The “naturalist” Problem of Suffering

[Subduction Zone]

You are talking like a "one trick pony"! The only thing you have mastered - is how to lambaste folks from a certain religion. Even though I told you I am not Christian - you still think I am.
It is like you are on mission to go after certain belief system! Were you a missionary for this religion at some point in your life and now you have switched side? Just wondering!

Aren't you the one who accuses folks of strawman and red herring arguments?

You distort and take extreme meanings and bring irrelevant topics to the conversation. It is not an honest way to debate. Remember accusing others of this practice? Read your own last couple of posts. You mastered this techniques!

You are desperately looking for something to attack your opponent with. You tried topic of "Hell" and when that didn't work - now you bring "flood" to the conversation. You are throwing everything and trying to see what sticks!

Anyhow - now I can see you had a Christian background! You had a lot of confusing materials in your basket that you were carrying around on top of your head.
You shook your basket so much that you lost everything in it including your basket!

Of course Bible is full of corruptions. IMO. Sort through it - probably wrong to completely shake it off!
Every religion probably had some true basis!
Just because a lot of things don't add up - doesn't mean you have to discard everything in it. You are fixated on the controversial parts of your previous doctrine.
Believing in flood or not believing in flood won't fade you away into nothingness - what will however is - not believing in the existence of God altogether! IMO



So far - there was nothing logical about most of the things you said.
I mention the analogy of "Frog in the Well". Most of the things you said was from your perception. IMO.

Fine, you are not a Christian. Then tell us what your God is and why he is not to blame for various flaws in the world, that is if one believes in a benign God.

 

[leroy]

So your argument is that conscious suffering would have provided a benefit, but could not have evolved alongside the evolution of learning skills because the body was somehow so occupied with one that it couldn't do both? That's not a very good argument. We know that that isn't correct.

Yes that is a limitation of the theory of evolution, it´s unlikely for two separate mechanisms (but mutually dependent mechanisms) to evolve at the same time. That would be like winning th lottery 2 times in a row,

The ability to feel conscious pain and the ability to have a conscious reaction and avoid that pain the future would likely have to be 2 different abilities………….none of them is useful by itself you need both at the same time, and evolution is unlikely to do it.

So we are dealing with a fish that ran away vs a fish that ran away and feels conscious pain……. Both fish are equally likely to survive, feeling pain has on advantage unless you have a whole armor of other abilities that together would produce a better benefit.

Maybe. I explained that it's difficult to say what is going on in a fish's mind. And it's irrelevant. Eventually, animals became conscious, developed the ability to experience pain consciously, and to learn, all of which worked together to the benefit of the organism. Whether this first occurred in a fishlike creature or a reptile or a mammal is difficult to decide, and as I said, irrelevant to the fact that man and many of the beasts do all of that.

No it is not irrelevant, we know that “feeling conscious pain” evolved earlier than the ability to think , reason and act according to a conscious analysis…..

So you do have to explain why is a fish feels pain is better than a fish that simply ran away, none of them is intelligent, none of the can reason, none of them can think , none of them can make a conscious analysis of the situation to prevent harm in the future, the only difference is that one felt pain and the other didn’t

So why did NS selected the fish that can feel pain? This is the question that you keep ignoring, which is curios given that you are accusing me of ignoring your questions

You've already said that, I already asked you why, and you ignored it: "Why would I turn off the stove? And why wouldn't I put my hand back on the hot element if I'm unaware that I shouldn't? How could my body know to withdraw the hand reflexively if it weren't detecting tissue damage, and if it were detecting a threat, why keep that knowledge out of consciousness? So the guy can keep putting his hand on the element and watching it withdraw automatically and painlessly?"

this is not a hypothetical example is a real life scenario.

1 You sometimes put your hand in a hot surface / feel something / and remove your hand instinctively. (you don’t feel pain)

2 given that you are intelligent rational and have the ability to act to prevent harm, next time you would make the conscious decision of turning the stove off

Why would I turn off the stove?

Because you are intelligent have the ability that the hot pan is being caused by the stove

And why wouldn't I put my hand back on the hot element if I'm unaware that I shouldn't?

That is a strawman, nobody is saying that you are not unaware that you shoulndt

How could my body know to withdraw the hand reflexively if it weren't detecting tissue damage

Strawman , nobody is saying that your body is not detecting damage, there is a difference between detecting damage (and even feeling something) and feeling conscious pain.

Don't bother answering. I've told you that I've lost interest in that game. I've made my point, and you had no rebuttal. I've explained it to you multiple times: that's where that subtopic ends. My answer is the same.

Well hopefully you are now aware of the fact that your objections are based on straw man arguments

So, I've answered the questions, because you wouldn't: I wouldn't turn off the stove and I would put my hand on the element repeatedly.

Again, why are you using the Word “wouldn’t” this is not a hypothetical example

1 you do tend to touch hot surfaces every once in a while

2 you do feel something and remove your hand as a reflex (without feeling actual conscious pain)

3 you do turn off the stove to prevent that to happen in the future

So you do turne off the stove despite the fact that you didn’t felt the pain of burning your hand

Now @Subduction Zone made a good point, if you would have felt real and actual conscious pain you would have taken more preventive measures to avoid touching the hot surface. So perhaps actual pain would result in a small evolutionary advantage, but this advantage is only applicable to intelligent and rational creatures that can analyze the situation and take preventive measures. (it wouldn’t apply to ancient fish) so the question remains why did “feeling pain” evolved in ancient fish?

I'd ask you what your excuse is, but there's no point (I just caught myself writing "but what's the point?" and changed it to "but there's no point"). You can rebut that if you like and explain why it's wrong, or just tacitly agree by ignoring it rather than disagreeing. I'm not giving you the opportunity to ignore questions. I can't stop you from ignoring statements, but I can tell you that when you do, the issue is settled and that aspect of the discussion over.

I am not ignoring your questions, given that most of your questions are based on straw man interpretations of my argument and given that I have already told you about the straw man, I thought it was obvious that the questions are no longer applicable

I mean if I ask you

If the universe is 6,000 years old

1 why can we see distant star light?

2 why do we have fossils and rocks dated to be millions of years old?

3 why are there think layers of ice in the poles?

4 why do we have so much erosion in rocks and mountains, ?

5 where did the grand canyon came from, why did it formed so fast?

Etc.

And you answer by “No I don’t think the universe is 6,000 old” then obviously I would know that none of my 5 questions is applicable and I wouldn’t expect an answer

My wife and a longtime girlfriend

Ok that is weird, perhaps Google translator mistranslated the sentence, perhaps you are just too open minded.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

However Atheists / naturalists have the same problem, they can’t explain suffering ether, so I guess suffering is simply a strange thing that nobody cant explain.

You assert this, but is that so?
Why would an atheist / naturalist require suffering to have a special explanation?

I don't see it.

Why Atheists cant explain Suffering

Well suffering is a complex and useless mechanism so why would it evolve by natural selection?

That is very very wrong.

Let's go to the most primitive form of suffering, for ease of argument and clarity, and consider physical pain.
Physical pain is INCREDIBLY useful as a survival mechanism. It alerts one of danger.

Imagine if you wouldn't feel pain at all. You are sleeping somewhere and some animal starts nibbling your skin. You'ld be eaten alive in your sleep. The pain of a flame causes you to retreat and save yourself (and others).

Emotional pain is no different. People generally want to avoid such pain and thus try their best not having to experience it and, through empathy, we have incentive to not inflict it on others either.

All these things are very important as survival mechanisms. For the betterment of the group and by extension yourself.


So I really don't know what you are talking about.
Is it an elegant system? No. In fact it's quite cruel -from a human perspective.
But nature is pretty indifferent.

This is why I said that I, as a naturalistic atheist, require no "special explanation" of why it is this way instead of some other way - because there is no intention behind it.

Now if you wish to say that the system was set up by an intelligent being, then there IS intention. Meaning that at some point there was a conscious choice to introduce the concept of suffering, predator and prey, etc. Then the system is intentionally cruel. The "problem of evil" is addressing exactly that... it is questioning the intention - assuming there is one.

But I don't assume there is such a thing. I don't know if there is "intention" behind it, but all the evidence I'm aware of seem to be pointing in the other direction. There is no evidence to support "intention", so I see no reason to assume it.

Hence, it requires no special explanation as far as I can see.

Reacting Vs Suffering ​

For the purpose of this argument, do not confuse “reacting” and “suffering”Almost all organism react to avoid harmful situations, for example sometimes plants produce a poisonous substance when someone is trying to pull down a tree, clams would hide underground, spiders would bite you, etc, this is a very useful mechanism because it helps organisms to survive and reproduce.

However there is a big difference between “reacting” (like most organisms do ) and real and actual suffering (where only complex organisms do) a plant doesn’t really suffer, it doesn’t really feel pain it simply reacts………….too suffer is a complex mental state that doesn’t offer any selective advantage.

Well, I just explained above how it is not true that it offers no selective advantage.
It clearly does.

So the argument is

1 Complex + Useless mechanism are not expected to evolve

The premise is incorrect, because it assumes / asserts it is useless while it isn't.

2 suffering (as oppose to reacting) is a complex and useless mechanism

Same as above: note useless.

3 therefore suffering is not expected to evolve./ therefore atheist have the same problem than theists

And another thing.... a mistake you seem to be making very very regularly even though plenty of people have already pointed it out to you - including myself.

And that is: evolution is not atheism. Atheism is not evolution.
Evolution is not an "atheist explanation"
Atheism does not include evolution.

When are you finally going to stop making this mistake?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

In this context I am talking about physical suffering, like the pain that you felt in the surgery room……… most organism wouldn’t have felt any pain, in order to have a selective benefit you don’t need to feel conscious pain (complex mechanism) all you need is to react and avoid pain (simple mechanism) … Natural Selection is unlikely to select complex useless mechanisms over simple and useful mechanisms

If you can't feel pain, then there is nothing for you to avoid.

Derp di derp derp.

I don't walk into a fire because I'ld experience pain if I did.

Imagine a person with a nervous disorder which would render him/her immune to pain.
I bet that person would not live very long.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There was a study that shows the more intelligent you are, the lesser children you have. Or was it people who are involved in highly scholarly/scientific professions have letter children? Must try and find that study.

I remember that. It doesn't have to do with the reproductive capacity of intelligent people though in the biological sense.

It's rather because more intelligent people tend to think more about their life decisions and alike. They plan more. While "less intelligent" people live more in the moment.

They live today and don't worry much about tomorrow.
Intelligent people are more inclined to over-analyze, consider consequences of their decisions, etc.
So they will be more carefull.

Typically, they'll build their family later in life. At 35 or whatevs - when they have a nice savings account, own a home, have launched and established carreers etc.

But when you start only at 35-36, you likely won't be having 3-4 kids.
If on the other hand you have your first kid at 21, you can easily have 4 more afterwards.

This is off course not set in stone, it's just statistics.

Funny footnote: in that study, another correlation came out concerning religious vs non-religious people. Religious people were much faster in a test where they had to answer a series of questions. They didn't score better or worse then the non-religious people. They just did it faster.

The reason was quite hilarious: the religious people were less worried about getting answers wrong and thus mostly answered their first thought. While the atheists tended to second guess everything and overthink it.

 

[leroy]

Do you understand how suffering is different from common every day pain?

I understand how you personally define those terms and the difference between them

 

[leroy]

If you can't feel pain, then there is nothing for you to avoid.

Derp di derp derp.

I don't walk into a fire because I'ld experience pain if I did.

Imagine a person with a nervous disorder which would render him/her immune to pain.
I bet that person would not live very long.

I don’t have to imagine anything, most organism and most animals (all invertebrates) don´t feel conscious pain and they still avoid fire and are pretty good at surviving

 

[leroy]

There was a study that shows the more intelligent you are, the lesser children you have. .

Evolution hates inteligent people

 

[firedragon]

Evolution hates inteligent people

Hmm.

 

[leroy]

Imagine if you wouldn't feel pain at all. You are sleeping somewhere and some animal starts nibbling your skin. You'ld be eaten alive in your sleep. The pain of a flame causes you to retreat and save yourself (and others).

Your whole reply is based on a straw man.

What I am saying is that conscious pain has no selective advantage, with conscious pain, I mean this mental statate in which your brain communicates with your nervous system such that one is aware that it´s in pain (and suffering)

Only some vertebrates seem to have this ability. Most animals simply react to avoid harm, if you try to eat a clam while it is sleeping , it will react and try to run away (despite the fact that it is not feeling conscious pain)

Or when you touch a hot pan, you will” feel something “ and remove your hand, but you didn’t felt actual conscious pain.

So this type of reaction (I call it unconscious pain) is very useful, … my point is that adding this mental state of awareness (conscious pain) is useless and shouldn’t have been selected by natural selection.

If you try to harm a clam, it will try to escape and run away despite the fact that it doesn’t feel concious pain..…. No imagine that this claim for some reason is feeling conscious pain, the claim would do the exact same thing, it will try to run away and scape, feeling pain doesn’t add any benefit.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I am not ignoring your questions, given that most of your questions are based on straw man interpretations of my argument and given that I have already told you about the straw man, I thought it was obvious that the questions are no longer applicable

You just described ignoring questions and called it not ignoring them. You gave your reasons for ignoring them, reasons that are not meaningful to me. I reject your claims of straw man.

Yes that is a limitation of the theory of evolution, it´s unlikely for two separate mechanisms (but mutually dependent mechanisms) to evolve at the same time.

That's not only an unsupported claim, it's both wrong and would be irrelevant even if it were correct. Mutually dependent, you say. Coevolution is common in biology. Male and female gender coevolved. Pollen and pollinators coevolved. It's irrelevant because even if you were correct about simultaneity being impossible, the changes could (and likely did) appear sequentially as they did in the evolution of man from arboreal apes. The conscious experience of pain would confer an evolutionary advantage on any creature able to learn. Your argument depends on things being impossible that can't be shown to be that, but that have actually occurred. Your question should be to ask which mechanism caused that - intelligent designer or unguided evolution.

Incidentally, your protestations that this is not you arguing for an intelligent designer are not convincing. You only discuss why you think evolution isn't up to the task. And you expect to be believed that this is not creationist apologetics because you say it's not. Also, you use this as a basis to declare whatever you don't like a straw man and choose not to answer. You won't mind, I hope, if I take the same liberties myself down the road.

The ability to feel conscious pain and the ability to have a conscious reaction and avoid that pain the future would likely have to be 2 different abilities………….none of them is useful by itself you need both at the same time, and evolution is unlikely to do it.

No, you don't need them present simultaneously, and evolution almost certainly did generate those abilities. The alternative is an intelligent designer.

we know that “feeling conscious pain” evolved earlier than the ability to think , reason and act according to a conscious analysis…..

No, we don't know that. In fact, it's unlikely, as conscious suffering isn't useful unless it can lead to more than reflexive behavior, like planning evasive action and learning to avoid the suffering in the future.

So why did NS selected the fish that can feel pain? This is the question that you keep ignoring

No, you keep ignoring the answer. I've told you twice already. Natural selection selects for creatures that can benefit from consciousness of suffering. I don't know if this first occurred in fish, but it doesn't matter. It eventually appeared in complex animals with complex nervous systems. There's no mystery, just pathway details yet to be elucidated, as with abiogenesis and the evolution of arboreal apes into human beings. We know that all of these things happened. Being unable to specify those details is not an argument against undirected, natural forces driving them.

You sometimes put your hand in a hot surface / feel something / and remove your hand instinctively. (you don’t feel pain)

I wouldn't remove my hand just as I wouldn't stop drinking poison if it didn't cause some kind of unpleasant experience before consuming the lethal dose.

given that you are intelligent rational and have the ability to act to prevent harm, next time you would make the conscious decision of turning the stove off

Being that I am intelligent and rational, awareness of pain is useful to me, which is why evolution would and did select for that ability in any animal that could benefit from it.

Well hopefully you are now aware of the fact that your objections are based on straw man arguments

My objections are based in the undeniable fact that conscious suffering exists, the likelihood that it confers a selective advantage, and that this is not beyond the capabilities of unguided evolution.

You won't discuss what you think explains that fact if you think that evolution wasn't up to the task. Fact: conscious suffering exists on life. Fact: nobody has another explanation other than it exists by naturalistic evolution or because of an intelligent designer, meaning that if there is no third option, one of those two happened. Fact: You imply that you believe that evolution couldn't do it. If that isn't your position, the discussion is over, since you have an explanation: evolution or an intelligent designer is the explanation. If it is your position that conscious suffering could not have evolved, you are arguing for divine creationism without explicit reference to it or a deity by name, and your argument is rejected for being insufficiently evidenced. No deity is known to exist.

So, we're done. You either believe that conscious suffering could have evolved naturalistically or that it could not have. If the former, there is no "problem of suffering." If the latter, you're a stealth creation apologist pretending not to be by avoiding the subject, and being unwilling to explain why you think conscious suffering exists if that state is irreducibly complex, that is, beyond the ability of undirected genetic variation subjected to natural selection to create a series of intermediate forms each with a selective advantage over earlier forms.

Either way, we've reached the end. Either evolution could have done it, or only an intelligent designer could have. That's my belief as well, with one answer orders of magnitude more likely to be correct than the other. You won't state yours.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I understand how you personally define those terms and the difference between them

So you do not understand. That old cognitive dissonance is kicking in again.

 

[leroy]

You just described ignoring questions and called it not ignoring them. You gave your reasons for ignoring them, reasons that are not meaningful to me. I reject your claims of straw man.



That's not only an unsupported claim, it's both wrong and would be irrelevant even if it were correct. Mutually dependent, you say. Coevolution is common in biology. Male and female gender coevolved. Pollen and pollinators coevolved. It's irrelevant because even if you were correct about simultaneity being impossible, the changes could (and likely did) appear sequentially as they did in the evolution of man from arboreal apes. The conscious experience of pain would confer an evolutionary advantage on any creature able to learn. Your argument depends on things being impossible that can't be shown to be that, but that have actually occurred. Your question should be to ask which mechanism caused that - intelligent designer or unguided evolution.

Ok given you view and your feedback I see why is it irrelevant

No, you don't need them present simultaneously, and evolution almost certainly did generate those abilities. The alternative is an intelligent designer.

And other alternative is “I don’t know”……. You can argue that evolution by Natural selection is “obviously true” given the evidence that we have, even if you have no explanation for that particular issue.............I admit that I cant expalin suffering from the point of view of theism ether.

No, we don't know that. In fact, it's unlikely, as conscious suffering isn't useful unless it can lead to more than reflexive behavior, like planning evasive action and learning to avoid the suffering in the future.

Being that I am intelligent and rational, awareness of pain is useful to me, which is why evolution would and did select for that ability in any animal that could benefit from it.

Well you are conceding the very claims that I am making.

Yes once you have the ability to learn and make conscious decisions based on that learning the conscious suffering would represent a small selective advantage.

The thing is that animals evolved the ability to feel concious pain, long before they evolved the ability to learn and make conscious decisions based on what they learned.

 

[leroy]

So you do not understand. That old cognitive dissonance is kicking in again.

When you start to argue “semantics” it´s a clear sign that you are being cornered and have no idea on how to refute the arguments that I have made.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

And other alternative is “I don’t know”

The only alternatives are biological evolution and intelligent design, and neither can be ruled in or out. One of those is why we have conscious suffering in some animals, not "I don't know." Nobody knows, although not everybody would agree with that.

Well you are conceding the very claims that I am making. Yes once you have the ability to learn and make conscious decisions based on that learning the conscious suffering would represent a small selective advantage.

No, I'm contradicting your claim that conscious suffering could not evolve. I am saying that THAT selective advantage is why the capability evolved. You've been saying that there is no benefit in between expressions that there IS a benefit as above.

The thing is that animals evolved the ability to feel conscious pain, long before they evolved the ability to learn and make conscious decisions based on what they learned.

Once again, you are making unevidenced claims, something you couldn't know even if correct. We don't know at what stage of neural complexity in evolution that consciousness ignited. I am aware of no evidence that animals that don't plan or learn are experiencing conscious pain, and you have provided none. You haven't provided any evidence that an animal that can't think or plan experiences conscious pain, I doubt that you could suggest any other behavior than planning and learning complex behaviors that could confirm consciousness, there is no reason why it would select for a behavior that doesn't confer a survival advantage, and good reasons that it shouldn't, so the claim is rejected for being insufficiently evidenced.

From To Pay Attention, the Brain Uses Filters, Not a Spotlight | Quanta Magazine :

"Attentional processes are the brain’s way of shining a searchlight on relevant stimuli and filtering out the rest. Neuroscientists want to determine the circuits that aim and power that searchlight. For decades, their studies have revolved around the cortex, the folded structure on the outside of the brain commonly associated with intelligence and higher-order cognition. It’s become clear that activity in the cortex boosts sensory processing to enhance features of interest. But now, some researchers are trying a different approach, studying how the brain suppresses information rather than how it augments it. Perhaps more importantly, they’ve found that this process involves more ancient regions much deeper in the brain — regions not often considered when it comes to attention."

And, as usual, you ignored much of what was written to you. I consider those issues resolved, since you have no rebuttal. You are not denying that your are a creationist engaged in stealth creationist apologetics. I assure you that if you called me that, I'd correct you. You keep telling me I've ignored your fish argument, but you haven't acknowledge my response any of the three times I gave it including the previous post. You've failed to comment on sequential evolution and coevolution. You didn't even comment on "we're done."

I've told you what that would lead to, and now we're there. I've said all I have to say more than once, and you've ignored most of it. I will show you the same disrespect you have shown me. If my words don't matter to you, yours don't matter to me. Do not expect another response from me on this thread. Really. If you'd like to leave a message for others, fine, but I'm no longer interested in answering it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

When you start to argue “semantics” it´s a clear sign that you are being cornered and have no idea on how to refute the arguments that I have made.

That is not semantics. It is a key concept that you do not seem to grasp.

I am not using my own private definition. That is what suffering is defined as. Why don't you look up the two words yourself.

And once again this is an example of why you are on corrections only and cannot demand evidence.

 

[leroy]

No, I'm contradicting your claim that conscious suffering could not evolve. I am saying that THAT selective advantage is why the capability evolved. You've been saying that there is no benefit in between expressions that there IS a benefit as above.

I was wrong and corrected by “ @Subduction Zone ” (and perhaps you even made an argument under those lines.

Yes I agree if an organism is already intelligent rational, with memory and with the ability to make conscious decisions then conscious pain can have a benefit over non conscious pain (if you would have felt conscious pain after touching the hot pan, you would have been more likely to take more preventive measures next time.)

But in the absence of such characteristics (rationality, conscious reaction, memory etc.) there is no clear benefit in conscious pain over non conscious pain.

So do we agree at this point?... if not please tell me at what point do you disagree and why?


if you agree to this point I will continue to show that concious suffering predates rationality, conscious reaction, memory etc.

And, as usual, you ignored much of what was written to you. I consider those issues resolved, since you have no rebuttal.

Those points that have not been rebutted are granted or no longer relevant for the point that I am making.

For example I disagree with your coevolution stuff, but as you said earlier, it´s not relevant

 

[ppp]

if you agree to this point I will continue to show that concious suffering predates rationality, conscious reaction, memory etc.

Does it matter? No one claims that evolution tailors attributes. It just takes advantage of the attributes that arise. It's like the gene for sickle cell. Deadly in pairs, but useful enough as singletons to stick around

 

[leroy]

That is not semantics. It is a key concept that you do not seem to grasp.

I am not using my own private definition. That is what suffering is defined as. Why don't you look up the two words yourself.

And once again this is an example of why you are on corrections only and cannot demand evidence.

Again, I told you what I meant by conscious pain and by suffering, if I am using the wrong vocabulary then just tell me what words should I use , (that doesn’t change the argument)

 

[Subduction Zone]

Again, I told you what I meant by conscious pain and by suffering, if I am using the wrong vocabulary then just tell me what words should I use , (that doesn’t change the argument)

In other words you are the one playing semantic games. I love it when people accuse others of what they are doing.

You were told. As usual you did not listen.