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Josef bugman posted:I'd say that we can, if He hadn't wanted us to criticise Him, He'd have made the world a less poo poo place. We went through this vis-à-vis the book of Job some pages back - one can indeed criticize, but that doesn't mean the criticism is well-founded. Josef bugman posted:Being upset about the worlds brokenness is pretty much why I have listened to Atheism. It's like God goes "Well this isn't my doing, all of this bad stuff is on you humans". If that's true then why would you ever want to worship Him? Speaking for myself, I don't take the fact that the world doesn't cater to my specific needs personally, whether in matters of religion or in so many areas of daily life.
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May 22, 2017 18:46
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StashAugustine posted:he's the one that's not hosed up? That's not a reason to worship though, maybe emulate if you think it'd help, but not worship. Numerical Anxiety posted:We went through this vis-à-vis the book of Job some pages back - one can indeed criticize, but that doesn't mean the criticism is well-founded. True, but I keep poking at that particular wound because, and I am sorry about this, I am not interested in fancy hats and other bits of Christianity. I find suffering and the whole debate around it, and Gods place in it, interesting and frustrating in a way I don't like but keep coming back to. I also wish I could discuss this in real life, but I am not good at talking about deep stuff like this. Numerical Anxiety posted:Speaking for myself, I don't take the fact that the world doesn't cater to my specific needs personally, whether in matters of religion or in so many areas of daily life. I do when its not just me affected, the world is broken and it affects a lot of people and if its because of a perfect creature I would like to know why and how. And yeah I do get cross that people talk about personal relationship with the Divine and I cannot seem to feel one. I'd love to feel that there was something loving out there in the universe but I don't.
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May 22, 2017 19:09
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Numerical Anxiety posted:Speaking for myself, I don't take the fact that the world doesn't cater to my specific needs personally, whether in matters of religion or in so many areas of daily life. A few times now you've brought the conversation about suffering back to this rhetorical point about personal ego. I'm not looking to take my suffering personally -- although it's no less important than anyone else's -- I'm looking to take all suffering personally.
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May 22, 2017 19:15
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Josef bugman posted:That's not a reason to worship though, maybe emulate if you think it'd help, but not worship. The contradiction in your position is that if you are worthy of judging God, he is, by definition, inferior to you. And if he's inferior to you, he's not God. If God is indeed a superior being, then you have no standing to judge him - which is the entire message of Job. poo poo happens because it does, and we are capable of understanding why.
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May 22, 2017 19:26
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Deteriorata posted:The contradiction in your position is that if you are worthy of judging God, he is, by definition, inferior to you. And if he's inferior to you, he's not God. I would criticise this. I do not think you have to be superior (socially, morally etc) in order to judge someone. You can be equal or lesser in many respects to a thing you are judging.
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May 22, 2017 20:05
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Josef bugman posted:I would criticise this. I do not think you have to be superior (socially, morally etc) in order to judge someone. You can be equal or lesser in many respects to a thing you are judging. The only people (beings) who owe you an explanation or are answerable to you in any way are those inferior to you. Criticism is not the same as judgment. I can criticize my superiors while admitting I don't understand their perspective. To declare them to be in the wrong implies that I know more and understand more than they do.
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May 22, 2017 20:22
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Deteriorata posted:The only people (beings) who owe you an explanation or are answerable to you in any way are those inferior to you. If you take that position in your day to day life I would think that would make you a rather horrible person. You should not give things because you're obliged to but because you can and because it would benefit the recipient.
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May 22, 2017 20:35
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OwlFancier posted:If you take that position in your day to day life I would think that would make you a rather horrible person. You should not give things because you're obliged to but because you can and because it would benefit the recipient. I have no idea what you're referring to here. My children owe me an explanation for where they've been and what they've been up to (at least as long as they're my dependents). My parents do not.
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May 22, 2017 20:41
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Deteriorata posted:I have no idea what you're referring to here. My children owe me an explanation for where they've been and what they've been up to (at least as long as they're my dependents). My parents do not. Since when is the only reason to give someone something because they're owed it? You should give people things, including explanations, if it will benefit them. Especially something so easily provided as an explanation for which there is no scarcity other than what you enforce yourself. An explanation is generally a good thing for someone to have, and it is strange to me to only make yourself accountable to people who can force you to be, that would seem to make for some pretty unpleasant power dynamics in relationships.
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May 22, 2017 20:42
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:A few times now you've brought the conversation about suffering back to this rhetorical point about personal ego. I'm not looking to take my suffering personally -- although it's no less important than anyone else's -- I'm looking to take all suffering personally. All suffering? That makes sense to me in cases of injustice. But many times over today, someone has lost an elderly parent to causes more or less natural. Most of them are suffering something profound, but those particular sufferings seem to be of no universal concern. It would even be perhaps rude to violate the privacy of that kind of pain if you don't know the people involved.
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May 22, 2017 20:46
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OwlFancier posted:Since when is the only reason to give someone something because they're owed it? You should give people things, including explanations, if it will benefit them. Especially something so easily provided as an explanation for which there is no scarcity other than what you enforce yourself. An explanation is generally a good thing for someone to have. Yes, I agree. It doesn't have much to do with the argument at hand, though. It would be nice of God to provide some explanations now and then, but he is not obligated to give any and we are not owed any. If it were otherwise he would not be God.
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May 22, 2017 20:47
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Deteriorata posted:Yes, I agree. It doesn't have much to do with the argument at hand, though. It does if you're looking to assert that god is benevolent. A benevolent entity does not enforce scarcity on others.
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May 22, 2017 20:48
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OwlFancier posted:If you take that position in your day to day life I would think that would make you a rather horrible person. You should not give things because you're obliged to but because you can and because it would benefit the recipient. in a metaphysical sense, being explicable to something is the same as being subordinate to it. if god is explicable by humans, he is subordinate to humans. it's pretty classic philosophy 101 stuff. it's the same line of argument that leads to the idea that all discussion of an omnipotent,omnipresent,omniscient god is inherently incoherent because such a god provides the definitions of all language we can use and therefore our language cannot describe or discuss him because he himself cannot be defined by words he gives definition to.
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May 22, 2017 20:48
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Honestly, while I don't emotionally understand atheism - in much the same way that some atheists just don't get theism - it's an intellectually consistent answer to "but the world has bad things". I think it's incorrect, obviously, but it's not irrational or illogical. What I do think is unsupportable is the idea that there could be an single omnipotent being who just happens to be evil rather than good, or that the source of all existence could be evil rather than good, and that's why I linked the comment (and the blog post) that I did. (The blog post was much more comprehensive.) Josef bugman posted:Why is the best of all possible worlds "a fiction" when Heaven exists? Does God actually not want people to get in? 0) The "best of all possible worlds" would, presumably, be one where no one had anything to complain about before Heaven; in that sense this world, the one we're in that is presumably not the best one imaginable, 'includes' Heaven because that may make up for (at least some) suffering here and at least some humans (potentially all, potentially not just humans) will experience Heaven in addition to having experienced life-before-death. 1) When Moses asked the entity who claimed to be the god of the Israelites for a name - more than just "I'm your ancestor's god" - God replied "I am who is" and "Tell them 'I am' has sent me to you". Jesus later said, "Before Abraham was, I am," which at least some of those hearing him took to mean he was associating himself with that same entity. So that's how it's compatible; God claimed, to a human who'd have been happy with an answer like "I am the mountain-dweller", "I am the destroyer", or "I am the sufficient one", to instead be existing, or existence-ing. 2) "Unmoved mover" doesn't mean "doesn't interact with the world" - it means that this entity is indeed constantly interacting with the world, by being the ultimate source of everything's existence and attributes.
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May 22, 2017 20:49
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cis autodrag posted:in a metaphysical sense, being explicable to something is the same as being subordinate to it. if god is explicable by humans, he is subordinate to humans. it's pretty classic philosophy 101 stuff. it's the same line of argument that leads to the idea that all discussion of an omnipotent,omnipresent,omniscient god is inherently incoherent because such a god provides the definitions of all language we can use and therefore our language cannot describe or discuss him because he himself cannot be defined by words he gives definition to. I think perhaps there is a grey area in most things whereby we cannot completely explain them but we can gain a partial understanding of them. An intelligent and benevolent thing would surely wish to aid us in understanding it, if only in the form of explaining why it can't explain fully. I must sound like a massive pedant but what's being described to me is what I can only understand to be an immoral action. Completely contrary to my beliefs about proper interpersonal relationships and while I grant that God is not a person in the conventional sense it seems even less appropriate of a caretaker or guardian who are absolutely obligated to their charges' welfare. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:57 on May 22, 2017 |
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May 22, 2017 20:51
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Deteriorata posted:The only people (beings) who owe you an explanation or are answerable to you in any way are those inferior to you. That's an odd sentiment. Everyone can and should be asked their reasoning and explain it as best they can. I am not asking for constant clarification from everyone but asking for clarification and wanting a satisfying answer are not bad things. Plus perhaps they don't understand all that much, I know that they may know a lot more than I do about a lot of things, doesn't mean that they know more than me on everything.
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May 22, 2017 20:51
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OwlFancier posted:I think perhaps there is a grey area in most things whereby we cannot completely explain them but we can gain a partial understanding of them. That's kind of what the philosophical line of reasoning I'm describing is aiming at. You might perceive things through some lens of morality, but if a god is truly the source of all morality, good, bad, etc, then such concepts clearly can't describe such a being's motivation. I get that it's unsatisfying (and it's not supposed to be satisfying). It's merely a paradox you have to accept if you believe in such a being. Someone mentioned Kierkegaard earlier and he's one of my favorite Christian philosophers for this reason. He looks at this problem, that you simply can't understand or relate to many things an omnipotent creator does, and basically decides that a despair at and deep understanding of your lack of understanding is the correct and desirable relationship for one to have with god.
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May 22, 2017 21:09
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zonohedron posted:Honestly, while I don't emotionally understand atheism - in much the same way that some atheists just don't get theism - it's an intellectually consistent answer to "but the world has bad things". I think it's incorrect, obviously, but it's not irrational or illogical. What I do think is unsupportable is the idea that there could be an single omnipotent being who just happens to be evil rather than good, or that the source of all existence could be evil rather than good, and that's why I linked the comment (and the blog post) that I did. (The blog post was much more comprehensive.) Well then you've just got the Demiruge argument. "Everything of the world is inherently sinful and wicked, because the World is a rotten and broken thing made by an evil creature. Beyond that is the real spiritual side of things." zonohedron posted:0) The "best of all possible worlds" would, presumably, be one where no one had anything to complain about before Heaven; in that sense this world, the one we're in that is presumably not the best one imaginable, 'includes' Heaven because that may make up for (at least some) suffering here and at least some humans (potentially all, potentially not just humans) will experience Heaven in addition to having experienced life-before-death. Okay, trying to get around the first sentence and it's confusing me somewhat. What I meant was when the comment says "The Atheists proposes that the world can be made more perfect, such a thing is not true" it presumably misses out that there IS a more perfect place made by God, namely, Heaven. I see no evidence for this maintainer/source at all. Also, and just as a quick thing, why would the Christian God be the ultimate source of everything, what makes it more qualified and/or likely to be the Ultimate Source? Am I doing this right? I hope I haven't insulted anyone.
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May 22, 2017 21:11
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It sounds like it's about time for 4 Ezra once more:4 Ezra posted:Then the angel that had been sent to me, whose name was Uriel, answered and said to me, Your understanding has utterly failed regarding this world, and do you think you can comprehend the way of the Most High? Then I said, Yes, my lord.
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May 22, 2017 21:11
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Numerical Anxiety posted:All suffering? That makes sense to me in cases of injustice. But many times over today, someone has lost an elderly parent to causes more or less natural. Most of them are suffering something profound, but those particular sufferings seem to be of no universal concern. It would even be perhaps rude to violate the privacy of that kind of pain if you don't know the people involved. If it makes sense in cases of injustice, then we shouldn't have any problem -- because all suffering is unjust. zonohedron posted:Honestly, while I don't emotionally understand atheism - in much the same way that some atheists just don't get theism - it's an intellectually consistent answer to "but the world has bad things". I think it's incorrect, obviously, but it's not irrational or illogical. What I do think is unsupportable is the idea that there could be an single omnipotent being who just happens to be evil rather than good, or that the source of all existence could be evil rather than good, and that's why I linked the comment (and the blog post) that I did. (The blog post was much more comprehensive.) I don't think there's any rational way for one to be supportable while the other isn't. To take it on faith is completely fine, of course. The author of that article makes a lot of hay about how the privation theory of evil wasn't invented after the fact to justify belief in a good God and a good universe, but -- what do I care about his motivations? If there's a compelling rational or emotional argument for the idea that evil is just the absence of good (which still seems completely bonkers to me, but on the other hand my classical education is pretty thin), I'd love to hear it.
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May 22, 2017 21:12
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:If it makes sense in cases of injustice, then we shouldn't have any problem -- because all suffering is unjust. Forgive me, but I don't follow. I have currently a pinched nerve in my shoulder, which causes me a fair amount of bother, although it's not excruciating. Whom should I drag to court and for what?
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May 22, 2017 21:22
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cis autodrag posted:That's kind of what the philosophical line of reasoning I'm describing is aiming at. You might perceive things through some lens of morality, but if a god is truly the source of all morality, good, bad, etc, then such concepts clearly can't describe such a being's motivation. I get that it's unsatisfying (and it's not supposed to be satisfying). It's merely a paradox you have to accept if you believe in such a being. The issue with that is that it's essentially Russell's Ethical Teapot. God is Good, no you can't see why, no if your understanding improves it just means that God remains infinitely more complicated and is still good, yes I am essentially stating that God is Good because everything you do not understand the moral justification for has to be Good because God wills it. Like, if you're going to argue that there's absolutely no way humans can ever begin to approach God's understanding in any way, then you must also be arguing that there is absolutely no way humans can ever have any indication that God is actually Good. That same occluision of understanding which renders God immune to criticism must also render him utterly incapable of being assigned any morality whatsoever. God may be completely alien to humans but asserting that he is also good is very strange following that assertion. Numerical Anxiety posted:Forgive me, but I don't follow. I have currently a pinched nerve in my shoulder, which causes me a fair amount of bother, although it's not excruciating. Whom should I drag to court and for what? Injustice is not the presence of a perpetrator, it is the presence of a victim. I would imagine you don't have difficulty with the concept of systemic injustice for which no individual can be held accountable but which nonetheless victimizes people?
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May 22, 2017 21:23
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Numerical Anxiety posted:It sounds like it's about time for 4 Ezra once more: Well we can do some of that (weigh fire and measure wind) now, does that mean we can comprehend God  . I jest of course, but to say "I AM BIGGER THAN YOU" as a reason for worship isn't a convincing argument for a divinity.Also "For a grain of evil seed was sown in Adam¡¯s heart from the beginning". That, to me, sounds like entrapment of the highest order and the worst reasoning in history for mistreating an entire species. cis autodrag posted:in a metaphysical sense, being explicable to something is the same as being subordinate to it. if god is explicable by humans, he is subordinate to humans. it's pretty classic philosophy 101 stuff. it's the same line of argument that leads to the idea that all discussion of an omnipotent,omnipresent,omniscient god is inherently incoherent because such a god provides the definitions of all language we can use and therefore our language cannot describe or discuss him because he himself cannot be defined by words he gives definition to. Whilst I appreciate the information I think that the "Inherently incoherent" sounds more like a way of ducking out of discussing stuff. Numerical Anxiety posted:Forgive me, but I don't follow. I have currently a pinched nerve in my shoulder, which causes me a fair amount of bother, although it's not excruciating. Whom should I drag to court and for what? God. Its His world and your suffering is needless. By what right does he inflict these things on you? Why does he have that right, as we did not give it to Him? OwlFancier posted:Injustice is not the presence of a perpetrator, it is the presence of a victim. I would imagine you don't have difficulty with the concept of systemic injustice for which no individual can be held accountable but which nonetheless victimizes people? This is a better answer than my version, which was meant at least semi facetiously. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 21:32 on May 22, 2017 |
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May 22, 2017 21:29
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Injustice as the presence of someone to blame is a really common understanding of wrongdoing, I guess it's just intuitive which is why people gravitate to it but I've held the victim centric view for long enough that it seems odd to me now.
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May 22, 2017 21:33
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OwlFancier posted:Injustice as the presence of someone to blame is a really common understanding of wrongdoing, I guess it's just intuitive which is why people gravitate to it but I've held the victim centric view for long enough that it seems odd to me now. Eh, there is usually someone to blame, even if it's "society" rather than an individual.
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May 22, 2017 21:39
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Josef bugman posted:Eh, there is usually someone to blame, even if it's "society" rather than an individual. That someone suffers because of a tornado is also unjust. Injustice is the absence of a positive justice.
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May 22, 2017 21:43
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OwlFancier posted:Injustice as the presence of someone to blame is a really common understanding of wrongdoing, I guess it's just intuitive which is why people gravitate to it but I've held the victim centric view for long enough that it seems odd to me now. Of course. I meant the example as something utterly trivial. Systematic discrimination is an injustice. My transitory minor pain is of no concern to anyone but myself, and even then it isn't of any great interest. Considering all suffering unjust seems to me, frankly, to lend dignity to situations that don't really deserve any.
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May 22, 2017 21:44
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Numerical Anxiety posted:Of course. I meant the example as something utterly trivial. Systematic discrimination is an injustice. My transitory minor pain is of no concern to anyone but myself, and even then it isn't of any great interest. Considering all suffering unjust seems to me, frankly, to lend dignity to situations that don't really deserve any. I don't really see a reason to write off minor suffering. The world would still be better if it didn't exist, and you likely don't have the facility to do anything about major suffering.
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May 22, 2017 21:46
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Numerical Anxiety posted:Of course. I meant the example as something utterly trivial. Systematic discrimination is an injustice. My transitory minor pain is of no concern to anyone but myself, and even then it isn't of any great interest. Considering all suffering unjust seems to me, frankly, to lend dignity to situations that don't really deserve any. All pain is transitory unless it kills you. A minor injustice is still an injustice after-all. OwlFancier posted:That someone suffers because of a tornado is also unjust. Injustice is the absence of a positive justice. Huh, never though about it that way. Thanks.
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May 22, 2017 21:46
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Numerical Anxiety posted:Forgive me, but I don't follow. I have currently a pinched nerve in my shoulder, which causes me a fair amount of bother, although it's not excruciating. Whom should I drag to court and for what? OwlFancier's pretty much on the same page I am, but to put it another way: as an atheist, if I say "all suffering is unjust" it's basically an aspirational statement. It's a way of insisting that, if anyone is suffering, we can surely do better, even if we can't imagine how. You could properly accuse me of being outrageously optimistic to say something like that, but I think it's important to struggle even when you don't believe you can possibly succeed -- both because it acts as a filter, collecting all the things you thought were impossible but weren't, but also because struggle is aesthetically superior to despair. Or put another way, in the theoretical absence of God we're all at fault for not stepping up to the plate. Numerical Anxiety posted:Of course. I meant the example as something utterly trivial. Systematic discrimination is an injustice. My transitory minor pain is of no concern to anyone but myself, and even then it isn't of any great interest. Considering all suffering unjust seems to me, frankly, to lend dignity to situations that don't really deserve any. You're talking about differences of scale, though, not differences of kind. Scale matters to our plans, because we can't do everything, and the most important things have to come first. But it shouldn't stop us from recognizing a bad thing just because it's a small one, especially when we're talking about something as absolute as "the best of all possible worlds" or "how things ought to be." Or put another way: if lack of scale meant lack of dignity, human beings would have no dignity. That's probably a viable position but as you can imagine, it's not mine.
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May 22, 2017 21:50
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I'd also think that the pessimistic practical position would be more at home with the people who believe there is nothing except disparate and limited human effort working to improve the world.
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May 22, 2017 21:57
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OwlFancier posted:The issue with that is that it's essentially Russell's Ethical Teapot. God is Good, no you can't see why, no if your understanding improves it just means that God remains infinitely more complicated and is still good, yes I am essentially stating that God is Good because everything you do not understand the moral justification for has to be Good because God wills it. Well, this particular branch of philosophy would argue that "god is good" is an incoherent statement. You can't say anything about him at all. Josef bugman posted:Whilst I appreciate the information I think that the "Inherently incoherent" sounds more like a way of ducking out of discussing stuff. "Incoherent" has a special meaning in philosophy, which is that if the assumptions a statement is based on are incompatible with each other or with the statement, the statement is "incoherent" as in "can have no sensible meaning based on the arguments and assumptions laid out." It's not dismissive at all to say 1) There is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent creator 2) The creator creates all things, including the language we use 3) We can make affirmative statements about the creator is coherent. Items 1 and 2 fundamentally contradict number 3. You can't have everything in the universe (including our ideas) come from god and then also say that our ideas can describe god. This is one of those things where people who study religion theologically vs philosophically will fundamentally just have to disagree because for the most part accepting this incoherence is part of having faith.
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May 22, 2017 22:13
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cis autodrag posted:Well, this particular branch of philosophy would argue that "god is good" is an incoherent statement. You can't say anything about him at all. Then why worship, or even acknowledge an undefinable thing? What relevance can a thing have that cannot be defined in any way? What place does it have in human understanding if it simply cannot be understood at all? If you can say nothing about it then how can it have any meaning? You can ascribe no meaning to it, you appear to be describing, in essence, the absence of a thing.
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May 22, 2017 22:16
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My worry is more that - obviously excluding extreme forms - suffering can be used productively. In condemning all suffering as an evil, one deprives others of the opportunity to have a project, a plan, or their own person to fall flat on their face, and emerge from the encounter with broadened horizons, or with a more creative approach. And it seems particularly worrisome as pertains to children, since so much of human development is bound up with the experience of suffering, and how it can be mastered. A hungry newborn feels as if his or her world is ending in pain for which he or she has no reference - in time, one learns that there is a rhythm of feeding, so even if I'm hungry now, I can tolerate it until food comes. Too much frustration and the kind is going to shut down, too little and there's no incentive to develop, to learn to tolerate pain within certain limits. One reacts to suffering, and learns to interact with one's environment in order to minimize future suffering - kids of course can't do this by themselves, but a parent too quick to dispel any frustration that the child might experience can adversely impact the child's development - when unexpected pain befalls, the child, or the adult that follows after it is going to go to pieces, rather than attempt to address it. Part of childraising is about providing what gets called "optimal frustration" - not allowing the kid to suffer more than it can handle, but at the same time, also allowing it enough frustration that it can, as its capacities increase, learn to find its own solutions rather than lean only a parent who infallibly makes everything better. In short, we learn to do just about anything because we don't want to suffer, but if there isn't some quota of suffering present, one has no incentive to learn at all. That is to say - within certain limits, again - I have a very hard time thinking of suffering as an evil. Abolish it entirely, and we'd have a world full of infants in adult bodies.
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May 22, 2017 22:24
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There is nothing to be learned from suffering that is not contingent on the existence of suffering to be worth learning in the first place.
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May 22, 2017 22:26
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OwlFancier posted:If you can say nothing about it then how can it have any meaning? You can ascribe no meaning to it, you appear to be describing, in essence, the absence of a thing. Yes, that is just it. God is, in a certain sense, the absence of a thing.
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May 22, 2017 22:26
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OwlFancier posted:Then why worship, or even acknowledge an undefinable thing? What relevance can a thing have that cannot be defined in any way? What place does it have in human understanding if it simply cannot be understood at all? I'm not really arguing that you should. I am an atheist. But I think what I'm trying to say is that if you find the answers to the problem of evil unsatisfying, it's only that they're not satisfying if you don't start from the desire to believe in an external power. In all of the philosophy I've studied, there's simply not an answer that would satisfy a secular person asking "why should I believe given how the world is?" But I think it's important to understand that this fundamental disconnect is basically built into the religion and part of faith is basically acknowledging that you can't understand and doing the best you can anyway. I don't have better answers for you than that.
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May 22, 2017 22:32
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This is all very interesting and I like this thread. These questions make me an atheist for a couple hours a day most days. I'm very afraid of sounding childish and uneducated, but, I think I would veer away from moral theology toward creation theology to understand evil. Understand is a strong word, there; it'll never be understood, but that doesn't absolves us of the responsibility to strive for it. It seems to me that there is something metaphysically essential in suffering. Things die, new things replace them. All the beauty of the universe is predicated on untold dead stars. Likewise the best of human art is built on the graves of countless dead ends on the evolutionary family tree. A God who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, because of a painful human birth, and painful human death, is emotionally convincing. We are still animals, and we predate each other and our world, constantly on the precipice of extinction like every other stump on the tree. But we can strive. The universe is not moral because there exists an ultimate good, the universe is amoral because it's just physics. But we can strive. And God is not a despot. God is moral because God gives away power, to us, and the giving up the ability to fix things is the morality of God that is worthy of worship. Hope that doesn't sound at stupid as my imposter syndrome makes me think it does! 
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May 22, 2017 22:34
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:There is nothing to be learned from suffering that is not contingent on the existence of suffering to be worth learning in the first place. Without suffering, there would be no learning, full stop. An infant hooked up to some fictive apparatus that would provide for all of its needs before it even realized they were there would have no incentive to show any interest in its environment whatsoever. I mean, even at a very basic level, one only appreciates pleasure in contrast to pain - an organism could be biologically alive if it never suffered, but it's not any kind of life that would have any value to it, at least as far as I am concerned.
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May 22, 2017 22:36
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Numerical Anxiety posted:Without suffering, there would be no learning, full stop. How could you possibly know this?  In any case, even if you were right about this (and I don't think you are!) -- that would just be proof of a defect in man's nature, the sort of thing that ought not to be true in the best of all possible worlds. Numerical Anxiety posted:I mean, even at a very basic level, one only appreciates pleasure in contrast to pain - an organism could be biologically alive if it never suffered, but it's not any kind of life that would have any value to it, at least as far as I am concerned. Yeah, this is like another reflection of the argument I was having with zonohedron -- it's not like that at all! Pleasure is not just the absence of pain or pain the absence of pleasure, they're two distinct phenomena. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 22:39 on May 22, 2017 |
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May 22, 2017 22:37
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