I wouldn’t want anyone to come away from this post with the sense that maybe suffering doesn’t matter after all. That would be nuts!
I wouldn’t want to be flippant or dismissive about human suffering, addressing it is certainly a worthy project.
But from a more detached perspective suffering might be seen as a necessary part of a holistic system. As just one example...
There is currently no evidence that we will ever liberate ourselves from the nuclear threat through a process of reason alone. What is needed to make this threat real to us, real enough so that we will act, is suffering. Pain.
Our bodies are built around pain mechanisms which provide essential information regarding what to do and not do.
I truly don’t know, but suffering may not matter that much. It depends on how one sees the big picture. If I live on Earth for a hundred years, and in heaven for a billion, then that would put my human suffering in a quite different context. (PS: I’m not religious, just philosophical.)
I wouldn’t want to be flippant or dismissive about human suffering, addressing it is certainly a worthy project.
But from a more detached perspective suffering might be seen as a necessary part of a holistic system. As just one example...
There is currently no evidence that we will ever liberate ourselves from the nuclear threat through a process of reason alone. What is needed to make this threat real to us, real enough so that we will act, is suffering. Pain.
Our bodies are built around pain mechanisms which provide essential information regarding what to do and not do.
I truly don’t know, but suffering may not matter that much. It depends on how one sees the big picture. If I live on Earth for a hundred years, and in heaven for a billion, then that would put my human suffering in a quite different context. (PS: I’m not religious, just philosophical.)