is suffering inevitable?

[AndyC]

Causality is continuous, not instantaneous
We live to experience
We perceive differences with respect to time
Causality being continuous records differences
That is how we perceive time
Since time records events to be witnessed due to causality
Novelty is limited
Experience will begin to fade
Therefore suffering is inevitable

 

[Black Rose]

Boredom is not synonymous with suffering.
But there are ways to remain in a constant state of flow.
Negative affect is suffering, this is caused by regional stimulus thresholds.
Control stimulus thresholds and you control wellbeing.
Wellbeing is part of paradise engineering.

https://youtu.be/dLtC-50lrK4

https://youtu.be/v07VZIQyoMc

 

[AndyC]

The solution to all my problems has been presented to me.

 

[AndyC]

To remove this issue would be to remove sense of time. 'Tis in a way Boredom, but more accurately a dissatisfaction with existence, existential 'suffering' the stimulus of experience and time is creating suffering in the ultimate state.

To change information constructs would lead to something far from human, if anything and the solution wouldn't work.

 

[QuickTwist]

Good thoughts in the OP.

Yes, suffering is inevitable. You could say we live for suffering and reject the positive. Its hard to undo our suffering, but we can try.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Novelty is limited

Hardly, except in a bound space.

Suffering signals a backwards movement, a reverse in direction.

As you said yourself - we live to experience

 

[AndyC]

Reality is the bound space by which we perceive it. If the human suffers, it would be impeding upon their chances of survival, and evolution has provided methods which signal such, although this is limited to what has been provided. If humanity lives to experience and the sensation of comfortability is the primary method for signaling the host, I would argue that a lack comfortability as far as consciousness awareness is concerned, is suffering. In this case, comfortability is more narrowed down according to how it may be relevant to the issue being discussed, and how so should be obvious.

I might come back to this because I haven't put much thought into it.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

How I wish I were not a sucker for comfort and would truly live...

 

[Happy]

Refer: First Noble Truth of Buddhism.

 

[AndyC]

Desire leads to suffering Happy? This goes beyond the comfortability of desire, but experience itself, the only solution is to forget. I believe Buddha, if not anyone who chooses this will often follow the path of stagnation, that is to forget all that is not now, living only in the present.

This solution cannot let one live, it takes away the other necessities for life. So living and suffering are inseparable, unless I'm missing something.

 

[QuickTwist]

How I wish I were not a sucker for comfort and would truly live...

Comfort is not necessarily conformity.

 

[AndyC]

I got the noble truth wrong, but who cares.
Please elaborate QuickTwist

 

[QuickTwist]

Let me say it this way: One can conform all the while having suffering. It is for these individuals who do not find non-suffering in anything they do. Their experience is tied to suffering and cannot be undone. There is no cleavage to lay for these individuals who feel suffering with or without conformity, because conformity is one and the same with non-conformity. It should not then be that hard to understand that the idea that comfort is not necessarily synonymous with conforming as an idea that can be grasped. It would essentially be the inverse function of the individual who sees no escape from suffering whether they reside in comfort or conformity or even within the cleavage of both. Comfort is the inverse of conformity, but the same result - comfort is not a means to anything and its absence of experience is what makes this person dull and lifeless, unable to seize their own experiences. Without experience, these people aimlessly digress until there is little hope to bring them back to life though through consequence, they find themselves dissatisfied with what is which brings about an apathy towards life that can only be quenched by experience and without it they then feel angst - suffering.

 

[ToddRyler]

Causality is continuous, not instantaneous
We live to experience
We perceive differences with respect to time
Causality being continuous records differences
That is how we perceive time

If causality was instantaneous, we'd be stuck in a portrait. We experience life as a motion picture. I agree with you here.

Since time records events to be witnessed due to causality
Novelty is limited

I don't quite get this part though. Why would novelty be limited because of causality?
There are different levels of reality, and at each level, the experience and nature of things changes. In fact, new laws are created when more basic laws are applied in a continuous manner. Wetness of water isn't a molecular phenomenon, and given a molecule of water, it wouldn't be possible to say what a large collection of such would actually feel like.
Universe follows patterns, patterns that survive might be countable, but the ways they can be applied seem not to be.

Experience will begin to fade
Therefore suffering is inevitable

I find these statements confusing too...probably because i don't quite understand how you mean novelty is limited. But even so, if there is no much change in an individuals life, i do not see why he would suffer. A couple happily married, can live happily for a considerable period of time, with little change in the overall pattern of living. Even on a simple country road, there are new things to be seen every single day, things that you never observed before, and just doing so, might give you a high.
I think novelty is only limited by the walls we create. And suffering, is a choice.

 

[rageoveralostpenny]

Good thoughts in the OP.

Yes, suffering is inevitable. You could say we live for suffering and reject the positive. Its hard to undo our suffering, but we can try.

There are several ways you can look at this. In one respect, suffering is relative and so inevitable, unless everything is equal in 'goodness'. From a personal perspective some things will cause different people different amounts of suffering, and even no suffering. But if you don't suffer in the harshest way, then you don't know what suffering is, and you treat what others would take as gifts to be sufferance. So, personal sufferance is unavoidable. As Nietzsche said, in the ideal society, the 'most sublime' sufferance would be given to those who are the most sensitive. What I think he means here is actually that everything is sufferance in the right circumstance.

 

[Black Rose]

Desire leads to suffering Happy? This goes beyond the comfortability of desire, but experience itself, the only solution is to forget. I believe Buddha, if not anyone who chooses this will often follow the path of stagnation, that is to forget all that is not now, living only in the present.

This solution cannot let one live, it takes away the other necessities for life. So living and suffering are inseparable, unless I'm missing something.

Attachment hurts when you must let go.
Aversion hurts when you must have acceptance.

The only thing you can control is yourself and it takes practice.

 

[QuickTwist]

There are several ways you can look at this. In one respect, suffering is relative and so inevitable, unless everything is equal in 'goodness'. From a personal perspective some things will cause different people different amounts of suffering, and even no suffering. But if you don't suffer in the harshest way, then you don't know what suffering is, and you treat what others would take as gifts to be sufferance. So, personal sufferance is unavoidable. As Nietzsche said, in the ideal society, the 'most sublime' sufferance would be given to those who are the most sensitive. What I think he means here is actually that everything is sufferance in the right circumstance.

I agree with this.

 

[AndyC]

I don't quite get this part though. Why would novelty be limited because of causality?

Memory, time flows due to causality, the way to experience time and live is to remember.

There are different levels of reality, and at each level, the experience and nature of things changes. In fact, new laws are created when more basic laws are applied in a continuous manner. Wetness of water isn't a molecular phenomenon, and given a molecule of water, it wouldn't be possible to say what a large collection of such would actually feel like.
Universe follows patterns, patterns that survive might be countable, but the ways they can be applied seem not to be.

Human's have a limited capacity for nuance, and pure complexity isn't sufficient for experience without altering consciousness, but doing so may interrupt the mechanism of memory.

I think novelty is only limited by the walls we create. And suffering, is a choice.

The above applies to these walls

I find these statements confusing too...probably because i don't quite understand how you mean novelty is limited. But even so, if there is no much change in an individuals life, i do not see why he would suffer. A couple happily married, can live happily for a considerable period of time, with little change in the overall pattern of living. Even on a simple country road, there are new things to be seen every single day, things that you never observed before, and just doing so, might give you a high.

Experience is only so good as it receives novelty (groundhog day), in the scenarios you presented, novelty has to still exist to some degree. On application, you have a point, there is always novelty, but as the novelty becomes more obscure, our experience starts to feel more limited.

 

[AndyC]

Therefore eternal life is only possible outside of the experience of time. Hmmmm... Gotta twist the afterlife with this somehow.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

In the future, people will speak about how foolish we were to suppose we live in the present moment, when quantumly speaking, we have aspects of the past and future in our experience as well - failing to realise that when we speak of the present, we are inclusive of these things as well (i.e. 2 different senses of the present time).

Therefore eternal life is only possible outside of the experience of time. Hmmmm... Gotta twist the afterlife with this somehow.

Yet, you could have existed for eternity already - except experience decays in the sense that as you go further into the past, the effects are lessened (not necessarily uniformly, as an event can have the bulk of its effect occur at a later date), sort of like integrating the exponential function back to negative infinity.

Comfort is not necessarily conformity

Comfort represents stagnation, the anti-thesis of reaching towards higher forms. Conformity too represents a stagnation as one embeds one's experience in what is already there, and can only be justified in a temporary sense of attaching oneself to higher knowledge for the sake of gaining clarity regarding the information contained therein.

--

Generally speaking, I agree with your premise that it is the newness of experience which gives it value, however I also agree with what Todd said regarding the newness of experience being essentially neverending. Yes we are here to build new experiences, and I would say that the present state of affairs is highly limiting in this regard (although not as limiting as you might think), but there is always more to learn, always. When all is learnt, and the universe collapses in on itself in a state of complete unity, another world will arise from its ashes.

 

[AndyC]

I also agree with what Todd said regarding the newness of experience being essentially neverending.

I responded to this with:
Human's have a limited capacity for nuance, and pure complexity isn't sufficient for experience without altering consciousness (the experience of it), but doing so may interrupt the mechanism of memory.
I guess altering the conscious experience is the only way for the afterlife to work. But this is not human. The problem with not being human is that it removes the value of being human, therefore we are contradicting our own actions.
If we were to consider older people and their state not being different from ours, I guess this is evident otherwise. I think absurdism is the final solution, which I will now have to think about.

 

[AndyC]

Ah Ha! The function of Absurdism in this scenario is to rebel against what is human.
The puzzle is still not complete, for the nature of human reason now must be put under investigation.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Human's have a limited capacity for nuance

This echoes back to what I said about a bounded space: if we conceive of ourselves as purely human, then we are limited by what it means to be human (although evolution means humanity will evolve into a new species at some point, not counting artificial means of altering the genetic code).

When you die, you don't know what form you will take (well, most of us don't), and it's clear enough that the energy which inhabits you is of a transcendent form relative to humanity - the body being a vessel to eventually be overcome, echoing back to what I said about conformity, with the human form being likened to an ideology.

 

[AndyC]

This echoes back to what I said about a bounded space: if we conceive of ourselves as purely human, then we are limited by what it means to be human (although evolution means humanity will evolve into a new species at some point, not counting artificial means of altering the genetic code).

When you die, you don't know what form you will take (well, most of us don't), and it's clear enough that the energy which inhabits you is of a transcendent form relative to humanity - the body being a vessel to eventually be overcome, echoing back to what I said about conformity, with the human form being likened to an ideology.

Very good points. To be human is to suffer, for we cannot live forever. Comfort=suffering.

 

[AndyC]

Death and the afterlife are therefore the same.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Very good points. To be human is to suffer, for we cannot live forever. Comfort=suffering.

Suffering is like the recognition that there is a far better, more alive, place to be. Comfort also implies that there is a more alive state.

We know that we can be better, because better is a place in our consciousness. Part of being conscious implies a differentiation of form between different components of our field of view; thus we seek to rearrange, to alter the measures of the degree to which different components make up this view.

It is said, that within all is contained all, that for example, in the bluest of blue is contained the reddest of reds, yet one may seek for an essential eternity and not find it. So, we up the intensity on our focus on intensity and become manifest of a higher state of intensity.

Death and the afterlife are therefore the same.

Death is an escape of our confines; life is working within our confines while there is still work to be done.

After life is afterlife, but what aspect of our consciousness continues on? I have posed the question before: is the continuing aspect of ourselves a discrete entity, or do we become absorbed into a higher consciousness?

I err towards the view that we do have a soul, and this soul wanders from form to form, never settling albeit temporarily in a state containing potential.

 

[AndyC]

Suffering here is different to the one juxtaposed to comfort. I describe it above.

 

[QuickTwist]

Comfort represents stagnation, the anti-thesis of reaching towards higher forms. Conformity too represents a stagnation as one embeds one's experience in what is already there, and can only be justified in a temporary sense of attaching oneself to higher knowledge for the sake of gaining clarity regarding the information contained therein.

Comfort, to me, represents a state in which your needs are all satisfied on a physical or mental level - an unchallenging state of being, and a passive effect. Conformity is an active action a person executes to belong. These things are not synonymous. Furthermore, one can conform to an uncomfortable position just as easily as they can conform to a comfortable one.

 

[AndyC]

My idea of suffering hasn't been consistent sorry, I have multiple ideas that I'm trying to piece together, but trying to post on the forum whilst in this process is making things difficult.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Comfort, to me, represents a state in which your needs are all satisfied on a physical or mental level - an unchallenging state of being, and a passive effect. Conformity is an active action a person executes to belong. These things are not synonymous. Furthermore, one can conform to an uncomfortable position just as easily as they can conform to a comfortable one.

I don't quite know why you brought up conformity at all, actually.

So, comfort could be like the resting stage in between higher energy activity - working towards, as you said, new mental and physical achievement, but is not to be the goal in itself.

Useful for what it is, one thing among the many.

 

[QuickTwist]

I don't quite know why you brought up conformity at all, actually.

So, comfort could be like the resting stage in between higher energy activity - working towards, as you said, new mental and physical achievement, but is not to be the goal in itself.

Useful for what it is, one thing among the many.

My initial feeling towards this is that I am surprised you don't understand why I talked about conformity in my post considering we have been talking about the distinction between the two for a couple back and forths. My secondary reaction to this is to not believe that you don't know why I was talking about conformity. Lastly, I see it looks like you are trying to end the discussion about this. Very well.

 

[Black Rose]

I just realized I've gots the ADD. It feels uncomfortable.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

My initial feeling towards this is that I am surprised you don't understand why I talked about conformity in my post considering we have been talking about the distinction between the two for a couple back and forths. My secondary reaction to this is to not believe that you don't know why I was talking about conformity. Lastly, I see it looks like you are trying to end the discussion about this. Very well.

I meant that I didn't know why you mentioned it the first time i.e. how it was relevant to what I had initially said. It seemed unrelated.

I often try to give my posts a conclusive sort of feel, I don't recall if I was actually trying to wrap up the conversation.

 

[QuickTwist]

I meant that I didn't know why you mentioned it the first time i.e. how it was relevant to what I had initially said. It seemed unrelated.

I often try to give my posts a conclusive sort of feel, I don't recall if I was actually trying to wrap up the conversation.

I thought conformity was mentioned by someone.

I was just telling what I was feeling.

 

[ToddRyler]

Memory, time flows due to causality, the way to experience time and live is to remember.

Human's have a limited capacity for nuance, and pure complexity isn't sufficient for experience without altering consciousness, but doing so may interrupt the mechanism of memory.

You attribute your supposed limitation of novelty to the very fact that the beings in question are able to remember what has happened before. But, can i not as well argue that memory is the evolutionary mechanism to help us escape the mundane? It's purpose is to make a distinction between what has already been experienced and what has not, in order that a sentient being be able to decide which action to take.

Experience is only so good as it receives novelty (groundhog day), in the scenarios you presented, novelty has to still exist to some degree. On application, you have a point, there is always novelty, but as the novelty becomes more obscure, our experience starts to feel more limited.

I disagree with the notion that the potential for novelty itself is the limiting factor to new experience. In the limited lifespan of the human creature, there, evidently, is so much to experience, that one may die not knowing and experiencing everything that this world offers, even if the said person were to do a different activity each day.
Experiences make us more nuanced, more able to appreciate the finer details of a subject. A businessman may not understand a zoologist's excitement about the discovery of a new species of spiders, but, if the businessman develops an interest in zoology and learns about he, he beings to see the beauty of diversity, and the cause of the zoologist's excitement. And, there are just so many niches in the society, so many facets to knowledge...do you really believe that suffering is because you have seen it all? I highly doubt that.
Suffering, in these lines, would rather be due to one's not being able to break the walls. Given the breathtaking variety that already exists in the universe, it'd take more than many lifetimes to actually start getting bored of it, under ideal circumstances.