life is pain

I meant at the time, "I am very depressed, and at the moment I find it very hard to believe that there exists anything other than suffering, rejection, etc." Now I'm a bit less bitter - I'm quite looking forward to eating dinner later on, for example.

I hear you - I am still wondering what you think pain is?

Pain - to me - is merely in impitous (sp) for change. If our existence is about growth - I think a painful life is a necessary one.

TF

I hear you - I am still wondering what you think pain is?

Pain - to me - is merely in impitous (sp) for change. If our existence is about growth - I think a painful life is a necessary one.

TF

I think a painful life is not necessary.

To eat or to breath is necessary if someone wants to be alive. So, it´s a choice because we look for a result. To be alive.

But to have a painful life isn´t a choice, therefore it isn´t necessary to take that way. For that reason is painful, bacause you don´t chose it. If not it would represent a happy life.

Truely speaking,a painful life lasts until one decides to ask God for help!
With pure heart we can realise Divine help,which is always appears magic to man.
When we awaken to the painful reallity that all our friends are attached to our weaknesses, then a true Friend may come if we really wish it and make the first step to Him by detaching ourselves from more or less bad and unecessary company...

TTF, it seems obvious that the concept of pain is the opposite of the concept of pleasure. But does this mean that pain is the absense of pleasure or pleasure the absence of pain? Language is the way we order our experience and, as such, it creates the meaningfulness of experience. Nevertheless the sensations that we construe as pleasure and pain have a reality apart from the way they are constructed linguistically. I can label a painful sensation as pleasure, but it will not reshape the sensation, albiet this seems to work for masochists.

Jln I understand you and say that there is an incredible pleasure in some forms of suffering:like empathy for exemple!But there are some others...

Nobody

I think TTF was trying to explain that pleasure is absence of pain. This is, as you know, Epicurus theory (and he lived it!).
Hunger is pain. Eating eliminates that kind of pain. And that is pleasure, abolute pleasure. Eating when you have no hunger gives you no pleasure because there was no pain to eliminate.

Even in the different levels of pain we can obtain pleasure (see my example of boiling water, in a previous reply).

Eating can be pleasurable even if you are not and never have been hungry. Especially chocolate.

You can experience pleasure without ever feeling pain as it is an innate function of our brains. The biochemical response to dopamine and endorphins does not require prior experience, but constant or severe pain can change the background levels. So can drugs.

Pleasure and pain are inseparable like a man and a woman.

S.A., you stress an important problem, one raised by the Indian philosopher, Nagarjuna. All concepts imply either their opposites or their own non-existence. That is essential to their meaning. So man and woman and pleasure and pain are DEFINED with reference to their complementary opposites. BUT being male is existentially more than being non-female, and vice versa. Complementary opposities are absolutely foundational (like Chinese ying and yang) where we live in our heads dualistically. Pure experience, such as that realized in zen buddhist meditation, experiences of what they call the "suchness" of each phenomenological moment. But I must agree that dualism is essential in our on-going task of making conceptual sense of experience.
I like what you say about the "incredible pleasure in some forms of suffering:like empathy". That brings to mind the painful pleasure of tragic literature.
Val, I agree with Terry that we can find pleasure in the taste of delicious foods without hunger. But I agree with you that I could not sit down to enjoy a banquet without hunger.
I find the negative and defensive approach to life advocated by the Stoics, Zeno and Epictetus, vapid (seek no pleasure because it defines and gives life to pain). I thought Epicurius appreciated pleasure but tempered and intellectual pleasure; not sure. I prefer, but do not always have the courage to live by, Goethe's "I'll sound the heights and depths that man can know."

Jl please come to religions,I find you very intelligent and instructed! :wink:

JL Nobody

It is all a matter of defining pain. To Epicurus pain can be the effect of a disease in the kidneys, but also hunger, thirst, cold.
He defined natural pleasures and artificial pleasures.
If you are suffering from a severe headache, when it stops you feel an extreme pleasure. In fact, according to Epicurus the greatest pleasure you can have.

And if you are hungry, eating a good plate of fish - my favorite - gives you more pleasure than eating a bread with olives. But, if you are still eating when you are not hungry anymore, you will feel digestion problems, sleep - and that is pain.
If you eat chocolate - I don't like it - your levels of cholesterine will raise - and that is pain.

Eat when you are hungry and until you are not hungry anymore. The same with drinking and so on. Talking to your real friends, those who have interests similar to yours. Reading a good book. Earing a good music. Working in something you like.
What pleasure can be superior to these?

What Epicurus called artificial or false pleasures: glory, power, wealth ... do you think they are really pleasures? I don't think so. They are false answers to the pains you have. Then, pain grows and so the will of glory, power, wealth ...

Nobody, I must say I always tried to follow, within the possibilities of our modern world, Epicurus lesson's. Life becomes so clear, so "open".
But there is also death, death of those we love. And there, I accept, Epicurus cannot give an acceptable answer.

Yes, JL, please come unto religion.

Why dost thou tarry so?

Val, I agree, especially about the false "pleasures" (power, glory and wealth), but I must disagree with your evaluation of chocolate. Again, what is your species?

Thanks, guys. You flatter me. I do participate in religion threads, but if I tarry, relatively speaking, it is because in the philosophy section we disagree with others in calling them "wrong." In the religion section we disagree with others in calling them "evil."

life is only painful if you allow it to be

I do think that some physical pain is inevitable, but the psychic suffering resulting from it and the "suffering" (Buddhist's dukkha: disappointments and frustrations) in life are optional, or at least not inevitable.

I think you raise a valid point with your chocolate val. We do not always know pleasure from pain ourselves.

I went to electrical massage tretment a while back due to some back injuries. My treatment consisted of hot water flasks and electrical simulation of my muscles. At first the sting from the electricity was rather pleasant, but after a while the muscles became weary and the sensation turned slowly to a discomforting throb. Nothing changed except my perspective on an imaginairy timeline.

Another thing is that I enjoy smoking cigarettes. It is a pleasurable experience, or at least I think of it as such. But I know very well the consequences of smoking.

These are just two of many examples. We don't always know pleasure from pain.

I think by equating life to pain, one must live a life exclusively painful...whatever the definition of "pain" would be in this discussion. My life is predominantly free of pain; physical, mental, emotional, perceived, or real.
Ergo, life does not = pain.
Life consists of pain, but life can not be reduced to being exclusively equal to pain.