We are speaking of two slightly different things. One the one hand, there is the notion that the specific things that cause us to suffer can be eliminated. This would include things like feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, curing diseases and mental illness, cleaning up the enivironment, etc... On the other hand, we talk about the notion of eliminating pain at it's source- creating a human that feels only pleasure. This, I feel, cannot be done while preserving our humanity. I am all for working to change our environment to minimize suffering, but I suggest that even if all this were done, we would still have suffering in the world. How, for instance, can you eliminate the suffering associated with love? It is almost the definition of love, that we suffer when our loved one(s) cannot be with us. Sometimes the one you love, loves someone else. When this kind of pain occurs, we say it is bittersweet, a kind of pleasure/pain combination. That love is considered to be the highest form of pleasure, and also the source of life's greatest pain, is a perfect example of my premise. You might say, what is wrong with this? Our idea of what it means to be human can change. So, a world without pain is a world without love. And without love, we are less than human.
So what? Why is this a bad thing? If something cannot be improved, it is probably close to perfect.
I didn't say that without suffering, there can be no improvement, just that the very idea of improvement would be meaningless. I assert that humans in general are perfect the way they are, it is the environment that has been made less perfect by our very attempts to improve it. Let us now consider the hypothetical humans that only feel pleasure.
A sport is a game, which has nothing to do with suffering.
Why do we admire athletes more than, say, card players? Why do we admire Lance Armstrong, for instance? It is because he does what we do not want to do- confront pain daily. In your perfect world where we do not suffer, Lance Armstrong's grueling training program would not be difficult or admired. Anyone could cycle the Alps every day if they wanted too, it would be nothing special. And winning the tour de France would just be a game of scheduling- who could get in enough practice time to be fit enough to win.
How about enjoy life? And yes, there would be *more* incentive to do things. People are more productive, and enjoy a wider variety of mental (and physical) stimulation when they are happy.
I assert that happiness comes when we overcome challenges (suffering), not that it is the inevitable state of being that pain interrupts. If happiness is the pursuit of stimulation, then those people most stimulated like rock stars, movie stars, rich socialites, and presidents should be the happiest people in the world. Of course, they are not. If happiness is just a constant state produced by the elimination of pain, then it would not be noticed at all, in the same way that a comfortable room temperature or pair of shoes is not noticed.
Tell me, who would be more likely to kill someone, a suffering person on the edge, or a content person? Indeed, there would be no reason to kill.
The assertion is that eliminating pain leads to contentment. I respectfully disagree. In your painless future, it would be logical to kill all AIDS victims, we don't, because we know suffering ourselves, and can reason that they would suffer too, if killed. If not from the pain of death, then from fear. I equate such emotions as fear and hunger as a form of suffering too. The pleasure of eating is not just the taste of the food, but the transition from an uncomfortable state of hunger, to a comfortable state of fullness.
How can you, by *definition*, be living in a world of s**t, without suffering?
It would be hell, but we wouldn't know it. Like a fish that never knew the ocean, something would be missing, something we would not even begin to know how to define. We might live like the Borg from Star Trek, a huge collection of zombies.
Life does not have to have a significant amount of suffering, with sufficient progress.
I feel it is only our conditioning that makes suffering so significant. By accepting it, we can transcend it. This approach is indeed progress, it is relatively new in the history of mankind, only three thousand years old or so.
