Insofar as liking something and wanting it (that is, pleasure versus reward loops in the brain) seem to be separate bits of neural circuitry, I wonder if there’s a meaningful sense (corresponding to hypothetical bits of brain architecture) in which pain and suffering might also be understood that way.
I enjoy pain, on occasion. It’s part of why I like getting pierced and tattooed, and why I practice BDSM. Said pain is emphatically not bad when you look at what I’m getting out of it. I don’t enjoy suffering on the other hand—having my hair pulled and being smacked around in the right situation is unambiguously fun, whereas recovering from wisdom tooth removal surgery and dry socket are emphatically Not Fun (to use two examples I’ve encountered in the last couple weeks).
Furthermore, there are things that many consider painful, but that aren’t especially painful to some given subset of humanity, or at least not worth noting as such. Walking barefoot, a splinter, falling down suddenly, physical exertion… some significant number of basically-normal people would find any of those intolerable but would be just fine with any of the others.
Another thought: I’ve used psychotropics whose direct effect on the perception of pain was to turn it into data—I could still tell I was in pain, but the pain didn’t matter in any sort of immediate way unless it was directly instrumental to listen to it. Standing on a hot surface came through as a meaningful signal, whereas the migraine my glasses were giving me simply got ignored until I could get to a place to take some medicine and lie down (and even then, the perception of recovery was as much “raw data divorced from the intensity of the sensation” as the pain itself had been). I suspect most people, if given the option to experience pain that way permanently, would prefer to do so rather than not (especially since not all sensations were similarly affected, just pain). If my guess about that is right, I’d pile conjecture on top of conjecture and conclude that maybe what’s “bad” about pain insofar as people seek to avoid it is just that it’s often a non-instrumental sensation that can impair performance for people.
Insofar as liking something and wanting it (that is, pleasure versus reward loops in the brain) seem to be separate bits of neural circuitry, I wonder if there’s a meaningful sense (corresponding to hypothetical bits of brain architecture) in which pain and suffering might also be understood that way.
I enjoy pain, on occasion. It’s part of why I like getting pierced and tattooed, and why I practice BDSM. Said pain is emphatically not bad when you look at what I’m getting out of it. I don’t enjoy suffering on the other hand—having my hair pulled and being smacked around in the right situation is unambiguously fun, whereas recovering from wisdom tooth removal surgery and dry socket are emphatically Not Fun (to use two examples I’ve encountered in the last couple weeks).
Furthermore, there are things that many consider painful, but that aren’t especially painful to some given subset of humanity, or at least not worth noting as such. Walking barefoot, a splinter, falling down suddenly, physical exertion… some significant number of basically-normal people would find any of those intolerable but would be just fine with any of the others.
Another thought: I’ve used psychotropics whose direct effect on the perception of pain was to turn it into data—I could still tell I was in pain, but the pain didn’t matter in any sort of immediate way unless it was directly instrumental to listen to it. Standing on a hot surface came through as a meaningful signal, whereas the migraine my glasses were giving me simply got ignored until I could get to a place to take some medicine and lie down (and even then, the perception of recovery was as much “raw data divorced from the intensity of the sensation” as the pain itself had been). I suspect most people, if given the option to experience pain that way permanently, would prefer to do so rather than not (especially since not all sensations were similarly affected, just pain). If my guess about that is right, I’d pile conjecture on top of conjecture and conclude that maybe what’s “bad” about pain insofar as people seek to avoid it is just that it’s often a non-instrumental sensation that can impair performance for people.