I think all criticism, all shaming, all guilt tripping, all punishments and rewards directed at children—is for the purpose of driving them to do certain actions. If your children do what you think is right, there’s no need to do much of anything.
A more general and correct statement would be “Pain is for the sake of change, and all change is painful”. But that change is for the sake of actions. I don’t think that’s too much of a simplification to be useful.
I think regret, too, is connected here. And there’s certainly times when it seems like pain is the problem rather than an attempt to solve it, but I think that’s a misunderstanding. And while chronic pain does reduce agency, it’s a constant pain and a constant reduction of agency (not cumulative). The pain persists until the problem is solved, even if the problem does not get worse. So it’s the body telling the brain “Hey, do something about this, the importance is 50 units of pain”, then you will do anything to solve it as long there’s a path with less than 50 units of pain which leads to a solution.
The pain does limit agency, but not because it’s a real limitation. It’s an artificial one that the body creates to prevent you from damaging yourself. So all important agency is still possible. If the estimated consequences of avoiding the task is more painful than doing the task, you do it. But it’s again the body is just estimating the cost/benefit of tasks and choosing the optimal action by making it the least painful action.
My explanation and yours are almost identical, but there’s some important differences. In my view, suffering is good, not bad. I really don’t want humanity to misunderstand this one fact, it has already had profound negative consequences. It’s phantom damage created to avoid real damage. An agent which is unable to feel physical pain and exhaustion would destroy itself, therefore physical pain and exhaustion are valuable and not problems to be solved. Emotions like suffering, exhaustion, annoyance, etc. function the same as physical pain, and once they get over a certain threshold they coerce you into taking an action. Physical pain comes from nerves, but emotional pain comes from your interpretation of reality. Your brain relies on you to tell what ought to be painful (so if you overestimate risk, it just believes you). And you don’t get to choose all your goals yourself, your brain wants you to fulfill your needs (prioritized by the hierarchy of needs). In short, the brain makes inaction painful, while keeping actions that it deems risky painful, and then messes with the weights/thresholds according to need. Just like with hunger (not eating is painful, but if all you have is stale or even moldy bread, then you need to be very hungry before you eat, and you will eat iff pain(hunger)>pain(eating the bread)).
An increase in power/agency feels a lot like happiness though, even according to Nietzsche who I’m not confident to argue against, so I get why you’d basically think that opposite of happiness is the opposite of agency (sorry if this summary does injustice to your point)
I think all criticism, all shaming, all guilt tripping, all punishments and rewards directed at children—is for the purpose of driving them to do certain actions. If your children do what you think is right, there’s no need to do much of anything.
A more general and correct statement would be “Pain is for the sake of change, and all change is painful”. But that change is for the sake of actions. I don’t think that’s too much of a simplification to be useful.
I think regret, too, is connected here. And there’s certainly times when it seems like pain is the problem rather than an attempt to solve it, but I think that’s a misunderstanding. And while chronic pain does reduce agency, it’s a constant pain and a constant reduction of agency (not cumulative). The pain persists until the problem is solved, even if the problem does not get worse. So it’s the body telling the brain “Hey, do something about this, the importance is 50 units of pain”, then you will do anything to solve it as long there’s a path with less than 50 units of pain which leads to a solution.
The pain does limit agency, but not because it’s a real limitation. It’s an artificial one that the body creates to prevent you from damaging yourself. So all important agency is still possible. If the estimated consequences of avoiding the task is more painful than doing the task, you do it. But it’s again the body is just estimating the cost/benefit of tasks and choosing the optimal action by making it the least painful action.
My explanation and yours are almost identical, but there’s some important differences. In my view,
suffering is good, not bad. I really don’t want humanity to misunderstand this one fact, it has already had profound negative consequences. It’s phantom damage created to avoid real damage. An agent which is unable to feel physical pain and exhaustion would destroy itself, therefore physical pain and exhaustion are valuable and not problems to be solved. Emotions like suffering, exhaustion, annoyance, etc. function the same as physical pain, and once they get over a certain threshold they coerce you into taking an action. Physical pain comes from nerves, but emotional pain comes from your interpretation of reality. Your brain relies on you to tell what ought to be painful (so if you overestimate risk, it just believes you). And you don’t get to choose all your goals yourself, your brain wants you to fulfill your needs (prioritized by the hierarchy of needs). In short, the brain makes inaction painful, while keeping actions that it deems risky painful, and then messes with the weights/thresholds according to need. Just like with hunger (not eating is painful, but if all you have is stale or even moldy bread, then you need to be very hungry before you eat, and you will eat iff pain(hunger)>pain(eating the bread)).
An increase in power/agency feels a lot like happiness though, even according to Nietzsche who I’m not confident to argue against, so I get why you’d basically think that opposite of happiness is the opposite of agency (sorry if this summary does injustice to your point)