What's your take on suffering and pain?

[Saint Frankenstein]

I always considered myself a sensate creature. Are you speaking for me?

Wow.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Wow.

Your feigned surprise doesn't excuse you from a response.

Are you speaking for me?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Your feigned surprise doesn't excuse you from a response.

Are you speaking for me?

Why are you being so rude to me again? I don't owe you a thing. If you think you're so special and exempt from pain and suffering, congrats to you for your godlike powers. Maybe one day you'll teach us poor benighted souls your secret. Not that I believe it, anyway, but you do you do. I don't care.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Why are you being so rude to me again?

I'm not. I asked a question.

I don't owe you a thing. If you think you're so special and exempt from pain and suffering, congrats to you for your godlike powers. Maybe one day you'll teach us poor benighted souls your secret. Not that I believe it, anyway, but you do you do. I don't care.

If you owe me anything, it's a response to my question.

If you feel you're somehow above answering, then let me know and move on.

Regardless of what you decide, I'm saddened by decision to deflect the question with a non-sequitur.

I thought we were getting on well. I'm sincerely confused by your reply.

If you are suffering, I'm sorry for that. Let me know what I can do to help.

 

[Jagella]

Certainly not on objective assessment. From whose perspective?

How can anybody be objective about the quality of life? My opinions about pain and suffering are from my own perspective, of course.

 

[excreationist]

If this is a simulation I think it is possible that you consented to the suffering but you temporarily forgot this decision....

Like when Morty plays the Roy game: (well Rick forced the game on Morty but normally it would be the player's choice)

Or there could be simulations that are like Alan Watts' thought experiment where you initially can have all of your wishes granted but eventually you go on dangerous adventures then ordinary simulations where you initially forget your true god-like nature: (god-like because you originally had pretty much full control over the simulation)

1.2.3. - Mythology of Hinduism - Pt. 1

I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream at night, any dream you wanted to dream. And you would of course be able to alter your time-sense and slip, say seventy-five years of subjective time into eight hours of sleep. You would, I suppose, start out by []

web.archive.org

This also talks about the suffering of other characters within a simulation:

Why is there Suffering? - Life's Player

About suffering in a simulation

lifesplayer.com

In future video games, non-player characters could act just like conscious beings but without the ability to genuinely feel anything, including negative sensations. It would be up to the simulation's creator whether they want billions of characters to experience genuine suffering or not.

 

[Nakosis]

Given that severe suffering and pain impact so many people in the world and throughout history, what's your take on how a deity should/would respond?

I'm drawn to the story of Father Damien (it's the 150th anniversary of his ministry):

At his own request, Father Damien, a Roman Catholic priest, was assigned to a leper colony on Molokai Island, Hawaii, in 1873. The colony had no medical doctor or priest to care for them. Father Damien’s motivation for going was simple: he couldn’t imagine people living out their last days in isolation with no one to care for them. With profound empathy, he did everything for the members of the colony—he bathed them, dressed festering ulcers, built coffins, dug graves, and held worship services. He served the colony for twelve years. One Sunday, everything changed. Father Damien stood in front of the congregation of lepers and opened his robes to show the first signs of leprosy. He began his sermon with the words, “We lepers.” (from "The God Conversation" by JP Moreland)

Would you agree with a deconstructed (former?) Christian I know who said the best advice for suffering is "to sit with it" and avoid "tidy sayings" of religion?
Father Damien's story brought tears to my eyes. Does it impact you? Why do you think that is?

Despite the many evils perpetrated by people claiming to be Christian, does Jesus represent a compassionate response to suffering?

Jesus was betrayed, falsely accused, arrested on trumped-up charges, beaten, mocked, and brutally killed. His dearest friends deserted and disowned him. Father Damien did what he did to be like Jesus, because "God does not merely empathize with our suffering; he has experienced it firsthand." (Moreland)

How does that perspective on suffering land with you? Would love to hear your thoughts...

If Jesus wanted to suffer in our stead, it didn't really work did it. We all, believer and nonbeliver still suffer. So wasted effort.

Father Damien wanted to provide comfort to people suffering. Good for him but no point in him also suffering.

Jesus healed people. That is good. Jesus suffering, pointless.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Part of life. Gita said:

"mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya, śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ;
āgamāpāyino ’nityās, tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata."

Bg. 2.14

vedabase.io

(These are) only sensory perceptions, O son of Kuntī, giving (us the feeling of) summer, winter, happiness and distress; always appearing and disappearing, one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed, O Scion of Bharata clan.

 

[Koldo]

If this is a simulation I think it is possible that you consented to the suffering but you temporarily forgot this decision....

Like when Morty plays the Roy game: (well Rick forced the game on Morty but normally it would be the player's choice)

Or there could be simulations that are like Alan Watts' thought experiment where you initially can have all of your wishes granted but eventually you go on dangerous adventures then ordinary simulations where you initially forget your true god-like nature: (god-like because you originally had pretty much full control over the simulation)

1.2.3. - Mythology of Hinduism - Pt. 1

I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream at night, any dream you wanted to dream. And you would of course be able to alter your time-sense and slip, say seventy-five years of subjective time into eight hours of sleep. You would, I suppose, start out by []

web.archive.org

This also talks about the suffering of other characters within a simulation:

Why is there Suffering? - Life's Player

About suffering in a simulation

lifesplayer.com

What if I wanted to revoke my consent right now though?

 

[excreationist]

What if I wanted to revoke my consent right now though?

A quote from Alan Watts:

1.2.3. - Mythology of Hinduism - Pt. 1

I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream at night, any dream you wanted to dream. And you would of course be able to alter your time-sense and slip, say seventy-five years of subjective time into eight hours of sleep. You would, I suppose, start out by []

web.archive.org

And after you’ve done that for some time you’d think up a new wrinkle. To forget that you were dreaming so that you would think it was all for real. And to be anxious about it. Because it’d be so great when you wake up. And then you say well like children who dare each other on things, how far out could you get? Or could you take what dimension of being lost, of abandonment, of your power, what dimension of that could you stand you could ask yourself this because you know you would eventually wake up.

It looks like you just have to wait until you "wake up".... if you could easily stop it I guess you wouldn't be so anxious about your life....

 

[RestlessSoul]

Which doesn't really make sense if we look into it. What's more productive? Partaking in the suffering or actually getting rid of it for good?

There seems no way, in this world, to get rid of suffering for good. Love has power over suffering though; it is love that motivates us to relieve the suffering of others, even and especially if that involves sharing in their pain.

 

[Rival]

Which doesn't really make sense if we look into it. What's more productive? Partaking in the suffering or actually getting rid of it for good?

Why would you want to get rid of it for good?

 

[Koldo]

A quote from Alan Watts:

1.2.3. - Mythology of Hinduism - Pt. 1

I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream at night, any dream you wanted to dream. And you would of course be able to alter your time-sense and slip, say seventy-five years of subjective time into eight hours of sleep. You would, I suppose, start out by []

web.archive.org

It looks like you just have to wait until you "wake up".... if you could easily stop it I guess you wouldn't be so anxious about your life....

And that's the issue. People typically try to evoke the concept of consenting before birth to justify the existence of suffering, but it is a crappy justification if we can't revoke it during our lives. Think of consent when it comes down to sex/rape.

 

[Koldo]

There seems no way, in this world, to get rid of suffering for good.

As an atheist, I agree.

 

[Koldo]

Why would you want to get rid of it for good?

Why wouldn't I?

 

[Rival]

Why wouldn't I?

Because

1) Pain and suffering are a driver of evolution. We evolve to be able to cope in harsh environments and so on.

2) Pain and suffering give humans character and teach them not to live entitled, naïve lives where we always get want we want and live lives of never ending pleasure, which would incidentally also be suffering.

3) They are not evil in and of themselves and pain is a good measure of our body signalling to us that something is wrong.

 

[Koldo]

Because

1) Pain and suffering are a driver of evolution. We evolve to be able to cope in harsh environments and so on.

You are mixing things up a bit. Pain and suffering don't make us evolve to be able to cope harsh environments. They, rather, generally increase our odds of surviving longer. It is not necessarily the case that we need pain and suffering to survive though, that heavily relies on both the environment and the proper functioning of our bodies.

2) Pain and suffering give humans character and teach them not to live entitled, naïve lives where we always get want we want and live lives of never ending pleasure, which would incidentally also be suffering.

And yet many people still live feeling entitled to many different things for multiple different reasons. Nevertheless, the absence of pain and suffering doesn't necessarily entail that we would always get what we want though. Also, if never ending pleasure is suffering then what you are calling never ending pleasure is not never ending pleasure.

3) They are not evil in and of themselves and pain is a good measure of our body signalling to us that something is wrong.

And yet getting rid of them is always good, except when it leads to decreased health. If we could replace pain, at least in principle, by something else that is just as effective without the drawback of experiencing pain, why wouldn't we?

 

[excreationist]

And that's the issue. People typically try to evoke the concept of consenting before birth to justify the existence of suffering, but it is a crappy justification if we can't revoke it during our lives. Think of consent when it comes down to sex/rape.

I think consent in a crappy way is better than no consent at all.... but anyway it only lasts several decades at the most...

 

[Koldo]

I think consent in a crappy way is better than no consent at all....

It is about the same.

it suggests that they believed your suffering would be bearable.

Hmm... I have no idea why consent would have anything to do with suffering being bearable.

 

[excreationist]

It is about the same.

If you wanted to minimise suffering you'd probably make most or all of the NPCs "philosophical zombies". So you'd only be choosing genuine suffering for yourself. Otherwise all of the NPCs wouldn't have consented to their suffering.

Hmm... I have no idea why consent would have anything to do with suffering being bearable.

You would believe that after your simulated life you would think all of the suffering was worth it - like people climbing Mount Everest, etc. Or at least it was an interesting experience.