Emotions exist simply to help get the body into better circumstances. Much like pain inflicted by a flame tells you something worthwhile about your body (that it is not resistant to flame), emotional pain says something also-- It is just a bit harder to figure out.
Unless you are in chronic pain i dont really have sympathy for you. life fucking sucks.
i had it all and then a surgeon ruined my life and i lost everything i loved. so fuck you
Everyone seems to be reading this thread like I'm throwing myself to the ground screaming "WHY GOD WHY?!"
you suffer when you resent or deny having pain. the resistance to it, and dwelling on it which causes it to grow. in essence, pain is a physical state while suffering is a mental state.
Why are we here?
Because science.
Meh... it's an unsatisfying answer to the question. People ask the question with the intention of getting a philosophical / ontological answer, not a scientific one.
Emotions exist simply to help get the body into better circumstances. Much like pain inflicted by a flame tells you something worthwhile about your body (that it is not resistant to flame), emotional pain says something also-- It is just a bit harder to figure out.
^This is part of it, and while I've believed I was going to die enough times to have life demonstrate for me that I do in fact believe in something more than that we are meat puppets of the accidentally self-replicating molecule DNA, such a perspective is instructive so far as it regards the OP's inquiry. Namely: we live in a world that, on a large scale at least, develops in a way that is indifferent to our suffering. Quantitatively speaking:how could life survive if not for suffering?
article original source“parasites outnumber free-living biodiversity by as much as 50%,” they note in Biological Conservation. At least 76,000 parasitic species, for instance, inhabit nearly 45,000 vertebrate hosts.
What is the difference between pain and suffering?
I said sorry to you Captain Heroin for coming across snarky
I think you must have meant to quote someone else. The answer I gave is purely philosophical, with no scientific rationale given.
^This is part of it, and while I've believed I was going to die enough times to have life demonstrate for me that I do in fact believe in something more than that we are meat puppets of the accidentally self-replicating molecule DNA, such a perspective is instructive so far as it regards the OP's inquiry. Namely: we live in a world that, on a large scale at least, develops in a way that is indifferent to our suffering. Quantitatively speaking:
article original source
So the way it shakes out things are fundamentally stacked against us. It's amazing humans didn't wipe themselves out via suicide as soon as they evolved high level self-awareness (and I mean that in a quite contented and optimistic sense!)
my point with that post was that no species would survive without some form of sensational alert for when harm is being experienced. we know to remove ourselves from hazards by that kind of input alone.