If we suffer, there are two causes of our suffering: (a) that we desired a certain state of affairs, and (b) that our desire was thwarted.
This isn’t entirely accurate. The thwarting of a desire may be required for suffering, but it isn’t sufficient. One must also have an attachment to the object of desire—a belief that one should have the desire fulfilled, or that something bad will result if it is not.
Desire and attachment are commonly conflated, but they are distinct. One can have attachment without desire, and desire without attachment.
Yes, but also one that does a good job of describing certain situations.
For example: Alicorn has recently moved in with me. We have what should be a very agreeable situation when it comes to keeping the house clean: I don’t care and strongly prefer not to clean; Alicorn cares slightly more and doesn’t mind cleaning; we each clean only to the degree that we feel like cleaning or want the house to be clean, and so far that’s actually working quite well. (The fact that normal fairness is mostly not relevant here probably helps, though Alicorn and I being unusually compatible as roommates go may be a larger factor.)
However, I was raised with the idea that people will care about cleanliness to a degree that will cause them to consider the usual state of our living space unacceptable. This is not something I desire, but it is a thought to which I am attached, and as a result I find it mildly stressful to ignore that in favor of reality—I find myself worrying about whether it’s really okay, or if Alicorn is just putting up with it and will eventually start complaining, or silly things like that. It’s relatively minor in this case—I trust Alicorn enough in the relevant ways that I don’t really think she thinks those things—but if I were more predisposed to that kind of worry I could certainly see it turning into a significant source of discomfort even in the face of evidence. (And yes, I’m working on it. She’s only been here two and a half months and it’s already significantly better than it was.)
Because I stole the word “attachment” from them, yes. But really, it’s a matter of affective asynchrony—i.e., the ability to have mixed feelings.
Human motivational emotions aren’t a single scale, where disutility is subtracted from utility to yield an output value. Instead, they’re points on a plane, where utility and disutility are axes, and certain co-ordinates are unreachable.
So, it’s possible to have things whose absence causes pain, but whose presence doesn’t cause any pleasure (aka “satisficers”), and things whose presence creates pleasure, but whose absence doesn’t cause any pain. (Among other possible combinations.)
The “axes” for these things seem relatively independently programmable—that is, you can usually remove an “attachment” (conditioned displeasure) without affecting the “desire”. (I’ve never tried the reverse.)
(Also, this is still a bit of a simplification, since “desire” is kind of vague—we have things we feel driven to do, but which don’t provide us any pleasure, and things which provide us pleasure, but which we don’t feel driven to do. Human beings are seriously f’d up in the head. ;-) )
This isn’t entirely accurate. The thwarting of a desire may be required for suffering, but it isn’t sufficient. One must also have an attachment to the object of desire—a belief that one should have the desire fulfilled, or that something bad will result if it is not.
Desire and attachment are commonly conflated, but they are distinct. One can have attachment without desire, and desire without attachment.
Sounds like a Buddhist analysis.
Yes, but also one that does a good job of describing certain situations.
For example: Alicorn has recently moved in with me. We have what should be a very agreeable situation when it comes to keeping the house clean: I don’t care and strongly prefer not to clean; Alicorn cares slightly more and doesn’t mind cleaning; we each clean only to the degree that we feel like cleaning or want the house to be clean, and so far that’s actually working quite well. (The fact that normal fairness is mostly not relevant here probably helps, though Alicorn and I being unusually compatible as roommates go may be a larger factor.)
However, I was raised with the idea that people will care about cleanliness to a degree that will cause them to consider the usual state of our living space unacceptable. This is not something I desire, but it is a thought to which I am attached, and as a result I find it mildly stressful to ignore that in favor of reality—I find myself worrying about whether it’s really okay, or if Alicorn is just putting up with it and will eventually start complaining, or silly things like that. It’s relatively minor in this case—I trust Alicorn enough in the relevant ways that I don’t really think she thinks those things—but if I were more predisposed to that kind of worry I could certainly see it turning into a significant source of discomfort even in the face of evidence. (And yes, I’m working on it. She’s only been here two and a half months and it’s already significantly better than it was.)
Because I stole the word “attachment” from them, yes. But really, it’s a matter of affective asynchrony—i.e., the ability to have mixed feelings.
Human motivational emotions aren’t a single scale, where disutility is subtracted from utility to yield an output value. Instead, they’re points on a plane, where utility and disutility are axes, and certain co-ordinates are unreachable.
So, it’s possible to have things whose absence causes pain, but whose presence doesn’t cause any pleasure (aka “satisficers”), and things whose presence creates pleasure, but whose absence doesn’t cause any pain. (Among other possible combinations.)
The “axes” for these things seem relatively independently programmable—that is, you can usually remove an “attachment” (conditioned displeasure) without affecting the “desire”. (I’ve never tried the reverse.)
(Also, this is still a bit of a simplification, since “desire” is kind of vague—we have things we feel driven to do, but which don’t provide us any pleasure, and things which provide us pleasure, but which we don’t feel driven to do. Human beings are seriously f’d up in the head. ;-) )