The difference being science actually helps people understand their environment better unlike religious doctrine - which was much more of a force in destroying cultures and traditions. — I like sushi

Science has also been a strong force in destroying other cultures and traditions. Here is what Feyerabend had to say about it in Against Method, criticizing the idea that there is such a thing as "the scientific method":

Anger at the wanton destruction of cultural achievements from which we all could have learned, at the conceited assurance with which some intellectuals interfere with the lives of people, and contempt for the treacly phrases they use to embellish their misdeeds was and still is the motive force behind my work.

The practices of science and religion are cultures/traditions themselves, which have displaced others. Scientific claims are based on underlying beliefs when they are presented as facts, as truth, there are many similarities between the way science is practiced today and organized religion.

The value of science is judged in how well it allows us to predict and to interact with our surroundings in a predictable way. Yet what scientists rarely say, if ever, is that many very different world views can fit the observational evidence, can allow to make predictions that are as accurate, while many of their claims push one particular world view, usually one based on materialism, while strictly speaking there is no scientific evidence for it. They implicitly push beliefs, disguised under the moniker of "scientific" as a synonym for truth, that is as something to believe, which are spread through education, textbooks, news articles and all sorts of media.

I basically believe that nothing has any meaning. — yupamiralda

Since meaning depends on the individual, there is no absolute meaning, but there is personal meaning.

Watch how the concept of meaning arise. Say you want to build a shack, and you need a hammer to build it, then you feel the hammer is meaningful to you, because you need it to reach something that you want. More generally, we deem something to have meaning when we deem it useful to reach something that we want.

So it is obvious many things have meaning to many people, and presumably many things have meaning to you, for instance you deem it meaningful to come on this forum because you consider it might help you reach something that you want. Which is to know what you should do, to know what to do with your life, to find some absolute standard that would tell you why you should pick a specific course of action over some other one.

And your trouble here is with the idea that there is no such absolute standard, no absolute meaning, no desire shared by everyone and nothing seen as useful by everyone. But why does this trouble you? Why should you only do something that is seen as useful by everyone, what would be the problem with doing something that other people see as useless? You fear that they might judge you negatively? And if they do, so what?

You want to live, so live your life how you want to live it. Then you will see meaning in a lot of things. These things won't have absolute meaning, but you won't care, because they will have meaning to you.

I see it as a great mistake to think that science is or can be separate at all from philosophy. Those who claim science has grown separate from philosophy simply don't see the philosophical assumptions/beliefs within which scientists work. And unfortunately, most scientists are themselves not aware of their philosophical assumptions/beliefs, thus claiming that what they do has nothing to do with philosophy, and that what philosophers do has nothing to do with what they do.

The split is in the mind of the scientists and their followers. And if they philosophized more about what they do, they would realize that a lot of what they say is not as certain as they claim to be, and they would explore or allow others to explore paths that seem to contradict the mainstream ones.

When we have scientists making claims such as that the heat death of the universe in the far future is a certainty, that it is a certainty that at some point all life will become impossible in the universe, and when their claims are unexamined because they are scientists and supposedly scientists know better and they are to be believed, then we know that modern science has entered a philosophical void where belief trumps reason.

To me, "deserve" and "should" are not part of the equation, they do not enter my thinking on this subject. There is not some absolute standard that allows us to say what someone deserves or should have in an absolute sense. If you say someone deserves something, or should have something, you fundamentally say that you want them to have that thing, but how do you decide who gets to have it and who gets not to? In thinking about what you believe one deserves, you're putting your subjective moral judgement first, and the well-being of the individual you're trying to help second. But if the goal at stake is to help someone suffer less, then surely our own subjective moral judgements on what the person deserves or not have no place at all?

I have no opinion on whether a given person deserves something or not, here I am just focused on helping the person suffer less. If the path to happiness for that person is to find a woman to love him and start a family with, who am I to judge whether I think he deserves that or not?

And in my view most young men do not want a woman to love them and to start a family with because society expects them to, but because that's what they want deep down, because of the same drive that keeps life itself going and that has kept life going for millions of years.

And I believe that in principle any young man could find a woman to love him. It may be much harder for some than for others, it may require much more effort for some than for others, but there is a lot that can be done to help. Not all could necessarily be helped to be with the woman of their dreams, as there is competition, but there are a lot of women out there looking for a young man to love them and start a family with. It doesn't take a perfect match to have a relationship that works, there mostly needs to be some common ground and attraction and good will on both sides.

If the man happens to have expectations that makes it nearly impossible to find a good fit, then the help could be focused on changing these expectations.

If the man believes that he has "zero faults", then maybe that's one of the reasons he has trouble finding a woman, because that likely means he is unwilling to change in any way and expects women to adapt completely to him, while it is much easier for a relationship to work out if both sides give some leeway.


As to "gaining control", if we help someone to get what they want then obviously we have helped them to gain control over their life. If we help them to change their expectations or their reaction to a situation then we're still helping them to gain control over their life. It is precisely control over ourselves and our surroundings that keeps us alive. Both gaining control over a situation and over ourselves (our desires, expectations, reactions, beliefs) can help relieve suffering.

A lot, but not all of my fears, centre on the following nexus. Within this nexus there are numerous variations on a theme and elaborations, and I am perhaps misrepresenting what is going on in some respects, but this is the basic story. Suppose a random thought of groping someone on the subway pops into your head. At first, so long as you recognise that they are not really your thoughts or desires this thought may not be very frightening. Suppose though that you began to worry that because such thoughts had popped into your head so many times, that you might perform them on auto-pilot- as a kind of mechanical reflex- without even being aware of it, and certainly not intending to. You now have a plausible story about why you should be afraid of these thoughts, and a story about why being afraid of these thoughts is dangerous in itself. So trying to be rid of these thoughts becomes like trying not to think of a pink elephant. You will think these thoughts more because you perceive them as dangerous, and in your mind that makes them even more dangerous. — dePonySum

If a thought of groping someone on the subway pops in your head, then it's safe to say it's your thought. One might even say it's a desire you have but that you try to repress. Then the beginning of the whole ensuing problem might be that you began assuming that some of your thoughts/desires weren't really your thoughts/desires, and then you built a complicated castle in your head in an attempt to rationalize that.

You're (presumably) a man with sexual urges, having these thoughts/desires doesn't make you a horrible person. There are consequences to groping someone against their will, but if you simply think/desire it you're fine, as long as you are aware of what you do. And hey if it ever happens that you do it once on auto-pilot, so what? You will be promptly slapped and you will remember that and you won't do it on auto-pilot again.

It seems like you interpreted these thoughts/desires as life-threatening, and this led you to fight obsessively against them, while if you had recognized them as benign you wouldn't have mounted such a resistance against them in the first place.

We disagree in appearance on the semantics but fundamentally I don't think we disagree.

As I said if suffering stems from a conflict between what is desired and what is experienced, then one way to relieve this conflict is to help the individual get what they want, but another way is to help them stop wanting that thing, and this latter way seems to address the issue you raise.

What is seen as "deserved" or "necessary" is a subjective interpretation made by the individual. If they want something, but they think they don't "deserve" it, then they are ok with not pursuing that undeserved desire. If they want something, but they think it is not "necessary", then they are ok with not pursuing that unnecessary desire. In both cases, they give up on their desire, or they push it into the background, and this relieves the conflict.

On the example of a young man, who wants a woman to love and to love him back and to start a family with, and who suffers because he can't find one, then helping him find one is the more obvious remedy, rather than making him think that he is such a shitty human being he doesn't deserve one, or that he doesn't really need love or a family. Now in the process of helping him find a woman, the reasons why he couldn't find one would be explored and addressed, and if the root issues are addressed then a priori there is no reason that he would form relationships that keep falling apart, and if that turns out to be the case then that means the therapy was poor and something important was missed, the root issues weren't addressed, for instance maybe the young man was coached to fake a persona to make women attracted to him, but once in a relationship he couldn't keep it up.

A therapy that is any good would not focus narrowly on the immediate desire but would explore its consequences. Helping someone experience temporary relief only to then face a worse suffering that is harder to escape is not helping. And helping someone does not mean making them dependent on external help in the future, if they internalize whatever worked for them then they could have the tools to help themselves in the future.

It is hard when you feel you have something important to communicate but no one seems to care.

I think there are many important ideas that were thought but that never spread because no one cared to listen, because they were too different or too difficult to understand at first glance. And if the idea implies something that people do not want to hear then they will dismiss it even more easily.

On the other hand ideas that are simple to understand or that build upon the status quo spread much more easily, especially if they imply something that people want to hear.

So you find yourself in the difficult situation of wanting to spread an idea that is hard to spread while not having the means to spread it effectively yourself. However I want to believe that if you have something important to say and you persevere on and on, despite the apparent indifference of everyone else, at some point some people will start to notice.

b. we cannot reason without the help of emotion, as research with people who have damage to their emotional centres has shown — Izat So

And intuitively, reason alone cannot tell us what to do, because we need to desire something for reason to help us reach it.


The need to change the world is subjective, it depends how enjoyable one's life is, it depends on one's outlook for the future, on what one sees that could be changed. Some people exploit others because they can, and they make life worse for many others, and they won't be convinced to stop because they thrive on exploiting others, so then forcing them to stop becomes a matter of competition, people imposing their ideals onto others. The same competition for survival that has gone on for eons.

Interesting comments, thanks.

I agree that defining suffering as "an experience we want to stop" is very general, but isn't it precisely what suffering is? A feeling that we want to not feel.

We can agree that not all young men want to find a woman, and that not all young men who don't find a woman suffer. This shows again that it is not a situation in itself ("not finding a woman") that causes suffering, it is an interaction between the person and the situation.

And I agree that what we think we want is not always what we really want. Say the young man is not attracted to women, but he is pressured by his social environment to find a woman. He may come to think that he needs to find a woman, to say that he wants to find a woman, but what he really wants is to fit in his social environment, to be accepted by his family and peers. Now when he finally finds a woman his suffering related to not being accepted may cease, but if he is attracted to men he may suffer from not being with a man.

So indeed, sometimes we may have conflicting desires, we have plenty of desires, life is not so simple as having one desire at a time. But if we acknowledge that suffering results from an interaction between what we desire and what we experience, then we have a framework that can guide us to find the source of a person's suffering and help relieve it: What does the person really want, that is in conflict with what they experience, and how can we best untie their knot to make their experience of life closer to the life they want?

On the example of the young man again, if he wants to find a woman and that's what he really wants deep down (he wants the whole thing, the intimacy, the romance, the life partner, the family), and he suffers because he can't find one, succeeding in helping him find one would relieve this particular suffering. Then if the relationship doesn't work out, and he finds another woman and things go south again, and again, and again, then the source of his suffering is not that he can't find a woman but that he can't keep a relationship with one. And then we would have to look deeper as to what happens that prevents him from maintaining a durable relationship, by looking at what makes a relationship work and what doesn't work in his case.

And indeed drugs can sometimes be a tool in some situations, but that's how they should be looked at, one tool out of many to use in a philosophical framework with solid foundations to help relieve suffering, not the postulated be-all and end-all solution pushed by the pharmaceutical industry with the belief that it's just a matter of finding the right drug.

At the end of the day you do what you want. I just find it peculiar that you react this way with believing and not with any other concept. If you say that you bring a glass of water to your mouth and swallow the water, I would say well you drink water, but if you insist that "NO I DO NOT DO DRINKING" then I wonder, why this reaction?

Don't you see that you accepting as true that English is not my first language, without having the evidence to establish it as true, is you believing, precisely because this is how you defined believing?

If you say that there are things you believe, but you never say "I believe", I can understand. But if you insist that you do not believe anything, while we have proof of the contrary, then I don't understand your point of view.


As to the idea that beliefs are guesses in disguise, to believe is to assert something as true (while not having sufficient evidence), while to guess is to assert something without claiming it is true. I agree with your idea that beliefs are sometimes based on guesses, and I agree that it is wrong to claim that something believed is objective truth, but I don't agree that a belief is a guess in disguise, because believing something is seeing it as subjective truth, which is definitely not the same as guessing.

When I make a guess...I call that guess a guess. I see no reason to pretend it is something else; no reason to disguise the fact that I am making a guess. — Frank Apisa

But we agreed that a guess and a belief are not the same thing, and you gave different definitions for them. So surely, when you do something that fits the definition of guessing you are making a guess, and when you do something that fits the definition of believing you are doing believing right? I honestly do not get what you don't understand about that.

Your definition for "believing": "accepting something as true...without having the evidence to actually establish it as true".

I gave you an example of something you do that fits exactly your own definition of "believing".

You have the right to not use the word "believe" or "believing" to describe something you do that fits your definition for "believing". But do you at least agree that you do things that fit your own definition of "believing"?

First, allow me to repeat that I do not do "believing"...which, in many contexts, is using the word "believe" to disguise a guess, supposition, estimate...and that stuff. — Frank Apisa

In what context do people use the word "believe" to disguise a guess? When people say they believe in a god, by your definition they accept as true that there is a god, without having the evidence to establish it as true, and we agreed that this is different from making a guess, so they are not disguising a guess.

I do not do "believing."

I make guesses...and call them guesses.

I estimate things...and call them estimates.

I suppose things...and call them suppositions. — Frank Apisa

You do believing...and you don't call it believing.

Earlier you gave a definition for "guess": "an assertion (of sorts) that lacks sufficient information to be reasonably certain".

You say that you make guesses, because you make assertions that lack sufficient information to be reasonably certain, which fits your definition of "guess".

Then you gave a definition for "belief": "an acceptance of something as true...without having the evidence to actually establish it as true".

You accepted something as true (English not being my first language), without having the evidence to actually establish it as true, which fits your definition of "belief". And yet you will not say that you do believing.

There is zero conceptual difference between the two cases, do you not see that? If something you do is described exactly by the word "believing", as defined by you, why won't you use that word? Why do you do that for that word and not any other?

By your own definition of belief, you are believing. If I see you drink water and you say that you DO NOT DO DRINKING, I will let you say that if that's so important to you, but I will still say that you drink water.

I accept without the slightest doubt one thing said right here in this exchange...with no real evidence other than your word, namely that English is not your first language. You are very, very proficient...and I could doubt that, but I am totally willing to accept it as true without any investigation.

I would not say, "I believe you"...I would say, "I accept that as true." — Frank Apisa

But you said previously: "To me, a "belief" is a word used to denote an acceptance of something as true...without having the evidence to actually establish it as true".

And by your own admission you do not have the evidence to actually establish as true that English is not my first language.

So in accepting as true that English is not my first language, you are believing, by your own definition of "belief". You are not saying it of course, but you are doing it.

I actually was being sincere, and in return you were fully condescending towards me.

English is not my first language by the way, hence the occasional grammatical errors.

But since you suspect that I am lying and/or that I don't know my own intentions, there is no point in talking to you about myself, so I'll stop doing it.


Finally you said it: guess and belief are not the same thing.

Now I'm going to point out the thorn that bothers you.

To me, a "belief" is a word used to denote an acceptance of something as true...without having the evidence to actually establish it as true. It also is a word that people use to disguise some guesses, mostly, it seems to me, because they do not want to acknowledge the guesses to be guesses. — Frank Apisa

You want to know why people who accept something as true don't say it is a guess? Because when they accept it as true, it becomes the truth to them.

It bothers you that people who believe in something don't acknowledge that their belief is a guess, but in order to acknowledge that it is a guess they would have to stop believing. So fundamentally it bothers you that people believe in something.


You say you do not believe in anything, but I presume there are things you accept as true because you consider you have the evidence to establish them as true? Do you have some examples of that?

No, I am not. And that sentence was particularly condescending. — Frank Apisa

Yes you are mistaking my compassion for condescension, and no saying that I have compassion for you is not objectively condescending, that's your own subjective interpretation.

Well...you certainly are acting as though you are. — Frank Apisa

I would be bothered if I was fighting with you and I wanted you to admit defeat, which seems to be your interpretation of what's going on here. But I'm not fighting, I'm just trying to help you see something you fail to see.

(Just shakes his head and sighs at this nonsense.) — Frank Apisa

Now this is much more objectively condescending. It is not nonsense to state that you misinterpret and misrepresent my intentions, I should know because I know what my intentions are.

I think a guess is a guess. At times some people hide the fact that they are making a guess by calling their guess a belief...as in "I believe (in) God" or "I believe there are no gods." — Frank Apisa

A guess that is called a "belief" is being disguised. — Frank Apisa

You didn't answer my question. Do you consider that a guess and a belief are the same thing? Yes or no?

If you say that calling a guess a belief is disguising a guess, that means you consider that a belief is not a guess right?

And then what is the difference between a guess and a belief? What is a belief to you?

Interesting is however, that symmetry in a micro world, for example in the world of elementary particles, is exact, while in a macro world, for example in biology, is only approximate. Why is it so? — Hrvoje

It is not that symmetry in the world of elementary particles is exact, but rather that physicists have attempted to model the world of elementary particles in terms of exact symmetry. They have got useful results, but there are many things that don't fit, and it is not clear at all that this world could be perfectly modeled in terms of exact symmetry. In fact, because particle physicists have forced exact symmetry in their models they have to invoke a fundamental phenomenon of "symmetry breaking" for the model to be accurate at all.

I would say regularity is in the eye of the beholder. You could look at a glass of water and see it as a regular shape. Then you might look much closer with a microscope and see tiny impurities in a jittery, irregular motion. Then you might model water and the impurities as being made of extremely tiny particles interacting with one another in a regular way, and you could explain the irregular motion of a tiny impurity as being the result of all the regular interactions between it and the particles that make up water (which are not at rest but move in various directions with various velocities).

We can see regularities in irregularities, and irregularities in regularities.

I (choose to) believe that something good can come from this discussion. — Couchyam

Me too, otherwise I wouldn't bother.

We should be grateful that people who chose to specialize in a mental health related profession have honed their interests over many years. An 'enthusiastic amateur' might develop moments of strong empathy for people who suffer from mental illness, but usually those moments are unpredictable and unreliable. Often, enthusiastic amateurs do more harm than good (this should be self-evident) unless there is sufficiently good reason to believe they can sustain their empathy long enough to help. The reason enthusiastic amateurs often fail is that many people instinctively seek reciprocation or compensation for help that they give, whether or not it was requested. — Couchyam

If you consider that enthusiastic amateurs often fail because they often seek compensation for help that they give, consider that mental health professionals always expect compensation for help that they give.

There is the widespread tendency to see scientific authorities as priests spreading gospel that we have to blindly believe in, as if they were endowed with divine abilities that made their ideas and reasonings inscrutable to the common man. I grew out of that a long time ago. When you look deep into the reasonings and assumptions, you can see the flaws. Blind belief is not warranted.

There are plenty of historical examples where scientific authorities were eventually shown to be wrong, by individuals whose ideas were rejected by these authorities and their community of followers, yet it is still taboo to dare question the ideas and practices of scientific authorities.

Mental health professionals, amateurs, philosophers, individuals who suffer, are all human beings. They are not right or wrong by virtue of who they are or their title, they are right or wrong by virtue of what they say and do, and it should not be taboo to critically analyse the ideas and practices of some individuals, as if we couldn't possibly understand what it is they do and why they do it. Blind belief in the authority does a lot more harm than good.

You're mistaking compassion for condescension.

I am not bothered, I am not in a competition to win and get pleasure out of it as if you were my enemy, I am just trying to make you see your mistake. At best I am a bit annoyed that you keep misinterpreting and misrepresenting my intentions and thoughts, and I wish you would spend a little more effort in attempting to understand what I try to convey to you.


Do you consider that a belief is the same thing as a guess?

If so, why do you insist on not using the word belief, why is it less clear to use the word belief?

If not, what is to you the difference between the two?

If we agree to define suffering as "an experience that we want to stop", desire is part of the definition so it doesn't tell us why people suffer, if we know that someone desires something we have no idea whether that person suffers or not.

However, by definition suffering depends on what we want (desire) and what we experience. The fact that someone desires something doesn't tell us why they suffer, however what they desire is a factor. There is a fundamental distinction.

The presence of desire doesn't tell us anything, however what is desired does. The presence of lack doesn't tell us anything, however what is lacked might. But we don't care about the things we lack that we don't want, we care about the ones we desire, so again we're led back to what is desired.

By definition what is desired and what is experienced are fundamental factors in suffering. Then it's a matter of finding how experiences that we want to stop come about, and how to make them stop.

Let's take again the example of the young man who wants to find a woman. He suffers when he experiences the thought that he can't find one. How to make that experience stop? Either help him find a woman, or help him believe that he is going to find a woman, or help him stop wanting to find a woman. Isn't that what would address the root factors in his suffering? Isn't that more useful than drugging him because he's depressed because he can't find a woman?

Now if the reason he can't find a woman is because he's too stressed around them, and we give him a drug that helps him stop being stressed, then we're indirectly helping him to find a woman, and fundamentally that's what helps him stop suffering, not the drug in itself. The drug was a tool in this particular case, but coaching him could have worked too.

Notice how different that approach is compared to the psychiatric dogma that in principle any suffering can be reduced or stopped with the right drug, with all the research spent on studying the effects of drugs on the brain, it all seems like such an inefficient venture primarily aimed at enriching the pharmaceutical industry. And notice the terrible conflict of interest: the more people suffer, and the longer they suffer, the more money the industry makes, so they have the strong incentive to provide illusions of solutions and let people continue suffering. Providing real solutions would mean treating less people for smaller periods of time, so much less revenue.

And of course mental health professionals want to help people, but to become professionals they had to be trained to accept and apply the dogmas of the profession, which have been influenced by the research grants provided by the pharmaceutical industry, so they're doing their best within these dogmas, but these perpetuate suffering and help little. I see this as one of the biggest scandals of our time.

It may be customary...BUT I DO NOT DO IT. I DO NOT DO BELIEVING. — Frank Apisa

I would "accept it as so." Yes...and today there are things I "accept as so." BUT I REFUSE TO USE THE WORD "BELIEVE" TO DISGUISE WHAT I AM DOING. I USE "I ACCEPT IT AS SO."

That is because I do not do "believing." — Frank Apisa

So you agree that you do what people do when they say they "believe" something. And you agree that they do believing. So logically, you do believing, you just don't call it that.

Why get so worked up about the word "belief", what is the terrible thing that would happen if you used that word?

Any assertion that "there is a god" or "there are no gods" is nothing but a blind guess. It might as well be based on a coin toss...as the "subjective evidence" you pretend exists. — Frank Apisa

Subjective evidence exists to the people who experience it. A blind person will have no idea what the color blue is like, but surely that doesn't imply you don't see colors. So just because you have not experienced god, doesn't imply others haven't.

I KNOW what the dictionary definition of "belief" is. But I do not do "believing"...because I do not use the word to disguise a guess, estimate, opinion, or supposition. — Frank Apisa

If you know the dictionary definition of "belief", then you know that belief is not identical with a guess, or an estimate, or an opinion, or a supposition. So why do you keep attempting to equate belief with them?

Confidence in something, or the acceptance of something as true, is not a guess, nor an estimate, nor an opinion, nor a supposition.

"We Don't Want To Believe - Because, If We Believe, Then..."

Read the OP...and take a look how this one poster uses the word "believe" in what he has to say.

The use of the word is what makes the issue nonsense. Each time he could have used "do you guess or suppose"...and everything could have been clearer. — Frank Apisa

If you attempt to replace belief in what the OP says with something else, you're changing what the OP says.

The concept of belief is useful, you have the right not to use it, but stop saying there is no need to use it because you believe that it is the same as a guess or a supposition.

You're even contradicting yourself, because if to you "believe" means the same thing as "guess", then it would be as clear to use the word "believe" than to use the word "guess", yet you say that everything would have been clearer if "guess" was used instead of "believe".

If you agree that "believe" and "guess" are not the same, stop saying they are the same. And if you consider that "believe" and "guess" are the same, stop saying that it is clearer to use "guess" rather than "believe".

You have an internal conflict about the word "belief", I'm not being condescending it's just what transpires through your posts, as shown by the self-contradiction above. And I believe that you need to engage in some introspection to find out why that is.

I think we share similar lines of thought with respect to what belief is. However, I have this question I've wanted to ask someone, so here goes - often we try to reconcile knowledge in such a way that it matches that of others, for the most part, about a particular object/subject. So, is belief something that we should also attempt to reconcile? Or, is subjectivity one of the main aspects of belief and therefore they must remain isolated from those of others regardless of any commonalities. — BrianW

I think that knowledge is not independent of belief. Knowledge about a particular object/subject will be formulated in a framework that depends on the beliefs of the person formulating that knowledge. So for instance, in one framework the Sun can be described as a giant ball of incandescent plasma heated by the nuclear fusion in its core that has such and such properties, while in another framework the Sun can be described as a God with such and such characteristics.

And then when we try to reconcile knowledge with that of others, isn't it that we're fundamentally already attempting to reconcile beliefs?

But you and the other guy are the ones telling me that I should call my guesses "beliefs" for no good reason. — Frank Apisa

You can call your guesses guesses, but you're mistaking yourself if you 'believe' that you have no beliefs. Again, look at the dictionary definition of belief.

On the question of whether there are any gods or not...any "belief" expressed is NOTHING but a blind guess. — Frank Apisa

This is false. One who has felt god has their belief based in part on subjective evidence, so it is not a blind guess.

Because that is all they are doing...blindly guessing there is a god. — Frank Apisa

Their belief may be based on a blind guess or on their education or on what they want or on their past experiences, but you can't reduce all they are doing to "blindly guessing", there is much more to it than that. People don't dedicate their life to a blind guess. Their belief shapes their whole life and how they see the world, they live by their belief every passing moment, you can't reduce it to a blind guess like blindly guessing the result of the next football game.

I do use "confident" the way you are suggesting, but I know there is a bit of bullshit involved. Bottom line, I only use it in situations where who cares. I am confident the GIANTS made the right moves; I am confident that my short game will come around. That kind of thing. — Frank Apisa

It is customary to use the word belief in these cases too, "I believe they made the right move", "I believe it will come around". And you're not only using it in situations where it is inconsequential. Say you're crossing the road and you see a car racing towards you, you may be confident that if you run forward you will avoid it, but if you're wrong you die.

Or say you lived at a time where it was commonly accepted that the Sun revolved around the Earth, you would see the Sun move across the sky and you would be confident that the Sun revolves around the Earth, you would believe that, by the definition of belief. Today you may accept as true that the Earth revolves around the Sun, which is by definition a belief.

So if you are confident about things, or you accept things as true, you do believing, by the definition of belief.

They are the same thing when dealing with fundamental questions about the true nature of the REALITY of existence...like, "Are there any gods or not?"

They are nothing but blind guesses. — Frank Apisa

People who have felt god do not base their belief in a god on a blind guess.

If you consider that the people who feel god blindly guess that the feeling they experience is that of god, then if we go down that rabbit hole it is a blind guess that other people have a consciousness, it is a blind guess that there is an external world that exists independently of you, so why do you focus on people who believe in a god or not?

Besides I have no problem with people basing their belief on a blind guess, or on whatever, the problem is when they try to force their belief onto others.

Why are these other two guys so upset with that? — Frank Apisa

Notice that you are the one getting upset.

If a person says, "I blindly guess that there is a GOD"...that is not going to carry much weight. We would not have as many organizations (national and international) with the intention of "protecting" the right of people to blindly guess about gods. — Frank Apisa

Precisely because there is a difference between a belief and a blind guess. Why else would a belief carry more weight than a blind guess?

I mentioned this in a previous post but you didn't address it. When someone believes that there is a god, they think and act as if this god exists, sometimes they feel him, they expect to meet him at some point, all that they wouldn't do if they were just blindly guessing. By the very definition of belief, they are confident of the existence of a god, they accept the existence of a god as true, which is not what they would do if they were blindly guessing.

Do you still use the word "confident", as in you're confident such or such thing is going to happen? Are you sometimes confident of something? If so, you do believing, again by the definition of belief.

For some reason you want to equate "belief" with "blind guess", and again they are not the same thing, but I suppose you're going to evade this point once again and reply for the 25th time that you "do not do believing".

You haven't addressed any of my points, you just keep repeating again and again that you "do not do believing". This type of behavior is precisely that of people who believe strongly in something. You believe strongly that you "do not do believing".

How did you arrive at this conclusion that you "do not do believing"? Look at the dictionary definition of belief, "confidence in something", "acceptance that something is true", do you never do that? When you are confident in something, by definition you believe in that thing. When you accept that something is true, by definition you believe in it. By definition you DO believing. You just don't like to call it believing, maybe because you don't want to see yourself and be seen on the same level as the people who believe in a god.

So ok you do not believe there is a god, and you don't believe there is no god, but you believe that you can't know either way, which is a belief by definition: you're confident that you can't know either way, you accept as true that you can't know either way.

However, some people have had experiences that they interpret as being in contact with god, as feeling god, so they're not blindly guessing, they're making an educated guess, they become confident that there is a god, and they choose to believe it, to accept it as true.


And to attempt to bring the topic back on track...

(the story in the OP is just to serve as an example of how people work against inconvenient realities and such). Most people fight for their beliefs not because they understand them or on the merit of the belief's integrity but because they hope to convince themselves that they are right to believe. For most people beliefs have to be ultimate and incontrovertible even when they consider themselves fallible humans. These people, when they believe, they enslave themselves to those beliefs. — BrianW

My view is that beliefs offer a feeling of safety, they are something we hang onto in the chaos and unpredictability of existence. There are some beliefs we are willing to give away easily, and others that we want to stick to no matter what because without them we are lost. And when we believe in something strongly we aren't able to see it as a belief, we see it as reality, as truth.

There is a famous quote from the physicist Max Planck that says: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.". Many people live and die with their cherished beliefs and no amount of argumentation can make them change these beliefs, while young people who grow up while being influenced by specific beliefs can stick to them easily. It's like when we're young we stick to the system of beliefs that works best for us, and as we grow older and we're so accustomed to it we don't want to give it away.

But philosophy of science also shows how any belief can be made to fit with observations, with the scientific evidence, with the facts, these are just interpreted differently depending on the belief. We can have countless world views that are consistent with observations, some of them are just simpler than others, some of them allow to make more accurate predictions than others, some of them lead us to destroy ourselves more than others, ..., and when our world views are too different we just talk past each other and don't understand one another.

Ahhh...practicing to be a psychologist by doing cyber-analysis. — Frank Apisa

Actually for now I'm guessing that you have some issues related to the concept of believing, that's not meant to be an attack that's an hypothesis as to why you react the way you do, and if you consider it seriously and do some introspection that might help you. But if you keep reacting like that this hypothesis might turn into a belief.

I do not do "believing." — Frank Apisa

I DO NOT DO BELIEVING. — Frank Apisa

So...I do not do believing. — Frank Apisa

That is why I say I do not do "believing"...because I don't. — Frank Apisa

I do not do "believing." — Frank Apisa

I do not do believing. — Frank Apisa

But I do not do "believing." — Frank Apisa

...I do not do believing. — Frank Apisa

But I do not do "believing." — Frank Apisa

I am not doing "believing." — Frank Apisa

Do you have a problem with that? — Frank Apisa

What is your fucking problem? — Frank Apisa

There are so many things to focus on, yet you seem most focused on making other people know and accept that you "do not do believing". I have seen you do that on at least one other thread. When people disagree with you, you respond with passive-aggressiveness, or you attack them. It doesn't take a psychologist to notice that you fixate on it and you react very strongly to it. When people stop replying to you you consider you have them convinced, but really you're just driving them away.

When a person says, "I believe there is a god"...all they are doing is saying, "It is my blind guess that there is at least one god in the REALITY"...but they are pretending they are saying something else. They are disguising the fact that they are making a blind guess by calling it a "belief." — Frank Apisa

It is not "all they are doing", because they also think and act as if this god exists, sometimes they feel him, they expect to meet him at some point, all that they wouldn't do if they were just blindly guessing.

Did you have help constructing that abomination of a sentence...or did you do it on your own, perhaps while under the influence? — Frank Apisa

In terms that you can understand, YOU DO BELIEVING, even if you don't say it, and even if you don't realize it.

I gave an example, in that example you hold a belief, the way belief is defined, so by the definition of belief you do believing. Now you keep saying that you do not do believing, but that's not in accordance with the definition of belief, because by that definition you do believing.

I don't think they are. To me...when a person says, "I believe (in) god" I think they are actually saying, "My guess is there is a god." When a person says, "I believe there are no gods" I think they are actually saying, "It is my guess there are no gods."

I do NOT see them as worlds apart. I do not use the "believe" form...because I see it as an attempt to disguise. — Frank Apisa

You seem to have some deep-seated issues with the concept of believing.

You keep referring to it in the context of believing in a god or believing there is no god, you don't like people who say they believe in a god, presumably because they have caused you some suffering in some way? You don't want them to accept something as real if you don't have evidence of it and they can't show you evidence of it?

Belief is a word used to refer to various states of mind, but it doesn't reduce to a guess. When people say they believe there is a god they think and act as if there is a god, which is not the same as simply guessing. Sometimes they even see god.

You say you do not do what these people do, but you do, you just don't say it, and maybe you also don't realize it. Say a friend of yours comes visit you, and when you're with that friend you chat and have fun and let your guard down. Now it is not impossible that this person who has come to visit you is not your friend, but his twin he never told you about, or a clone, and that this person has come to hurt you. And yet you don't consider the possibility, you think and act as if this person has good intentions towards you, and that state of mind we call a belief. Now you can choose to not use that word, but that's the word we usually use.

I think it’s important to understand that pain, loss/lack and humility/humiliation are the experiences where suffering occurs

where there is suffering, at least one of these experiences is also occurring. — Possibility

But do you agree that there cannot be an experience of lack or loss without a desire for what is perceived to be lacked or lost? This makes desire a more fundamental factor in suffering.

Also one problem is that where there is suffering there can always be said to be an experience of lack: the lack of the absence of suffering. So 'lack' in itself doesn't tell us anything as to why people suffer, by construction any experience of suffering can be reframed as a lack (by definition suffering is an unwanted experience, and in an unwanted experience there is the lack of the cessation of that experience).

(I'll be back next week)

This is an experience of lack, which I did mention in my original post in tandem with loss. Lack is a more accurate and inclusive description of the experience, but loss seems to make more sense to people when we talk about suffering. This is also the case with humility, which is an inclusive description of the experience for which humiliation is more often considered suffering. — Possibility

But the experience of lack of suffering is also an experience of lack, yet it is not suffering. And the experience of the lack of something unwanted is usually not suffering.

Meanwhile the experience of presence of suffering is suffering, and the experience of the presence of something unwanted can be suffering.

We could say that experiences of lack can lead to suffering, and experiences of presence can lead to suffering, but any experience can be formulated as lacking something or as having something, so we can't say that a lack or presence indicate in themselves suffering over anything else.

Basically, lack or presence in themselves are not variables that act on suffering. It is the lack or the presence of something that can act on suffering, and what we are looking for are the something.


The presence of an experience of humility can be suffering (when it is unwanted), and the lack of an experience of humility can be suffering (when it is wanted). So it is not the presence or lack of an experience of humility in itself that acts on suffering, it is the interplay between the experience and whether it is desired or not. But this is the case with any experience and not just that of humility, so in my view there is no reason to single out humility or loss or any other as acting on suffering, it seems to me there always needs to be an interaction between an experience and a desire. And that to me is the kind of something we are looking for, that can give rise to suffering when it is present but not when it is absent.


I am running out of time here, I'm going to be away for one week, I will continue replying when I get back. Thank you for the conversations. Cheers.

When I feel pain, and suffer, the pain and the suffering are one and the same. I know that you've already said that people can have pain without suffering, and I accept this, but that just means that not all pain is suffering. So pain is the wider category in this way of using the terms, not all pain qualifies as suffering, but all suffering might qualify as pain. Therefore you do not have the principles to say that the suffering is something different from the pain, as something caused by the pain, or the result of the pain. — Metaphysician Undercover

There can be pain without suffering, and there can be suffering without pain, so the two are not the same thing, nor is suffering a subset of pain, nor is pain a subset of suffering.

You say that all suffering might qualify as pain but I don't agree. By pain we usually refer to the sensation of physical pain. When you suffer from the death of a loved one, that suffering is very different from the sensation of physical pain. It might however be somewhat similar to the suffering you may experience while you endure a strong physical pain, as in it is an experience you want to stop but you don't know how to stop.

So I don't see how we could see the sensation of physical pain and suffering as the same thing. They are distinct. Even though sometimes we do feel physical pain and suffering at the same time.

Now I agree that we can't say with absolute certainty that when we feel physical pain and suffering at the same time, that the suffering is a consequence of the pain. At that point it depends on the model of suffering we build.

However if we tentatively consider the model that suffering is a conflict between what is desired and what is perceived/believed, I find that it fits nicely to view physical pain as a perception and the desire to not perceive it as what gives rise to suffering from physical pain. It's a principle that can't be proven, but if it is a principle that allows to build a simple model that works then it can be useful to tentatively consider it and explore its consequences. Like the principles at the basis of physical theories can't be proven, but if they allow to build a simple and coherent model then they are useful.

Let's continue to consider why some pain would qualify as suffering and some would not. We carry out many activities knowing that there is a high probability of some pain, but we do them anyway, assuming that the pain will not be suffering. So there is a saying "no pain no gain", in cases like athletics, where training and conditioning requires some pain. We submit to pain for the long term goal, and that pain is not suffering. Why is it not suffering? Because of the attitude, that pain is necessary for some good. But such individuals may live on the borderline of suffering. What if it starts to appear like they are not making progress toward their goals, or that they are incapable of obtaining such goals? Then the pain might begin to appear as suffering.

Do you agree that what distinguishes "suffering" from "pain" is one's attitude, one's mental approach to the pain? When the pain is approached with a defeatist's attitude, it is apprehended as suffering, something which cannot be overcome. But when it is approached with the attitude that it must be overcome, and I must continue to get on with my activities, then it is not suffering, it is just pain. — Metaphysician Undercover

Indeed, the experience of physical pain is not always suffering. These individuals do experience a sensation of physical pain, but meanwhile they are not suffering, showing that pain and suffering are not the same thing.

I agree that pain alone doesn't lead to suffering, other ingredients are required.

What is it that is different between the individual who apprehends pain as something which cannot be overcome, and the individual who apprehends pain as something which can be overcome? Belief. What you refer to as one's attitude or mental approach is in this example one's belief. Depending on what is believed, a given perception may give rise to suffering or not.

What is it that is different between the individual who apprehends pain as something serving no purpose, and the individual who apprehends pain as something leading to something better? Desire. If there is a desire to endure the pain in order to get a stronger body, that pain is not suffering. If there is no such desire then the focus is on the desire to not experience the pain, and that pain is then suffering.

Again, desire and belief are involved in whether a perception of pain is suffering or not. Which still fits in the model that suffering results from an interplay between desire, perception and belief.

So there is always a conflict between what is desired, and what is experienced, because achieving our goals takes work, effort, and there is pain (which is not desired) that is involved with this. The pain is unwanted, so it really conflicts with what is desired, but it is not suffering. We accept the pain despite the fact that it is not desired, for the sake of achieving our goals. It is when the pain is apprehended as unacceptable that it is called suffering. This might occur if the goal begins to appear unobtainable, the pain would become unacceptable. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't agree that there is always a conflict between what is desired and what is experienced.

If you desire something but you don't have it, and you focus on the fact you don't have it, you focus on the conflict and you suffer.

However, if you desire something and you believe you can get it, you don't focus on the fact you don't have it. The belief changes the experience, the experience is not the same because the focus is not the same. You focus on the goal you desire, you visualize it, and this desire is stronger than the desire to avoid the perceived pain. There is a difference between what is desired and what is experienced, but it is not a conflict. A difference is not always a conflict.

But I agree it should be possible to come up with a better formulation than "suffering is a conflict between what is desired and what is experienced/believed", that is more precise and less prone to misinterpretations.

You can make an accurate predictive model of the inanimate movement, but you cannot do that with a living being, because you will never know all the variables, and never know how the variables might influence the being's movement. Sure you can make some extremely simple models like Pavlov, but that's very basic. You can make a model to predict how the ball will move when thrown, but you cannot make an accurate model to predict how the dog will move when you let the dog out the door. — Metaphysician Undercover

But in building a model of suffering we are not attempting to predict how people are going to move!

We aren't even attempting to predict whether people are going to suffer at location X and time T, that's not the variables we are interested in.

When you model the motion of a ball you attempt to find the variables that act on the motion of the ball and how they act on it.

When you model suffering you attempt to find the variables that act on suffering and how they act on it. If the variables are say desire, perception and belief, then you're not predicting when someone is going to desire, perceive or believe such or such thing, but if you know what the person desires/perceives/believes and the model is any good then you can tell whether the person is suffering.

Basically, building a model of suffering is finding the variables X1, X2, ..., Xn that act on suffering then expressing suffering as a function of these variables. Here the variables are not numbers, so we won't use the usual mathematical operators on them and the function of the model won't look like a usual mathematical equation, as in a differential equation expressing a ball's motion where the variables are location and time and their values are numbers.

I think the above is important to point out and I don't want to make this comment too big, so I'm going to address your other points in a separate comment.

The things that you 'know', you act on them. You 'know' that such or such thing is going to happen in such or such situation, even though you may turn out to be wrong. Same goes with those who 'believe'. When they believe, they know that such or such thing is going to happen or not happen. You say you do not do believing because you call it knowing, but the thing that you do others call believing. Some people do not just guess that there is a god or no god, they 'know' it, based on what they have experienced.

Then some call a guess a belief, but it's a matter of semantics.

Let us say you have had a very happy day- you do all the activities you wanted, you are with all the people you wanted (or by yourself if that's what you prefer), it's that weird transition into the next day.. that feeling that all those good experiences don't even matter right NOW, that is the root of the problem. — schopenhauer1

Let's assume for a moment that suffering is a conflict between desire and perception/belief.

Then I would ask you, what it is that you want? When the next day you find yourself suffering, what it is that you want that you don't have or that you believe you can't have?

You may say that in these moments you don't want anything, but I won't believe it. If you didn't want anything then you would remain still as a rock, you wouldn't do anything, you wouldn't be struggling with yourself. Rather there is a thing or things that you want, but you have become so convinced that you can't have them that you pretend to yourself that you don't want them. But the suffering is there to remind you that you are lying to yourself.

So I would ask you, what it is that you want deep down?

It's that feeling of dissatisfaction that underlies even the goods of life. That there is something unsustainable with even feeling good. This then leads to the idea of, "why even try to pursue good then if it is just this repeating cycle?". It is hard to pinpoint it, maybe some sort of angst, or realization that all is for nothing really. It is that dip in mood after a good time, that low, that seeing through things for what they are, which is simply the inability to be. We manufacture experiences of happiness to evade the instrumental, repetitive, nothing-feeling one gets if one is not engaged, or right after a peak of engagement. That weird melancholy feeling that it doesn't matter what we do. — schopenhauer1

From this I can gather that what you want is for what you do to matter. You want what you do to serve a purpose. And you have the perception or belief that what you do doesn't matter, so you suffer.

So then the next question is, what makes you believe that what you do doesn't matter?

I’m not saying that pain, loss and humiliation are the ‘root causes’ of suffering, but in a model of suffering, is there an example of suffering without an experience of pain, loss or humiliation? — Possibility

Experiences of pain, loss and humiliation can involve suffering, so indeed they are useful to consider in building a model of suffering. But there are examples of suffering without physical pain, loss or humiliation.

Let's say you want some specific thing you have never had, but you can't seem to get it and you suffer as a result. There is no physical pain nor loss involved. There is not necessarily humiliation involved. But there is suffering.

But I think there’s more to the experience of suffering than desiring something and believing we can’t have it. — Possibility

But do you have an example where there is suffering without a conflict between what is desired and what is experienced/believed?

Firstly, it’s not only masochists who experience physical pain without suffering. People who exercise, lift weights or compete in individual sports such as marathons or rock climbing, often willingly endure physical pain, not because they want to experience the sensation of physical pain, but because they want the results of stronger muscles or a sense of achievement. — Possibility

Yes, and this shows that there can be physical pain without suffering. They might not desire the sensation of physical pain, but they have a stronger desire for what they want to achieve by enduring this physical pain. They want something, and they believe they can get it by enduring this physical pain.

It shows that it is not a sensation or an experience in isolation that brings suffering, an experience of pain or loss or humiliation does not bring suffering in itself, there needs to be a desire for there to be suffering. But there can be desire without suffering, so suffering results at least from some interplay between what is desired and what is experienced, the two are necessary ingredients, but each in isolation is not a sufficient ingredient.

So the person who experiences physical pain suffers not because he doesn’t want to experience the sensation of physical pain, but because he believes he deserves a life without pain — Possibility

I don't think that follows. I can believe I deserve something and not suffer if I don't have it. I can believe I deserve something, but if I don't care whether I have it or not then I don't suffer if I don't have it. I will care if I want that thing and I don't have it though, desire has to be involved.

and the young man who wants to find a woman is not suffering because he can’t find a woman, but because he believes that every young man is supposed to find a woman. — Possibility

Again, if he believes that every young man is supposed to find a woman, but he personally doesn't want a woman, then he doesn't care if he can't find one, he doesn't want one. He will care if finding a woman is what he wants, and he will suffer if he can't find one.

However if he believes that if he doesn't find a woman he will be ostracized by his peers, but he doesn't want to be ostracized, then the belief that he will be ostracized is what would make him suffer (conflict between what he wants and what he experiences/believes).


We can address this directly: can we find an instance where there is suffering, but where there is not a conflict between what is desired and what is perceived/believed?

If we can't find such an instance, then we can see suffering as a conflict between desire and perception/belief. And then finding why one suffers is a matter of finding what perceptions/beliefs are in conflict with their desires.

I agree with this, but laws of physics can't be applied to acts of living beings because living things are self-moving. So it's not semantics that I'm arguing. What type of universal model would be adequate for understanding intentional acts? It's fundamental to a living being that it's motives are unique to itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

Laws of physics are models of things that many of us experience. There are things that many of us experience (desires, beliefs, suffering) that laws of physics do not take into account, but that doesn't mean we can't build models of how desires, beliefs, suffering and other experiences interact with one another. I don't see a fundamental difference between the two.

We take a ball to be an objective thing because we synthesize various reports of that ball from various living beings from various points of view. If you and I experience a ball moving, we're not experiencing the same thing, we're not seeing the ball from the same point of view, you're not seeing what I see and I'm not seeing what you see. Same goes for your desires and beliefs, I'm not experiencing them, but you can tell me what you experience, and we can synthesize various reports and build a general model that applies to various individuals.

If you believe that the tools which the doctors already use are inadequate for dealing with suffering, then what more do you want, other than to throw away these models and deal with the peculiarities of particular instances? — Metaphysician Undercover

We had Newton's laws, and then we had General relativity. We had a new model that allowed to make more accurate predictions, to have more control. Some fundamental assumptions underlying Newton's laws were replaced by others in General relativity. Why would it be impossible to come up with a model of suffering with different assumptions than the ones we use now but that works better? We're always applying a model to a particular instance, but we can still have a model that is more effective when applied to a particular instance.

Yes, that's obvious, but most actual cases of suffering are caused accidentally. No matter how well I know that the fire will burn me, this won't prevent me from getting burned when I slip and fall into the fire while stoking it. This is what I meant when I said that suffering is caused by accidents, things we are unaware of, unknowns. I can know that walking down the street is dangerous, a car might hit me, but this doesn't prevent me from doing it, because there are things which I value that require taking this minimal risk. But if a car is hitting me it's already too late to prevent the suffering which will follow. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes we can't control everything. But there are things that can be done to reduce your suffering. If you experience pain and you suffer because of it, there are things we can do to make you experience less pain.

Again my aim is not to eliminate all possible suffering forever, but to come up with methods that can more effectively deal with suffering. Current methods deal quite well with physical pain and the resulting suffering, but there is a lot of other suffering that current methods deal poorly with. And effective methods are derived from accurate models.

If you're familiar with Aristotle's ethics you'll know that he talks about a balance, "the mean". Virtue is found in the middle (the mean) between the two extremes, both of which are vises. So courage for example is the mean between being rash and being timid. If we refrain from behaving in ways which could lead to suffering we will fall into that extremity of being timid, and this could increase the possibility of a different sort of suffering.

The key points here are "possibility", and "the unknown". If we avoid any situation where there is the possibility of suffering arising, then we wouldn't do anything. But suffering comes about when you least expect it because there will always be possible causes of suffering which are unknown to you, and therefore not avoided by you. So if you do nothing, because doing anything causes the possibility of suffering, you might find that doing nothing could actually cause suffering itself. This is why we need a healthy balance, the mean between trying to avoid the possibility of suffering arising, which drives us away from doing things, and living an active life. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes I agree that attempting to avoid all possible suffering can lead to suffering in itself. But again, it doesn't hurt to not put your hand in a fire. It doesn't hurt to not walk into incoming traffic. It doesn't hurt to not undertake endeavors that will most likely lead to suffering.

People live their lives according to what they desire and believe, but their desires and beliefs are partly shaped by their understanding of the world, of existence. I see a good model of suffering as one tool that people can use to live the life they want. They don't have to use it, but when they need it it's nice to have. And better have a tool that works well than one that doesn't.

If this is your approach, then I think the first step would be to categorize different types of suffering. I think that you will find that there are a number of different types which are not at all similar. Being not at all similar, they have completely different underlying causes, and need to be classed separately. So for instance the person who accidental put a hand into the lawn mower has one type of suffering, and the young man who is having trouble finding a woman for a date has a completely different type of suffering. I believe that these two are so completely different with respect to causation, that it's difficult to understand why we even call them by the same name, "suffering". The problem I see, is that we will go on and on, determining many different types of suffering, each being a different type according to its mode of causation, until we hit numerous forms of suffering which we cannot say what the cause is. — Metaphysician Undercover

Would you agree with the idea that the person who experiences physical pain suffers because he doesn't want to experience the sensation of physical pain, and that the young man who is having trouble finding a woman suffers because he wants to find a woman and he can't do it?

In both cases, there is a conflict between what is desired and what is experienced. I suggest that this is what suffering is.

But the way things are now, the suffering young man might consult a mental health doctor, and upon mentioning how he suffers he will be diagnosed with some mental illness and prescribed drugs that don't deal effectively with his suffering, because they're not addressing the root cause. As opposed to the person who suffers because he experiences physical pain and is prescribed drugs that effectively reduce or eliminate his sensation of physical pain, thereby dealing effectively with his suffering.

I believe that if we can focus on things which we enjoy, and things which we are doing because we want to do them, we can put any suffering which we have, in the background. And, I believe that in most cases suffering is similar to pain, which is caused by an injury, and injuries heal with time. So if we can focus away from the suffering, and occupy ourselves with the things that we enjoy doing, we can give the injury and the suffering time to heal. — Metaphysician Undercover

Indeed this is one way to relieve suffering. But then let's say you find yourself in a state where you don't enjoy anymore the things you used to enjoy, or that you focus on other desires to relieve your suffering but that they too lead you to suffer. Then the method to focus on what we want doesn't always work. It works sometimes, but there are cases where it doesn't work, and in those cases we need other solutions.

Here’s an interesting thing about suffering in terms of pain, loss and humility: there can be no process of life without experiencing all three. There is no interconnectedness without loss, no growth or development without noticing and adjusting to change, and no awareness of anything in the universe without humbly recognising that the universe is bigger and more valuable than my existence. — Possibility

But there can be pain, loss, humility and change without suffering, so surely they cannot be the root causes of suffering.

So the only way to eliminate experiences of pain, loss and humility is to cease living - I think it’s important to recognise this if our aim is to find a way to model and then control, reduce or eliminate suffering while continuing to live. — Possibility

Indeed we encounter these experiences, but they are not necessarily associated with suffering. And it is possible to prevent many of them (such as the example where we don't put our hand in a fire to prevent ourselves from suffering). We can't control everything so total elimination sounds more like something we might asymptotically reach rather than a goal, but I still believe that our current models fail in helping many people who suffer, and that we could do better.

I question this need to ‘control’ everything. Despite every effort and every elaborate illusion we construct, I can potentially control my thoughts, my words and my actions, and you can potentially control yours. That’s it, at best. — Possibility

Yes we can't control everything. However some control over nature has brought technology, and some control over suffering has helped people live better. Do we have to stop there, or can we do better? Do we have to let the people who don't feel helped by current methods to keep suffering and kill themselves? Again I'm not saying that we can control everything, I'm saying we can do better. Just because we don't fall into the extreme of needing to control everything doesn't mean we have to fall into the opposite extreme of attempting to control nothing. I think if we attempted to control nothing we would quickly die as a species.

I think perhaps this idea of ‘control’ is where we have a misguided view of our relationship with the world. When we don’t feel like we have control, when what we intend or desire fails to occur as desired or intended, we experience suffering. When what we believe should happen doesn’t, when we incorrectly assume the properties of a relationship with our environment, we experience suffering. — Possibility

Giving up control can sometimes be liberating. It's rather, desiring control and believing in the impossibility of such control is suffering. Desiring drinking water soon and believing in the impossibility of finding water soon is suffering.

If what we believe should happen doesn't happen, that's not necessarily suffering. If I believe I'm gonna get hurt, and I don't, I can experience joy rather than suffering.

Again, I feel that the most inclusive view of suffering (given the examples in this thread) is that we experience suffering when we desire something and we believe we can't have it. Can you find any counterexample to this?

(I will eventually reply to all the posts in this thread, there are just some posts I can quickly reply to and others where I feel I need to spend more time pondering them to address them meaningfully)

Then you are not talking about "a model of suffering", you are talking about modeling a particular instance of suffering.

So how can you call this a model of suffering, if it is a method of dealing with particular instances of suffering? I would say that it is not accurate to say that psychotherapy is applying a model of suffering, rather they have a method for dealing with suffering. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you're playing on semantics here.

When you apply a general model to a particular instance, you're dealing with a particular instance. If you apply the model of Newton's laws to the trajectory of a ball, you have a method for dealing with the trajectory of this ball, that doesn't mean you're not applying a model.

Psychotherapy has hypotheses/beliefs as to causes of suffering and ways to relieve it, there is a general model implicitly being applied to a particular instance when they are dealing with a particular individual.

Do you see a difference between reducing/eliminating suffering and preventing suffering? The first is to deal with an existing condition, and the second is to avoid an unwanted condition. The latter, preventing suffering, I think is an unrealistic goal. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you put your hand in a fire, and your hand burns, and you suffer, you can analyze the situation and infer that you can prevent a particular type of suffering by not putting your hand in a fire. In a similar way, you can try to analyze in the general case how suffering comes about and prevent suffering by not behaving in ways that will lead you to suffer.

I don't see as unrealistic at all to gain the ability to prevent more suffering than we do now. I don't have the goal of building the perfect model that eliminates and prevents all suffering forever, I simply have the idea that it's possible to come up with a model that works better than the ones we have now.

I can agree that having the desire to prevent all suffering can be something that could lead one to suffer more by having this desire than by not having it, but then this is something that would be taken into account in a model of suffering that works well.

So I believe that the difficult first step of any procedure, or method for dealing with suffering would be to determine the causes. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree, but that's precisely the point in building a model of suffering that works well, to derive from it methods for dealing with suffering that work well.

First step is to list all instances in which people suffer, then find similarities between them to hypothesize underlying causes.

If suffering were the interplay between desire, perception, and belief, and resulted when what is perceived contradicts what is desired, as described, then we could satisfactorily deal with suffering by altering our beliefs. — Metaphysician Undercover

And there is evidence that we can. Many people who suffer from the idea they are going to die find relief in the belief that death is a new beginning, that they keep living after death in a different way. People who suffer from the death of a loved one can find relief in the belief that they will be reunited with them. People who suffer from the belief that no one can love them find relief when someone shows them enough love that it changes their belief. There is plenty of evidence that changing one's beliefs can provide relief from suffering. But it's not always easy to change one's beliefs, especially when they are deep-seated ones we cling to.

So for example, if you had a physical pain, suppose you crushed your finger and you were suffering, then you could deal with your suffering by altering your desire to perceive no pain, when you are actually perceiving pain. You could theoretically desire the pain, tell yourself that the pain is good, and this would produce consistency between perception and desire, releasing you from the suffering. — Metaphysician Undercover

Masochists do get pleasure from pain inflicted on them, not suffering. Most of us are wired to not desire pain, but some people desire it, and they don't suffer from it.

Pain is an intense sensation, and because we usually desire to avoid it we suffer at the same time as we feel the pain, and so we come to see pain and suffering as the same thing, but they are two distinct things.

The desire to perceive no pain presumably won't stop you from perceiving the pain, but sometimes there are ways to not perceive it, by focusing on other things. The more people focus on their pain the more they suffer (when they don't want the pain), but if you can divert their attention by asking them unrelated questions, they can forget about the pain momentarily, they stop perceiving it and stop suffering meanwhile. There is evidence of this.

In my own experience there were several instances where I was so focused on something that I didn't even notice I hurt myself, although I should have perceived a sharp pain if my thoughts weren't absorbed on something else.

It's not always easy to act on what we desire, perceive or believe, but they are involved in the act of suffering. And in that view, drugs can work because they act on perception. Psychedelics can work because they act on perception and beliefs. Psychotherapy can work because it acts on beliefs. Then there are also experiences that can make us change what we desire, and then the suffering associated with the old desire disappears.

Thank you for the comments.

There is a lot to consider and answer, and it will take some time to think about it all carefully, so I won't reply to everything right away but I will eventually reply to everything.

As a general comment suffering is subjective, so indeed an accurate model of suffering will have to take into account the subjective experience of the individual rather than treating the individual as some objective blob of matter. That's not an impossible task, psychotherapy already applies a model of suffering that makes use of the subjective state of mind of the individual, with some limited success. Interacting with the individual through speech can help reduce/eliminate/prevent some suffering.

Don't you think that helping a person to suffer less requires attending to that individual on a personal level? — Metaphysician Undercover

Indeed it does, an accurate model will have to take into account the individual, and a technique that works well will have to interact with the individual. We can build a model that depends on factors that are particular to the individual. We don't have to see suffering as some objective thing that we can model and control without taking into account the individual.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that there seems to be three main experiences associated with suffering: Pain, loss/lack and humility/humiliation. — Possibility

To the masochist who doesn't want to avoid pain, pain is not suffering.
To the one who doesn't want what he loses/lacks, this loss/lack is not suffering.
To the one who doesn't want to be accepted/respected, humiliation is not suffering.

This suggests to me that what is wanted is a more fundamental factor in suffering. There is a desire involved in suffering. But it's not the act of wanting something that causes suffering.

To the one who wants to avoid pain, there is suffering when there is an experience of pain.
To the one who wants to avoid loss/lack, there is suffering when there is a perception of loss/lack.
To the one who wants to avoid humiliation, there is suffering when there is a perception of humiliation.

So both individual desire and perception are factors in suffering. There seems to be suffering when what is perceived contradicts what is desired.

But in fact, both desire and perception can be partially controlled.

When there is a perception of loss, that perception is not the same whether it is believed that what has been lost can be gained back or not. When there is a perception of lack, that perception is not the same whether it is believed that what is lacked can be obtained or not. The perception of something can be threatening or not depending on what we believe that thing to be and what we believe it to be capable of.

What is believed has an influence on what is perceived.

Hope is the belief that what is wanted can be obtained. When there is hope, there is less suffering than when there is no hope. Belief acts on hope, so belief is a factor in suffering. And beliefs can be partially controlled.

This is a start, but here we have the beginning of a model. There is an interplay between what is desired, what is perceived and what is believed. Suffering seems to occur when what is perceived contradicts what is desired. And we can act on this conflict by acting on desire, perception and belief.

That’s what I’m getting at. A certain kind of suffering - actually, very many kinds - can be managed through medicine - but I don’t know if that is applicable to what you might describe as existential anxiety. — Wayfarer

And I agree with that. Conventional medicine (in the form of drugs) is little effective to treat many kinds of suffering, such as existential anxiety. It can be more effectively treated by changing one's beliefs about existence (then it's a matter of finding an effective technique to change one's beliefs). There actually exist some drugs that can help with existential anxiety (some psychedelics), but they are not prescribed by mental health professionals, and these past decades it has been mostly taboo to conduct research on them as a healing tool.

That suffering can be controlled? — Possibility

But that's precisely what psychotherapy, psychiatry, Buddhism and other practices attempt to do, with some limited success. We have plenty of evidence that suffering can be partially controlled, what I have pointed out through this thread is that the models of suffering commonly applied are flawed in several ways. My only presumption there is that it is possible to come up with a model that works better. But in order to find out we have to try, thinking outside the boxes delimited by the beliefs of the other models. It is the presumption that we can't do better that forces us to not look for and thus not find anything better.

(by the way I will reply to your previous posts, I just need some time to ponder on them)