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Suffering is a conscious decision, pain is triggered by an outside stimuli. Just like you can feel mad without punching a wall. Punching a wall would be an extr

by lalos 8y ago

Suffering is a conscious decision, pain is triggered by an outside stimuli. Just like you can feel mad without punching a wall. Punching a wall would be an extreme example of somebody with zero self-control that reacts rather than act. It's normal to have pain or feel mad, it's not 'mindful' to react with the first impulse you get.

projektir 8y ago
> Suffering is a conscious decision Do you think your cat won't suffer is you stop feeding it? Do you think it's making a conscious decision to suffer if it's hungry?
- JeffreyKaine 8y ago
  it might be more accurate to describe suffering as an optional subconscious process. You suffer by default, but you can choose to not suffer with the right amount of mindfulness. As for the cat, again, the cat might not have the mental fortitude to set aside the suffering.
- lalos 8y ago
  Interesting argument, with a broken premise. There's still debate on what level of consciousness animals have [0]. Is a cat conscious enough to predict that tomorrow it will have less food and save some for tomorrow to avoid feeling that hunger? Does a human have that degree of consciousness to do exactly that? Can a human differentiate itself from an animal by deciding to act instead of reacting like I proposed? Isn't that the one of the key differences between humans and animals? You know that animals are known to eat their own young [1]? Do you think its a conscious decision? Or they are just on auto-mode like a person that is less mindful is? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness [1] https://www.livescience.com/2053-animals-eat-offspring.html https://www.livescience.com/2053-animals-eat-offspring.html
  - projektir 8y ago
    My premise is that an animal in my care, if left hungry, will suffer, just like I would suffer. The cat's degree of consciousness, or whether or not it belongs to a species that eats its young, is not relevant to that premise. If you think that is a broken premise, I don't know what to tell you, but you might perhaps really enjoy reading Hume.
    - lalos 8y ago
      I was talking about suffering, pain and choice IN humans, you brought animals into the equation. It's a comment on HN so sorry for not specifying that the article and my comment were regarding humans only. Bringing animals in was the broken premise. If it is your responsibility to feed the cat, then yes the cat will suffer. I don't even understand your point, where does the cat get a choice to do anything at all? But that is also nonsensical since cats can't do anything about it but react which was my point to begin with.
      - projektir 8y ago
        I am attempting to reject an absolute statement that I find dangerous by showing a very basic and boring counterexample. If suffering is a conscious decision, it is such in all cases where suffering occurs, and suffering occurs in animals. "Suffering in humans" is not concrete. You would need to create a distinction between "suffering in humans" and "suffering in animals" and explain where it differs and what is special about it and I don't see any such definition, so I am going to go with "suffering in general". Many people here are talking about physical pain, which animals can also suffer from, so it doesn't seem obvious to me that your definition of "suffering" would be some kind of a special definition that shares nothing with suffering in animals. You are likely trying to say some kind of a thing where humans are special and have special mental controls and so when a human feels pain they have more means of control about it than an animal can. This is all well and good but then we get into issues like children or people with limited cognitive capacity. The line between human and animal quickly becomes thin and we're back to square one, the square where saying that suffering is a choice is egregiously wrong and the statement must be qualified. It seems to me that you're trying to move some goalposts around.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  The idea isn’t that humans don’t suffer, or that suffering isn’t real. The idea is that this very conversation could lessen your suffering for the rest of your life. If you talk to your cat about stoicism, they might suffer less during starvation, yes.

by lalos 8y ago

projektir 8y ago

> Suffering is a conscious decision Do you think your cat won't suffer is you stop feeding it? Do you think it's making a conscious decision to suffer if it's hungry?

JeffreyKaine 8y ago
it might be more accurate to describe suffering as an optional subconscious process. You suffer by default, but you can choose to not suffer with the right amount of mindfulness. As for the cat, again, the cat might not have the mental fortitude to set aside the suffering.
lalos 8y ago
Interesting argument, with a broken premise. There's still debate on what level of consciousness animals have [0]. Is a cat conscious enough to predict that tomorrow it will have less food and save some for tomorrow to avoid feeling that hunger? Does a human have that degree of consciousness to do exactly that? Can a human differentiate itself from an animal by deciding to act instead of reacting like I proposed? Isn't that the one of the key differences between humans and animals? You know that animals are known to eat their own young [1]? Do you think its a conscious decision? Or they are just on auto-mode like a person that is less mindful is? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness [1] https://www.livescience.com/2053-animals-eat-offspring.html https://www.livescience.com/2053-animals-eat-offspring.html
- projektir 8y ago
  My premise is that an animal in my care, if left hungry, will suffer, just like I would suffer. The cat's degree of consciousness, or whether or not it belongs to a species that eats its young, is not relevant to that premise. If you think that is a broken premise, I don't know what to tell you, but you might perhaps really enjoy reading Hume.
  - lalos 8y ago
    I was talking about suffering, pain and choice IN humans, you brought animals into the equation. It's a comment on HN so sorry for not specifying that the article and my comment were regarding humans only. Bringing animals in was the broken premise. If it is your responsibility to feed the cat, then yes the cat will suffer. I don't even understand your point, where does the cat get a choice to do anything at all? But that is also nonsensical since cats can't do anything about it but react which was my point to begin with.
    - projektir 8y ago
      I am attempting to reject an absolute statement that I find dangerous by showing a very basic and boring counterexample. If suffering is a conscious decision, it is such in all cases where suffering occurs, and suffering occurs in animals. "Suffering in humans" is not concrete. You would need to create a distinction between "suffering in humans" and "suffering in animals" and explain where it differs and what is special about it and I don't see any such definition, so I am going to go with "suffering in general". Many people here are talking about physical pain, which animals can also suffer from, so it doesn't seem obvious to me that your definition of "suffering" would be some kind of a special definition that shares nothing with suffering in animals. You are likely trying to say some kind of a thing where humans are special and have special mental controls and so when a human feels pain they have more means of control about it than an animal can. This is all well and good but then we get into issues like children or people with limited cognitive capacity. The line between human and animal quickly becomes thin and we're back to square one, the square where saying that suffering is a choice is egregiously wrong and the statement must be qualified. It seems to me that you're trying to move some goalposts around.
erikpukinskis 8y ago
The idea isn’t that humans don’t suffer, or that suffering isn’t real. The idea is that this very conversation could lessen your suffering for the rest of your life. If you talk to your cat about stoicism, they might suffer less during starvation, yes.