Counterexamples: People who do not experience pain or suffering
One argument against the notion that suffering is ontologically prevalent is that we seem to have counterexamples in people who do not experience pain or suffering. For example, variousgeneticconditions seemingly lead to a complete absence of pain and/or suffering. This, I submit, has significant implications for our views of the ontological prevalence (or non-prevalence) of suffering.
After all, the brains of these individuals include countless subatomic particles, basic biological processes, diverse instances of information processing, and so on, suggesting that none of these are in themselves sufficient to generate pain or suffering.
One might object that the brains of such people could be experiencing suffering — perhaps even intense suffering — that these people are just not able to consciously access. Yet even if we were to grant this claim, it does not change the basic argument that generic processes at the level of subatomic particles, basic biology, etc. do not seem sufficient to create suffering. For the processes that these people do consciously access presumably still entail at least some (indeed probably countless) subatomic particles, basic biological processes, electrochemical signals, different types of biological cells, diverse instances of information processing, and so on. This gives us reason to doubt all views that see suffering as an inherent or generic feature of processes at any of these (quite many) respective levels.
Of course, this argument is not limited to people who are congenitally unable to experience suffering; it applies to anyone who is just momentarily free from noticeable — let alone significant — pain or suffering. Any experiential moment that is free from significant suffering is meaningful evidence against highly expansive views of the ontological prevalence of significant suffering.
FWIW, I don’t see that piece as making a case against panpsychism, but rather against something like “pansufferingism” or “pansentienceism”. In my view, these arguments against the ontological prevalence of suffering are compatible with the panpsychist view that (extremely simple) consciousness / “phenomenality” is ontologically prevalent (cf. this old post on “Thinking of consciousness as waves”).
I think we can extend your argument to one against pan-experience-of-X-ism, for (almost?) any given X, no matter how specific or broad, with your other example for X being “wanting to go to a Taylor Swift concert so as to share the event with your Instagram followers”. This is distinct from panpsychism, which only (?) requires that mental contents or experiences of something in general be widespread, not that any given (specific or kind of) mental content X be widespread.
The arguments in Reasons to doubt that suffering is ontologically prevalent by @Magnus Vinding have made me more skeptical of panpsychism, especially this excerpt:
FWIW, I don’t see that piece as making a case against panpsychism, but rather against something like “pansufferingism” or “pansentienceism”. In my view, these arguments against the ontological prevalence of suffering are compatible with the panpsychist view that (extremely simple) consciousness / “phenomenality” is ontologically prevalent (cf. this old post on “Thinking of consciousness as waves”).
Good point.
I think we can extend your argument to one against pan-experience-of-X-ism, for (almost?) any given X, no matter how specific or broad, with your other example for X being “wanting to go to a Taylor Swift concert so as to share the event with your Instagram followers”. This is distinct from panpsychism, which only (?) requires that mental contents or experiences of something in general be widespread, not that any given (specific or kind of) mental content X be widespread.