Would a life without pain and suffering as such be a "better" life?

[AminoAcid]

Happiness CANNOT exist without pain. They are not mutually exclusive feelings. If there's no pain then what is contrasted to happiness? It's this very contrast that makes happiness what it is, without it it wouldn't exist.

(I hope that makes sense).

 

[Biovail]

Consciousness without pain is not conscious at all.

If you believe in the idea that all matter is itself conscious (this conclusion is self evident, and will be reached by any intelligent person who puts enough thought towards it), then consider the positive and negative at various levels of consciousness. You will realize that even your kitchen glasses are consciousness; more conscious than they would be as thousands of separate shards of glass. Indeed, if you throw your kitchen glass at the wall, you have in effect "killed" that glass. It's entropy has increased as well, and it's ability to embody and reproduce information is decreased. It is, in every sense of the word, dead. Similarly, the universe has been increasing in entropy since the instant it was formed (or so says one of the basic laws of physics). In this sense, the universe is dying, and has been since it was first created. (Assuming of course the universe didn't create itself. Though that's not to suggest the existence of God.) It only makes sense that this macroscopic concept translates to the microscopic as well. Everything that is a part of the universe, as well as the universe as a whole, is slowly and gradually dying; moving towards a more chaotic, negative, state. And so it doesn't make sense to be alive but not be a part of this cosmic death. The act of living is the act of dying, and you can't have one without the other.

 

[qwe]

Consciousness without pain is not conscious at all.

yes it is. why would it not be? why would we not be able to produce "happiness in a tube," "sadness in a tube," etc, once we figure out by what mechanism "qualia" is "produced"?

some people can experience, in their life, 90, 95, or 99% pain. i'm sure some entities have popped into and out of existence, maybe a lucky pet, where their life is 95% pleasure. and some entities have had lives with 100% pain. they are simply two types of a "conscious sensation," like vision (colors), tactile (3D), etc.

extended philosophizing..

NSFW:

If you believe in the idea that all matter is itself conscious (this conclusion is self evident, and will be reached by any intelligent person who puts enough thought towards it)

only from certain angles in certain contexts...

You will realize that even your kitchen glasses are consciousness; more conscious than they would be as thousands of separate shards of glass.

by what mechanism is a glass more conscious than pieces of a glass? the pieces could be more conscious, in the paradigm you're arguing for, as there may be a great deal more information with so much more surface area.

Indeed, if you throw your kitchen glass at the wall, you have in effect "killed" that glass.

no, no personality ends with the destruction of the glass. this is only true psychologically. the glass can be personified in our human reality.

It's entropy has increased as well, and it's ability to embody and reproduce information is decreased. It is, in every sense of the word, dead. Similarly, the universe has been increasing in entropy since the instant it was formed (or so says one of the basic laws of physics). In this sense, the universe is dying, and has been since it was first created.

entropy is increasing in the local conventional 3D "universe." theories point to other possible "universes," however (e.g. wiki branes and the bulk).

Everything that is a part of the universe, as well as the universe as a whole, is slowly and gradually dying; moving towards a more chaotic, negative, state.

but we happen to be on an upward trend in sophistication/complexity/capability/conscious agency.

 

[Biovail]

by what mechanism is a glass more conscious than pieces of a glass? the pieces could be more conscious, in the paradigm you're arguing for, as there may be a great deal more information with so much more surface area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information

Information can not be conveyed in a system where everything is "random". If you throw a glass at a wall and it shatters you lose information. Now in the process you might gain information, such as the force with which it was thrown, the material of the wall, or the strength of the glass, all based on the position of the shards in space and time. But the net result is always a loss of information, as you'll see if you look at the definitions of entropy and information.

no, no personality ends with the destruction of the glass. this is only true psychologically. the glass can be personified in our human reality.

You said personality. I was talking about life, which becomes something completely different when you restrict personality to mean human-level emotions and behaviors. And I guess if you restrict "life" to mean anything that reproduces, a glass wouldn't be considered alive. But even things such as viruses don't reproduce on their own. They're basically just proteins in a container; Living cells are what allow them to reproduce. So the word alive has little realistic meaning, especially in this case. More conscious/less conscious would be more accurate, which is my point anyway. I would argue that you kill a glass the same way you kill a self-replicating molecule (a crystal for example) the same way you kill a virus. Put it in a more entropic state, ie a less conscious one.

 

[qwe]

by life, do you mean whatever "energy" might be associated with e.g. "redness" or "warmth"?

I would argue that you kill a glass the same way you kill a self-replicating molecule (a crystal for example) the same way you kill a virus. Put it in a more entropic state, ie a less conscious one.

the word kill loses its usefulness, here, though. why not just say destroy?

 

[Achten]

It is said that Philosophy comes through adversity. A life of joy and ecstacy would be awesome, like living in cosmic consciousness.. that would be mad.. but you wouldn't learn much about yourself. You'd be just as robotic/asleep as you are now, perhaps more so given there is no irritation of the mind to cause thinking.

I've pondered the same question too, but you must admit. We wouldn't survive a constant ++++. Too intense.

 

[Biovail]

the word kill loses its usefulness, here, though. why not just say destroy?

True. At the same time though, you have to define words in a way that gives them meaning. It could be argued that otherwise words are just strings of random sounds. So you're right. I was just trying to redefine "kill" in a way that made it relevant to this discussion. Especially since there are no measurable qualities distinguishing everything we consider "alive" from everything we consider not to be alive. I could say destroy. I wasn't sure if that would convey that the subject (or at least it's components) still existed in an altered state.

My real point was that people often consider things to be "living" even when those things display very few (if any) characteristics differentiating them from "inanimate" objects. Biology defines life, but many, many exceptions make that definition moot and otherwise inapplicable outside of that field of study.

by life, do you mean whatever "energy" might be associated with e.g. "redness" or "warmth"?

I don't mean anything by life, and I guess that is my point. If you can't define something (ie, life), how do you know it exists? How can you know it exists? If you define life as anything that exists and reacts based on actions to or around it, then you've just described everything in the known physical universe. But isn't that how we determine if a person is alive? Prod them and see if they move? Hook electrodes to their brain and watch for neuro-electric reactions to stimuli? Pour an acidic solution on a colony of bacteria and watch to see if anything happens?

Life has no meaning because everything physical is alive. And consciousness has the same criteria.


Anyway, this is all just my take on this. But it seems to make sense logically, so doesn't that make it true?

 

[TheAppleCore]

If one wants to hold a view that pain and joy are opposites then you cannot have one without the other.

Basically, this.

Suffering and joy are polar opposites, and thus one cannot exist without the other. Imagining a joyous life without suffering is like imagining a two-sided planar figure.

 

[Libby]

Without pain, no.
Without suffering, yes.

Pain is helpful, when you have your arm on a hot stove pain causes you to recoil said arm away, without pain you could just be completely burned to ashes having never bothered to move. I suppose it depends on if you see being dead as a good or a bad thing.

Survival instinct forces me to attribute staying alive to being good from my own perspective, even though this survival instinct only exists because those without/with weaker drive to survive early in evolution therefore did not survive in hard times and those with the strongest drive to survive passed on the trait, which are merely events that do not place value of good or bad, and if I happened to not have a strong survival instinct I wouldn't label my living as "good". But this is not the case.

If I were suffering however, like true suffering I in no way find this desirable, in fact the very least desirable of all experience would be the experience of suffering and enough of it would create a strong desire to end that suffering and die. In this case death could almost be labelled "good" though as it is inconsistent with the opposite (continuing living) having been established "good", then logically the suffering must therefore be labelled "bad" instead of the death labelled "good" . Which leaves us with Life(good) pain(good as it sustains life, as exampled above) suffering(bad).

Answering your question, Life with pain but without suffering would be a "better", or infact "ideal" life.

UNLESS we imagine a whole new world as Lost Ego did, Where we havn't evolved through a process involving pain and other adaptations for survival, where perhaps an amazing experience of absolutely no pain or sufferriing abounds it's utopian landscape and even death brings no hurt to anyone.

Unfortunately we are not beings of nor are we living in such a world, and the practical objective to take on therefore is to do what we can to eliminate suffering while respecting a capacity for feeling pain as necessary and therefore something we will be constantly working to avoid. It keeps us seeking life-sustaining activities and keeps us cautious in areas of potential danger. You should recognise pain(whether physical/emotional/whatever) in your life as a signal to enact change.

Edit: Note the distinction I made between the words 'pain' and 'suffering', if you consider pain and suffering to have the same meaning of simply an unpleasant experience then your answer is given in form of a. degree, and b.whether or not it is constructive. A life devoid of All pain and suffering would not be a "better" life, though a life with mild/short lived pain and suffering that is constructive to positive change, while void of intense/chronic pain/suffering or pain/suffering that is pointless would be an "ideal" life. Hense any movement away from a life full of all kinds of pain and suffering and towards this ideal would be a "better" life.

 

[SkyblueMolly]

We can't eliminate ALL pain and suffering unless we create a new utopian country in Bir Tawil with a benevolent ruler who propels maximizing goal achievement rates, fun, science, mathematics, and more, and combine it with utopian pharmacology and future nootropics and euphoriants, and utopian laser neurosurgery. And also create a brain chip functional equivalent of pain and suffering without the raw feelings. Wireheading would be useful too. We can raise the ceiling of happiness towards superhappiness and beyond. We can shrink the basement of suffering. Superintelligence and superhappiness and also superhealth!
Pheniprazine, D-deprenyl, modafinil, future forms of MDMA, kratom, opicapone, B vitamins, NSI-189, selank, phenylpiracetam hydrazide, 9-Me-BC, adderall and memantine combo, parnate, and more.
Future forms of amphetamine without side effects could be made. Like the N-Propargyl-Amphetamine and memantine combo. Future speed!
The Infinity Dragon superhappiness project.

Suffering will still be there in trace amounts. Involuntary suffering can be eliminated!