Just like a smooth flowing and unobstructed river, we never pay attention to it or pay attention to it, which is the nature of human beings and animals; . If we need to pay attention to anything, our will must first encounter setbacks and experience some kind of impact. On the contrary, all things that go against our will, hinder and resist, that is, all unpleasant and unfortunate things, always attract our attention immediately, clearly and directly. The whole body is safe, and we know nothing; However, when a square foot is caught by shoes, we don't think about the overall success, but only want the details or things that keep bothering us. In view of this, I often call on people to pay attention to whether happiness is a qualitative concept and whether pain is a positive concept.
So almost all metaphysics interprets evil as a negative thing, which is the most ridiculous thing I have ever known. Because evil is only affirmative and self-evident; Whether goodness, that is, happiness, is qualitative or not is nothing more than the cessation of desire or the elimination of pain.
Another evidence is that we usually feel that happiness is not as strong as we think, but pain is much stronger than we think.
Some people claim that happiness in the world is more than pain, or at least the two are in balance. In order to test its authenticity, a simple comparison can be made: an animal is chewing its prey, so which is stronger and which is weaker for the carnivore and the eaten?
Whenever there is sadness and misfortune, the most effective comfort is to observe the misfortunes of others, especially me. This legal person is feasible. But in terms of the misfortune of mankind as a whole, what's the point?
History shows us the survival of the nation, but there is nothing to say except war and riots. Peacetime is only occasional short gaps and episodes. Similarly, a person's life is also an endless struggle, not only with metaphorical desire and boredom, but also with others. There are enemies everywhere and the struggle will never stop. He will not leave his sword until he dies.
Among all kinds of troubles that plague us, the pressure of time is an important one. Time never allows us to take a break, but we chase after them with a whip, like a supervisor. Time will not stop persecuting unless we get bored.
Without atmospheric pressure, our bodies will be blown to pieces; Similarly, if our life is not oppressed by desires, labor, disasters and setbacks, people's arrogance will expand, even if it does not erupt, it will develop into the most licentious stupidity and even madness. It can even be said that we always need some worry, sadness or desire, just like a ship needs ballast to keep it moving forward.
Pain and trouble are indeed the fate that runs through almost everyone's life. However, if a desire can be satisfied, the problem will follow: how should people enrich their lives and spend their time? Imagine: human beings have moved to a paradise where everything grows freely, roast turkeys fly around, and lovers can find each other at a glance and stay together safely. Then, some people will be bored to death or hang themselves, and some people will start fighting and killing each other, thus artificially creating suffering, which is more than the suffering imposed on us by nature. So for such a species, the existing living conditions and living forms are perfect.
As mentioned above, satisfaction and happiness are not qualitative, but pain is certain. Therefore, to measure whether a person is happy or not, we should take positive factors as the standard, that is, how much suffering there is. Nevertheless, the fate of animals is more tolerable than that of people. Let's take a closer look at both.
No matter how diverse the forms of human suffering and joy are, and how to induce people to give up such and such things, the material basis of suffering and joy is physical pleasure and pain. This basic scope is very narrow, including the presence or absence of health, food, freedom from cold and humid environment, and sexual satisfaction. Therefore, man does not enjoy more physiological pleasure than animals, but his more developed nervous system strengthens every pleasure, just as it strengthens every pain. How many times is the emotion in his heart stronger than that of animals, and how many times is his passion deeper than that of animals? There is no comparison at all! In the end, he got the same thing: health, food, shelter, and so on.
The most important reason for this is that considering the unknown and the future, everything about him has been greatly strengthened, which is actually the root of worry, fear and hope. Once these emotions are aroused, the impact on people will be far greater than the actual pain and happiness at present-the senses of animals are limited to this. Due to the lack of reflective ability, in animals, happiness and sadness will not be accumulated through memory and expectation like humans. In animals, no matter how many times the pain is repeated, it is the same as the first time-the pain will not accumulate. Therefore, the unique calmness and indifference of animals are enviable. In man, from the same bitter and happy factors as animals, the senses strengthen happiness and pain. This kind of reinforcement can make happiness reach the extreme in an instant, sometimes enough to kill people, and it can also make suffering go to despair that life is worse than death. Further consideration, the fact is that people's needs are not more difficult to meet than those of animals from the beginning, but people deliberately strengthen their own needs to strengthen their happiness, so that they have luxury goods, desserts, tobacco, opium, wine, clothes and all related things. On top of this, it is also because of reflection that he added his own unique things, which first caused happiness and then caused pain. He is obsessed with this, far more than anything else. This kind of thing is ambition and sense of honor and disgrace. In short, he thinks his image in the eyes of others. This image has different manifestations, and it is often strange. It transcends the physical suffering and becomes the goal of all his efforts. Indeed, he can enjoy intellectual pleasure more than animals. These pleasures range from simple jokes and conversations to the highest achievement of thinking. But in order to offset this, boredom is accompanied by pain. Animals don't know what boredom is, at least in the natural state, and extremely clever domesticated animals have only a little knowledge of boredom: but for human beings, boredom is a bitter punishment. Desire and boredom are indeed the two poles of life. Finally, it needs to be mentioned that people's sexual satisfaction is limited to very paranoid objects, and sometimes it will be strengthened into passionate love; Therefore, for people, the happiness brought by sex is short-lived, but the pain is long.
Surprisingly, people should have established a much wider range of happiness and misfortune on the basis of the simple pain and joy that animals also have, only by the idea that animals do not have. They should have left strong emotions, passion and tremors on his face, leaving long wrinkles, but the fact is that he can get animals, and the emotional cost paid by animals is really insignificant compared with it. However, because of thinking, people's pain is far greater than happiness. People really know what death is, which greatly aggravates the pain, while animals don't really understand the meaning of death, so death is never in their sight, unlike humans who always think about death and just instinctively avoid it.
Animals are much more satisfied with being alive than people, while plants are completely so. People's satisfaction depends on their boredom and numbness. Therefore, animal life contains less pain and less joy than human beings. The direct reasons are: on the one hand, animals are not affected by troubles and worries, and there is no subsequent torture; On the other hand, animals have no hope, so they have no yearning for a better future and the fascination with imagination that comes with it-these are the sources of extreme pain and joy. Animals don't want and never worry, because their consciousness is limited to clear and direct things, so they are limited to the present-animals are the embodiment of the present. But because of this, compared with us, animals are the real wisdom in enjoying the present carefree. Their outstanding silence makes us feel ashamed of the constant commotion and dissatisfaction.
If the above discussion proves that people's life is more painful than animals because people's cognitive ability is stronger, then we can infer more general laws and form a more comprehensive view now.
Knowledge itself is never painful. Pain only affects the will and exists in the obstruction, hindrance or frustration of the will; However, if the frustration of will is perceived as pain, it must be accompanied by knowledge. This is why even physical pain is always controlled by nerves and their connection with the brain. Therefore, if the nerve connecting the limbs to the brain is cut off, or the brain itself is poisoned by chloroform and loses its vitality, it will not feel the limbs injured. It is self-evident that mental pain is influenced by cognition, and it is obvious that this kind of pain deepens with the deepening of cognition. In this way, we can make an analogy to describe the whole relationship: the will is a string, the frustration or obstruction of the will is the vibration of the string, cognition is a soundboard, and pain is sound.
This means that not only inorganic substances can't feel pain, but plants can't feel pain, no matter how many setbacks they suffer. On the other hand, all animals, including ciliates, experience pain. This is because the essential feature of animals is cognition, no matter how imperfect it is. Every higher level of an animal's life, its pain increases accordingly. But even the most advanced animals can't feel the pain that people feel, because even the most advanced animals have no thoughts and ideas. Yes, when the intensity of pain reaches its peak, it is also possible to deny the will with reason-otherwise, it is meaningless and cruel.
When the crown is weak, we sit in the future life, just like children sitting in front of the curtain of the theater, full of joy and expectation for what will happen. Fortunately, we don't know what will be staged. Because for those who know, children are sometimes like wronged criminals. They are sentenced not to death, but to life imprisonment. They don't know the content of the punishment. Nevertheless, everyone is eager to live to be old, and then he can say, "Today is terrible, getting worse every day until it is hopeless."
If possible, imagine all the embarrassment, pain and suffering where the sun shines, and you will admit that it would be much better if the sun brought fewer signs of life to the earth than the moon, and the earth was still in a crystal state like the moon.
You can also regard our life as a discordant episode, which disrupts the nothingness and tranquility in the sky. No matter when and where, even those who think life is ok, the longer they live, the more clearly they will understand that life as a whole is a setback, no, it is a scam. If young friends meet again after many years, the past time is still in sight, and the strongest feeling when they meet is complete disappointment with life. At the young rosy dawn, life used to look so beautiful. It promised so much, but it achieved so little. This feeling will hold them so firmly that they even feel that it is not worth mentioning, just silently using it as the keynote of the conversation.
If reproductive behavior is not a product of desire, nor is it accompanied by pleasure, but a purely rational thing, will human beings continue to exist? Will each of us be full of compassion for the next generation, or even prefer to let them not bear the burden of life, or at least hope that we will not ruthlessly put the burden on the next generation?
Because the world is hell, people are suffering souls on the one hand, and demons in hell on the other.
It is said that Brahma created the world because of sudden depravity or mistakes. In order to atone, he had to exist in this world until he saved himself from this world. Well said! According to Buddhism, the state of nirvana is better than the wonderful Zhan Ran. After a long period of peace, the world was somehow polluted and the world was born. Therefore, the origin of the world comes from a fixed number, which should be understood mainly from the moral sense-although the origin of the material world is exactly the same, the fog belt was produced in Archaean at least, and the sun was also produced from it. Nevertheless, because the world is made of sin, the material world has been getting worse and worse until today's sad situation. That's great! For the Greeks, it is a saying that the world and God were created by inextricable inevitability. The constant struggle between Ahura Mazda and Angela Manuel is also worth thinking about. However, it is hard to accept that a god like Jehovah voluntarily created such a world full of desires and pains, and even took pride in it and called it good.
Even if Leibniz's argument is correct, the present world is the best of all possible worlds, which still cannot prove that God loves this world. Because the creator not only created the world, but also created the possibility itself, so he could have created the possibility of a better world.
However, on the whole, the world is a successful work of intelligent, perfect and powerful existence. This view will be loudly opposed by two facts: the world is full of suffering, and the highest phenomenon in the world-man-is obviously imperfect, but man is actually a grotesque cartoon character. This is an insoluble contradiction. On the contrary, it is these examples that support what we have just said and prove that our view of the world is correct: the world is the product of our own sins, so it is best not to exist at all. According to the above reasoning, these examples have become powerful accusations against the creators and provided material for cynicism; According to our reasoning, these examples have become accusations against our own nature and will, and together they have taught us humility. Because these examples lead us to a point: we are like children born of prodigal children, and we have always been guilty in the world. It is precisely because of the constant atonement for this crime that our existence is so humble and the end of our existence is death. Generally speaking, it is the sin of the world that leads to all kinds of unbearable suffering in the world. Obviously, what we are talking about here is not the connection between matter and experience, but the metaphysical connection. Therefore, the story of the fall of Adam and Eve is the only thing that can make me accept the Old Testament. I even think it is the only metaphysical truth in the Old Testament, although it is cloaked in fable-because our existence is most like the bitter fruit of evil deeds and the punishment of taboo desires.
To effectively guide our life direction, the most useful thing is to adjust ourselves and regard the world as a place of atonement and exile. In this way, you will standardize your expectations according to the nature of things, fully understand that each of us is punished for our own existence here, and everyone has his own way of being punished, instead of treating the pain and disaster in life as abnormal things and hoping that they do not exist, but thinking that they are all appropriate and reasonable. This view can make us not surprised, and of course we will not be indignant at the so-called shortcomings of most people, such as moral and intellectual shortcomings, and the resulting phenomenon-because we should always remember our position, so as to first regard everyone who is alive as a product of sin, born as a sin, and everyone's life is compensation for this crime.
Believing that the world should not exist, so people should not exist, will actually teach us to tolerate each other: what can we expect others to do in our situation? Therefore, we should really consider that the greeting when people meet should not be "sir", but "brothers in the same boat". It sounds strange, but it is realistic. It can make us see others clearly and remind us of what we need most: tolerance, patience, patience and compassion, which each of us needs and should pay.
This article is selected from Schopenhauer's On Secular Suffering. If you like, please read the original!