Talk:Suffering

Good article nomination failed

I am impressed with the breadth of coverage of this article, as many different perspectives on suffering are presented. However, the presentation is fragmented by too many lists and too many single sentence paragraphs. These should be turned into proper paragraphs which form part of a logical structure. I have therefore added a "List to prose" tag.

Also, there is not enough references to support what is being said, so I have also added a "More sources" tag. Please make sure that a consistent reference format is used throughout (see WP:REF).

In addition, the English expression needs to be tightened. Please read the article carefully several more times, making improvements where possible.

I wish you all the best with your editing... -- Johnfos 04:53, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Introduction and Article Structure

Hi Robert, how about we start with the definition and introduction. I would refine the opening sentences to:

Suffering is the subjective experience of mental or emotional distress, often associated with, but not synonymous with physical pain, instances of loss or difficult circumstances.

All human beings suffer during their lives, and therefore suffering has been a significant topic of discussion in philosophy and religion.

I'm aware that that doesn't say it all, so please add in what you think is necessary.

As far as structure of the article, what about four broad categories:

• philosophical/religious/ethical perspectives
• psychological aspects (coping, escapism, etc)
• physiological aspects (this is really not my area - but I would put the neuroscience etc in here)
• literary/artistic perspectives (include links to significant artistic works and endeavours that engage with suffering)

What do you think?

Equipoise 08:17, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Good categories, Equipoise! I would complete your list thus:

• philosophical/religious/ethical perspectives
• psychological and biological/physiological/neurological aspects (coping, escapism, physical pain and mental distress mechanisms, brain imaging, etc)
• anthropological/social/legal/historical aspects
• health care perspectives (medical or other approaches to body or mind problems inducing pain or suffering)
• political/humanitarian/philanthropic perpectives (including disaster relief, human rights activism, economic development, social services, environmental concerns, etc.)
• literary/artistic/media perspectives (including links to significant artistic works and endeavours that engage with suffering, and to works on media approaches to suffering)

Concerning the Introduction and definition, this is the hardest part! I like your paragraph on significance, and would expand it a little. But your definition raises an important difficulty. The present definition in the article, from I don't know who, is far from perfect, but I'd say it is on the good track. You go toward 'a mental not physical pain' view of suffering, and that is a big big problem : at what point do you suffer from a tooth, let's say? As soon as it is unpleasant, I would say. Then, pain is suffering as soon as it is unpleasant. So there is suffering, and pain is just one form of it, like anxiety is one form of it. There is ambiguity on the use of the word suffering, sometimes it means mental distress, sometimes it means everything unpleasant. Same thing for pain: sometimes it means physical hurt, sometimes mental hurt. So, maybe we should begin by straigthening this out...

Robert Daoust 19:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the addition of the anthropological/etc and the political/etc categories. I wonder though whether we're best to keep the personal/psychological and the biological/neurological separate. Not merely because of the distinction between social and natural sciences, but merely because most people cope with suffering without reference to a deep understanding of the physiological aspects of their experience. Under psychological/personal, I would include responses such as addictive behaviours, escapism, guilt patterns, etc. Equipoise 02:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Good point re the distinction between suffering and pain. I would define suffering as the subjective response to the objective experience. So, a pin prick may cause pain (an objective neural event), but not necessarily suffering. Likewise, financial loss, such as caused by a stock market crash, is an objective event - suffering is the human response to it. By separating out the objective and subjective, I don't mean to say that it is a choice to experience suffering from an instance of pain or loss, merely that the two are not synonymous - the causal relationship is more complicated. Equipoise 02:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Separate psycho from bio, sure... On definition, suffering is subjective, yes. but pain cannot be defined as an objective neural event (or then so can be suffering), as every pain scientist will tell you. The pin prick is an 'objective event' but what if it is on a dead body... Events and emotions are two different categories, and I am afraid that defining one by having recourse to the other is like defining an orange by its price on the market... I will come back tomorrow with a tentative definition, so that you will be able to agree or disagree on it... By the way, I reordered this page, because I had some problems finding your last messages... Robert Daoust 23:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

New Introduction is offered. The word 'uses' refers to what should be another of our categories:

• uses of suffering in politics (war, torture), law (penology), crime, interpersonal relationships (abuses in family, in the workplace), performance {sports (athletes), arts (ballerine, creators,…), business (workers, managers)…

Robert Daoust 21:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Suffering as an Emotion

The article states that suffering, by definition, includes an emotion of unhappiness or something similar, and states that suffering in and of itself is an emotion. I would strongly disagree with this - while suffering would likely make someone unhappy, I would not call suffering an emotion. I suggest that the article be changed to reflect this, and that it be removed from the category of emotions. -Lommer 04:07, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think Lommer might have something there. Suffering seems to transend emotion. It is less of an understanding and more of a state. Stargoat 06:30, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Suffering is said to be an emotion, but see Emotion : this is not clear, suffering is also a 'feeling'. But all this is a question of definition. Pain also is an emotion according to the definition of the International Association for the Study of Pain. -[[User:Robert

What a load of crap. Please explain what you mean by stating that suffering is not an emotion. What is it and what evidence/academic work can you provide to support this statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.123.128.117 (talk) 04:08, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Suffering and the Brain

Neuroscience has now pretty well isolated the "suffering centre of the brain". It's the anterior cingulate cortex (or gyrus). It fires up if a healthy person gets a dagger between the ribs, like several other centres (eg. primary and secondary somatosensory cortices and dorsal anterior insula) but, unlike these, it fires up when you recieve a rejection cue too. That is, the anterior cingulate cortex is active in the presence of both physical and socially inflicted suffering. Would it be appropriate for someone to contribute an essay on the neuroscience of suffering, do you think?

--Anthony Cole 19:40, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tony. I noticed your correction about the insula. You removed however the banner about factual accuracy : I believe it has to be there because the pain overlap theory is much too recent. Anyway, the neuroscience section on suffering should be a lot more developed, shouldn't it? --Robert Daoust 17:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Robert. I completely agree. I'll try to interest someone who really knows about this stuff.

Miscellaneous

Boredom

Aren't "suffering" and "boredom" quite different? - David Stewart 09:14 28 May 2003 (UTC)

Well, it is some mild kind of suffering. Since we do not have much text about it I thought a separate article was not needed, for now. - Patrick 10:04 28 May 2003 (UTC)

It is a subject of psychological study eg. rptsweb.tamu.edu/courses/489/Boredom.PDF and www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/d/e/dec9/courses/mfs.pdf It causes dogs to chase tails, rats to go mad, birds to pick their feathers, and crime amongst humans. Would have though it deserved its own topic! -David Stewart 11:10 28 May 2003 (UTC)

I did not mean that it does not deserve a separate article. Please go ahead, write more about it. - Patrick 11:17 28 May 2003 (UTC)

Sadness

Question: Why do we cry when we are sad? What happens physiologically to cause crying and what is the evolutionary purpose to tears?kpa

I've seen sad in the "uncool" sense linking here. Does that need a separate article, or is there somewhere I could redirect the link to? 212.159.61.65 17:47, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This "sadness = suffering" is anti-Western. Is sadness a Western cultural artifact? What about redirecting to grief or to despair? There seems to be enough consensus here to merit a new approach to sadness.

Miscellaneous

Do we not need to include something on the 3 different types of suffering - deliberate accidental and natural?

Collaboration

I am looking for at least one collaborator in order to bring eventually a major edit to this article.--Robert Daoust 21:38, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Suffering makes man think [Proverb]

Old Japanese saying in the Inn of the sixth Happiness see Wisdom --83.70.70.171 20:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Suffer = allow

Shouldn't there be something in here about how the word suffer can also mean allow, such as in 'suffrage' ? .. perhaps how the words are related? How the meaning changed?

Suffering is a tool, suffering is a means

Just for the sake of curiosity, Google has 18,000 instances of "suffering is a tool" and 38,000 instances of "suffering is a means"

Missing possible ways to end suffering

The article does mention negative utilitarianism, but it is missing some quite large bits of information on movements to use technology to end suffering in sentient life, as detailed in The Hedonistic Imperative and as the mission of the Abolitionist Society and the Abolitionist movement and David Pearce. I'll try to add this to an existing section or add a section sometimes in the near future on this subject.--Gloriamarie 21:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, now I see that this is covered, but it merits a mention at the beginning; I missed it in my first time reading through.--Gloriamarie 22:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Physical or mental suffering

User:67.185.93.158 added the words that are struck in the following paragraph of the article introduction:

• Suffering may be called physical or mental, depending on whether it is linked primarily to a body process or a mind process. Examples of physical suffering are pain (as a sensation), nausea, cancer and other types of illness, paralysis, breathlessness, and itching. Examples of mental suffering are anxiety, grief, hatred, and boredom.

It seems necessary to distinguish between physical and mental suffering, because people often make the distinction. Usually physical suffering is understood as physical pain, and mental suffering is understood as ...mental suffering. The initial version here above wanted to show that there are other physical suffering than pain: for instance breathlessness, which is not considered as a pain by pain specialists, but which is surely unpleasant and aversive, a suffering in the broad sense, and a physical rather than mental suffering. However, the user's addition above highlights a problem with the initial version: are we to consider the 'types' of suffering, or the 'causes' of suffering. The initial version attempted to speak of types of feeling rather than causes of feeling, in order to remain closer to the subject. For instance, anxiety is a type of suffering, while the threat of loosing a job or a football game is a cause of anxiety, i.e. of suffering. In other words, the user's addition may be right, but then we should also add other sources of physical and mental suffering, and this would not be really useful. I think the real problem here has to do with linguistic muddle. Then, I believe the whole paragraph should be removed, and the paragraph further down beginning with "The words pain and suffering can be confusing" should take its place. What is valuable in the content of the removed paragraph could be reinserted somewhere else later, perhaps, under section "Biological, neurological, psychological aspects". --Robert Daoust (talk) 19:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Relationship between articles Pain and Suffering

Pain is currently Wikiproject Medicine Collaboration of the Week. From the top of the Pain article, "This article is about pain as a sensation. For pain in a broader sense see Suffering". If any editors here, in addition to Robert, would like to contribute to Pain you may assist in creating an accurate portrayal of human misery. (This sort of thing looks really good on a CV.(humour)) SmithBlue (talk) 06:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

A suggestion - how about defining suffering as 'any type of physical or mental discomfort'. Right now the use of footnotes is bad - they should be to references and putting a bunch of apologetics or qualifications in them makes the page more difficult to read and less clear. The explanations and self-references that are contained in the footnotes should be integrated with the body text and cited if possible. WLU (talk) 13:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

How do you define 'discomfort'. Shouldn't we avoid a circular or synonym definition? Shouldn't we also avoid characterizing right from the start suffering as essentially divided into the physical and the mental? As for footnotes, I think their normal use is to make the page less difficult to read and more clear. If you think that in the present case they can be avoided, please make the move, we will see whether the result is better. --Robert Daoust (talk) 14:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem is we're going to get into circular definitions (explain 'green' to a blind person kinda thing); I'm not sure what's happening at pain with the split between tissue damage and feeling sad, at some point a split needs to be made. Checking out WP:FOOT, you're right that it can include both but I do think that the text is better placed in the actual article rather than a footnote. The first referes the reader to a different section, and provides no citation about suffering, only a quote about pleasure that mentions suffering. The second could also be integrated with text as it's basically a list of sensations and emotions that cause suffering. And both appear to reference a statement when really it's an expansion. Blech, it's basically a big mess combined with a basic concept which is hard to define. Pain itself includes emotional pain in its definition and lead, but only mentions emotions once in the body. Not that I have any solutions, just complaints :) WLU (talk) 14:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I sympathize with your complaints:) But we are progressing, aren't we? Pain had to be split, as you say. It is not only that pain and suffering are basic concepts hard to define, it is also a matter of culturally ingrained ambiguous uses that an encyclopedia must disambiguate in order to present information in a consistent, coherent manner. For me, there is few English words more ambiguously entangled than pain and suffering. And the whole affective or emotional realm is lamentably dealt with in our culture, and 21st century psychology is still helpless on these matters! You speak of "a list of sensations and emotions that cause suffering". Please have a closer look. These sensations and emotions are (not basic but complex) "affective experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm", they are kinds of suffering, not causes of suffering... (or so is the intention) --Robert Daoust (talk) 16:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Beautiful

Robert et al

I've just visited this page for the first time in a while. Can I congratulate you on the elegance and parsimony of your descriptions - not to mention their scientific rigor? Bravo! More please. Anthony (talk) 08:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Motivating my change

Per Robert Daoust's request for me to motivate my change for epicaricacy, let me just say this: Why use a German word when an English one is available. --evrik ^(talk) 17:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. IMO, schadenfreude is an English word of German origin like epicaricay is an English word of Greek origin. The former is almost common, 1,5 million results on Google, while the latter is very rare, 7 thousands results. Schadenfreude is used in the titles of many English publications. Moreover, we have a pretty good article article in WP on Schadenfreude. --Robert Daoust (talk) 17:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, no.

Schadenfreude (IPA: [ˈʃaːdənˌfʁɔʏ̯də] is a German word meaning 'pleasure from misfortune'. It has been borrowed by the English language and is sometimes also used as a loanword by other languages.

This is the English wiki, and not the German wiki. --evrik ^(talk) 17:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, you misinterpretated the quote: schadenfreude is a well established English word listed in English dictionaries, like this one since at least 1895. Perhaps you will want to modify the quoted entry to prevent misunderstanding in the future. --Robert Daoust (talk) 18:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying the wikipedia article on schadenfreude is wrong? --evrik ^(talk) 18:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

You are right, it is obviously wrong. It should read:

Schadenfreude (IPA: [ˈʃaːdənˌfʁɔʏ̯də]) is enjoyment taken from the misfortune of someone else. The word has been borrowed from German by the English language and is sometimes also used as a loanword by other languages.

or something like that. --Robert Daoust (talk) 19:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Except that the citation you used, >Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary says its German. --evrik ^(talk) 20:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

No, it says its etymology is German. If it was a German word it would not figure in that English dictionary. Look for instance at aficionado and countless other such English words. --Robert Daoust (talk) 22:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)