to let the people who don't feel helped by current methods to keep suffering and kill themselves? Again I'm not saying that we can control everything, I'm saying we can do better. Just because we don't fall into the extreme of needing to control everything doesn't mean we have to fall into the opposite extreme of attempting to control nothing. I think if we attempted to control nothing we would quickly die as a species.
Quoting Possibility
Giving up control can sometimes be liberating. It's rather, desiring control and believing in the impossibility of such control is suffering. Desiring drinking water soon and believing in the impossibility of finding water soon is suffering.
If what we believe should happen doesn't happen, that's not necessarily suffering. If I believe I'm gonna get hurt, and I don't, I can experience joy rather than suffering.
Again, I feel that the most inclusive view of suffering (given the examples in this thread) is that we experience suffering when we desire something and we believe we can't have it. Can you find any counterexample to this?
(I will eventually reply to all the posts in this thread, there are just some posts I can quickly reply to and others where I feel I need to spend more time pondering them to address them meaningfully)
Laws of physics are models of things that many of us experience. There are things that many of us experience (desires, beliefs, suffering) that laws of physics do not take into account, but that doesn't mean we can't build models of how desires, beliefs, suffering and other experiences interact with one another. I don't see a fundamental difference between the two.
We take a ball to be an objective thing because we synthesize various reports of that ball from various living beings from various points of view. If you and I experience a ball moving, we're not experiencing the same thing, we're not seeing the ball from the same point of view, you're not seeing what I see and I'm not seeing what you see. Same goes for your desires and beliefs, I'm not experiencing them, but you can tell me what you experience, and we can synthesize various reports and build a general model that applies to various individuals.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
We had Newton's laws, and then we had General relativity. We had a new model that allowed to make more accurate predictions, to have more control. Some fundamental assumptions underlying Newton's laws were replaced by others in General relativity. Why would it be impossible to come up with a model of suffering with different assumptions than the ones we use now but that works better? We're always applying a model to a particular instance, but we can still have a model that is more effective when applied to a particular instance.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes we can't control everything. But there are things that can be done to reduce your suffering. If you experience pain and you suffer because of it, there are things we can do to make you experience less pain.
Again my aim is not to eliminate all possible suffering forever, but to come up with methods that can more effectively deal with suffering. Current methods deal quite well with physical pain and the resulting suffering, but there is a lot of other suffering that current methods deal poorly with. And effective methods are derived from accurate models.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes I agree that attempting to avoid all possible suffering can lead to suffering in itself. But again, it doesn't hurt to not put your hand in a fire. It doesn't hurt to not walk into incoming traffic. It doesn't hurt to not undertake endeavors that will most likely lead to suffering.
People live their lives according to what they desire and believe, but their desires and beliefs are partly shaped by their understanding of the world, of existence. I see a good model of suffering as one tool that people can use to live the life they want. They don't have to use it, but when they need it it's nice to have. And better have a tool that works well than one that doesn't.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Would you agree with the idea that the person who experiences physical pain suffers because he doesn't want to experience the sensation of physical pain, and that the young man who is having trouble finding a woman suffers because he wants to find a woman and he can't do it?
In both cases, there is a conflict between what is desired and what is experienced. I suggest that this is what suffering is.
But the way things are now, the suffering young man might consult a mental health doctor, and upon mentioning how he suffers he will be diagnosed with some mental illness and prescribed drugs that don't deal effectively with his suffering, because they're not addressing the root cause. As opposed to the person who suffers because he experiences physical pain and is prescribed drugs that effectively reduce or eliminate his sensation of physical pain, thereby dealing effectively with his suffering.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Indeed this is one way to relieve suffering. But then let's say you find yourself in a state where you don't enjoy anymore the things you used to enjoy, or that you focus on other desires to relieve your suffering but that they too lead you to suffer. Then the method to focus on what we want doesn't always work. It works sometimes, but there are cases where it doesn't work, and in those cases we need other solutions.
The problem of human suffering is yet another intractable problem. The phenomenology of suffering can be very hard to put into words. Let us say you have had a very happy day- you do all the activities you wanted, you are with all the people you wanted (or by yourself if that's what you prefer), it's that weird transition into the next day.. that feeling that all those good experiences don't even matter right NOW, that is the root of the problem. There is some kind of phenomenon I call "instrumentality" in the human experience of good/pleasure. It's that feeling of dissatisfaction that underlies even the goods of life. That there is something unsustainable with even feeling good. This then leads to the idea of, "why even try to pursue good then if it is just this repeating cycle?". It is hard to pinpoint it, maybe some sort of angst, or realization that all is for nothing really. It is that dip in mood after a good time, that low, that seeing through things for what they are, which is simply the inability to be. We manufacture experiences of happiness to evade the instrumental, repetitive, nothing-feeling one gets if one is not engaged, or right after a peak of engagement. That weird melancholy feeling that it doesn't matter what we do.
If my memory serves me well, then Schopenhauer would have advocated not thinking about the now comparatively with the past. You seem to have missed the non-permanence instilled in Schopenhauer's philosophy or his interpretation of the Upanishads. Anyway, without mentioning the overgeneralization that is going about here in the phenomenology of human suffering, I tend to agree with the fact that suffering sucks; but, contrary to you or Schopenhauer it is not intrinsic to the human condition. If that is, you believe that suffering is non-permanent along with focusing on reducing suffering instead of increasing happiness.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, this isn't philosophical pessimism, this is plain depression speaking. We've argued before about the two and how much overlap there is between the two. I haven't read enough Schopenhauer; but, I don't think he would advocate feeling good as unsustainable as long as suffering is reduced instead of masked or covered by the happy things in life.
There can also be grapes without merlot, but can there be merlot without grapes? I’m not saying that pain, loss and humiliation are the ‘root causes’ of suffering, but in a model of suffering, is there an example of suffering without an experience of pain, loss or humiliation?
Quoting leo
I should point out that I agree with your suggestion that conflict, desire, belief and perception are key ingredients in the experience of suffering. But I think there’s more to the experience of suffering than desiring something and believing we can’t have it.
Quoting leo
Firstly, it’s not only masochists who experience physical pain without suffering. People who exercise, lift weights or compete in individual sports such as marathons or rock climbing, often willingly endure physical pain, not because they want to experience the sensation of physical pain, but because they want the results of stronger muscles or a sense of achievement. We might say that they ‘suffer’, but that’s only because we don’t understand why someone would choose to endure physical pain, which we believe should never be endured by choice.
So the person who experiences physical pain suffers not because he doesn’t want to experience the sensation of physical pain, but because he believes he deserves a life without pain, and the young man who wants to find a woman is not suffering because he can’t find a woman, but because he believes that every young man is supposed to find a woman.
Perhaps suffering is when there is a conflict between the desire for what is believed and the perception of what is experienced. When we believe that life should be without pain, and we desire that to be true, then we perceive an experience of pain as suffering, as something that is inherently bad or harmful. But we’ve already agreed that pain can be experienced without suffering, so this perception is false - as is the belief in a life without pain. There is a cognitive dissonance here. I think that better understanding our relationship to experiences of pain, loss and humiliation is essential to eliminating this conflict in our minds that we call suffering.
Experiences of pain, loss and humiliation can involve suffering, so indeed they are useful to consider in building a model of suffering. But there are examples of suffering without physical pain, loss or humiliation.
Let's say you want some specific thing you have never had, but you can't seem to get it and you suffer as a result. There is no physical pain nor loss involved. There is not necessarily humiliation involved. But there is suffering.
Quoting Possibility
But do you have an example where there is suffering without a conflict between what is desired and what is experienced/believed?
Quoting Possibility
Yes, and this shows that there can be physical pain without suffering. They might not desire the sensation of physical pain, but they have a stronger desire for what they want to achieve by enduring this physical pain. They want something, and they believe they can get it by enduring this physical pain.
It shows that it is not a sensation or an experience in isolation that brings suffering, an experience of pain or loss or humiliation does not bring suffering in itself, there needs to be a desire for there to be suffering. But there can be desire without suffering, so suffering results at least from some interplay between what is desired and what is experienced, the two are necessary ingredients, but each in isolation is not a sufficient ingredient.
Quoting Possibility
I don't think that follows. I can believe I deserve something and not suffer if I don't have it. I can believe I deserve something, but if I don't care whether I have it or not then I don't suffer if I don't have it. I will care if I want that thing and I don't have it though, desire has to be involved.
Quoting Possibility
Again, if he believes that every young man is supposed to find a woman, but he personally doesn't want a woman, then he doesn't care if he can't find one, he doesn't want one. He will care if finding a woman is what he wants, and he will suffer if he can't find one.
However if he believes that if he doesn't find a woman he will be ostracized by his peers, but he doesn't want to be ostracized, then the belief that he will be ostracized is what would make him suffer (conflict between what he wants and what he experiences/believes).
We can address this directly: can we find an instance where there is suffering, but where there is not a conflict between what is desired and what is perceived/believed?
If we can't find such an instance, then we can see suffering as a conflict between desire and perception/belief. And then finding why one suffers is a matter of finding what perceptions/beliefs are in conflict with their desires.
Let's assume for a moment that suffering is a conflict between desire and perception/belief.
Then I would ask you, what it is that you want? When the next day you find yourself suffering, what it is that you want that you don't have or that you believe you can't have?
You may say that in these moments you don't want anything, but I won't believe it. If you didn't want anything then you would remain still as a rock, you wouldn't do anything, you wouldn't be struggling with yourself. Rather there is a thing or things that you want, but you have become so convinced that you can't have them that you pretend to yourself that you don't want them. But the suffering is there to remind you that you are lying to yourself.
So I would ask you, what it is that you want deep down?
Quoting schopenhauer1
From this I can gather that what you want is for what you do to matter. You want what you do to serve a purpose. And you have the perception or belief that what you do doesn't matter, so you suffer.
So then the next question is, what makes you believe that what you do doesn't matter?
I can't understand the point you are trying to make here. Do you not see the difference between modeling the movement of an inanimate object, and describing the activities of living beings? You can make an accurate predictive model of the inanimate movement, but you cannot do that with a living being, because you will never know all the variables, and never know how the variables might influence the being's movement. Sure you can make some extremely simple models like Pavlov, but that's very basic. You can make a model to predict how the ball will move when thrown, but you cannot make an accurate model to predict how the dog will move when you let the dog out the door.
Quoting leo
You are clearly making a separation here between pain and the suffering which you might say, it "causes". I don't see any principles for such a separation. When I feel pain, and suffer, the pain and the suffering are one and the same. I know that you've already said that people can have pain without suffering, and I accept this, but that just means that not all pain is suffering. So pain is the wider category in this way of using the terms, not all pain qualifies as suffering, but all suffering might qualify as pain. Therefore you do not have the principles to say that the suffering is something different from the pain, as something caused by the pain, or the result of the pain. Some pain is simply apprehended as suffering, and therefore classified as suffering, and some pain is not.
The reason why some pain would qualify as suffering and some would not needs to be investigated, perhaps it has to do with the intensity, the longevity, or something else. But now I think it is you who is playing on a semantic distinction between "pain" and "suffering", in an attempt to say that these words refer to a different aspect of the same thing, one being a cause, the other an effect, when really it's just two different ways of referring to one and the same thing. When I feel pain, and I suffer, the pain and the suffering are one and the same thing. When I feel pain and I do not suffer, it is simply the case that I have not judged the pain to be sufficient to qualify as "suffering", which is a special way of "feeling pain". That this is the case is evident from the many instances when I feel pain, but I don't know whether I am suffering or not. It cannot be the case that the pain is neither causing suffering nor not causing suffering, because one or the other must be the case if there were a causal relation. What is really the case is that I am incapable of judging whether the pain qualifies as suffering or not, and this is probably due to not having knowledge of the criteria required to class the pain as suffering.
Quoting leo
This is all irrelevant. If you know that doing a particular thing will cause suffering, you will not do it. That's clear. But as I explained above, real instances of suffering are derived from accidents, the unknown. So a model which tells one to avoid activities with a high probability of causing suffering is really useless.
Let's continue to consider why some pain would qualify as suffering and some would not. We carry out many activities knowing that there is a high probability of some pain, but we do them anyway, assuming that the pain will not be suffering. So there is a saying "no pain no gain", in cases like athletics, where training and conditioning requires some pain. We submit to pain for the long term goal, and that pain is not suffering. Why is it not suffering? Because of the attitude, that pain is necessary for some good. But such individuals may live on the borderline of suffering. What if it starts to appear like they are not making progress toward their goals, or that they are incapable of obtaining such goals? Then the pain might begin to appear as suffering.
Do you agree that what distinguishes "suffering" from "pain" is one's attitude, one's mental approach to the pain? When the pain is approached with a defeatist's attitude, it is apprehended as suffering, something which cannot be overcome. But when it is approached with the attitude that it must be overcome, and I must continue to get on with my activities, then it is not suffering, it is just pain.
Quoting leo
I don't think that this description is quite accurate. Very few people could be described as wanting to feel pain, so we can't describe suffering as when the pain is unwanted, it is almost always unwanted. So the pain is never really consistent with the desire. What seems to be at issue is whether the pain is acceptable or not.
This is why I proposed the categorical separation between pleasure (or what is desired as good), and pain. We cannot really oppose the pain to what is desired, and we ought not make a direct comparison or relationship between the thing being desired, and the pain which may or may not occur in the process of attempting to obtain it. The principal reason for this is that we must not allow that failure in the efforts to obtain the goal is itself painful, because failure is quite common and this could lead to suffering. The whole process, the activities of working to obtain goals is set aside from the pain which might be involved, as the pain is accidental to that process, though some pain might be necessary. This allows that the pain does not interfere with the process, altering one's perspective on the process, developing a defeatist's attitude.
So there is always a conflict between what is desired, and what is experienced, because achieving our goals takes work, effort, and there is pain (which is not desired) that is involved with this. The pain is unwanted, so it really conflicts with what is desired, but it is not suffering. We accept the pain despite the fact that it is not desired, for the sake of achieving our goals. It is when the pain is apprehended as unacceptable that it is called suffering. This might occur if the goal begins to appear unobtainable, the pain would become unacceptable.
But in building a model of suffering we are not attempting to predict how people are going to move!
We aren't even attempting to predict whether people are going to suffer at location X and time T, that's not the variables we are interested in.
When you model the motion of a ball you attempt to find the variables that act on the motion of the ball and how they act on it.
When you model suffering you attempt to find the variables that act on suffering and how they act on it. If the variables are say desire, perception and belief, then you're not predicting when someone is going to desire, perceive or believe such or such thing, but if you know what the person desires/perceives/believes and the model is any good then you can tell whether the person is suffering.
Basically, building a model of suffering is finding the variables X1, X2, ..., Xn that act on suffering then expressing suffering as a function of these variables. Here the variables are not numbers, so we won't use the usual mathematical operators on them and the function of the model won't look like a usual mathematical equation, as in a differential equation expressing a ball's motion where the variables are location and time and their values are numbers.
I think the above is important to point out and I don't want to make this comment too big, so I'm going to address your other points in a separate comment.
This is an experience of lack, which I did mention in my original post in tandem with loss. Lack is a more accurate and inclusive description of the experience, but loss seems to make more sense to people when we talk about suffering. This is also the case with humility, which is an inclusive description of the experience for which humiliation is more often considered suffering.
Quoting leo
I have not argued against the significance of desire in a model of suffering, nor have I argued against the significance of belief. But to say that suffering is simply a conflict between desire and perception/belief is to reduce a multi-dimensional experience to only two dimensions of awareness. If you want to make a more accurate model of suffering than what we currently have, it won’t help you to disregard or dispute the significance of the other dimensions to the experience, despite how much easier it then becomes to illustrate.
Suffering is a conflict between desire, belief/perception, and direct experience. It occurs when the way we want to move in the world, the way we think about and understand the world (including but not confined to our beliefs), and the information we receive through our senses, are in conflict.
So when you want some specific thing you have never had, but you can’t seem to get it, it is not just a conflict between desire and perception/belief that leads to suffering. You might reword this experience to say that there is a conflict between desire for that specific thing and the belief that you can’t get it, but it’s more complicated than that. For suffering to occur, there must be a conflict between desire for that specific thing, the belief/knowledge/perception that you can or should be able to get it (that getting it is a normal or expected part of life’s experiences), and the direct experience of not getting it. This is where lack becomes suffering.
If you desire something, believe you should get, and experience getting it instead of not getting it, there is no suffering.
If you desire something, experience not getting it, but don’t believe you should get it, there is no suffering (eg. a gold medal).
If you don’t get something that you believe is a normal part of life’s experiences, yet you don’t want it, there is no suffering (eg romantic love).
In my view, it is how we think about and interact with pain, loss/lack and humility/humiliation in the world that should be explored if we want to reduce suffering. Also, we should take a close look at some of the concepts that contribute to suffering, to see if the way we think about and interact with them are part of the problem.
Why do we believe that romantic love, for instance, is something everyone should experience? What is it about the concept of romantic love that makes it desirable? What is it about the concept or the way we understand it that makes it only available to some people? Given that we cannot control what we desire, and we cannot control what we experience, can we adjust the way we think about and understand the what - the relationship between what we desire and what we experience - so as to reduce the conflict between desire, belief and direct experience, and thereby reduce suffering?
There can be pain without suffering, and there can be suffering without pain, so the two are not the same thing, nor is suffering a subset of pain, nor is pain a subset of suffering.
You say that all suffering might qualify as pain but I don't agree. By pain we usually refer to the sensation of physical pain. When you suffer from the death of a loved one, that suffering is very different from the sensation of physical pain. It might however be somewhat similar to the suffering you may experience while you endure a strong physical pain, as in it is an experience you want to stop but you don't know how to stop.
So I don't see how we could see the sensation of physical pain and suffering as the same thing. They are distinct. Even though sometimes we do feel physical pain and suffering at the same time.
Now I agree that we can't say with absolute certainty that when we feel physical pain and suffering at the same time, that the suffering is a consequence of the pain. At that point it depends on the model of suffering we build.
However if we tentatively consider the model that suffering is a conflict between what is desired and what is perceived/believed, I find that it fits nicely to view physical pain as a perception and the desire to not perceive it as what gives rise to suffering from physical pain. It's a principle that can't be proven, but if it is a principle that allows to build a simple model that works then it can be useful to tentatively consider it and explore its consequences. Like the principles at the basis of physical theories can't be proven, but if they allow to build a simple and coherent model then they are useful.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Indeed, the experience of physical pain is not always suffering. These individuals do experience a sensation of physical pain, but meanwhile they are not suffering, showing that pain and suffering are not the same thing.
I agree that pain alone doesn't lead to suffering, other ingredients are required.
What is it that is different between the individual who apprehends pain as something which cannot be overcome, and the individual who apprehends pain as something which can be overcome? Belief. What you refer to as one's attitude or mental approach is in this example one's belief. Depending on what is believed, a given perception may give rise to suffering or not.
What is it that is different between the individual who apprehends pain as something serving no purpose, and the individual who apprehends pain as something leading to something better? Desire. If there is a desire to endure the pain in order to get a stronger body, that pain is not suffering. If there is no such desire then the focus is on the desire to not experience the pain, and that pain is then suffering.
Again, desire and belief are involved in whether a perception of pain is suffering or not. Which still fits in the model that suffering results from an interplay between desire, perception and belief.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't agree that there is always a conflict between what is desired and what is experienced.
If you desire something but you don't have it, and you focus on the fact you don't have it, you focus on the conflict and you suffer.
However, if you desire something and you believe you can get it, you don't focus on the fact you don't have it. The belief changes the experience, the experience is not the same because the focus is not the same. You focus on the goal you desire, you visualize it, and this desire is stronger than the desire to avoid the perceived pain. There is a difference between what is desired and what is experienced, but it is not a conflict. A difference is not always a conflict.
But I agree it should be possible to come up with a better formulation than "suffering is a conflict between what is desired and what is experienced/believed", that is more precise and less prone to misinterpretations.
You seem to be moving toward associating suffering with thought. Thought is mental activity. Mental activity is a movement. So really, I think that trying to model suffering is trying to model how people move. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that it is completely impossible to produce any such model, but I am saying that any such model will inevitably be very simple and basic, most general. I think there has been some success in modeling the way that people move, in the field of morals and ethics.
Quoting leo
I don't see how there can be suffering without pain. All you are doing here is dividing pain into subsets, and trying to claim that the type of pain which one feels at the death of a loved one is not pain, because it's not a "physical pain". Not all pains are physical. So I don't see that this sort of division and exclusion is useful. Since suffering may coincide with either physical pain or emotional pain, it makes no sense to exclude emotional pain, from the category of pain, claiming that it is not a sort of pain.
Do you agree that we can experience all sorts of pain, physical emotional, or whatever, without suffering, and also that suffering can come along with any sort of pain and is always associated with pain? If so, then it doesn't make sense to separate suffering from pain. And if you insist on such a separation, then the onus is on you to demonstrate what sort of suffering there could be which does not involve pain. Surely when one suffers as the result of losing a loved one to death, there is pain involved. If there were no pain, then how could you call it suffering?
Quoting leo
Isn't the goal to build the correct model though, not just any model? If so, we ought to determine whether the suffering is separable from the pain, as a result or effect of it (as you implied), or whether it inheres within the pain. We do have pain without suffering, we agree on that, so suffering does not inhere within all sorts of pain, but there may be some types of pain which do not occur without suffering. So for example, if we distinguish physical pain from emotional pain, it may be the case that emotional pain is always suffering, as suffering may be inherent within it. If that were the case, then whenever there is emotional pain, there is suffering. If this is the case, then whenever there is suffering which occurs with physical pain, it may be that the suffering is an emotional pain which is coincidental, or even caused by, the physical pain.
Quoting leo
Here, you are saying that suffering is the result of a particular belief. This may be the case, but if it is true, then the suffering is caused by the belief, not by the pain. The problem though is that you have reduced "attitude" to "belief", and I don't think that this is acceptable. A person's attitude is one's disposition toward thinking, and one's beliefs are the thoughts which have been formed by such thinking. So an attitude is prior to, and necessary for, the formation of beliefs, as a sort of cause of different types of beliefs according to different attitudes.
Now the suffering may be associated with particular beliefs, as coincidental with them, but it cannot be attributed to the beliefs if it is derived from the attitude, which is the way of thinking, the way that one forms beliefs. If this is the case, then the suffering would be a painful way of thinking, and not necessarily associated with any particular belief. I think it is important to bear this in mind because belief requires judgement. A person thinks, in the effort to resolve problems etc., and when it appears that the problem is solved, this judgement is made, then one no longer needs to consider the problem, as a belief concerning the resolution of that problem has been formed. In some cases suffering may be associated with the inability to make the judgement, the individual is held in suspense. Therefore we ought to associate the suffering with the way of thinking (attitude) rather than with the belief (which is the result of the way of thinking.
Quoting leo
The point which I was trying to make, and I ought to stress, is that the pain is completely separate from the desire. The pain itself is neither desired nor not desired. What is desired is the stronger body. The pain is something which just happens to coincide with achieving that goal. A specific activity is required to achieve the desired end, and some pain happens to be associated with that activity. We do not "desire to endure the pain", nor does pain serve a purpose. We desire the stronger body, and therefore the activities required for that, and the pain happens to come along with those activities, so it is endured. The activities serve the purpose and the pain is a by-product, the pain does not serve the purpose. We now have a perspective of pain which is completely disassociated with desire. Pain is neither something which is desired, nor is it something which we desire to avoid, it is just something which happens to be there.
Quoting leo
You describe suffering here as a mental anguish. Notice how what you describe are ways of thinking, attitudes. One way of thinking is to focus on the goal, what is desired, and act to obtain that goal. The other way is to focus on the fact that you do not have what you want. The latter, you say, is associated with suffering. This may be one example of a way of thinking (attitude) which is associated with suffering, but I belief there are many others, perhaps you could identify some others. .
But the experience of lack of suffering is also an experience of lack, yet it is not suffering. And the experience of the lack of something unwanted is usually not suffering.
Meanwhile the experience of presence of suffering is suffering, and the experience of the presence of something unwanted can be suffering.
We could say that experiences of lack can lead to suffering, and experiences of presence can lead to suffering, but any experience can be formulated as lacking something or as having something, so we can't say that a lack or presence indicate in themselves suffering over anything else.
Basically, lack or presence in themselves are not variables that act on suffering. It is the lack or the presence of something that can act on suffering, and what we are looking for are the something.
The presence of an experience of humility can be suffering (when it is unwanted), and the lack of an experience of humility can be suffering (when it is wanted). So it is not the presence or lack of an experience of humility in itself that acts on suffering, it is the interplay between the experience and whether it is desired or not. But this is the case with any experience and not just that of humility, so in my view there is no reason to single out humility or loss or any other as acting on suffering, it seems to me there always needs to be an interaction between an experience and a desire. And that to me is the kind of something we are looking for, that can give rise to suffering when it is present but not when it is absent.
I am running out of time here, I'm going to be away for one week, I will continue replying when I get back. Thank you for the conversations. Cheers.
This is why I initially use the experience of ‘loss’ in relation to suffering - because people feel compelled by reason to attribute an experience of lack TO something that is missing. But lack here refers to an experience of incompleteness, rather than the lack of a specific thing. The attribution of lack to a missing thing or experience is simply a justification for the experience of lack itself.
Like experiences of pain, experiences of lack and loss are essential to the process of life. From a single-celled creature to a human being, each living organism must continually part with elements of itself (loss), and is also continually compelled to incorporate elements of the environment into itself (lack). Without this process, there is no life. We are dissipative structures, maintaining a status of non-equilibrium that motivates us to increase entropy: to consume our environment and dispel waste.
When we experience lack, we don’t tend to accept the experience as a normal part of living. We feel hungry because the body must continually process nutrition and energy in order to live. But we don’t believe anyone should have to suffer from a lack of nutrition or energy, and so we tend to over-eat and consume high energy foods to avoid an experience of lack. We see food that we desire, and even though we’ve had enough to eat, we ‘reason’ that because the body expresses desire for that food item, the general feeling of lack we experience as living beings could be satiated by incorporating this particular element of the environment into ourselves.
We don’t like to think of ourselves as incomplete, as lacking anything - and yet that is what it means to live.
But can we also agree that there is a situation in the mind where an experience of pain, loss/lack and/or humility/humiliation is perceived as unacceptable for whatever reason - and it is beyond this indistinct point that suffering occurs?
Where that point is for us depends on our awareness of, beliefs about, and subsequent perception or evaluation of, the complex relationships at play within the multi-dimensional experience in question. It is then different not only for each person, but also each experience, and is subject to change as our relationships with everything in the world change.
Desire is an important factor, but it is our relationship with this desire that leads us to evaluate whether the experience is unacceptable, and therefore suffering. One may desire to be rid of financial stress and also rid of chronic back pain, but instead continue to experience both. In most cases, they would ‘suffer’ more from the second than the first.
One reason for this may be that they can more readily share their experience of financial stress with others, but not their back pain. This relates not just to the fact that bank statements cannot be questioned as much as internal pain, but also to the common experience of financial stress at varying levels, and the capacity for others to ease one’s financial stress to some extent.
Chronic back pain, on the other hand, can be ignored, dismissed or forgotten by those around us, who then refuse or reject our attempts to share our experience with them. We don’t want to hear about someone’s back pain when we can do nothing to relieve it. They tend to ‘suffer’ because the pain is theirs to bear alone - it isolates them.
But do you agree that there cannot be an experience of lack or loss without a desire for what is perceived to be lacked or lost? This makes desire a more fundamental factor in suffering.
Also one problem is that where there is suffering there can always be said to be an experience of lack: the lack of the absence of suffering. So 'lack' in itself doesn't tell us anything as to why people suffer, by construction any experience of suffering can be reframed as a lack (by definition suffering is an unwanted experience, and in an unwanted experience there is the lack of the cessation of that experience).
(I'll be back next week)
No. You can experience lack without a desire for what is perceived to be lacking. I experience a lack of height every time I walk around in public, but I have no desire for more height. If you’re saying that you cannot suffer from lack without a desire for what is perceived to be lacking, then I agree - but this does not make desire a more fundamental factor in suffering.
Something to think about for next week: one problem is that where there is suffering there can always be said to be desire: a desire for the absence of suffering. So ‘desire’ in itself doesn’t tell us anything as to why people suffer, by construction any experience of suffering can be reframed as desire (by definition suffering is an unwanted experience, and in an unwanted experience there is a desire for the cessation of that experience).
If we agree to define suffering as "an experience that we want to stop", desire is part of the definition so it doesn't tell us why people suffer, if we know that someone desires something we have no idea whether that person suffers or not.
However, by definition suffering depends on what we want (desire) and what we experience. The fact that someone desires something doesn't tell us why they suffer, however what they desire is a factor. There is a fundamental distinction.
The presence of desire doesn't tell us anything, however what is desired does. The presence of lack doesn't tell us anything, however what is lacked might. But we don't care about the things we lack that we don't want, we care about the ones we desire, so again we're led back to what is desired.
By definition what is desired and what is experienced are fundamental factors in suffering. Then it's a matter of finding how experiences that we want to stop come about, and how to make them stop.
Let's take again the example of the young man who wants to find a woman. He suffers when he experiences the thought that he can't find one. How to make that experience stop? Either help him find a woman, or help him believe that he is going to find a woman, or help him stop wanting to find a woman. Isn't that what would address the root factors in his suffering? Isn't that more useful than drugging him because he's depressed because he can't find a woman?
Now if the reason he can't find a woman is because he's too stressed around them, and we give him a drug that helps him stop being stressed, then we're indirectly helping him to find a woman, and fundamentally that's what helps him stop suffering, not the drug in itself. The drug was a tool in this particular case, but coaching him could have worked too.
Notice how different that approach is compared to the psychiatric dogma that in principle any suffering can be reduced or stopped with the right drug, with all the research spent on studying the effects of drugs on the brain, it all seems like such an inefficient venture primarily aimed at enriching the pharmaceutical industry. And notice the terrible conflict of interest: the more people suffer, and the longer they suffer, the more money the industry makes, so they have the strong incentive to provide illusions of solutions and let people continue suffering. Providing real solutions would mean treating less people for smaller periods of time, so much less revenue.
And of course mental health professionals want to help people, but to become professionals they had to be trained to accept and apply the dogmas of the profession, which have been influenced by the research grants provided by the pharmaceutical industry, so they're doing their best within these dogmas, but these perpetuate suffering and help little. I see this as one of the biggest scandals of our time.
When someone is in a state where they suffer (or are at risk of suffering), it is up to them ultimately to find peace of mind if they can. The best anyone else can do is to try to create structure that helps them achieve this. That is precisely what mental health professionals are trained to do, and I worry that 'enthusiastic amateurs' would most likely cause far more harm than good (as evidenced by the current opioid crisis in the U.S..) This is not to say that certifiably concerned third parties (family, friends, loved ones, etc.) cannot provide a commensurate level of psychological support.
leo, it sounds to me that your concern stems from the same root as that which likely motivated mental health workers to enter their discipline. We should be grateful that people who chose to specialize in a mental health related profession have honed their interests over many years. An 'enthusiastic amateur' might develop moments of strong empathy for people who suffer from mental illness, but usually those moments are unpredictable and unreliable. Often, enthusiastic amateurs do more harm than good (this should be self-evident) unless there is sufficiently good reason to believe they can sustain their empathy long enough to help. The reason enthusiastic amateurs often fail is that many people instinctively seek reciprocation or compensation for help that they give, whether or not it was requested. It takes many years for Christians to cultivate a spirit of selfless generosity (the coin from a beggar is (in time) worth more than riches from a King. Also, to follow Jesus is to risk exposing profound injustices, which often involves a large amount of suffering. It's unfortunate when these injustices exist, but exposure is the first step toward eventually resolving and fixing them.)
Me too, otherwise I wouldn't bother.
Quoting Couchyam
If you consider that enthusiastic amateurs often fail because they often seek compensation for help that they give, consider that mental health professionals always expect compensation for help that they give.
There is the widespread tendency to see scientific authorities as priests spreading gospel that we have to blindly believe in, as if they were endowed with divine abilities that made their ideas and reasonings inscrutable to the common man. I grew out of that a long time ago. When you look deep into the reasonings and assumptions, you can see the flaws. Blind belief is not warranted.
There are plenty of historical examples where scientific authorities were eventually shown to be wrong, by individuals whose ideas were rejected by these authorities and their community of followers, yet it is still taboo to dare question the ideas and practices of scientific authorities.
Mental health professionals, amateurs, philosophers, individuals who suffer, are all human beings. They are not right or wrong by virtue of who they are or their title, they are right or wrong by virtue of what they say and do, and it should not be taboo to critically analyse the ideas and practices of some individuals, as if we couldn't possibly understand what it is they do and why they do it. Blind belief in the authority does a lot more harm than good.
But your definition of suffering as simply ‘an experience we want to stop’ is, in my view, insufficient as a starting point to reducing instances of suffering.
I understand that you’re argument is not to just treat the symptoms of suffering (with drugs), but to look deeper and help the person understand why they are suffering and then help them to ‘correct’ or ‘stop’ the experience itself. I agree with the deeper shift in focus - it IS more useful and despite the pressure it IS being practiced by some professionals, but it’s still only an intermediate measure. I’m saying we need to look even deeper again, and help the person to understand what contributes not to the situation, but to their unique subjective experience that they want to stop.
This is more than helping someone stop the unwanted situation of ‘not getting what I want’. In your example of a young man who wants to ‘find a woman’, there is the objective situation of the young man not being in a relationship or not ‘finding a woman’, and there is his subjective experience of not ‘finding a woman’ informed by the perception of ‘finding a woman’ as a) desired, b) deserved and c) necessary: which amounts to his experience of suffering.
What contributes to the situation of not being in a relationship would include the stress he may feel around women. We could give him a drug or coaching that stops him feeling stressed, which may help increase his confidence interacting with women - but if he continues to ‘strike out’ or subsequent relationships go south, then it’s likely his suffering would be intensified rather than reduced. We haven’t solved the problem - we’ve only masked the symptoms at a deeper level. The lengthy process and unreliable effectiveness of these intermediate measures, and the distress this causes their patients (not to mention waning confidence in such treatment) only encourages professionals to fall back on pharmaceuticals to help their patients ‘get on with life’ in the short term - like painkillers to cover up chronic pain that doctors don’t know how to fix.
By prescribing a drug or even coaching as the indirect ‘solution’ to his suffering, we actually validate the young man’s belief that ‘finding a woman’ is desired, deserved and necessary, and that the objective situation of his not being in a relationship is the cause of his suffering.
But this is not the case. The cause of his suffering is not the situation itself, but rather the way that he personally (with his worldview, values and belief systems) experiences or relates to the situation of not ‘finding a woman’. Because it is possible (and even normal or healthy) to experience not being in a relationship without suffering.
The situation of not being in a relationship is one we will probably all experience at some stage for various reasons, whether we want to or not. Despite our best efforts we cannot guarantee avoiding it, and if it happens to us, then we have no choice but to experience it in that moment. We don’t necessarily have to suffer as a result, though.
Reducing the experience of suffering involves understanding our relationship with and between what we desire, what we deserve and what we deem necessary in life, and questioning the assumptions, values and beliefs that govern them.
We can reduce suffering by helping to question the assumption that ‘finding a woman’ is a necessary situation for any ‘normal’ young man - by a certain age, for instance. The expectations placed on young men from society, media, from family and friends, etc. can be critically examined and seen as unnecessary pressure that contributes to suffering.
We can also question the assumption that being in a relationship is a right that is earned by behaviour, words or even by thoughts. One doesn’t deserve to find a woman simply because he displays the right attitude, because he says the right things or even because he treats women a certain way. Applying the concept of ‘reward for effort’ to the experience of ‘finding a woman’ sets up incongruent expectations which contribute to suffering.
But we can even question the assumption that being in a relationship is actually what is desired. What does it mean to this young man to ‘find a woman’? Is it an initial sexual experience, a regular sexual partner, romance, marriage, family, someone who looks at him a certain way, someone to take care of him; or is it the experience of feeling like a ‘normal’ male, of having his parents stop fussing, of having someone to come home to...? Equating what is individually and honestly desired with the perceived experience of ‘finding a woman’ can also contribute to suffering.
‘Not finding a woman’ is a situation we cannot hope to eliminate from human experience. The suffering that is associated with this experience, however, I believe we can reduce: by increasing awareness and understanding of what we desire, what we deserve and what is necessary in life.
I agree that defining suffering as "an experience we want to stop" is very general, but isn't it precisely what suffering is? A feeling that we want to not feel.
We can agree that not all young men want to find a woman, and that not all young men who don't find a woman suffer. This shows again that it is not a situation in itself ("not finding a woman") that causes suffering, it is an interaction between the person and the situation.
And I agree that what we think we want is not always what we really want. Say the young man is not attracted to women, but he is pressured by his social environment to find a woman. He may come to think that he needs to find a woman, to say that he wants to find a woman, but what he really wants is to fit in his social environment, to be accepted by his family and peers. Now when he finally finds a woman his suffering related to not being accepted may cease, but if he is attracted to men he may suffer from not being with a man.
So indeed, sometimes we may have conflicting desires, we have plenty of desires, life is not so simple as having one desire at a time. But if we acknowledge that suffering results from an interaction between what we desire and what we experience, then we have a framework that can guide us to find the source of a person's suffering and help relieve it: What does the person really want, that is in conflict with what they experience, and how can we best untie their knot to make their experience of life closer to the life they want?
On the example of the young man again, if he wants to find a woman and that's what he really wants deep down (he wants the whole thing, the intimacy, the romance, the life partner, the family), and he suffers because he can't find one, succeeding in helping him find one would relieve this particular suffering. Then if the relationship doesn't work out, and he finds another woman and things go south again, and again, and again, then the source of his suffering is not that he can't find a woman but that he can't keep a relationship with one. And then we would have to look deeper as to what happens that prevents him from maintaining a durable relationship, by looking at what makes a relationship work and what doesn't work in his case.
And indeed drugs can sometimes be a tool in some situations, but that's how they should be looked at, one tool out of many to use in a philosophical framework with solid foundations to help relieve suffering, not the postulated be-all and end-all solution pushed by the pharmaceutical industry with the belief that it's just a matter of finding the right drug.
You’re still assuming that ‘the life they want’ is also what they deserve and what is necessary. If the young man wants ‘the whole thing, the intimacy, the romance, the life partner, the family’, then helping him ‘find a woman’ only to have the relationship (and subsequent relationships) fall apart is as effective as giving him drugs to treat his depression. To then say that his suffering has a new and different source that requires a new diagnosis and remedy is to commit the same error as the professionals who support the pharmaceutical industry by pushing their ‘be-all and end-all solution’ - only at a deeper level.
You’re still creating a dependency on external ‘help’ (ie. drugs, coaching) to attain superficial experiences (ie. finding a woman or keeping a relationship) which appear to relieve his suffering, but only temporarily take his mind off what he really wants (‘the whole thing’). Plus, you’re perpetuating the assumption that what he desires is both necessary and what he deserves: that it’s what he should have. Relieving his suffering is then seen as just a matter of finding the right way to make his experience of life mould to his desire, rather than critically examining the relationships with both his experiences of life and his desires.
I get that you want to make it simpler, but relieving suffering is never going to be simple. Suffering may seem to be ‘a feeling that we want to not feel’, but that’s only a surface explanation of a much more complicated web of interconnection. If you really want to untie their knot, you have to understand why what they want is in conflict with what they experience without assuming the life they want should be the objective.
We disagree in appearance on the semantics but fundamentally I don't think we disagree.
As I said if suffering stems from a conflict between what is desired and what is experienced, then one way to relieve this conflict is to help the individual get what they want, but another way is to help them stop wanting that thing, and this latter way seems to address the issue you raise.
What is seen as "deserved" or "necessary" is a subjective interpretation made by the individual. If they want something, but they think they don't "deserve" it, then they are ok with not pursuing that undeserved desire. If they want something, but they think it is not "necessary", then they are ok with not pursuing that unnecessary desire. In both cases, they give up on their desire, or they push it into the background, and this relieves the conflict.
On the example of a young man, who wants a woman to love and to love him back and to start a family with, and who suffers because he can't find one, then helping him find one is the more obvious remedy, rather than making him think that he is such a shitty human being he doesn't deserve one, or that he doesn't really need love or a family. Now in the process of helping him find a woman, the reasons why he couldn't find one would be explored and addressed, and if the root issues are addressed then a priori there is no reason that he would form relationships that keep falling apart, and if that turns out to be the case then that means the therapy was poor and something important was missed, the root issues weren't addressed, for instance maybe the young man was coached to fake a persona to make women attracted to him, but once in a relationship he couldn't keep it up.
A therapy that is any good would not focus narrowly on the immediate desire but would explore its consequences. Helping someone experience temporary relief only to then face a worse suffering that is harder to escape is not helping. And helping someone does not mean making them dependent on external help in the future, if they internalize whatever worked for them then they could have the tools to help themselves in the future.
This is where I think we differ, because when I talk about questioning the assumption that he deserves to have a woman who loves him and wants to start a family with him, I’m not suggesting we convince him that he is such a shitty human being he doesn’t deserve one. What I’m suggesting is the whole assumption that ANYONE even deserves a romantic relationship and should therefore expect to get one is false. The belief that IF ONLY he could become more confident around women, more attractive, more generous, accommodating, genuine, etc then he would be able to find love and start a family actually contributes to, more than it relieves, suffering.
The Collins online definition of ‘deserve’ states “if you say that a person or thing deserves something, you mean that they should have it or receive it because of their actions or qualities”.
It seems to me you believe all non-shitty young men deserve to find love and to start a family, and I don’t think you’re alone in this belief at all. But should they then fully expect to have this experience (say, by a certain age) or else assume some sort of deficiency? And does this mean that all those shitty men who have a woman who loves them and a family have somehow managed to get what they don’t deserve? Have they duped these women, thereby denying the ‘more deserving’ young men of their ‘rightful’ experience? I think this kind of thinking contributes not only to undue suffering by young men, but also to ‘incel’ groups and violence against women.
I disagree with the assumption that a young man SHOULD expect to have or find a romantic life partner BECAUSE of his actions or qualities. I don’t mean to say that they DON’T deserve this experience. Nor do I disagree that certain actions or qualities may endear him to women statistically speaking. But there is no magic combination of actions and qualities in a young man that would ENTAIL this experience - and for a therapy or professional to claim to have ‘the answer’ contributes significantly to suffering.
Quoting leo
I get the impression you see relieving suffering as a matter of gaining control over the situation. In my view it’s important to come to terms with the reality that the situation can never be fully controlled, even with help from professionals. It is only how I personally understand and interact with the situation that I can hope to control - not the situation itself, not other people’s decisions or how they respond to the situation.
It is theoretically possible for a man to have zero faults and still experience ‘not finding a woman’. This is not a travesty - it’s life.
I think if we’re going to relieve suffering then we need to learn to accept and function within situations we cannot control - to control ourselves in an uncontrollable situation. When people seek help to relieve their suffering, we should be helping them to understand the situation and control their response to it, not helping them try to control the situation, or trying to control it for them. I believe this is as true for lonely young men as it is for starving families in Africa.
To me, "deserve" and "should" are not part of the equation, they do not enter my thinking on this subject. There is not some absolute standard that allows us to say what someone deserves or should have in an absolute sense. If you say someone deserves something, or should have something, you fundamentally say that you want them to have that thing, but how do you decide who gets to have it and who gets not to? In thinking about what you believe one deserves, you're putting your subjective moral judgement first, and the well-being of the individual you're trying to help second. But if the goal at stake is to help someone suffer less, then surely our own subjective moral judgements on what the person deserves or not have no place at all?
I have no opinion on whether a given person deserves something or not, here I am just focused on helping the person suffer less. If the path to happiness for that person is to find a woman to love him and start a family with, who am I to judge whether I think he deserves that or not?
And in my view most young men do not want a woman to love them and to start a family with because society expects them to, but because that's what they want deep down, because of the same drive that keeps life itself going and that has kept life going for millions of years.
And I believe that in principle any young man could find a woman to love him. It may be much harder for some than for others, it may require much more effort for some than for others, but there is a lot that can be done to help. Not all could necessarily be helped to be with the woman of their dreams, as there is competition, but there are a lot of women out there looking for a young man to love them and start a family with. It doesn't take a perfect match to have a relationship that works, there mostly needs to be some common ground and attraction and good will on both sides.
If the man happens to have expectations that makes it nearly impossible to find a good fit, then the help could be focused on changing these expectations.
If the man believes that he has "zero faults", then maybe that's one of the reasons he has trouble finding a woman, because that likely means he is unwilling to change in any way and expects women to adapt completely to him, while it is much easier for a relationship to work out if both sides give some leeway.
As to "gaining control", if we help someone to get what they want then obviously we have helped them to gain control over their life. If we help them to change their expectations or their reaction to a situation then we're still helping them to gain control over their life. It is precisely control over ourselves and our surroundings that keeps us alive. Both gaining control over a situation and over ourselves (our desires, expectations, reactions, beliefs) can help relieve suffering.
You misunderstand me. It isn’t for me to judge - it’s for him to question. If your focus is only on helping the person suffer less, regardless of whether what he wants is ultimately beneficial for him, for society or for the people around him, then you might succeed in relieving HIS suffering, but what if doing so causes someone else to suffer? I’m not suggesting you have an opinion, but you’re certainly not getting to the root of suffering with such a narrow focus.
If you’re aiming to relieve suffering one person at a time, then I guess you’ll always have a job this way. I was under the impression you wanted to relieve suffering in general, but I’m starting to see that I was mistaken.
Quoting leo
No. We’ve only helped them to experience an illusion of control over elements of their life. It is not control over ourselves and our surroundings that keeps us alive - it’s the relationships we develop and nurture that achieve this.