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pallavkulhari t1_jb8dgxy wrote

Reply to comment by SvetlanaButosky in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | March 06, 2023 by BernardJOrtcutt

Think of a kid! They have minimum suffering which arises out of basic needs like food, sleep, etc. Our world today has prevalent suffering but this wasn’t the case always. Suffering is mostly constructed by human brain with the help of language and thoughts around pain. Think of animals! They have pains, sometimes, but they don’t suffer because they don’t have to think of past or future and just stay mindful, mostly always. They don’t have words like “suffering” and “pain” and “what would others think” or even a sense of self.

Most philosophers propose that shedding of the identity can remove all sufferings.

Today, major sufferings are a result of mental constructs rather something tangible. We can and definitely will solve them easily in a few thousand years which is a small period of time, on the scale of universe.

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SvetlanaButosky t1_jba8s2g wrote

lol I doubt suffering is just mental.

Stage 4 bone cancer, raped to death by gangs, tortured and murdered by ISIS, a lifetime of abuse, violence and deaths for some of the most unlucky people on earth.

Its both mental and physical.

The argument here is that if some of them have to suffer so horribly unworthy existence, then non of us have the right to exist. lol

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lyremska t1_jbdokm6 wrote

> Suffering is mostly constructed by human brain with the help of language and thoughts around pain. Think of animals! They have pains, sometimes, but they don’t suffer because they don’t have to think of past or future and just stay mindful, mostly always. They don’t have words like “suffering” and “pain” and “what would others think” or even a sense of self.

Please go read some science before saying shit like this based on intuition. Litteraly none of this is true. You can look up ethology books, for exemple. Or actually any article about animal behavior and intelligence will teach you more than you seem to currently know.

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pallavkulhari t1_jbdov94 wrote

Please share some relevant links. I am not saying that animals are dumb, I am trying to highlight the difference between pain and suffering here.

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lyremska t1_jbhaby8 wrote

I cannot recommend specific works cause most I've read were in not english. Ethology is the field that studies animal behaviour and cognition. I'll brush up on a few thoughts, you can verify them if in doubt/interested. Another comment replied to you with exemples of painful events that can make one suffer badly: having your bodily autonomy violated especially is pretty traumatic whether you have language to rationalize it or not, for humans as for animals. That's because animals do have a sense of self - a lot more than a newborn human. Besides, animals worry for their future and try to prevent bad things from happening to them. There are also universal things that go beyond language, abstract thinking and society - think motherly love - and it can lead to huge amounts of suffering even without complex thoughts around it. Animals grieve, and allegedly may have committed suicide on occasion.

I understand the difference between pain and suffering you're meaning to convey, but animals are not a good exemple here.

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