In Buddhist ideology, the reason to pick one set of values over another is to find an end to suffering. The Buddha claimed that certain values tended to lead towards the end of suffering and other values tended to lead in the opposite direction. He recommended that people check this claim for themselves.
In this way values are seen as instrumental rather than fundamental in Buddhism—that is, Buddhists pick values on the basis of the consequences of holding those values, rather than any fundamental rightness of the values themselves.
Now you may say that the “end of suffering” is itself a value; that there is nothing special about the end of suffering except to one who happens to value it. If you take this perspective then you’re essentially saying: there is nothing objectively worthwhile in life, only things that certain people happen to value. But if this was true then you’d expect to be able to go through life and see that each seemingly-worthwhile thing is not intrinsically worthwhile, but only worthwhile from a certain parochial perspective. Is that really the case?
Well suffering is a real thing, like bread or stones. It’s not a word that refers to a term in anyone’s utility function, although it’s of course possible to formulate utility functions that refer to it.
I have understood it to be the experience of adversity. You are in pain and hate it, that is you suffer. If you are in pain and like it that is not suffering.
If you knew that your choice would lead to your suffering you probably would not be making that choice. Hence the main way that problematic suffering is produced is not seeing the connection between choices and outcomes. “I went to avoid pain and now I am in pain, where did I go wrong?”. This kind of problem would form even if the states that you find worth seeking and avoiding would be arbitrarily given at random, as long as you don’t have an infinitely competent world model. The claim that some actions get you nearer to the arbitray goals and some get you away from them would still hold. Even if it would not refer to same states or concepts for different individuals evaluating the claim for their different arbitrary goals would still check this out. Putting a needle into themselfs makes one suffers and the other blisses out which compared to the boring option of not applying the needle shows that not all actions are equal for goal aquisition.
So you might form a pro-needle or con-needle opinion and form a corresponding strategy. But then you might encounter something other like ice for which the needle stuff is inapplicable. But there seems to be an innate capability to “know” whether suffering occurs and this can be done before and independent of the formation of the opinions or strategies. Thus you might believe that you are a ice-blisser but then infact discover that you are an ice-sufferer. “utility function” might mean the functionality of the black box that reveals this goalnessness perception, “We are in a bad experience right now”. Or “utility function” might refer to the opinion that you profess, “I am the kind of person that blisses about ice”. Over time your opinions tend to grow (refer to more stuff and make finer distinctions). It is plausible or atleast imaginable that the innate goal experiences remain constant (ie you don’t have to constantly poke yourself with a needle to check that the categorization is still there and that late discoveries were there dormant even at the beginning).
Under this scheme asking, instead of ice or needle having “suffering” as the exposure component would be a category error. “Suffering suffering” or “blissing on suffering” make limited sense (or super fancy metastuff).
Opinions and strategies are not foolproof. If you use those to evaluate new candidate opinions and strategies there is no good guarantee that they will match your experiences. “Avoid ice” and “ice leads to suffering” are very comparable and it is not like the suffering form has some magical extra foothold. If you try to evaluate “hot stove leads to suffering” and you don’t have a hot stove to touch you can’t torture that kind of information from the term “suffering” appearing there.
The term “value” is problematically ambigious between experiences and (opinions and strategies). “end of suffering” is not, at object level, an opinion position or a strategy.
In Buddhist ideology, the reason to pick one set of values over another is to find an end to suffering. The Buddha claimed that certain values tended to lead towards the end of suffering and other values tended to lead in the opposite direction. He recommended that people check this claim for themselves.
In this way values are seen as instrumental rather than fundamental in Buddhism—that is, Buddhists pick values on the basis of the consequences of holding those values, rather than any fundamental rightness of the values themselves.
Now you may say that the “end of suffering” is itself a value; that there is nothing special about the end of suffering except to one who happens to value it. If you take this perspective then you’re essentially saying: there is nothing objectively worthwhile in life, only things that certain people happen to value. But if this was true then you’d expect to be able to go through life and see that each seemingly-worthwhile thing is not intrinsically worthwhile, but only worthwhile from a certain parochial perspective. Is that really the case?
Is suffering something other than experiencing ununderstood negative terms of your utility function?
Well suffering is a real thing, like bread or stones. It’s not a word that refers to a term in anyone’s utility function, although it’s of course possible to formulate utility functions that refer to it.
I have understood it to be the experience of adversity. You are in pain and hate it, that is you suffer. If you are in pain and like it that is not suffering.
If you knew that your choice would lead to your suffering you probably would not be making that choice. Hence the main way that problematic suffering is produced is not seeing the connection between choices and outcomes. “I went to avoid pain and now I am in pain, where did I go wrong?”. This kind of problem would form even if the states that you find worth seeking and avoiding would be arbitrarily given at random, as long as you don’t have an infinitely competent world model. The claim that some actions get you nearer to the arbitray goals and some get you away from them would still hold. Even if it would not refer to same states or concepts for different individuals evaluating the claim for their different arbitrary goals would still check this out. Putting a needle into themselfs makes one suffers and the other blisses out which compared to the boring option of not applying the needle shows that not all actions are equal for goal aquisition.
So you might form a pro-needle or con-needle opinion and form a corresponding strategy. But then you might encounter something other like ice for which the needle stuff is inapplicable. But there seems to be an innate capability to “know” whether suffering occurs and this can be done before and independent of the formation of the opinions or strategies. Thus you might believe that you are a ice-blisser but then infact discover that you are an ice-sufferer. “utility function” might mean the functionality of the black box that reveals this goalnessness perception, “We are in a bad experience right now”. Or “utility function” might refer to the opinion that you profess, “I am the kind of person that blisses about ice”. Over time your opinions tend to grow (refer to more stuff and make finer distinctions). It is plausible or atleast imaginable that the innate goal experiences remain constant (ie you don’t have to constantly poke yourself with a needle to check that the categorization is still there and that late discoveries were there dormant even at the beginning).
Under this scheme asking, instead of ice or needle having “suffering” as the exposure component would be a category error. “Suffering suffering” or “blissing on suffering” make limited sense (or super fancy metastuff).
Opinions and strategies are not foolproof. If you use those to evaluate new candidate opinions and strategies there is no good guarantee that they will match your experiences. “Avoid ice” and “ice leads to suffering” are very comparable and it is not like the suffering form has some magical extra foothold. If you try to evaluate “hot stove leads to suffering” and you don’t have a hot stove to touch you can’t torture that kind of information from the term “suffering” appearing there.
The term “value” is problematically ambigious between experiences and (opinions and strategies). “end of suffering” is not, at object level, an opinion position or a strategy.