Dualist answer to the existence of suffering.

[alliop]

Why does suffering exist? The dualist's answer to the existence of suffering seems to be extremely illogical. It ussualy goes something like this...

"Without pain we would not know pleasure. "

That really doesn't make sense because following that line of logic you could say that we do not know that we exist because we were not around to experience our nonexistence. Why must we know the opposite to understand something? elementary school kids are not taught about negative numbers but fully understand positive numbers.  

[Amenubis]

I think "without pain we would not know pleasure" may jump too far ahead in it's own subjectivity to be used as an argument.

Sartre attempted to explain this by comparing our consciousness to that of a tree. A tree is a tree, and doesn't have the capacity to be anything other than such. Obviously, when we as humans purport to be anything other than a human, we can't escape this. We can however, use different "definitions" of ourselves to try and differentiate between each other. eg. "Sally is a teacher, John is a student". But these definitions are purely subjective, and can change on a moments notice. They were made by our choices to try and "become" this definition. Without realizing it, we create who we are by affirming what we are not. "I am a student because I am not a teacher."

As far as numbers are concerned, a child is probably taught positive numbering first, simply because it's easier to grasp first. A child already KNOWS what is happening when a positive becomes a negative, so the only thing that is being learned is how to LABEL this "happening". Just as a child knows "what" they want, just not "how" to relay this message to another person, until they learn to speak, which is purely emulation.  

[AbrAbraxas]

this is the concept of "the knowledge of good and evil" as mentioned in genesis of the bible. the dualistic veiw of the world. the fact is that we do not know that we exist, except in a relative fashion. we believe we exist because we see ourselves relating to other things in this world. in hinud beliefs it is said also that there is no pleasure that is without pain, but they also claim that there is a joy that accompanies a non-dual experience of the world. children learn positive numbers first because it is obvious and easy to learn, i have five apples. they also learn negative numbers in a subtle way when they learn subtraction. take one apple away(-1) and you have four. children live in a very immeadiate world and mental concepts are not always understood unless there is something that can be demonstrated, they learn best from an example. in learning positive numbers, the fact that there could be no apples makes it relevant that there are apples, if that makes any sense.  

[Calypsophia]

AbrAbraxas

this is the concept of "the knowledge of good and evil" as mentioned in genesis of the bible. the dualistic veiw of the world. the fact is that we do not know that we exist, except in a relative fashion. we believe we exist because we see ourselves relating to other things in this world. in hinud beliefs it is said also that there is no pleasure that is without pain, but they also claim that there is a joy that accompanies a non-dual experience of the world. children learn positive numbers first because it is obvious and easy to learn, i have five apples. they also learn negative numbers in a subtle way when they learn subtraction. take one apple away(-1) and you have four. children live in a very immeadiate world and mental concepts are not always understood unless there is something that can be demonstrated, they learn best from an example. in learning positive numbers, the fact that there could be no apples makes it relevant that there are apples, if that makes any sense.

yep I agree. perhaps another way of saying it would be that in order to know and appreciate something, you have to know the lack or lesser of it. it's a matter of comparison. we know whether something is near or far, big or little, by comparing it to something else. it's how our brain is designed to categorize things. it's the same with happy and sad, light and dark, good and evil.

it's our mind that conceives of the dualistic nature of things (technically we dont know that anything exists outside of our own mind since all of our senses and perceptions come from that mind), but the dualities in life are two sides of the same coin. cant have a 'heads' without the 'tails'.

Edit: also, it is just plain logical that if 'good' things can happen, then so too can 'bad' things. we are the ones that decide just how 'good' or 'bad' something is anyway.  

[MegaTherion777]

alliop

Why does suffering exist? The dualist's answer to the existence of suffering seems to be extremely illogical. It ussualy goes something like this...

"Without pain we would not know pleasure. "

That really doesn't make sense because following that line of logic you could say that we do not know that we exist because we were not around to experience our nonexistence. Why must we know the opposite to understand something? elementary school kids are not taught about negative numbers but fully understand positive numbers.

i have an alternate interpretation of the dualist answer to suffering. rather than taking "without pain we would not know pleasure" as an absolute, i have always interpreted it differently. in my mind it makes sense because it is saying that without pain, we would come to take pleasure for granted. pleasure would become commonplace and...well, boring. we need a little suffering to help us appreciate the pleasurable moments, otherwise we would become bored with them and have to search further and harder to find experiences we could call pleasurable.

likewise, without conflict we would become numb to times of peace. occasionally we need some strife to shake us out of our sleepy complacency so that we can truly appreciate everything around us, so that we do not simply take it for granted. so it's less that "without pain we [absolutely] would not know pleasure" but more that without pain we would come to take things we find pleasurable for granted.  

[27x]

alliop

Why does suffering exist? The dualist's answer to the existence of suffering seems to be extremely illogical. It ussualy goes something like this...

"Without pain we would not know pleasure. "

That really doesn't make sense because following that line of logic you could say that we do not know that we exist because we were not around to experience our nonexistence. Why must we know the opposite to understand something? elementary school kids are not taught about negative numbers but fully understand positive numbers.

In the scentence," without pain, we would not know pleasure." It in does not say anything about existence, or non existence. What you are doing, is taking the principle of something, and applying it to another topic.


Btw, It's just murpheys law. We naturally expect things to go in our way. Since we do, we only notice when they don't, and we don't notice when they do. On the other hand, if we only focus on the bad things, we, for some reason, always think negitively. We could lastly, not expect anything, however, then we couldn't plan anything.

If we didn't know the way we wanted it to go, we wouldn't notice when it didn't. this applies to many things, not all. For this reason, dualism can't always work. There are flaws in every movement, including neichze's movement, to reject all movements.


And now for my opinion, lol. Some things can't be explained, or are very had to summerize. That is why, when I need to figure out something quickly, I make a self contradicting paradox. For example... If I wanted to prove that I existed, in kind of an insult, for a discussion, I would say something like this...

Suppose I don't exist. This being the case, my mind, and memory do not exist. Therefore I do not know anything. So when I say, I don't exist, I don't really know what I am talking about.

Now, that isn't very thorough. Contradicting paradoxes don't always work, because a different kind of paradox can negate it.

Suppose I don't exist, and I say I don't, and then I don't know what I am talking about. I know it, but it is not true. This statement means, that no matter what I know, It may not be true. Now, when I say I don't exist, I am saying it, to show that I know it. However, knowledge might not always be true. Secondly, If I exist, and my mind doesen't exist, then I have no mind, and If I have no mind, I wouldn't be thinking right now.


I love arguing with paradoxes, because they are fun.

Then again, I don't know exaclty what dualists are. iam going to go research them.  

[AbrAbraxas]

MegaTherion777

i have an alternate interpretation of the dualist answer to suffering. rather than taking "without pain we would not know pleasure" as an absolute, i have always interpreted it differently. in my mind it makes sense because it is saying that without pain, we would come to take pleasure for granted. pleasure would become commonplace and...well, boring. we need a little suffering to help us appreciate the pleasurable moments, otherwise we would become bored with them and have to search further and harder to find experiences we could call pleasurable.

likewise, without conflict we would become numb to times of peace. occasionally we need some strife to shake us out of our sleepy complacency so that we can truly appreciate everything around us, so that we do not simply take it for granted. so it's less that "without pain we [absolutely] would not know pleasure" but more that without pain we would come to take things we find pleasurable for granted.

i ma not saying that what you have said is incorrect, in fact it is also true, but i used to believe the same and there is more to it than the risk of boredom or commonplaceness.
an example is that one might think that we would not enjoy a sunny day quite so much if there were not rainy days. but rainy days dont occur to bum us out they are part of natural cycle, they are good just like sunny days are, but people, in their minds, do not enjoy rainy days because of notions they have about "the perfect day" or about how they have to "deal with it", this is where the pain comes in, pain is a subtle thing, it operates on the mental and emotional levels and through such can enter the physical. it is our judgments and expectations that turn nature into a sometimes painful thing. we tend to seek pleasure, if that is denied us, for whatever reason, then pain might ensue. some psychologist have calimed that we seek pleasure and avoid pain, but i think that is not the only way that we can interact with the world.
there was something else i was going to say but i forgot it.
i agree though, "not absolutely"

and i 27 04, good post too.  

[MegaTherion777]

AbrAbraxas

MegaTherion777

i have an alternate interpretation of the dualist answer to suffering. rather than taking "without pain we would not know pleasure" as an absolute, i have always interpreted it differently. in my mind it makes sense because it is saying that without pain, we would come to take pleasure for granted. pleasure would become commonplace and...well, boring. we need a little suffering to help us appreciate the pleasurable moments, otherwise we would become bored with them and have to search further and harder to find experiences we could call pleasurable.

likewise, without conflict we would become numb to times of peace. occasionally we need some strife to shake us out of our sleepy complacency so that we can truly appreciate everything around us, so that we do not simply take it for granted. so it's less that "without pain we [absolutely] would not know pleasure" but more that without pain we would come to take things we find pleasurable for granted.

i ma not saying that what you have said is incorrect, in fact it is also true, but i used to believe the same and there is more to it than the risk of boredom or commonplaceness.
an example is that one might think that we would not enjoy a sunny day quite so much if there were not rainy days. but rainy days dont occur to bum us out they are part of natural cycle, they are good just like sunny days are, but people, in their minds, do not enjoy rainy days because of notions they have about "the perfect day" or about how they have to "deal with it", this is where the pain comes in, pain is a subtle thing, it operates on the mental and emotional levels and through such can enter the physical. it is our judgments and expectations that turn nature into a sometimes painful thing. we tend to seek pleasure, if that is denied us, for whatever reason, then pain might ensue. some psychologist have calimed that we seek pleasure and avoid pain, but i think that is not the only way that we can interact with the world.
there was something else i was going to say but i forgot it.
i agree though, "not absolutely"

and i 27 04, good post too.

yes, well boredom and commonplaceness are not quite the words i was looking for... they're the closest thing i can think of, but they don't quite express what i was trying to get across, so i suspect that we might agree a little bit more if i could think of the proper terms i wanted to use.

and i quite enjoy rainy days lol  

[nightlight]

alliop

Why does suffering exist? The dualist's answer to the existence of suffering seems to be extremely illogical. It ussualy goes something like this...

"Without pain we would not know pleasure. "

That really doesn't make sense because following that line of logic you could say that we do not know that we exist because we were not around to experience our nonexistence. Why must we know the opposite to understand something? elementary school kids are not taught about negative numbers but fully understand positive numbers.

dunno how literally you can take existence in this context, but you could supplant it with 'death' and follow the trail of bread crumbs to a dualist's view.

but i agree with the statement about taking things for granted. it doesn't become pleasure any more if that's all there is. with no point of reference, it can't really be much of anything.  

[MegaTherion777]

nightlight

alliop

Why does suffering exist? The dualist's answer to the existence of suffering seems to be extremely illogical. It ussualy goes something like this...

"Without pain we would not know pleasure. "

That really doesn't make sense because following that line of logic you could say that we do not know that we exist because we were not around to experience our nonexistence. Why must we know the opposite to understand something? elementary school kids are not taught about negative numbers but fully understand positive numbers.

dunno how literally you can take existence in this context, but you could supplant it with 'death' and follow the trail of bread crumbs to a dualist's view.

but i agree with the statement about taking things for granted. it doesn't become pleasure any more if that's all there is. with no point of reference, it can't really be much of anything.

right. people become desensitized to it. that's the word i was looking for earlier, in case anyone was wondering...  

[whynaut]

Calypsophia

we are the ones that decide just how 'good' or 'bad' something is anyway.

I think you just hit the nail on the head with that one.

I completely believe in the phrase "Without pain we would not know pleasure" but only because it ties in the the concept of operational negativity. In essence, there is no such thing as objective pain or pleasure; these are both feelings and therefore subjective. It means that they don't really exists except for how we "want" to define them.

However, the idea operational negativity is that an idea is given power through its opposite. By feeling pain we desire pleasure, this makes people believe that these two feelings both objectively exist. The statement negates the idea that there can be a third choice or that neither is real.

A more common place example of this idea is a government. All a government is is a bunch of guys telling you what to do: that's it. If everybody realized this, a government would have no power at because we would all just stop listening. That is why it serves a government to have enemies. When the people believe that the government is in danger from an outside enemy and we have to protect it, it completely leapfrogs the question if there is a real government at all and therefore gives power to a government.  

[27x]

whynaut

Calypsophia

we are the ones that decide just how 'good' or 'bad' something is anyway.

I think you just hit the nail on the head with that one.

I completely believe in the phrase "Without pain we would not know pleasure" but only because it ties in the the concept of operational negativity. In essence, there is no such thing as objective pain or pleasure; these are both feelings and therefore subjective. It means that they don't really exists except for how we "want" to define them.

However, the idea operational negativity is that an idea is given power through its opposite. By feeling pain we desire pleasure, this makes people believe that these two feelings both objectively exist. The statement negates the idea that there can be a third choice or that neither is real.

A more common place example of this idea is a government. All a government is is a bunch of guys telling you what to do: that's it. If everybody realized this, a government would have no power at because we would all just stop listening. That is why it serves a government to have enemies. When the people believe that the government is in danger from an outside enemy and we have to protect it, it completely leapfrogs the question if there is a real government at all and therefore gives power to a government.

I believe that without pain, we still could know pleasure, however it would slowly but surely sink down to almost nothing.

There was a great king in india, and he had a son, and named him Siddhartha. He took his son to the monks(or priests or something, I can't remember which), and they looked into his stars, saying he would either be a rich king, or a wise monk. The king didn't want siddhartha to become a monk and asked the monks, "What should I do to keep Siddhartha from becoming a monk?" The monks replied," Do not let him see any suffering."

So the king build siddhartha a palace filled with pleasures. There where pleasures of beauty, riches, great foods, sexual pleasures, animals, servants, and much much more. Siddhartha was given the greatest teaching he could be given, and never knew suffering. At first pleasure was very enjoyable to him. By the time he was 17, he had seen everything in the palace, and experienced great pleasures over and over again, so much so, that they became normal to him. He asked his friend(I can't remmeber what his position was) to take him outside of the palace, and his friend hesitantly obligued.

Outside of the palace, siddhartha saw three things. He saw people living in poverty, who where hungry and dirty. He saw a man who was suffering from a great disease. Lasty, he saw a dead person, which he had never knew before. Siddhartha was so amazed at the things that he saw, that he left his palace to find his way.

He experimented with hunger, and thirst, and gluttony, and other things if the simalar variety. In the end he finally realized this these truths.

1.Humans suffer because a desired condition ends.
2.All conditions end.
3.To not suffer from the ending of these conditions, we must seperate our desire from them.
4.To seperate our desire from them, we must master our minds, with deep thinging through medetation.

He gave himself a new name, which was buddha.  

[Niniva]

alliop

Why does suffering exist? The dualist's answer to the existence of suffering seems to be extremely illogical. It ussualy goes something like this...

"Without pain we would not know pleasure. "

That really doesn't make sense because following that line of logic you could say that we do not know that we exist because we were not around to experience our nonexistence. Why must we know the opposite to understand something? elementary school kids are not taught about negative numbers but fully understand positive numbers.

The answer to this is simple really.

Mathmatics are what we call relations of ideas. I hold up five fingers and I can relate that I have "this many" fingers. No matter if you call it six, or ten, or -25 it's still five fingers. You relate holding up "this many" fingers to the word we call it, in english it happens to be five.

In the same sense we opperate under definitions. For example:

Bachelor: A unmarried man.

based on that definition can we ever find a married bachelor?

No. Why? Because when you relate the true understanding of the term Bachelor to the term Married you get that they are incompatable.

So comparing a experience to a relation of ideas, or a priori knowledge is impossible since one is based differently and is (at least in some sense) subjective.

Now, to answer your question here.

If you lived in a world of absolute darkness, would you ever know what light is?

Of course not. But you also wouldn't call it darkness either would you? You don't develop a word for something unless you realize that there is something else to distinguish it from.

If every man on earth was married from birth without the possibility of ever not being married would we have the term Bachelor? Of course we wouldn't. The same goes for light and darkness, pleasure and suffering.

Suffering is what we call something that is not pleasurful. It exists....simply because it is NOT pleasureful. If EVERYTHING on earth was pleasureful to the same degree then we would never had the word pleasure or the word suffering. One cannot exist without something to compare it to and distinguish itself from.

You speak of suffering like it is a thing, a tangible sensable thing, but it isn't. Suffering is what we call things that are negative to the point of distaste. It isn't the same for everyone and so you cannot reffer to "suffering" as though it were the same measure for every person as the number system is. You can understand positive numbers without knowing the opposite simple because positive one's exist all on their own and negative ones only exist in theory.

Suffering exists all on it's own but it only exists because we have "things" that we attach the word to, and "things" that we can experience as not suffering.

Another thought is this, we measure things based on "how much". In other words, pleasure and suffering are measured based off the other's value.

For a woman who has experienced giving child birth, a scratch on the arm is hardly suffering. But to a 10 year old...it's ultimate suffering. Why?

Because you measure suffering based on experiences. If you have never experienced anything worse, then you call this suffering. Later, you may call this pleasure by comparison. Along the same lines we call something pleasure, because we have never experienced something better, later....we may call this suffering by comparison to something better that we have experienced.

In this sense, it is true that suffering exists because if everything was peachy keen jelly bean then you would logically experience things that are not really all that bad, as terrible tragedies. So suffering exists to preserve the ballance.  

[mrs_chester_bennington]

Exactly what 27x said.

'Pain' and 'pleasure' are entirely relative concepts. Therefore one cannot be appreciated without the other. Same with 'good' and 'evil.' These are not real things so to speak; they are relative.

Existence and non existence are not so relative (except to definition, but only so much as everything else is also relative to definition, so we'll ignore that). They are matters of truth: Something either exists or it doesn't.

So why does suffering exist? Because if you are used to something better, and something not as good as usual happens to you, you will not appreciate it but instead feel pained by the incident. But if something has never felt anything good, they will know no better, and interpret it not as 'suffering' but as the norm. Even if it is physically painful, which would seem undeniably bad no matter what, well there are some people who like pain and to them it is not suffered but enjoyed.  

[27x]

Well the whole idea of the dualist ceccesation of suffering is, "Experience more suffering."

The way I see it, life isn't as black and white as this.

We adapt to our surroundings. Dualism is just an exploitation of that adapption, by balancing out two extremes.