...What do you mean by 'Accept misfortune as the human condition'? MIsfortune comes from having a body. Without a body, how could there be misfortune?'
(from chapter 13 of the tao te ching)
Your statement 'life is pain' reminded me of this passage, in which I think misfortune can be counted as pain. It's quite a literal response, but it makes sense in a detached way.
Could all forms of feeling, emotional or physical be seen as the same entity? We just process them or choose too in different ways. Pain and pleasure etc are all the same...just slightly different takes on a sensory reaction?
I don't know if life needs to be understood through the sensations in which we feel it...but perhaps we have adapted to use those sensations as tools to attempt to understand life, the universe or whatever.
As to whether pain and pleasure are just information that is a hard one! If I stab myself with a pin and analysed the reaction I had...I would probably assume that pain is just information received by the nervers where I was stabbed and processed in the brain as a warning signal. But if someone I cared for stabbed me with a pin for no good reason, I would feel an emotional pain too. Whether or not that pain is simple a process of information (based on memory, emotional responses to that person, history etc) I do not know! From a logical science view, perhaps it is just the brain processing a different set of signals and reactions. From my romantic ideals, I would like to think there was something else there too.
I have often thought about friendship etc and whether it is just a bi-product of a complex sequence of processesses in the brain...which of course it is to an extent, but is it more than that? Is friendship just a chemical reaction or is there something deeper or spiritual behind it too.
I kind of hope so - but perhaps thats just a need for something to be more significant than perhaps it is.
Sorry...massive detour there. Just got me thinking.
In summary, I cannot answer your question as it has puzzled me for years!
I think I would have problems accepting a spiritual side of friendship. But if by spiritual you mean; rare, important, a great connection and socially rewarding? Then yes.
Friends, like all social connections (families, work mates and drinking buddies) have a very important social role to play in the human race. I am sure that that role is manifested in chemical reactions in the brain and glands of the body... but I feel they are simply the mechanisms that help us understand those relationships. Or sometimes confuse us...
If I were to be stabbed in the arm with a pin by a loved one, I too would 'feel' emotional pain. This has evolved; it has been selected for and it is useful. Why else, but to keep numbers of people together and make us better at surviving.. no?
5 comments:
'Accept misfortune as the human condition...
...What do you mean by 'Accept misfortune as the human condition'?
MIsfortune comes from having a body.
Without a body, how could there be misfortune?'
(from chapter 13 of the tao te ching)
Your statement 'life is pain' reminded me of this passage, in which I think misfortune can be counted as pain. It's quite a literal response, but it makes sense in a detached way.
Without misfortune how could there be fortune.
Could all forms of feeling, emotional or physical be seen as the same entity? We just process them or choose too in different ways. Pain and pleasure etc are all the same...just slightly different takes on a sensory reaction?
Balance and acceptance...
So life needs to be understood through the sensations in which we feel it? Pain, pleasure... is just information?
I don't know if life needs to be understood through the sensations in which we feel it...but perhaps we have adapted to use those sensations as tools to attempt to understand life, the universe or whatever.
As to whether pain and pleasure are just information that is a hard one! If I stab myself with a pin and analysed the reaction I had...I would probably assume that pain is just information received by the nervers where I was stabbed and processed in the brain as a warning signal. But if someone I cared for stabbed me with a pin for no good reason, I would feel an emotional pain too. Whether or not that pain is simple a process of information (based on memory, emotional responses to that person, history etc) I do not know! From a logical science view, perhaps it is just the brain processing a different set of signals and reactions. From my romantic ideals, I would like to think there was something else there too.
I have often thought about friendship etc and whether it is just a bi-product of a complex sequence of processesses in the brain...which of course it is to an extent, but is it more than that? Is friendship just a chemical reaction or is there something deeper or spiritual behind it too.
I kind of hope so - but perhaps thats just a need for something to be more significant than perhaps it is.
Sorry...massive detour there. Just got me thinking.
In summary, I cannot answer your question as it has puzzled me for years!
I think I would have problems accepting a spiritual side of friendship. But if by spiritual you mean; rare, important, a great connection and socially rewarding? Then yes.
Friends, like all social connections (families, work mates and drinking buddies) have a very important social role to play in the human race. I am sure that that role is manifested in chemical reactions in the brain and glands of the body... but I feel they are simply the mechanisms that help us understand those relationships. Or sometimes confuse us...
If I were to be stabbed in the arm with a pin by a loved one, I too would 'feel' emotional pain. This has evolved; it has been selected for and it is useful. Why else, but to keep numbers of people together and make us better at surviving.. no?
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