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 Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 12:31 pm
Would a world without pain necesarily be a better one?
Would we still know the full extent of joy?
And if we did, would we appreciate it?
With out the lows, would the highs be as high?
(by pain I mean both physical and emotional)
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 1:03 pm
Physical pain is vital to our staying alive, for obvious reasons. In super simple terms, tt lets us know when something is bad, and we should stop doing that.
I saw something about a girl who had been born without the ability to feel pain. As a result, she would get injured all the time, and because she could not feel pain, wouldn't even know. She would do things like set her hand on a stove and not even notice as her hand got fried, and other things.
They basically had to tie her to a chair so she'd stop running around maiming herself and put a mask over her face to stop her from picking her own eyes out. So yes, we need pain.
Emotional pain is a big smelly philosophical mess that I'm not gonna touch.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 1:20 pm
I thought the emotional part was the more interesting side of the debate... but fine...
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 1:28 pm
It probably is, but its a debate I don't really want to be a part of. But other people will, don't worry.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 1:46 pm
Oh, alright... I'll just be patient and wait...
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 2:01 pm
Vajira covered the physical aspect - I think I saw the same program lol
But emotional pain ... so different, very good question. It would seem some emotional pain is good for us to appreciate good people and good times. If we did not experience emotional pain, I wonder if we would all be shitty to each other because it didn't matter? Or on the totally positive end of the spectrum, if we had no emotional pain, maybe it was because we all stopped hurting each other?
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 2:27 pm
That is a good question... Would the spectrum become more negative because of our igorance to it's negativity, or would we be more positive?
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 2:33 pm
Daniel Quinn says that in tribal societies, no ever thought to ask the question, "Am I happy?" They were content and that was all they needed.
If we could have the knowledge that comes from experiencing pain without experiencing the pain, there would be no loss and everyone would be perfectly happy.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 2:36 pm
[fi]ona That is a good question... Would the spectrum become more negative because of our igorance to it's negativity, or would we be more positive? If some bad events were simply eliminated, but pain itself still existed, and you still had to experience pain (or failure) to learn, we would all feel the same, because we would compare it to the middle ground. My friend Nikki said that pain is relative, and the worst pain you've ever felt is exactly as bad as the worst pain any other person has ever felt, because it was the worst thing that happened to you.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 3:03 pm
Lets say you're fat Like SimonSmith. And you want to be skinny. You wouldn't appreciate being skinny unless you actually worked for it. Lets say you're poor. You wouldn't appreciate a wad of cash if you didn't work for it.
We need pain.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 3:15 pm
The way I see it, without emotional pain, emotional contentment/happiness/joy (whatever you want to call it) cannot exist either. It's sort of like the whole good/evil thing. No one thing is all pain or all happiness, and neither can truly exist without the other. So (in my book, at least) a world without emotional pain would also mean a world without emotions. Period.
To answer your question: No, I do not think the world would be a better place without pain. As it has been said a few times, already, one cannot know true pleasure without first experiencing true pain. After all; We could experience the happiest moment of our lives a thousand times over... But without something to contrast it with it really means nothing.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 3:21 pm
hmmm... I think we have reached a general consensus that without the bad we can not know the good? That was a short lived debate emo
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 3:35 pm
The Tragic Mime Lets say you're poor. You wouldn't appreciate a wad of cash if you didn't work for it. I've been poor. I appreciate finding money on the street. Are you using some archaic definition of "appreciate" or something?
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 4:02 pm
I was just going to mention that. I almost appreciate things more if I didn't work for them. It always feels nice to get free stuff.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 4:12 pm
It feels different when you work hard for something, but not necessarily better.
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![[fi]ona's avatar](https://a1cdn.gaiaonline.com/dress-up/avatar/ava/ac/27/5aa347f72527ac_flip.png?t=1199319266_6.00_00)
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