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'Mindful people' feel less pain

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Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#131

Post by erikpukinskis »

danharaj wrote: post #129
Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that I'm reading a book written by a person who suffered from cluster headache. It's a book about mindfulness in which he suggests to treat your pain as a message and listen to that message, that is, study the pain. He no longer has this headache.

Cluster headaches are sporadic and their cause is unknown. A person can have one once and never again. Best not to read into anecdotes.

You claimed that no one who had experienced cluster headaches would advocate for mindfulness as a potential solution.

Someone gave you information to the contrary, and now you are suggesting not using an anecdote as proof of a treatment’s efficacy.

That’s called “moving the goalposts”.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#132

Post by erikpukinskis »

canhascodez wrote: post #93
projektir wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least, you could damage someone's brain faculties to the point that they can no longer philosophize their way out of suffering. And that is likely unnecessary, some drugs should suffice. "Suffering is optional" is a concept that dies immediately if you apply even a tiny amount of creativity to the question. It also fails if applied to animals. It's really only available to people in a specific range of si…

There are quite a lot of things which people transmit as true beliefs, which we all know are false. We tell people that not only love exists, but true love, and justice, and objective truth, and honor. No one has ever touched or measured an atom of love -- but we all need to feel loved, and acting like love or truth or honor don't exist leads to atrocities. Funny old world, ain't it?

What’s your proof that love, honor, and truth don’t exist?

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#133

Post by erikpukinskis »

mcculley wrote: post #85
kalid wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it necessary for the realization you've torn a muscle to be unpleasant? (It's that realization you're reacting to, not the pain.) Ultimately, we're making a prediction: my life is guaranteed to be worse off because my muscle was recently torn. Is this true? https://sivers.org/horses

I’m saying they are distinctly different kinds of pain.

You’re saying it’s a different set of pain receptors firing, which are more uncomfortable?

The fact that it feels different to you could just be that it’s a different context. Different “metadata” so to speak, with the same pain.

Seems like GP thinks the metadata is making it worse, and you think the data is different. How would you tell the sifference?

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#134

Post by erikpukinskis »

smileysteve wrote: post #75
ollerac wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it this way: Pain: My head hurts. This sucks. Suffering: My head hurts. It's not going away. Maybe this means something is wrong with me. Maybe it means I have some kind of disease or disorder. What if there's something wrong with my brain, like a brain tumor or a blood clot? What if I suddenly die next week? etc. etc.

And even, Pain: My head hurts, but that's not going to stop me from having an awesome day. Suffering: I have a headache, this sucks, let me avoid things that might be fun even with a headache. Perhaps a better example is the stoicism, Steve Prefontaine famously won an Olympic qualifier with the stitches on his toe ripping; "Yes, my toe hurts, but I want to win, I can fix my toe after I finish."

And then he died at age 24 driving with a BAC of 0.16.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#135

Post by erikpukinskis »

projektir wrote: post #60
lalos wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suffering is a conscious decision, pain is triggered by an outside stimuli. Just like you can feel mad without punching a wall. Punching a wall would be an extreme example of somebody with zero self-control that reacts rather than act. It's normal to have pain or feel mad, it's not 'mindful' to react with the first impulse you get.

> Suffering is a conscious decision Do you think your cat won't suffer is you stop feeding it? Do you think it's making a conscious decision to suffer if it's hungry?

The idea isn’t that humans don’t suffer, or that suffering isn’t real.

The idea is that this very conversation could lessen your suffering for the rest of your life.

If you talk to your cat about stoicism, they might suffer less during starvation, yes.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#136

Post by erikpukinskis »

projektir wrote: post #97
lalos wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about suffering, pain and choice IN humans, you brought animals into the equation. It's a comment on HN so sorry for not specifying that the article and my comment were regarding humans only. Bringing animals in was the broken premise. If it is your responsibility to feed the cat, then yes the cat will suffer. I don't even understand your point, where does the cat get a choice to do anything at all? But…

I am attempting to reject an absolute statement that I find dangerous by showing a very basic and boring counterexample. If suffering is a conscious decision, it is such in all cases where suffering occurs, and suffering occurs in animals. "Suffering in humans" is not concrete. You would need to create a distinction between "suffering in humans" and "suffering in animals" and explain where it differs and what is spec…

> If suffering is a conscious decision, it is such in all cases where suffering occurs

This is the weak point in your argument.

If I have a flat tire, I can get it fixed. I didn’t consciously choose to get a flat tire. But if I don’t fix it, the next day I will have a flat tire I consciously chose to have.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#137

Post by antidesitter »

canhascodez wrote: post #93
projektir wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least, you could damage someone's brain faculties to the point that they can no longer philosophize their way out of suffering. And that is likely unnecessary, some drugs should suffice. "Suffering is optional" is a concept that dies immediately if you apply even a tiny amount of creativity to the question. It also fails if applied to animals. It's really only available to people in a specific range of si…

There are quite a lot of things which people transmit as true beliefs, which we all know are false. We tell people that not only love exists, but true love, and justice, and objective truth, and honor. No one has ever touched or measured an atom of love -- but we all need to feel loved, and acting like love or truth or honor don't exist leads to atrocities. Funny old world, ain't it?

> which we all know are false

I think you’re projecting your own beliefs onto others.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#138

Post by jdkoeck »

finnthehuman wrote: post #127
jdkoeck wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure you're just "more rational"? None of that seems mindful. It sounds like you're bordering dissociative disorder.

You've taken someone's mastery of a life skill we expect of all adults (emotional self-control) and are pointing to the closest pathological condition you can find even though it's mile and miles away from what the parent poster describes.

Parent poster is confusing his own blood with “mysterious coppery liquid”, even after wiping it several times off his fingers. That’s not a good sign.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#139

Post by canhascodez »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #132
canhascodez wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are quite a lot of things which people transmit as true beliefs, which we all know are false. We tell people that not only love exists, but true love, and justice, and objective truth, and honor. No one has ever touched or measured an atom of love -- but we all need to feel loved, and acting like love or truth or honor don't exist leads to atrocities. Funny old world, ain't it?

What’s your proof that love, honor, and truth don’t exist?

That would be the definition of an abstract concept, I believe.

Re: 'Mindful people' feel less pain

#140

Post by canhascodez »

antidesitter wrote: post #137
canhascodez wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are quite a lot of things which people transmit as true beliefs, which we all know are false. We tell people that not only love exists, but true love, and justice, and objective truth, and honor. No one has ever touched or measured an atom of love -- but we all need to feel loved, and acting like love or truth or honor don't exist leads to atrocities. Funny old world, ain't it?

> which we all know are false I think you’re projecting your own beliefs onto others.

I was speaking a little loosely, but if you want to advance an argument for the empirical existence of abstract concepts, I'm sure I'd be interested.
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