Growth is what is desired. Growth can be uncomfortable, but there is something to be gained at the end. Suffering is just undue stress and destruction. There is no profit at the end.

It is possible that thinking that suffering has meaning may set up a wrong mindset, one leading to the expectation and acceptance of struggle. It was expressed in the Christian idea of picking up your cross and carrying it daily. Ideas of martyrdom also prevailed with the belief of being rewarded in an afterlife.

Nevertheless, even if one wishes to have joy and happiness life often comes with so many obstacles, such as sickness and death of others. So, many philosophers and thinkers, including the Buddha and Schopenhauer have begun their thinking from the problem of suffering, more so than Christianity which sees sin as the most basic problem. It is hard not to give up amidst suffering and it can bring about despair.

One important writer on meaning in suffering is Victor Frank, who wrote after spending time in a concentration camp. He argued that establishing goals amidst unbearable circumstances was a way of finding meaning amidst the most harsh and brutal life experiences.

going to the gym and lifting weights will cause a person to get buff and strong through suffering. — 64bithuman

This is not suffering. It is strain (severe and/or excessive demand on the strength, resources, or abilities of someone or something). Suffering has to do with pain, distress or hardship. Strain is physical. Suffering can be both physical and mental.

You cannot find a common meaning of the term "suffering" that covers all the cases this term can be applied. Suffering from intense pain is something totally different in kind from suffering from anxiety or grief (occurred because of loss).

(BTW, has your alias name evolved from "32bithuman"? ... Sorry. I couldn't help it ...)

Maybe if there was no suffering there would be no meaning? By this I mean that knowledge and understanding pretty much tie into some obstacle in life in one form or another.

Maybe meaning is suffering or suffering is just an alternative perspective for finding meaning. Generally in life I have found that suffering increases when meaning/understanding is avoided. The challenge of life should probably be met head-on as much as possible so as to find meaning and circumnavigate unnecessary suffering.

Note: ‘suffering’ seems to be ‘necessary’ for conscious and conscientious living creatures.

I will have to add that book to my pile. I've heard of it but haven't read it. Sounds fascinating.

You've proven my point! Okay, so I would have to disagree with you there - my definition of suffering would certainly include strain. I don't know if you've ever tried to cut weight, but I think almost anybody on the street would count that as a form of suffering, sometimes even immense suffering. This is why people fail with dieting, etc. I would claim the only distinction between strain and something like loss is the severity of the suffering and the increased difficulty in finding a 'point' to the suffering.

But in reframing strain as a form of non-suffering, you have illustrated my point -- that our personal definitions of suffering are indeed malleable, particularly because we do not consider suffering with a 'point' to actually be suffering.

So my further point is that this ability we have to reframe suffering with a point as non-suffering is both helpful and widely unrecognized as deeply problematic. It could even be potentially extended as an explanation of great tragedy; ie: we expect that suffering will grant us a reward or enlightenment to such an extent that we have historically sacrificed fellow human beings as propitiation to vengeful gods in the stone-age belief that such great suffering could somehow swing the tide of fortune in our favour. The only antidote to tragedy is meaning - as long as the outcome outweighs the means, we are capable of great evil.

Also yes, I started out born as a single byte and through the years I have evolved from 8 bit to 16 bit to 32 bit and now 64 bits.

I would be very hesitant to assume that suffering is the only way to find meaning. This is kind of what I'm trying to talk about, our expectation that suffering inherently holds meaning. I would argue that it does not, only that we have an in-born need to find meaning in suffering to continue being happy and productive. My broader point is that our in-born need to find this meaning is problematic.

In my own life, I have also found that my search for meaning in the face of an event of great suffering can also become a fruitless exercise. In other words, searching for meaning in the face of life's great cruelty is not always the antidote for suffering. By this I mean that the lesson of massive cruelty in life can be reasoned into hatred or depression or a venom of some kind. Sometimes it is better not to seek meaning where there is none and to resign one's self to the knowledge that life is cruel, and it may be a healthier option to shift focus back onto other, more positive things. Lack of meaning as meaning? Is that an ouroboros? I think maybe!

Also, a well-placed positive event can also provide a very deep sense of meaning. So I could not agree with the claim that all meaning derives from suffering.

Not all suffering is equivalent.

Christianity is a key to this one.

t is also true that often the poor suffer tremendously and work very hard only to die destitute. — 64bithuman

Of course - capitalism relies upon a series of stories to stay afloat. One is that if you work hard you will make it. Obviously bullshit, but I guess it has traction because most people appreciate the notion of 'no pain no gain.' And we know that hard work (saving, studying, training) can pay off.

Christianity relies upon a similar story - suffering will be rewarded in the next life.

This is kind of what I'm trying to talk about, our expectation that suffering inherently holds meaning — 64bithuman

I don't think it does much today - modern Western culture is all about the avoidance of suffering in every possible way. However in many Christian cultures, suffering held central importance for centuries. Remember suffering came to a perfect world because god gave humans free will. We messed up creation and pay the price through our daily travails - child birth, labour, etc. Jesus, of course, sanctified suffering - his burden was to suffer greatly to redeem human beings. Suffering became central to the West's most enduring myth about transcendence.

Romans 5:3-4
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

Philippians 1:29
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,

1 Peter 4:1
Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,

Interesting thoughts; I would disagree with you, however. I do not agree that modern Western culture is all about the avoidance of suffering. After all, Western culture is Christian culture.

Rather, I see a still-broadly Christian culture that is also broadly obsessed with material wealth and the wealthy and equally obsessed with the means of how to acquire such wealth - and most of those highly publicized methods contain needless sufferings at their core and do not adress the tuth of the matter, which is that odds are if you weren't born into a lot of wealth you will not be able to become very wealthy.

Take the best-selling Amazon non-fiction book of the past couple years - Atomic Habits - which is entirely about discipline, overcoming lack of motivation, designing a personal environment that is spartan and inherently success-orientated. Rich people tell us that if we only suffered more, or found better, more elaborate ways of suffering, we could all be like them - rich!

Take the many fads of dieting that inflict needless suffering on a population obsessed with eternal good-looks. What suffering people will endure to 'look good'. The goals of Westerners may often be vain, but the means are all to do with suffering and the expectation of meaning being derived from it.

I also don't believe that we have shaken off our Christian heritage. It is as you say, Christ is the sacrificial lamb who endured suffering for us and to emulate Christ is to embark on a life of suffering. Yet, he is only an echo of the older times when we actually did sacrifice human beings to swing the tide of fortune in our favour. This is because we inherently believe that suffering and sacrifice can bring about good fortune - which is false.

Sure, we can work harder and make more money or find new opportunities, but that's not the end all be all. We often inflict suffering upon ourselves with the expectation of receiving the gift of good fortune, and then do not receive such a gift. It is also true that we sometimes just have good fortune and don't do anything to deserve it. This causes a lot of friction within us because we expect good fortune to always be accompanied by suffering...

I have a pet theory that this is why the very wealthy often become uniquely obsessed with personal health, trainers, nutrition, fasting, fad diets and the like - because the reverse is also true, that richest people must (possibly unconsciously) believe that they have suffered for their success and seek out forms of suffering to justify their wealth. I have found that rich people are very defensive about if they actually deserve the wealth that they have.

The ruling or wealthiest class must believe that wealth can be earned through suffering, or they face the moral crisis of holding tremendous amounts of wealth and having not actually earned it with suffering. This is why the wealthiest classes literally hire people to eradicate the shame of being as visibly wealthy as they are. I also believe that this is why the wealthiest often see themselves as exceptional, because there can be no other answer as to why they are so much more wealthy than ordinary people. In other words, the lie of suffering creating wealth and prosperity is pervasive in our society from both sides.

Since you have Sterling Hayden's picture on your profile, i guess that necessitates a response. What exactly are you wanting to discuss in OP? If you can water it down a bit for the intellectually challenged that will be great.

. I do not agree that modern Western culture is all about the avoidance of suffering. — 64bithuman

Fine to hold that view, but all of consumer capitalism goes against it. Most of consumerism - our current religion - is predicated on comfort and making life easier. We have heating, air conditioning, lighting, cars, so we never have to walk, products to keep us fit so we don't need to labor, elevators to avoid stairs, we have home delivery so we don't have to go out, dishwashers so we don't need to wash up, washing machines, dryers, massage in shopping malls...

You know where this is going. The entire history of technology is built around comfort and avoiding suffering and making life easier and pampering the human body. It's kind of our thing.

So I would say for your argument to hold, you need to refine it. Perhaps: human life in the West is torn between two cultures of suffering and hedonism. Many people belong to one camp and some drift in and out of both. In general I'd say suffering has a less prominent focus and is more likely to be a lens directed at some phenomena and not others.

Sure, I can try to lay it all out smooth: we exist in a hostile reality, to survive this hostile reality, we have evolved an inherent ability to seek out the meaning in our suffering. ie: "Without that cancer diagnoses, I wouldn't have reconnected with my Mother." Taken to the next logical step, we also understand that suffering is broadly the only consistent way to improve one's situation, ie: doing sit-ups and dieting will help a person lose weight. So armed with both of these recognitions about reality, we end up in the false belief that nothing 'good' can be attained without some kind of suffering and that suffering must inherently cause meaning, or good fortune of some kind. We see this as being positive, more often than not.

However, we make mistakes about reality when we believe these things, since it's not true that suffering is the only way to create meaning in your life. For example, we can be benefactors of sheer good fortune without directly 'earning it' with suffering. Good fortune can also spark meaning.

It is also true that the very rich more often than not don't have to directly suffer to earn their wealth, just as it is true that a poor person can inflict tremendous amounts of suffering on themselves or their family in the search for wealth, or good fortune, and still die penniless. Thus, the expectation that just because we suffer we will achieve good fortune, or find a deeper meaning, is dangerous and sadly widely unrecognized.

Finally, I would trace these instincts back to our earliest days, when we believed so strongly in the idea of suffering causing good fortune that we would sacrifice fellow human beings in the hopes that tremendous suffering and literal sacrifice could swing things in this overtly hostile reality in our favour. I argue that we have not shed this mindset and that we still chase suffering as a means of enlightenment or good fortune, to the detriment of ourselves or our families. This does not only apply to wealth, it is just easier to understand when talking about wealth.

Ok, so you reworded your op.

Sounds like essentially you're saying mankind believes 'suffering can and will lead to good fortune'. And your objection is, that belief is incorrect, and that there are other ways to facilitate good fortune such as positive thinking. Is that it?

I would see increasing technological improvement as inevitable in our time and secondary to our search for meaning, which existed before technology and I believe would outlast technology.

I would also say that consumer capitalism is all about status, about opulence, and about those who don't have status or opulence idolizing the people who've 'made it'. It is true that the more opulent a person is, the easier their expensive technology will make the chore-like aspects of their lives, but this is a vector that correlates to level of material wealth.

I would argue that the drive of consumer capitalism is not strictly to eliminate suffering, but rather to rise to opulence, so that all of your suffering can be directed to further increasing your wealth - then so you can hire people to suffer and increase your wealth for you and those people can hire people and so on. Poorer people often buy cheap products that shoddily reduce the chore-like aspects of their lives, but ultimately this is only historically in emulation of the rich.

As the living standard increases, so does the baseline for the underclass. Also as a sidebar to a sidebar, I don't think that technology has been developed predominantly to pamper the human body - what about missiles, medicine, etc.

My point was that they are just words. ‘Suffering’ is no different to ‘meaning’ in the broader picture.

I have had a few discussions on here where some describe ‘suffering’ as being basically anything that requires effort.

Note: a ‘positive’ event can only be called such in relation to a ‘negative event’.

Words are just words. The ‘meaning’ (whatever that means!) is a referential tool for us to navigate around. For you perhaps the ‘meaning’ is to stop looking for ‘meaning’ … kind of self contradictory but most language is so … :D

Hmmm, I think perhaps you're focusing on a narrow and abstracted band of suffering, not suffering per say. Perhaps this OP is more about you wanting suffering to be a kind of Rosetta Stone of human behavior. Just a thought.

I would argue that the drive of consumer capitalism is not strictly to eliminate suffering, but rather to rise to opulence, — 64bithuman

I partly agree, but opulence is also about ostentatious comfort and this symbolizes the 'buying off' of suffering and enhanced access to pleasure - both aesthetic and embodied. A key point of opulence is that the wealthy do not need to suffer. The poor suffer. Having an opulent home is advertising to others that you don't have to deal with the same substandard tribulations as other mere morals.

Also as a sidebar to a sidebar, I don't think that technology has been developed predominantly to pamper the human body - what about missiles, medicine, etc. — 64bithuman

I meant 'consumer capitalism' expressed via technology. But note also that some military technology was also about minimizing the suffering of a nation's soldiers and preventing events like WW1's Western Front from happening again.

I think it is a perfectly reasonable evolutionary function to ‘search for meaning’ when things do not go our way. That is basically a damn fine survival mechanism that allows us to venture beyond our perceived limitations and learn about what is out there.

Not exactly, it's a little complicated and hard to reduce to short sentences. It's more like: Mankind thinks that there is a correlation between sacrifice/suffering and good fortune/meaning. This is both wrong and right. It is right because we can work to improve our situations, and that work often entails sacrifice/suffering. It is wrong because there is not always a correlation between sacrifice and good fortune. Despite this, we can easily be convinced that a sacrifice is acceptable because we are so used to good fortune being earned through suffering. We can forget that sometimes good fortune lands on a person's lap because of fate, or that sometimes sacrifice/suffering is just needless suffering without the promise of good fortune.

In the strongest example, I claim Hitler could convince the people of Germany that the war and the Third Reich were a necessary evil on the basis of this faulty correlation of sacrifice. If you look at Hitler's speeches, one of the most common themes is this notion of sacrifice and the promise of rewards to come.

If you've ever read Animal Farm, there's a character called Boxer who is a powerful cart-horse. His motto is "I will work harder". Boxer thinks that if he just works hard enough, the dream of the utopia of the Animal Farm will come true. As more and more animals perish on the Animal Farm in search of utopia, Boxer only works harder, partly because he is being indirectly implicated in the murder of innocent animals. So to make the entire utopian promise 'worth it', he must work harder and harder to make up for all the suffering. I claim that we can become swindled like boxer because of this correlation of suffering/sacrifice and good fortune.

ot exactly, it's a little complicated and hard to reduce to short sentences. — 64bithuman

The gist or crux is sometimes a short sentence.

In the fast few posts you have introduced a new word "sacrifice". It might be better if you stuck to the original word "suffering". So again, you're saying mankind believes 'suffering can and will lead to good fortune'. And your objection is, that belief is incorrect, and that there are other ways to facilitate good fortune such as positive thinking. Is that it?

At this stage i'm not asking you to clarify what is "right" or "wrong". I'm simply stating your position. Am i stating your position correctly? Unless you want to recant your beliefs...which is fine with me.

I fear I have side barred too far away from the main point. The point is that the broader correlation of sacrifice/suffering relating to good fortune/meaning is a dangerous and flawed assumption. *See skyblack response hehe.

Yes I think we agree on the opulence thing. That's pretty much how I feel about it. The only distinction is that I would say that the opulent do not eliminate their suffering because they are opulent. That is just part of the dream. Also I would say that the opulent are some of the worst offenders in peddling this whole 'suffering = wealth' thing, because of the moral problem of being rich. Perhaps this is why so many wealthy people are conservative republicans who think that anybody could be as rich as them if they only worked hard enough.

You said, "The entire history of technology is built around comfort and avoiding suffering and making life easier and pampering the human body." So I was responding to that.

I leave semantics for the birds. Of course the entire construct of language can be reduced to nonsense shapes and vowels, but all in service of the communication of ideas, which is the main point.

BTW you don't have to be defensive...at least not with me. I'm not going to tear you apart unless it is indicated you want me to. So just be honest and state your position if you wish to have a dialogue. If not, that's great too.

I'm not really sure how to break this down into a smaller chunk because the main point is highly dependent on a lot of surrounding information and is not a simple idea. I also don't really understand how you interpreted defensive attitude out of my response. This leaves me head scratching. Trust me, I don't hold on to my beliefs so dearly. The gist of every human story is "a man or woman faces an obstacle and overcomes it or does not" but that is not a substitute for consuming entire stories. If you are TL/DR'ing my posts, that's fine, but don't expect me to distill the entire idea to ten words, because I don't know how.

That's what i thought.

Aside from your essayed obscuration there are really only 2 positions, one i have already mentioned, which is what you have been saying, or its opposite which will be a recant of what you have been saying. And that will be ,

"Mankind does not have said belief and i have no objection. I am simply playin' "

Cool. Thank you Mr. 64bithuman. That be all.

I'm sorry that your worldview does not accommodate answers that are non-binary, good sir.

Sir, the question of any world view hasn't even arose. We are still dealing with honesty.

But honesty, as Billy Joel once said, is such a lonely word.

But honesty, as Billy Joel once said, is such a lonely word. — 64bithuman

I prefer Joel to Derrida, but really of the Jewish philosophers, I prefer Marx (that's Groucho not Karl):

“While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.”

But honesty, as Billy Joel once said, is such a lonely word. — 64bithuman

Right, it seems "just a word" for you.

But now that we are getting into the nitty gritty of the questioner behind the op, my recommendation would be to resume your focus on your OP rather than your present pursuit. It may simply be a healthier choice, befitting the circumstances.

I can see her now, bending over a hot stove - only I can't see the stove!