On suffering

[Philosophy Explorer]

Pain is necessary to let you know you're doing something wrong, like leaning on a hot stove, or leading with your chin.

Suffering is unnecessary.

Are you suggesting that pain is right? (couldn't pain cause death?)

PhilX

[Walker]

Pain is necessary to let you know you're doing something wrong, like leaning on a hot stove, or leading with your chin.

Suffering is unnecessary.

Are you suggesting that pain is right? (couldn't pain cause death?)

PhilX

No pain will cause death. The body will break down due to lack of feedback on what causes its destruction. The body moves quite often, in adjustment to pressure points that would otherwise break down, cause open sores, infection, sepsis, and death.

Folks have the advantage of intelligence.

For example, there is no reason to experience driving like an idiot to know that it will cause crashes and kill you.

Those not destined for a Darwin Award have the capacity to think processes through, without the actual experience of pain caused by touching a hot stove.

[commonsense]

Pain is necessary to let you know you're doing something wrong, like leaning on a hot stove, or leading with your chin.
Suffering is unnecessary.

Yes, pain is a warning, a message that something must be avoided going forward (as per pain/pleasure principle).
Suffering need not be, as there are positive thoughts, meditation, sadism and drugs, to name a few.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Pain is necessary to let you know you're doing something wrong, like leaning on a hot stove, or leading with your chin.

Suffering is unnecessary.

Are you suggesting that pain is right? (couldn't pain cause death?)

PhilX

No pain will cause death. The body will break down due to lack of feedback on what causes its destruction. The body moves quite often, in adjustment to pressure points that would otherwise break down, cause open sores, infection, sepsis, and death.

Folks have the advantage of intelligence.

For example, there is no reason to experience driving like an idiot to know that it will cause crashes and kill you.

Those not destined for a Darwin Award have the capacity to think processes through, without the actual experience of pain caused by touching a hot stove.

Pain could cause death ("leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire.") On this very point, Star Trek has a few episodes where Dr McCoy lost patients due to pain. Also people have committed suicide due to unbearable pain. So I disagree.

PhilX

[commonsense]

Please leave Star Trek out of the discussion.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Please leave Star Trek out of the discussion.

It's based on reality.

PhilX

[commonsense]

Pain could cause death ("leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire.") On this very point, Star Trek has a few episodes where Dr McCoy lost patients due to pain. Also people have committed suicide due to unbearable pain. So I disagree.

People have committed suicide as a means to end suffering, more so than the pain that underlies the suffering.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Pain could cause death ("leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire.") On this very point, Star Trek has a few episodes where Dr McCoy lost patients due to pain. Also people have committed suicide due to unbearable pain. So I disagree.

People have committed suicide as a means to end suffering, more so than the pain that underlies the suffering.

Since the pain and suffering are so close together, I see no difference.

PhilX

[commonsense]

Please leave Star Trek out of the discussion.

It's based on reality.

It is science fiction. Fiction that is based on reality is not non-fiction.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Please leave Star Trek out of the discussion.

It's based on reality.

It is science fiction. Fiction that is based on reality is not non-fiction.

It's both sci-fi and reality based. Guess what I'll say next?

PhilX

[QuantumT]

100 years or more ago, suffering and pain was dying slowly from an infection, or a soldier lying cold and wet in a trench, with bullets flying around him.

When I was a kid, it was being sick without a cure, or being hungry for hours.

Todays suffering is when a teenage girl drops her smartphone in the toilet, or when your wife surprises you with a vegan dinner.

[Walker]

Are you suggesting that pain is right? (couldn't pain cause death?)

PhilX

No pain will cause death. The body will break down due to lack of feedback on what causes its destruction. The body moves quite often, in adjustment to pressure points that would otherwise break down, cause open sores, infection, sepsis, and death.

Folks have the advantage of intelligence.

For example, there is no reason to experience driving like an idiot to know that it will cause crashes and kill you.

Those not destined for a Darwin Award have the capacity to think processes through, without the actual experience of pain caused by touching a hot stove.

Pain could cause death ("leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire.") On this very point, Star Trek has a few episodes where Dr McCoy lost patients due to pain. Also people have committed suicide due to unbearable pain. So I disagree.

PhilX

I see no basis for disagreement.

[commonsense]

Since the pain and suffering are so close together, I see no difference.

Close together, but different. I agree with others who find that pain and suffering are distinct.

I agree with the psychiatrist that Duszek mentioned:
A psychiatrist expressed a view that pain and suffering are two different things.
The same pain can cause different degrees of suffering.

And with Skip, who said:
You don't need advanced education to make this distinction. The words always meant different things. Pain is a physiological response to physical damage. People use words loosely, but we are also aware that when someone says "It pains me to admit this" or refers to the pain of parting, they are using it metaphorically: we know that one's heart no more "aches" for love than "breaks" for the loss of love.

Suffering is caused by all kinds of negative experience, including those of the body and of the mind. Both wounds and privations; both physical illness and mental illness; hunger and grief, fractures and guilt, outward and inward trauma. There are even separate words for several kinds of degrees of each kind of negative experience that can cause suffering.

And with Duszek again:
Pain is an objective hardship inflicted from outside.
Suffering is the degree to which the inflicted individual feels discomfort.

And Walker:
Pain is necessary to let you know you're doing something wrong, like leaning on a hot stove, or leading with your chin.
Suffering is unnecessary.

[commonsense]

Why not go through life without pain?

Without some degree of pain for comparison, how would we appreciate joy?

Would we survive as well or even better?

Without pain, humans who want to survive might mistakenly burn themselves on hot stoves, jump off cliffs, stick their fingers into electric sockets or even run with scissors.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Why not go through life without pain?

Without some degree of pain for comparison, how would we appreciate joy?

Would we survive as well or even better?

Without pain, humans who want to survive might mistakenly burn themselves on hot stoves, jump off cliffs, stick their fingers into electric sockets or even run with scissors.

"Without some degree of pain for comparison, how would we appreciate joy?" How do you know this?

"Without pain, humans who want to survive might mistakenly burn themselves on hot stoves, jump off cliffs, stick their fingers into electric sockets or even run with scissors" And with unbearable pain, people commit suicide. And if you touch a hot stove, you could jerk your hand back causing you to trip and fall down cracking your skull and die.

PhilX