What I Mean by “Solution” to Pain and Suffering

Photograph of Mahayana (Zen) Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức enduring self-immolation, in protest against the persecution of Buddhists by the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government.

Whatever philosophy/religion can make a man endure self-immolation without even the slightest whimper escaping his lips, is, in my opinion, a true solution to pain and suffering.

Even if we severely underestimate the amount of time between the initial combustion and the moment at which 1. his nerve endings were completely burned (thus preventing the further sensation of pain), 2. he lost consciousness (thus preventing the further meta-cognitive awareness of pain), 3. his limbs fused together from the charring of his bones and skin (thus undermining the claim that his stoic self-discipline was the only factor that allowed him to maintain the lotus position despite the incredible pain), and put it around a span of 3-5 seconds, that would still be 3-5 seconds of excruciating pain which Thích Quảng Đức would have had to endure. Such an act is still an incredible testament to the efficacy of his philosophy/religion, especially when one considers how quickly a regular person’s hand moves away when even slightly too close to a fire (never mind the panic and pain that a typical person would experience if their hand was even temporarily engulfed in flames).

The philosophy/religion which can offer such empirical results, is, without a doubt, the philosophy/religion whose belief system is most worthy of consideration in the context of a post such as this.

As far as I know, the philosophy/religion of Thích Quảng Đức ultimately outlines the very same message which my entire metaphysical system revolves around–the nonexistence of the (false self) ego and/or the sole existence of (true self) Void.

The Annihilation of the Ego

Inasmuch as the ego is the ultimate root of all suffering and pain, the ultimate solution to all suffering and pain is the utter annihilation of the ego.

In my ontological system the “annihilation of the ego,” means one of two things: 1. (biological) Death or 2. a psychological state which is phenomenologically non-distinct from (biological) Death.

Insofar as all of us are bound to die, I will explore the path that we could all (theoretically) achieve within our lives (i.e., within the span of biological life).

Strategies for Ego-Death

When I say “a psychological state which is phenomenologically non-distinct from (biological) Death,” I should first clarify what I mean by “(biological) Death.”

Without having to plunge into unnecessary speculation, “(biological) Death,’ can simply be defined as the biological deterioration of the physical body (brain included) of an individual person.

Inasmuch as, within the context of my idealist metaphysics, the brain is nothing more than the external appearance, or image, of a process of localized disassociation (the ego) the deterioration of this image (the brain), upon Death, implies the deterioration of the process of localized dissociation of which it was an image.

Put simply, if the extrinsic appearance of a thing vanishes, then thing for which the extrinsic appearance was an image vanishes as well. Inasmuch as the brain is just such an image for the ego, the deterioration and eventual dissolution of the brain entails the deterioration and eventual dissolution of the ego for which the brain was an image. Hence, biological Death is defined as the extrinsic appearance of Ego-Death.

What implications does this have? Well, firstly it suggests that Ego-Death is the counterpart to Biological Death. In other words, Ego-Death is a “psychological state which is phenomenologically non-distinct from (biological) Death,” insofar as it is the internal psychological state which corresponds to the process of biological death.

To this extent, we can affirm the following:

If one undergoes biological death, then one undergoes ego-death.

Put simply, biological death is a precondition (though not the only precondition) for inducing the psychological state of ego-death. Biological death is, in other words, a sufficient but not necessary condition for ego-death.

Why is biological death is a sufficient but not necessary condition for ego-death? I can demonstrate this logically by invoking the logical fallacy of “denying the antecedent.”

Explanation and example of “denying the antecedent”: it is true that if the antecedent is true, then the consequent must also be true. However, it does not follow that if the antecedent is false, the consequent must also be false. Arguing that if the antecedent was false, the consequent would also be false is comparable to arguing that “If you’re a mechanic, you have a job.” Well, let’s say you’re not a mechanic, would that necessarily imply that you don’t have a job? No, of course not. The fallacy of denying the antecedent is that it precludes the possibility of other alternative conditions which allow for the veracity of the consequent. In other words, the fallacy presupposes only one valid possibility toward the truth of a conclusion, when other valid possibilities might exist).

As it pertains to our current discussion: biological death is not necessarily the only path toward ego-death.

If we analyse the logic of this position further, we will realize why this is: unlike materialism, idealism does not posit that the brain generates or causes consciousness. Rather, according to idealism, the brain is but an external representation of a localized dissociative process which is occurring in consciousness itself. Hence, there is no causal direction flowing from the brain to consciousness itself; rather there is just a parallelistic relationship between the brain and the localized dissociative process. Concordantly, it does not follow that the absence of the brain entails the absence of consciousness itself. What does follow, however, is that the absence of the brain entails the absence of the localized dissociative process that is occurring in consciousness. Hence, brain-death corresponds to the death of the localized dissociative process. The localized dissociative process is, of course, the technical term for the “ego.”

Implications: A true ego death, therefore, does not necessarily require a person to be clinically diagnosed as “brain-dead,” which, in this context, is what we would designate as “biological death” but, due to the parallelistic connection between the brain and the ego, it does require that a person exhibit the symptoms thereof. What does this mean? It means that even though “biological death” (i.e., being clinically diagnosed as brain-dead) is not a necessary condition for ego-death, the neurological traits which accompany “biological death,” are themselves necessary for ego-death. In other words, ego-death does not require clinical brain death, but it does require the transformation of the brain to resemble clinical death (but obviously not the point of no-return, otherwise that would just be clinical death). Put simply, the requisite neurological state for ego-death in life is a near-death state. I should clarify, however, that by “near-death state,” I am not necessarily, exclusively, referring to the typical NDE, but rather a whole spectrum of possible neurological states that precede and approximate the point of no return without actually trespassing it. As such, the term “ego-death,” could refer to a whole spectrum of reduction in brain activity, some more extreme than others. For instance, at the far end of the spectrum we might expect actual NDEs which exhibit significantly decreased brain activity (namely in the form of reduced levels of oxygenated-blood flow), while at the low end of the spectrum we might expect simple sleeping, sensory deprivation and meditation.

Implications continued: On the basis of the parallelistic relationship between the brain and the localized process of disassociation (the ego), the only ontologically-grounded methodology of empirical verification we have in order to corroborate first-hand reports of a psychological state of “ego-death” is through analysis of brain-scans of the neurological state of the person in question during the time at which the first-hand reports refer. That is, an idealist ontology allows us to operationalize “ego-death” as a function of reduced brain-activity akin to near-death experiences (herein defined as a spectrum of possible psychological states approximating but not trespassing the point of no return [which itself is defined as “clinical/biological death”]); as such, a first-hand psychological report of “ego-death,” can only be empirically verified on the condition that neurological scans of the person giving such reports, at the times of such reports, has non-insignificant brain activity reduction (probably defined as one standard deviation below average on a given standard of brain activity like “blood flow”).

At the high-end of the spectrum of near-death one would expect actual NDEs. Another example of a high-end spectrum example of near-death states would be during the consumption of hallucinogens, which have also been shown to exhibit reduced brain activity akin to NDEs (decreasing blood-flow to the brain).[1] Holotropic breathwork, Yogic breathing practices, and/or simple hyperventilation has also been shown to exhibit reduced brain activity in the vein of NDEs (also leads to decrease oxygenated-blood flow).[2]

At the low-end of the spectrum we could expect sensory deprivation, meditative trances and even sleeping, inasmuch as they could be (have been?) demonstrated to be inversely correlated with neural activity to a non-significant degree (again, I’m not entirely familiar with how they would operationalize which degree of activity reduction is considered “significant,” but it probably would have to be statistically notable, and therefore probably, at least, one standard deviation from average–but again, I’m not a scientist).

All of this seems to boil down to one specific empirical claim regarding pain:

  1. Any of the neurological states associated with, at the very minimum, the high-end spectrum psychological states (NDEs, hallucinogens, breathwork, etc.), and possibly the low-end spectrum psychological states (Sensory deprivation, meditation, and sleeping) should correlate with decreased first-hand reports of pain sensation.

(By pain I am not merely referring to physical pain, but the type of psychological pain referred to in the first instalment of this series on suffering [i.e., pain defined as frustration of desires, specifically in the form of boredom and pains]. Of course, some of these frustrations can be physical: like hunger pains, but they have a psychological element to them [i.e., the pain of hunger is not merely hunger pains, but the pain of not satisfying the desire to have food in your belly. Suffering is a further type of pain, which occurs when you fixate on the psychological pain and augment the pain through explicit conscious attention to it]).

The question, therefore, is whether or not the data corroborates this claim. Some cursory, and by no means exhaustive, research seems to indicate (at least at first glance) that there might be some truth to my claim that high-end and low-end spectrum psychological states of “ego-death,” should correlate with decreased pain sensation, though it is not without its limits (again, though the research itself is also limited so we should be tentative to draw any strong conclusions either way). Here are some links that pertain to the topic at hand:

Given the difficulty of replicating an NDE in one’s life, other than by risking actual death, NDEs don’t seem like a good strategy of solving suffering. Even the consumption of psychedelics is not necessarily sustainable more than momentary relief from pain, and even then only within the timespan of the “high.” The same can probably be said for Holotropic breathing. This leaves sensory deprivation, sleeping and mediation, only the latter of which would likely be sustainably incorporated in the regular daily schedule of a given person. To that effect, here are some cursory links regarding the efficacy of mediation on treating pain (not just physical but psychological as well):

Footnotes

[1] Carhart-Harris RL, Erritzoe D, Williams T, Stone JM, Reed LJ, Colasanti A, Tyacke RJ, Leech R, Malizia AL, Murphy K, Hobden P, Evans J, Feilding A, Wise RG, Nutt DJ. Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 7;109(6):2138-43. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1119598109. Epub 2012 Jan 23. PMID: 22308440; PMCID: PMC3277566.

[2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5914297_Holotropic_Breathwork_The_Potential_Role_of_a_Prolonged_Voluntary_Hyperventilation_Procedure_as_an_Adjunct_to_Psychotherapy

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