Recent comments in /f/philosophy

ObjectiveTruth9191 t1_j4emqno wrote

Reply to /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | January 09, 2023 by BernardJOrtcutt

Avoiding suffering is the only meaning to life - it's already the purpose of everyone's life even if they don't realize it

Suffering is any negative feeling, discomfort, or despair that comes without the realistic promise of something better. Here are examples of people trying to minimize suffering:

  1. A hungry person eats to avoid the suffering of hunger

  2. A person works a job they may not like to avoid the suffering of being homeless and hungry

  3. A person lifts weights to avoid the mental and physical suffering of being weak and out-of shape (because being weak would cause more suffering than the pain of excercise).

  4. Some people debate politics online because they want to convince people to vote for their candidate because they will feel mental suffering if their favorite candidate loses

  5. A terminally Ill patient takes painkillers to reduce physical discomfort (suffering) of dying

  6. An antinatalist argues against procreation to avoid potential suffering of people being born

  7. An anti-antinatalist argues against antinatalism because (for some reason) the idea of humans stopping procreation causes mental suffering (why this would cause mental suffering is a whole topic of its own for another day)

  8. A medieval religious martyr chooses to be burned at the stake for heresy because publicly renouncing their deeply held 'heretical' religious beliefs would cause immense mental suffering far more than the suffering of being set on fire.

  9. A masochist feels suffering if he isn't suffering. A masochist feels pleasure in suffering. So even a masochist is still trying to avoid suffering.

Do you see where I'm getting at? The people that try to justify suffering or claim it isn't a big deal don't understand what suffering is - suffering is when something you want and isn't happening or something you don't want is happening. It's a basic biological motivator.

Avoiding suffering is the only purpose to life, and it has been for every person always. And the best way to avoid suffering is to stop creating creatures with the capacity to feel suffering (antinatalism) - why is this so hard to grasp?

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