Many people read this piece and tell me that they do not agree because:
– Suffering is not so bad
– There is no bias that makes us think that experiences are/were more positive than they really are/were
To the people who think this way I ask you to do the following experiment:
– Buy a bottle of Russian vodka, or invite a friend to dinner and bring the bottle.
– Put the bottle in the freezer. Vodka does not freeze or explode, it only cools a lot.
– After a few hours, hold the bottle tightly. Do not let it go.
– Do you released it? Why? Was it an unpleasant sensation? How many seconds did you hold it? Ten?
– Wait till the next day.
– Surely now you think that holding the bottle was not so annoying, it did not matter, it just produced a tiny pain, it was not relevant.
– Take bottle again from the freezer. Hold the bottle tightly. Did it cause pain?
– Wait the next day.
– Surely now you think that holding the bottle was not so annoying, it did not matter, it just produced a tiny pain, it was not relevant.
– Take bottle again from the freezer. Hold the bottle tightly. Did it cause pain?
– Ad nauseam.
Special thanks to Jonathan Leighton for providing the necessary materials to conduct the experiment.
Counter-arguments
- Precisely because the vodka does not freeze at zero degrees but at a lower temperature, and being a liquid that can remember water, we may have the false perception that the liquid is at a temperature above zero, and this could be related to the erroneous assessment of the suffering associated with holding the bottle.
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