Life is suffering

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Saint, Apr 14, 2015.

  1. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    There are more pains than happinesses in our life.
    Happiness is fragile, pain is forever.

    So, why do we live? For what purpose?
     
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  3. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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  5. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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  7. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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  8. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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  9. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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  10. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    One place you will definitely NOT find an answer is:

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

    The meaning of life is not to be found in science, philosophy, or religion.

    Science is a glorified trial and error methodological approach to find explanations that work and are extensible to other modes of inquiry for the advancement of science knowledge. Science has not yet arrived at a satisfactory answer to the question of exactly what purpose science itself is for, so the question of what life is for will have to wait until the first question is finally answered. No science I know is extensible indefinitely. Sooner or later a point is reached where no better instruments are available and no more experiments may be performed within the limits imposed on science research for its own sake.

    Philosophy is an elaborate word game played with words that reference only themselves in circular fashion. You will not easily find an answer of any kind to your question here, only more questions about your question. Volumes and volumes of questions with no real answers to any of them.

    Religion at its best connects individuals with groups of other individuals with similar beliefs and ideas (and also similar questions) trying to find collective answers.
    Unfortunately, because most religions have only progressed only as far as providing its followers with some rather dated literature that in ancient times would allow some of its followers to become literate, very few answers related to your question are likely to be found here. Literacy may be good all by itself, but it is no more an answer to your question than more Bible study sessions. Whenever a religion begins to teach intolerance of other religions and traditions, that would be a good time to leave and seek better answers elsewhere.

    Michao Kaku (among others) has said: The universe is a free lunch, so enjoy the free ride. This seems to work on a practical level, for a while at least.
    Douglas Adams has said: the answer is 42. As to what was the question, Deep Thought simply responded: "tricky" and continued processing for several more decades.

    I hope this saves you some time (and pain) in your search. I am happier myself now that I have stopped expecting to find a better answer in these places. If you ever find an answer, please share it with us.
     
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2015
  11. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Pain and happiness are (usually) transitory. We live. That is all. Purpose is irrelevant.
     
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  12. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    So, just live what we are.
    Don't worry about tomorrow.
     
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  13. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Much better than worrying about those other things, many of which we have no control or real power anyway.

    Our minds are the most powerful tools ever devised for having concerns (but NOT obsessions!) about each other's welfare. This is also a much better use of it than obsessing about science, philosophy, religion, politics, etc. Imagine a world in which no one obsessed about those other things. Is it better? I think it would be. If life is a cosmic joke, that's the real punch line.
     
  14. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    We have two sides of the brain. The left side of the brain is more differential and rational. While the right side of the brain is more integral and intuitive. Like in calculus, the differential left side of the brain approaches our memory, by finding the slope of a curve at a given point; reason comes to a focus at a conclusion/angle. The right side of the brain finds the area under the same curve from point A to point B, integrating the memory curve for a summation effect.

    The nature of your topic, appears to me, to be an artifact of too much left brain processing that lacks balance. This has differentiated your mind and POV into a unique point and angle on the curve of life; self for filling, instead of balancing this with the area under the memory curve; count your blessings too.

    Since we use the entire brain, the unconscious mind will use the right side of the brain to complement the conscious left side. If the right brain processing is too unconscious, the ego will still feel the output but will misinterpret the output feelings and intuitions. You will sense of an integration, which you spoke of as life is suffering; area under your curve of life from A to B. But this is not the intent of the unconscious integration; not interpreted properly. This is being inferred from the POV of the left brain uniqueness; differential POV; piecemeal use of the data points.

    Religions are about reattachment to the right brain, so one can use this to connect us to something larger and more integrated than the ego sitting at a point on the curve of life. Religions are often about sacrificing the ego; outer person, because the ego tends to isolate itself via willpower and choices, detached from natural and social integration. Faith is intuitive and reflects moving the consciousness mind more to the right side of the brain. The right side is older and more connected to the integration of natural instinct and the DNA. This gives global meaning from A to B that connects us to all humans and nature.

    Science is more left brain, differentiating data, so we can observe and infer the world in its tiny details. This is detached from the right brain due to the right brain connection to emotion and intuition. The rules of the scientific method make the right brain more unconscious since they involve feelings. But since a feeling of integration is still being generated at the right brain, science tries to approximate this. It doe this with statistics, adding a left brain wild card, called chance and chaos, that is not right brained, being used to approximate the right brain via left brain math.

    Statistics is not integral calculus, but is more of a piece meal approximation and average that can change day to day. Today coffee is good and tomorrow coffee is bad, which is not rational or integral calculus. This method and POV is an artifact of using the left brain's, point to point approach, to approximate the right brain. If you buy into that approximation for integration, life is a crap shoot and its curved can't be integrated to find meaning.

    That is an illusion of the mind that appears to be useful for corralling people down shoots, who are looking for meaning and integration. Instead they get fads that change; crap shoot so today it is good and tomorrow it is bad, so one can sell new products and services. Religion tries to make people use the natural right brain and so what they find is more enduring.
     
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2015
  15. Light Travelling It's a girl O lord in a flatbed Ford Registered Senior Member

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    Just living doesn't mean not caring about tomorrow. It just means accepting that living involves suffering and happiness and not getting too bent out of shape about either.

    Yes we have pain but don't let it ruin your life.
    Yes we can have pleasure but don't get obsessed by it.
     
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  16. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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    The pain associated with such awareness is not transitory, it is eternal.

    On another note...Saint, you'll be pleased to know Life is no longer suffering. His suffering was transitory that yours might not be eternal.
     
  17. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    We can't escape attaching significance to ourselves and the objects of our "programming". A lot of this supposed suffering (if not most of it) comes from need. [Need = innate / biological requirements; a desire to regularly accommodate acquired habits, interests, ideologies, and goals; the robotic imperative of providing for outright addictions, adorations / fetishes, etc.] And the stress of pursuing its remedies, the relief of which also circularly yields the "happiness". Even the mild emotional / somatic pain, worry, or looming threat of failing to satisfy a routine need still contributes to the suffering / dissatisfaction bank accumulated over a lifetime. Thus the classic, ascetic practice of withdrawing from the popular passions of the everyday world and their celebrated importance. Though the crudest forms of bodily discomfort would still be around to stimulate disciplinary strength.
    Again, to perversely enjoy those islands of relief (joy) when one or more members of the diverse population of need is satiated. As well as being carried continuously by the momentum of that "significant" quest to do so. In the context of the materialist version of death, those "reasons" and their gratification which compelled one to desire being alive disappear along with the perceptual showing of the body and the cosmos. It's not like a dead person will still be agonizing over "what I'm missing out on" because those needs that once caused such intermittent "agonizing about" will vanish with everything else.
     
  18. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    There is no pain involved in realizing life is purposeless. The pain comes from the false expectation of purpose. Jesus allegedly suffered, but that has nothing to do with me.
     
  19. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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    http://www.livescience.com/49684-how-brain-ignores-distractions.html

    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-deception/

    "What do you want with us, Son of God?" they shouted. "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?"
    "And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus,thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not."
     
  20. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you, those are some convincing articles that show the brain can be deceived to ignore pain, which is exactly what the myth of Jesus does. It's like a sugar pill that allows you to heal yourself. The power of belief isn't the power invested in the subject of that belief, but belief itself.

    The inherent suffering of life that Buddha spoke about was not necessarily purposelessness. To me that's a theistic lie. They tell you that you suffer without religion's purpose and so seduce you into the religion that provides one (because religion is a racket, a con game, designed to benefit the gatekeepers of religion). But it's the capacity to feel pain and pleasure that define what it mean to be a living thing reacting to it's environment. We don't need purpose any more than the lilies of the field. The alleged torture and death of Jesus was important to him perhaps, but was the least important thing for us to learn about him. In between the lies that arose around his legend, by people who missed the point, he occasionally said something profound.
     
  21. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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    There is no power in belief or 'objects' of belief. Power resides in God alone. Belief is granted by Him to whomever He wishes--which of course begs the question.
     
  22. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Sure, you keep believing that.
     
  23. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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    Impossible.
     

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