Sometimes, people seem to directly draw a line between intelligence and capacity to suffer. But I don’t think a simple mapping is ideal when considering how to reduce suffering.
To get intuition, it seems that many abilities or traits that we consider to be intelligence don’t have anything to do with strength of feeling or suffering. For example, if I can do more math or write better, I doubt that this means my personal suffering from negative stimuli must be higher.
I’ve worked with people who are smart, they seem to have eidetic memory, extraordinary math theorem proving ability, e.g. things that we consider highly intelligent. From what they say and also their behavior, it seems these faculties are “disjoint” to their other experiences. Despite their abilities, they don’t exist on another plane of consciousness.
Sometimes, people seem to directly draw a line between intelligence and capacity to suffer. But I don’t think a simple mapping is ideal when considering how to reduce suffering.
To get intuition, it seems that many abilities or traits that we consider to be intelligence don’t have anything to do with strength of feeling or suffering. For example, if I can do more math or write better, I doubt that this means my personal suffering from negative stimuli must be higher.
I’ve worked with people who are smart, they seem to have eidetic memory, extraordinary math theorem proving ability, e.g. things that we consider highly intelligent. From what they say and also their behavior, it seems these faculties are “disjoint” to their other experiences. Despite their abilities, they don’t exist on another plane of consciousness.