[RD] Why is there so much suffering in the world?

[Narz]

Because there are 7.7+ billion of us.

Even if there was only one person there would be suffering (even more so, he/she'd be damn lonesome).

I'd rather say that we're programmed to feel suffering in most cases so to be sure to be driven to the optimal ones.

Our drives don't lead us to avoid suffering for long, they may drive us headlong into suffering if it leads to better outcomes for our genes (a series of unhappy marraiges that produce offspring for instance)

how can you say that animals suffer when both the word and the concept are man-made, though?

You don't need concepts to suffer. Ever live with a baby?

that is what I tried to say with "humanity is literally the author of all suffering". we may (even this is kind of weak, but let's not resort to qualia arguments here) be able to measure animals experiencing pain or somesuch, but that is not the exact same thing as suffering. for suffering there must be "being" first.

Animals have enough "being" to suffer. Higher self-awareness may be a pre-requisite to certain kinds of suffering but not all of it.

pain is indeed a human concept and imho not even measurable properly, as i alluded to in my post. however, we definitely can measure brain response to certain stimuli, which is more than nothing. as for being, that is a difficult question to answer. i definitely think animals are intelligent, and are conscious, and are even self-reflexive. i do not know if they have a concept of being or time that is even comparable to ours.

Pain isn't really a concept, it's more an instantaneous reaction. The stories we tell ourselves about our pain can dampen or exacerbate our suffering which is a pretty amazing ability that most of us don't utilize.

 

[uppi]

Pretty slick "thinking" somewhere. Can three "things" be entangled? More? Are there known limits to entanglement?

Yes, three or more things can be entangled. But in that case any two things in this state are less* entangled than they could be if entanglement was only shared between the two of them. Or in other words: there is a limit of entanglement per "thing". And the larger the entangled state, the more complicated it gets to handle it - theoretically and practically. This means that entangled states of many things are poorly understood, even in theory.

*You might ask how one can say "less" and "more" entanglement and that is a very valid question with a complicated answer.

 

[Farm Boy]

Not that it's deterministic, underneath the layers that we can observe, merely that causal factors exist.

On the tallest peak of the bottommost turtle...

 

[El_Machinae]

If my understanding of Smolin's work is any good, I think there is at least a 'bottom' layer to reality. But I am also accepting of the idea that there are fundamental levels below which we cannot peek.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yes, three or more things can be entangled. But in that case any two things in this state are less* entangled than they could be if entanglement was only shared between the two of them. Or in other words: there is a limit of entanglement per "thing". And the larger the entangled state, the more complicated it gets to handle it - theoretically and practically. This means that entangled states of many things are poorly understood, even in theory.

*You might ask how one can say "less" and "more" entanglement and that is a very valid question with a complicated answer.

Wouldn't entanglements accumulate over time?

 

[Bamspeedy]

Even if there was only one person there would be suffering (even more so, he/she'd be damn lonesome).

With 7.7 billion there is more suffering, in total numbers, even though the % suffering may not be as bad as previous times in history.

"So much suffering" is a vague statement, need a more detailed description. And before anyone misreads my statement and twists it to say something I am not, there is indeed suffering going on now, to many different groups and varying levels of 'suffering'

 

[Farm Boy]

Preferring death or nonexistence to suffering is complicated. On one hand, it's going home, or a reward. But those worldview tend to fight for the beauty of living even with suffering. At least to an extent. Then there is the Burning Legion approach that views existence as it is as fundamentally flawed. A reset, or prevention in general, more frequently being a moral imperative.

Sorry for the Blizzard philosophy reference. Not coming up with anything more appropriately dweeby at the moment.

 

[uppi]

Wouldn't entanglements accumulate over time?

If a quantum state interacts with the environment it becomes entangled with more and more things, but the entanglement to all the other things becomes weaker. In the end you have a state which is entangled extremely weakly to many other things which is almost like being entangled with nothing at all. Remember that you only notice entanglement when you compare both sides of an entangled pair, so if you cannot account for the many things a state is entangled with, behaves like it is not entangled at all.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If a quantum state interacts with the environment it becomes entangled with more and more things, but the entanglement to all the other things becomes weaker. In the end you have a state which is entangled extremely weakly to many other things which is almost like being entangled with nothing at all. Remember that you only notice entanglement when you compare both sides of an entangled pair, so if you cannot account for the many things a state is entangled with, behaves like it is not entangled at all.

That puts the burden of entangled behavior on the observer rather than the entangled things.

If something is entangled in the forest how does it behave if no one is there to see it?

 

[Hygro]

@Farm Boy Blizzard employs pro-void villains as ultimate villains for a reason.

 

[uppi]

That puts the burden of entangled behavior on the observer rather than the entangled things.

If something is entangled in the forest how does it behave if no one is there to see it?

Well, this is the observer problem in quantum mechanics and many people have interpreted this in many ways. Unfortunately, this is also the point where experiments will not help, because an experiment always has the experimenter themselves as the observer.

 

[Modder_Mode]

Actual suffering is an interesting one when you think about it, what is the "suffering" but merely an emotional or chemical reaction inside ones brain that something unpleasant is happening, yet we as humans don't have as much a problem of a spider killing and eating a fly as opposed to a lion killing and eating an antelope, I personally don't like watching documentaries where animals hunt and kill other animals usually in the most horrendous ways, but I don't mind as much if a documentary shows an anteater sticking its tongue in an ants nest and subsequently killing and eating 100 ants in one hit. It is probably because some animals exhibit signs of suffering when they are in pain and we detect this, an animal crying in pain immediately draws our attention, knowing that the animal is experiencing something deeply unpleasant makes us react with empathy.

I tend to be of the view that it is unlikely for any entity worth being termed a god to be conscious in the way we understand the term. I mean, it may be conscious in our way/similar, and just be a deity when compared to us (eg some alien running an experiment with us as parts of it), but I am not imagining something which is cosmically a god and is also conscious in some way like we are.

I remember reading a theory that claims humans are the actual creators, we become so advanced in the future we actually go back in time and create everything, this is an actual theory but I cannot for the life of me remember which author it was?

Why would the Universe would require a Creator but the Creator wouldn't itself require another Creator ?
Adding a Creator only add un-needed complexity to the question and fall to Ockham's Razor, and it's very obviously more a psychological need from humans than an actual reality requirement.

The argument to that one is that it does not negate a casual explanation of one event to point out that the cause of that event may also invite a casual explanation.

For example, an outside entity knowing or even manipulating the outcome of quantum experiments, or the universe just being a simulation on a very powerful computer cannot be ruled out (and might be impossible to rule out in principle).

There was a (physicist?) a few years ago who said he could prove or disprove if in fact we are running in a computer simulation because of a particular event that was going to happen, I cannot remember what his theory entailed and how he could prove or disprove this theory though

 

[Farm Boy]

@Farm Boy Blizzard employs pro-void villains as ultimate villains for a reason.

He is his scars.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think it is very fair to say - going by a number of things, although on my part mostly by discussing stuff about physics with physicists who happened to have been at my philosophy lectures - that physicists tend to approach the issue as if the human observer is a single point with observing powers, ie *almost* nothing there accounts for stuff in the observation. At best - again, in my own experience - the philosophical angle for them is limited to stuff about the senses defining the input. But this is only the tip of the iceberg, philosophically, and the one obvious thing here. Below that there are endless complications.
While most people do seem to approach this as if there is some vast number of unknowns just to the other side of the observer, imo reality is that there is at least an equal number of unknowns inside the observer.
Ultimately, I tend to agree with Socrates regarding physics (which he did argue against including in his school of philosophy - what later became Plato's Academy). Socrates used the example of astronomy and said that it is more important to examine the meaning of relations instead of the specific case of relations in the outside world. Although unlike Socrates I am of the view that the meaning of relations, terms, notions, of anything, is about the mind and likely has no actual tie to anything external (ie all external stuff are not an approximation but a translation on an inherently different plane). Instead of "translation" I could also use "unwilling/inevitable projection". (at least according to Plato, Socrates was of the view that some infinitesimal tie exists between reality and human thinking about it)
To a degree, though, this isn't just about sciences that have the external world as their subject. It is also true in math. For example, while it is great to know (eg) the pythagorean theorem, that it is true in euclidean geometry has imo meaning which is ultimately not about math but the deeper human mental world (like anything else which holds true on some axiomatic system). In this sense it is a bit like a human being content that they can walk (as they should be), instead of examining how exactly they are able to walk: if your goal is just to leave the room, it makes no sense agonizing about how you are even able to.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

You don't need concepts to suffer. Ever live with a baby?

are you actually implying that babies do not have concepts? the ****?

and how can You tell whether a baby is suffering, or whether it is following its biological programming?

Pain isn't really a concept, it's more an instantaneous reaction. The stories we tell ourselves about our pain can dampen or exacerbate our suffering which is a pretty amazing ability that most of us don't utilize.

pain is not the same as the sensation causing it. pain is when your brain interprets a certain sensation usually from nerve-endings, you should know that, seeing as you are constantly talking about evolutionary psychology. pain first and foremost serves a purpose in our everyday survival.

what we see with our eyes, similiarly, is not the world, it is our brain's mental eye reconstructing sensory input data from our eyes for us to make sense. I feel like many people have already made this point regarding pain in the qualia discussion, it's nothing revolutionary at all.

E

Animals have enough "being" to suffer. Higher self-awareness may be a pre-requisite to certain kinds of suffering but not all of it.

do you ever support your arguments with anything or do you just assume anything you say is universal truth?

I actually agree with you here, though. I don't have any proof of it, empirical or logical, but I do believe that animals are capable of suffering.

 

[Hygro]

He is his scars.

To die you must live.

 

[Mouthwash]

The main cause of human suffering in 2019 is human hubris.

 

[Hygro]

Mostly people not eating mushrooms.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, this is the observer problem in quantum mechanics and many people have interpreted this in many ways. Unfortunately, this is also the point where experiments will not help, because an experiment always has the experimenter themselves as the observer.

Plus the attendant apparatus problem, ie where does the observer begin and the observed end? Is your eye the observer, or is it part of the universe of entanglements? Optic nerve? Brain cells?

 

[Narz]

are you actually implying that babies do not have concepts? the ****?

Not many. They have some theory of mind but they're not even self-aware until around 2.

My point is they suffer because it's built into us. The idea that we're born pure and only suffer because of conceptual conditioning is silly (not saying this is your view but it's a popular one)

and how can You tell whether a baby is suffering, or whether it is following its biological programming?

It's biological programming makes it suffer (more important it makes it's caretakers suffer if they don't serve it asap )

pain is not the same as the sensation causing it. pain is when your brain interprets a certain sensation usually from nerve-endings, you should know that, seeing as you are constantly talking about evolutionary psychology. pain first and foremost serves a purpose in our everyday survival.

what we see with our eyes, similiarly, is not the world, it is our brain's mental eye reconstructing sensory input data from our eyes for us to make sense. I feel like many people have already made this point regarding pain in the qualia discussion, it's nothing revolutionary at all.

Not sure why you think I'm arguing against that. :/

do you ever support your arguments with anything or do you just assume anything you say is universal truth?

Why so testy? Your the one making the weird abstract claims like humans have "being" and animals don't.

I actually agree with you here, though. I don't have any proof of it, empirical or logical, but I do believe that animals are capable of suffering.

I mean it's common sense. Cats and dogs suffer, there's no reason to think their emotional landscape is as rich as ours but to deny it exists altogether is odd and self-absorbed.