How does a Stoic deal with continuous amplified pain?

[Anonymous No.19431966]

Stoics differentiate the external from the internal and recognise their inability to control the former, but would they able to apply this principle while going through the painful experience itself? The neurons would be receiving an enormous amount of stimuli. What would they be able to do differently, than a regular person? Assuming they would prepare themselves for this experience in advance, but experiencing it is different from the thought of experiencing it. I think Cioran or Nietzsche don't remember who said this as a criticism for a stoic's outlook of death. So, what options does a Stoic have?

[Anonymous No.19431971]

>>19431966
the door remains open

[Anonymous No.19431975]

Ironically stoics are so disconnected from reality it doesn’t matter to them.

[Anonymous No.19431979]

>>19431966
Yes, stoicism is incoherent. Next question.

[Anonymous No.19431980]

>>19431971
/thread

[Anonymous No.19431991]

>>19431980
it baffles me that people don't just read the books and find the answers they want.

[Anonymous No.19431992]

>>19431971
Suicide? What if they don't have the means to commit suicide? Like being put in a Brazen Bull for example?
>>19431975
As in, they don't feel pain?

[Anonymous No.19432000]

>>19431991
Again, if you're implying suicide, what if there's a situation where you can't commit suicide?

[Anonymous No.19432005]

>>19431979
So, there's no answer for it in stoicism? What about outside of it?

[Anonymous No.19432026]

>>19431992
Anon, what if I invent an entire hypothetical alternative universe where classical physics don't apply? What then? What if I keep asking nonsensical questions in an infinite regressive chain like an obnoxious six-year-old? What then? Huh? Huh huh huh?
These are not refutations of Stoicism, you're just desperate to sound intelligence.

[Anonymous No.19432030]

>>19431992
>Like being put in a Brazen Bull for example?
well, if you want to play out this hypothetical I guess they would just scream and die, its not relevant. go read Epictetus.

[Anonymous No.19432038]

>>19432000
>what if there's a situation where you can't commit suicide?
look up james stockdale. vietnam pow and stoic
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/jul/08/guardianobituaries.usa

[Anonymous No.19432048]

>>19432038
Epictetus taught that the epitome of evil is not death, but the fear of death. He taught that what he believed could be summed up in three words: tranquillity, fearlessness and freedom. It was this teaching that helped Stockdale to resist torture and to help younger men, some boys, to resist with him, to answer them when they asked, "What are we to take torture for?" He worked hard to maintain morale by assuring prisoners, when they emerged from torture, that they should not feel guilty if they had broken: everybody does. Guilt, too, was something from which Epictetus wanted to free men.

Finally, after more than four years of torture, isolation and leg irons, Stockdale tried to kill himself by breaking a pane of glass and slashing his wrists with a broken shard. The North Vietnamese found him in a pool of blood and saved him.

[Anonymous No.19432065]

>>19432026
>what if I invent an entire hypothetical alternative universe where classical physics don't apply?
What? If you're tied up and are slowly cooked to death, how do physics laws not apply here?
>>19432030
>go read Epictetus.
I will.
>its not relevant
Why?
>>19432048
>>19432038
Thanks. I think this is the answer I'm looking for.

[Anonymous No.19432072]

>>19432065
>I will.
excellent.

[Anonymous No.19432082]

Stops being stoicist

[Anonymous No.19432087]

Take getting the Scaevola moniker.
Mucius was going to be burned and literally stuck his hand on a fire to give the king a burning middle finger.
Porsena got so BTFO he let him walk.

[Anonymous No.19432103]

I’m reading the discourses rn, just finished book 1, and I can’t really see the appeal of stoicism. Am I supposed to just be a robot and not feel anything?

[Anonymous No.19432125]

>>19432103
keep reading slave

[Anonymous No.19432128]

This is not OP >>19432103

[Anonymous No.19432171]

>>19432030
>well, if you want to play out this hypothetical I guess they would just scream and die, its not relevant.
Why's is it not relevant?

[Anonymous No.19432215]

>>19432171
why is it relevent? you will just burn to death. it will hurt. it isn't relevant. stoicism doesnt make you immune to pain.

[Anonymous No.19432242]

>>19432215
True, but what can a stoic do about it?

[Anonymous No.19432259]

>>19432242
Do about what? If you are locked inside of the bull its game over. There is nothing to do.

[Anonymous No.19432332]

>>19431991
I wish this board had a individual who just posted the entire text via bot so we could read it.

[Anonymous No.19432360]

>>19432026
This, illiterate midwits are so fucking insuferable.

[Anonymous No.19432394]

>>19432026
>you're just desperate to sound intelligence.
lol

[Anonymous No.19433273]

>>19431966
You want to know what a stoic would do in hell, basically.

[Anonymous No.19433373]

>>19431966

[Anonymous No.19433445]

>>19433373
Sometimes I ask myself, what if the afterlife is so painful that even this guy screams in agony daily?

[Anonymous No.19433485]

>>19432065
>Why?
because they're literally minutes away from death

[Anonymous No.19433506]

>>19433485
And who is to say death will release them?
We know not how time, consciousness, valence states, and nociception function at a metaphysical level.

Why do we assume this our last instance of consciousness? I mean maybe in this body, but who knows what hides beyond the veil.

How would a stoic deal with infinite pain forever?

[Anonymous No.19433524]

>>19433506
>How would a stoic deal with infinite pain forever?
lol what a childish question

[Anonymous No.19433662]

>>19433524
Why? Infinite pain may not be real, but if you met some psychopaths who likes to torture you daily rather than just kill you, what can you do?

[Anonymous No.19433668]

>>19433662
who like*

[Anonymous No.19433678]

>>19433524
y tho?

You've ruled out any physical situation that tortures you indefinitely? What is your secret?

[Anonymous No.19433688]

>How does a Stoic deal with continuous amplified pain?

They don't so they end up writing about how they would.

[Anonymous No.19433756]

>>19433688
>they end up writing about how they would
What did they write?

[Anonymous No.19433760]

>>19433688
Yeah, that's what I think as well.

[Anonymous No.19433787]

>>19433662
why are you asking such dumb questions? I linked the story of the stoic pilot who was tortured for years in a vietnam pow camp.
What do you want to hear? they are just people man stop being naive.

[Anonymous No.19433838]

>>19433506
Not that poster who sounds insufferable and pretentious and being performatively derisive because he's posting on 4Chan and thinks it's necessary.
>>19432394
Lmao.
>>19433506
You don't know what you are asking. Stoicism already presupposes there is nothing after death, so your questions here are not applicable. The perfect stoic would sit in the bull and, at least on some logical level, accept their death in the context of stoicism. This is just like a religious person consciously accept God and how that informs their mood going into death. The impression the latter will have, but may be hard pressed to feel (They're literally fucking dying), is sually positive, I think, in contrast to stoicism.
>How would a stoic deal with infinite pain?
I don't know particularly why the other poster thinks this is a childish question. He may think, and I do too, that this question is silly because at that point the fact that they are stoic hardly comes into play to be honest. When you introduce something infinite like an eternal afterlife of untreatable pain hypothetical questions really break down and become unintelligible. Like, at this point, my impression is the question has shifted to "How would a human deal with neverending suffering on the largest scale?" That and the other Q's that crop up in people's heads in response to the question at that point have more to do with psychologically and what somebody thinks ultimate pain is like. The question is practically unpinnable.

[Anonymous No.19433860]

>>19433838
I here a common cope that a person suffering infinite pain would "get used to it."

I always wonder how they came to that conclusion. Wishful thinking?

[Anonymous No.19433904]

>>19433860
I was talking to my roommates about something like this a couple days ago. One of my roommates thinks it's unreasonable to expect that people 500 years ago enjoyed their lives. Life was too hard and so he believes people on average lived lives that weren't ~fulfilling~ and I was being a little earnest and a little naive offering that the subjective experience was different back then and people felt fulfilled despite the pain. My other roommate chimed in with really good examples of chronic pain and mental suffering that can totally obliterate people's ability to be mindful or associated (in our experience with people from our demographic, who may rly lack emotional resilience desu) let alone happy. So my response to your interesting q is that yeah I think people do "get used to it" but honestly I think the point at which it's too much for them to "get used to it" anymore is probably just a third world kind of life, but I really don't know, my life has never been too hard for me to say. I hope that speaks to your question I'm high and on my phone rn.

[Anonymous No.19433946]

>>19433904
I'm just glad to find a willing discussee who avoids cope.

I was driven to pessimism, then antinatalism, from chronic pain and discomfort. Its been six years and still I lament my discomforts. After diving deep enough to find scary theories and their implications (boltzmann brain, big world immortality, whatnot), I started seriously pondering eternal suffering and the mind. The silver lining to my pondering has been the transformative possibilities of death and suffering, as in it may obliterate (You) as you know it, and the hopelessness of using a monkey brain against these questions.

My larger conclusion is that nothingness is dogmatic. You can expect nothingness if it helps, but truly, nobody knows.

[Anonymous No.19434014]

>>19433946
I'm not the best to talk to but I have surface level introduction to discourse. A problem with philosophical discourse in general is that people's ideas organically converge with those of past philosophers who have a formal body of knowledge. People who are aware of the philosophical problem, but only from formal introduction to it, are not good at having conversations with people who are not students but are independently motivated towards the problem. At worst both parties are cringing at each other.
>but truly, nobody knows
This really doesn't have any meaning to me, I've programmed it out, and that may be common on 4Chan? I feel really secure that nothing happens.

Idk what antinatalism is, what's that?

>Nothingness is dogmatic
What do you mean by this? What are the implications besides the ones described earlier in your post? That sounds like interesting personal philosophy you can expand on.

[Anonymous No.19434019]

>>19434014
>Idk what antinatalism is, what's that?
are you stupid or something?

[Anonymous No.19434024]

>>19434019
obviously yes lol

[Anonymous No.19434027]

>>19434014
>I feel really secure that nothing happens.
I just can't see it.
The way I look at it, "I" popped out of the madness once, and I don't see what prevents it from occurring again and again.

>what antinatalism is
The position that birth is a harm and people would be better off never existing.

[Anonymous No.19434049]

>>19434027
>The way I look at it, "I" popped out of the madness once, and I don't see what prevents it from occurring again and again.
Do you think that your person is particular to some kinda material factors that might not necessarily happen again? The next organization of matter that is a human being will generate a different consciousness. Do you think this is wrong?
>The position that birth is a harm and people would be better off never existing.
How much do you think depressive thinking may be informing this viewpoint? Like regardless of if its correct or not do you think being depressed gives you a bias to agree with antinatalism? Asking in general, I know your OP asked about dealing with chronic pain but I'm not supposing you are/aren't depressed.

[Anonymous No.19434076]

>>19434049
>Do you think this is wrong?
Its not that I think its wrong, I just think we're not fit to comment. We have this very old story we tell ourselves about birth and destruction. It usually works for some people. My problem is, it happened at least once that my subjective first-person perspective happened. I would love to know what laws confine that to a "one time deal."

Its doesn't concern me that me's will be created that aren't really "me," I would like to know what happens to the subjective me. Annihilation is a guess.

>How much do you think depressive thinking may be informing this viewpoint?
Well, at one time I would said it totally informs the viewpoint. Anymore, I think its just a consequence of materialism, happy or sad. If there is no purpose, we have to ask ourselves eventually why make a need-machine?

I'm not a strict materialist. I frankly don't know, and neither does anybody else. Nobody knows the big news.

Anyway, I probably am out of responses because i have to take-off somewhere but I'll check the thread later if my 600lb janny doesn't delete it.

[Anonymous No.19435179]

>>19432048
>Finally, after more than four years of torture, isolation and leg irons, Stockdale tried to kill himself by breaking a pane of glass
What changed? Why give up after putting up with it for years?

[Anonymous No.19435200]

>>19435179
Everyone breaks

[Anonymous No.19435331]

>>19432103
It's a LARP. People here are just nihilists

[Anonymous No.19435736]

Are stoics libtards or cuckservatives?

[Anonymous No.19435763]

>>19434076
>Anymore, I think its just a consequence of materialism, happy or sad.
No
Schopenhauer was an idealist. And ancients weren't materialistic.

[Anonymous No.19436403]

>>19435331
>People here are just nihilists
True Nihilists simply don't exist.

[Anonymous No.19436471]

>>19435179
Actually, that's just bullshit editorializing, and >>19435200 shouldn't have answered you without researching the matter himself—4chan is increasingly full of people who opine when they should really just shut the fuck up and do some reading.
Take it from the man himself:
https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/#interview
>Did you want to die, Admiral?
>James Stockdale: No, I don’t think so. I just knew I had to do something, and I had kind of a hunch that there might be some opening here. I went unconscious. I had a feeling that ever since I’d started this self-defacement they had a suicide watch on me. About two in the night somebody screamed “Eow,” and I think that was the suicide watch. I think he looked through a peephole and saw me in that pool of blood in front of my chair.
It was in response to him observing that Ho Chi Minh had died; he decided to do something radical largely with the hope of securing better treatment for the POWs, since he had no idea how their captors would respond to this momentous event in Vietnam.

[Anonymous No.19436519]

>>19436471
Thanks for the explanation.

[Anonymous No.19437423]

>>19435763
Wtf is this image implying?

[Anonymous No.19437442]

>>19437423
The ancients were antinatalists as well I guess? Also I still don’t understand how Ecclesiastes fits into the themes of mainstream Christianity

[Anonymous No.19438396]

>>19437442
>The ancients were antinatalists
Based.

[Anonymous No.19438642]

>>19438396
>hurr durr based
You weakling

[Anonymous No.19438738]

>>19431971
Yep

[Anonymous No.19438760]

>>19432103
You can feel it, just understand that that feeling is your opinion and you have willingly created it

[Anonymous No.19438805]

>>19431971
What's on the other side of the door?

[Anonymous No.19438833]

>>19438805
nobody knows little boy

[Anonymous No.19438916]

>>19431966
There is a reason that stoics later only wrote about moral and ethical stoicism and not about radical stoicism as thaught by the first stoics.

[Anonymous No.19439289]

>>19438760
>that feeling is your opinion and you have willingly created it
If this is true can you think yourself out of depression or grief?

[Anonymous No.19439296]

>>19439289
yeah, just stop caring

[Anonymous No.19439316]

So, this thread has completely destroyed stoicism for me. Good lord, the christcucks are less delusional.

[Anonymous No.19439343]

Just grit and deal with it

[Anonymous No.19439345]

>>19437442
Nothing about the Old Testament fits the themes of mainstream Christianity

[Anonymous No.19439380]

>>19431966
Pretty sure if a bee stings you its fine to slap the fuckin thing and that doesnt mean you arent stoic you dipshit

[Anonymous No.19439579]

Stoicism is just a philosophical foothold towards Christianity. You ask yourself 'why suffer?' and 'to be in accordance with nature' is not a worthwhile or true answer. The answer lies in the Christian faith.

[Anonymous No.19439601]

>>19432242
What a shitty way to try and discredit stoicism. What could any philosophy possibly do to escape the pain and death from literal torture lmao

I can't even tell if this is bait given the current state of /lit/tards

[Anonymous No.19440238]

>>19439601
>discredit
What? I only wanted to how they would adapt to it. Stop being insecure.
>>19439316
>the christcucks are less delusional
Kek. Nah.

[Anonymous No.19440255]

>>19440238
Well they both display the same knowing dismissive nature on suffering.
They both remind of bad bumper stickers like "Why Worry?" or "Life's A Beach!"

Its such a finger-in-the-ears and eyes closed approach to life.