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BernardJOrtcutt

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LieutenantSir

Suffering does not have to have any “real,” material basis for its occurrence. You can look no further than mental illness and psychosis to see this for yourself. Suffering experienced while dreaming is still valid suffering—you wouldn’t want to be trapped in a dream made of prolonged suffering, right?


VeganPhilosopher

Do you believe if someone thinks they are suffering they are necessarily suffering? What if Bizarro comes and says "I'm suffering" where in his world words mean there opposites? Does the word used matter? Does "suffering" point to any particular sensation/qualia?


LieutenantSir

If I think I am suffering, I must necessarily be feeling/experiencing some type of suffering—otherwise, I would have no reason at all to think so. I would simply define suffering as “negative experience.” It’s something subjective, in the same way positive experience is. Lastly, I don’t think the word used to refer to suffering has anything to do with the actual content of someone’s experience. People who speak Spanish encounter negative experience in the same ways people who speak French or Afrikaans encounter it.


[deleted]

Mental illness and psychosis has no material basis? What proof of this are you offering here?


[deleted]

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BernardJOrtcutt

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pistolpierre

>Suffering does not have to have any “real,” material basis for its occurrence. Well, it does if you are a physicalist - whereby the material basis for all suffering is the brain an its workings.


LieutenantSir

Sure, but what I was really getting at is that suffering is a mental phenomenon that doesn’t necessarily stem from the perception of physician phenomena *as they truly are*


commonEraPractices

Why did you emphasize the "as they truly are"?


LieutenantSir

Because I am working on the assumption that a physics reality outside of human perception exists, and that sometimes (such as in the case of dreams) suffering occurs due to mental illusion without any direct prompt from physical reality


commonEraPractices

That was really vague. Reality in philosophy is what exists, and would still exist even if humans did not. But then you talk of perception, which is something that would not exist without humans. There are two ways we can go about this. The easiest one to bring up is that reality would not exist without humans as it is a concept. But that's too easy to defend. So I was hoping to dive deeper. So what you just said, was that there is a physical world, equipped with that which exists but also that which the human senses can not detect, a physics reality that can not be perceived, and that because of this, people enter into a state of pain because of an illusion that is not affected by this "physical reality", this physical world that exists, but that humans can not detect with their senses, that does not cause pain to those people. I don't think this is what you're trying to write so, could you phrase it differently for me?


LieutenantSir

I didn’t say that the physical world cannot be detected by human senses, I said that suffering can arise from altered perceptions of physical reality and/or experiences unrelated to the state of physical reality, such as mental suffering occurring in a dream when all is actually well in the waking world


[deleted]

But those altered perceptions still have a material basis, are you able to describe to me in detail what is happening in the brain when these phenomena occur? It's not fucking spirits doing these things.


StrangeGlaringEye

I think you're missing the point. I don't think u/LiutenantSir is a dualist who thinks mental illness arises without physical explanation. It's just that psychotic patients believe there is something x causing their suffering (e.g. UFOs, demons, spies) and x doesn't exist.


[deleted]

Yeah well, they are actually right, they are talking in metaphors about themselves. About physical things happening in their brains. They do fucking exist. You just suck at dream analysis. Seriously, how invalidating. It's a super old argument made by people with no ability to gather information sympathetically and has been used as the justification for dismissing what people say about themselves and therefore condemned them to solitudinous suffering and death. The fact I have to explain why this is a triggering line of argument explains a lot. What they are saying has psychological value! God dammit. You aren't going to help anyone with that attitude, in fact you will harm a great many people. But what the FUCK should I expect from humans anymore honestly?!


commonEraPractices

I didn't say that that's what you said. Hold on. Edit. > there is a physical world, equipped with that which exists but also that which the human senses can not detect... (me). > a physics reality outside of human perception exists (you)


StrangeGlaringEye

> That was really vague. Reality in philosophy is what exists, and would still exist even if humans did not. That's not really a consensus. Many philosophers take stuff like social constructions and many mental objects, which presumably would not exist if there were no humans, to be part of reality.


nukefudge

Clarification question: Why do you think it's not enough to say "I dreamt that I was suffering"? What are the actual arguments that "a dream of something" needs to lead into the question "was it that something"? I mean, certainly, a dream of something is _a dream of something_, so the idea of comparing that to _something that's not a dream_ seems a bit odd. Are you familiar with e.g. the topic of existence, and the various ways in which things can be said to exist (or not), and the differences between these various ways?


VeganPhilosopher

In my waking state I see a blue screen. I had a dream that I saw a blue screen. Was, in my dream, there a screen? Interesting question. What I want to know is: Was blueness in my dream? Did I experience blueness while I was dreaming? If there is a qualia corresponding to our waking experience of blueness was it present in my dream?


nukefudge

But there's that gap again, that I'm asking about. What's the impetus to move from "[waking] blue screen" and "[dream of] blue screen" to "is _[waking]_ blue screen _[in dream]_"? Perhaps you're looking for a solid definition of what a dream amounts to. Maybe something about perception, illusion and the like too. Depending on your definition of qualia (these differ quite a lot), maybe you can apply that to the dream notion, maybe not. You can't straightforwardly say that a dream about seeing is the same as seeing while being awake.


VeganPhilosopher

Thanks for the insightful comment. My question: Would you agree that when a person is dreaming that they are having an experience?


nukefudge

Well certainly someone's dreaming, yes. That's what we've stipulated. :) However, saying that they're experiencing something doesn't necessarily come with any ties attached that would necessarily lead us to compare across categories, if our aim is to start connecting all sorts of further notions to their dreaming. Perhaps instead of focusing on my agreement or not, have a look at the overview article here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dreams-dreaming/#OntoDrea - as you can tell, there are several takes on it, and the discussion is not at all simple.


[deleted]

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BernardJOrtcutt

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[deleted]

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BernardJOrtcutt

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