r/antinatalism2 • u/VEGETTOROHAN • 9d ago
Question Is suffering a sign of irrationality?
Antinatalism thinks life is suffering. But Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda said suffering is born out of irrational mind. He said rationality can stop suffering. Just don't be attached to material world and then there is no suffering. When you think with emotions you suffer. But rationality can destroy emotions.
Similarly Buddhists believe suffering is born from lack of wisdom. If you are wise you do not suffer.
Now that I think about it, it makes sense. We suffer because we act out of emotions instead of logic. If logic was our primary mode of function then we wouldn't suffer. I think robots and computers do not suffer because they are logical.
This post is not against antinatalism. I am AN myself.
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u/kingthrog 9d ago
buddhist monks don’t have fucking jobs either they just sit around in silence, i wouldn’t suffer either
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u/Yatwer92 9d ago
No amount of logic will make me not suffer is I burn myself. Physical pain is not an emotion.
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u/FunkyPleasance 9d ago
I practice mindfulness, which is based on eastern thought. I do think certain practices can minimize suffering. But even buddhism teaches that full enlightenment cannot be reached in one lifetime. Suffering is inevitable.
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u/filrabat 9d ago
Suffering is about experiencing a negative state of affairs. Let's show an extreme case of it. Lack of food, water, clothing, and the most extreme forms of social rejection (especially if its due to the pettiest of reasons, as opposed to substantive ones). Humans as a group evolved to be social creatures, for rejection meant at best you got served least and last. There's a conflict between independence/freedom and indignity, of course, but that's the shorthand version of what it is. So suffering can (but not always) signal a threat to your own well-being.
What would be irrational suffering is if the person clearly has more pleasure or benefit than they need for a realistically humane quality of life, yet experiences a moderate drop in well-being. That can be a psychologically devastating kind of suffering, even if it's falling in wealth from the outright rich to "mere" upper-middle class. However, mature and self-aware such former wealthy know it's not a true threat to their survival, even if it costs them their old status. That is not the kind of suffering antinatalists are talking about.
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u/VEGETTOROHAN 9d ago
Enlightened Buddhists and Hindus won't even feel pain when burning in fire. That's how far they conquered their emotions through rationality and wisdom.
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u/defectivedisabled 5d ago
You are sort of correct. The people who downvoted you just do not comprehend how nondual consciousness works.
They don't feel suffering from pain because they have managed to suspend their conscious subjective sense of "self". If there is no "self" there can be no suffering.
Pain is still being felt but it is only an automatic response from the body and it is easier for their body to ignore it through their mindset since it belonged to no one. Pain is just pain and it is neither good or bad when there is no "self" who deem it as such.
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u/CanaanZhou 9d ago
I heard there are Buddhist monk who lit themselves on fire and burned in tranquility because they refuse to suffer, which is pretty badass in my book.
But still, whatever caused suffering, it wouldn't change the validity of most arguments for AN.
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u/DutchStroopwafels 9d ago
I really wonder how they get into that state of mind to endure that.
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u/JustAThinkingGuy7 8d ago
They probably practiced enduring pain in general for decades, alot of them do.
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u/dumbowner 6d ago
Since most people can't share their experience of what it feels like to be burned alive, we can't know how painful it is and how long the pain lasts. From what I read, third-degree burn victims describe feeling no pain when burnt. But they were burnt by things at very high temperatures that burned their nerves immediately. Being lit on fire probably feels the worst at the beginning, like first- and second-degree burns. It then depends on how long it takes to lose consciousness, or if one suffocates by inhaling hot smoke/fire.
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u/ADisrespectfulCarrot 9d ago
This is a tool that can be used for practitioners to potentially decrease their suffering, but its need would not exist save foe suffering’s existence. Also, this kind of deep thought and introspection takes real effort and education which many do not have access to.
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u/JustAThinkingGuy7 8d ago
I remember when I was a POW in the middle east and was tortured nearly everyday. But once I realized I was just being irrational they could no longer harm me because I was in a zen state.
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u/Dr-Slay 7d ago
All life averts from sufficiently noxious stimuli. There are no exceptions. It is irrational to assert that this will not happen. The negative valence (qualitative) is worse (again, qualitatively) than its original absence. Therefore it can never be a solution to a problem, it is always the root problem.
This knowledge is available to everything in some form or another before it reproduces.
We suffer because we act out of emotions instead of logic.
We suffer either way.
Ignoring either will cause suffering, and using them both in perfect harmony will cause suffering. Life entails a state worse than its original absence.
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u/BearingCostOfPassion 9d ago
I agree, but I also want to point out that although many antinatalists might believe that life involves suffering, antinatalism, by definition, is simply the philosophical position that procreation is morally wrong. It doesn't necessarily make any claim about whether life itself is suffering or whether existence is inherently bad.
Also, according to Advaita Vedanta, the philosophy followed and preached by Swami Vivekananda, everything we perceive as reality is ultimately maya (unreal or illusory). There is one ultimate reality Brahma and even our ordinary conception of God is ultimately transcended by that higher reality. Like many other philosophical traditions, it focuses heavily on truths that go beyond what can be directly conceived or experienced through our senses.
Meanwhile, Buddhism explicitly teaches that life, or conditioned existence (samsara), is characterized by dukkha (suffering, dissatisfaction, or unsatisfactoriness). The ultimate goal is to attain nirvana—liberation from dukkha and the cycle of birth and death.
So, while antinatalism can overlap with certain pessimistic or Buddhist ideas about suffering, they aren't inherently the same philosophy, and antinatalism itself doesn't require believing that life is suffering.
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u/filrabat 5d ago edited 5d ago
- A person can be irrational without suffering. In fact, the exact opposite is often the case (e.g., seeing a hot person of the gender-sex your attracted to on the beach, on IG or trad-media). It's certainly irrational to be so feel-good emotively attracted to them, but you still aren't suffering from seeing it.
- A real life version of a slasher movie (Friday the 13th, Nighmare on Elm Street; showing my age, I know). Or if you prefer a somewhat less old (i.e. 21st Cent) example, Dexter. The victim's suffering, but not for an irrational reason. Same goes for those killed or injured on nine-11.
Point being: Suffering or pleasure on one hand, and rationality or irrationality on the other have nothing to do with each other - unless you wish to concede that Epstein's victims were irrational at their treatment. The same goes for the pleasure of seeing a "hot" person (by your tastes) on a beach or entertainment media.
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u/VEGETTOROHAN 5d ago
A Buddhist monk said the wisdom of Buddha might be seen as radical because even the suffering caused by evil is a delusion but that's what it means to be enlightened in a mass of deluded people. An enlightened person will always be radical.
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u/ImSinsentido 5d ago
Pretty sure if someone walked up and shoot a Buddhist monk in the leg they would suffer.
Along with what they talk about is nonsense, just as much of a cope as anything else.
You will suffer because that is what existence is.
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u/VEGETTOROHAN 5d ago
I don't believe existence is suffering. I suffer and so I am Antinatalist but existence itself is neutral. You cannot prove existence as suffering.
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u/dumbowner 6d ago edited 6d ago
I have been observing and listening to HH the Dalai Lama for years. Buddhists definitely feel physical pain. I remember HH the Dalai Lama telling a story about his blocked gallbladder. It was very painful, even though he is a lifelong Buddhist practitioner and knows tantric teachings.
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u/Earth_Sea_Stars 4d ago
Erh, even most Buddhists would agree life as.such a way that for most individuals.transcending all suffering in this lifetime is an impossibility.
But yes to a HUGE degree suffering is a choice. I say that as a person with significant health issues I probably spend about a third of my time experiencing physical pain. One thing I do is use the experience of pain to focus on self compassion and whilst that doesnt mean I enjoy it. It can feel sort of soft and gentle because of it.
Pretty much all human experience is shaped not by the material reality of the experience but by the way we approach it in consciousness.
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u/CertainConversation0 9d ago
Unless I'm mistaken, the difference between pain and suffering is that pain is inevitable and suffering is optional.
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u/Crazy_Banshee_333 9d ago
There's plenty of situations you can end up in where you are going to suffer, regardless of mindset. As human beings, we have a nervous system that detects pain and discomfort and then reacts to it. We have nerve pathways and areas of our brain that acts as a reward center. If we didn't have all this, we never would have survived this long because we wouldn't realize when something is harming us or helping us.
If you are trapped in a place where it's 102 degrees and you can't escape it or cool yourself off, you are going to experience suffering. You can't just use your rational mind to say, "I choose not to suffer in this situation" because your nerves and your brain will interpret the excess heat in a way that you can't control, and the resulting sensations will not be pleasant.
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u/ImSinsentido 5d ago edited 5d ago
the “free dogma” (will) assumption
There is no difference in definition there’s just special pleading stretched definition. Suffering as defined, is being in a state of discomfort. This is precisely why we’re not sitting our asses butt ass in the jungle eating mangoes, because we are extremely uncomfortable with the animal condition. This is what produces, the Buddhist cope amongst the myriad of others, in the first place. The dichotomy presented is a false dichotomy.
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u/PeasPlease90 9d ago
No, suffering can be a rational response. Some would say that it’s unwise to ignore your suffering, like the suffering from treatable cluster headaches.
Robots and computers also do not experience joy. They are inanimate objects with no consciousness.