Is 10,000 people suffering identically equal bad as one of them?

[Violet]

Yes. But it is still a picture that does not exist. There is no individual who suffers the total sum of what any one individual suffers. Nothing suffers the total sum of all individual suffering. Individual suffering actually exists in external reality, the total sum of suffering only exists in imagination.

Everything exists, Evie I crunch numbers in video games... and the total damage an enemy team can do to my team in a turn matters very much to me, and the possibility that my enemy will focus their individual attacks into a concentrated spot, usually containing a member of my team, is a thing I must be very careful of. That total sum is a hell of a lot more suffering than any one of my characters probably wants to take

You say that more than one individuals feels a certain amount of suffering. This means that their combined amount of suffering is the suffering felt by the two together. Add another person or 10. If the amount one experiences exists, then the amount that a group of ones experiences also exists. Therefore a very large group containing many contributing ones exists. Therefore the combined suffering of 10000 people exists. It doesn't mean that it is an amount you can pump into your own blood... it is merely the measured quantity of suffering experienced by the combined group.

Clearly it isn't to all of us. It isn't to me and it isn't important to anyone who agrees with me that there's no point caring about the totality of suffering when not one single individual living being experiences it.

What matters most to you isn't worth anything to you? Remember that I said "'The Big Picture' is a subjective idea of "what matters most"." immediately before the line you just responded to. They were meant to be taken together, otherwise the latter loses the context it needs to make much sense

I contest that what matters most to you is worth nothing to you. I care about all of the damage done to my team. On one member, that member could die. Dispersed, all of my members could die at once at some point in the future. This is called management, and it applies easily outside of people, ie: The total amount of stress you can put on a car design matters very much to car manufacturers, especially military. If an amount of damage is dispersed, it might cause minor damage that can be either entirely or largely ignored. But if it is applied to a concentrated spot, something is getting fucked, even if they are lucky and it's just a wall. This is why things like guns absorb/disperse shock and tanks are built with plenty of angles and are very thickly plated. Because the total amount of suffering they can experience is too fucking much for the materials. And frankly, humans are weak sissies.

The suffering of millions doesn't matter to us if it doesn't matter to us yes, that's a tautology.

This is true, though I was attempting with that statement to note that the suffering of many people does not necessarily matter, and provided a reason as to why (not being related to goals). I could have also supplied the reason "because strawberries taste better than olives", but I thought I should note a likely reason for not caring.

That is irrelevant to my point that merely states that people care about different things, it doesn't refute my point.

Not everything I write in a response is a refutation, you know. Am I not allowed to note situations where an idea can be practical while I'm discussing philosophy?

Despite the fact you would be caring about a total sum of suffering that doesn't actually exist outside of your own fantasy? You'd happily ignore the fact that all those people receiving gnat bites were merely receiving gnat bites an the person being horrifically tortured was being horrifically tortured?

Gnat bites fucking hurt... have you ever been bitten by the damn things? And no, this is motivated out of how ridiculously annoying gnats are. And as much as I dislike them, i would be among the first to suggest the eradication of all mosquitos. Suffering has nothing to do with this one... annoyance does. One person being tortured? Old news, people are tortured all the time. But to remove a daily nuisance experienced by people all over the world (one that is sometimes fatal or otherwise extremely unpleasant)? HELL YES! ^_^

The service of preferring gnat bites to horrific torture because you pretend that these gnat bites add up in reality when they don't? To whom do they add up? To no one - they feel gnat bites and the person tortured feels torture.

The service of ridding the world of gnat bites is pretty huge to me. A single person being tortured is next to nothing, unless the person has something like a thing that kills all the gnats in the world instantly and vaporizes their eggs. And unlike what you say, they do add up. Lots of little crimes across the world in-fact add up to show the prevalence of crime across the world. This is useful even if only as a point of intrigue. Same with adding up the suffering endured by multiple parties. Can do the same with how much multiple people eat. Congratulations, you have discovered statistics!

Yes but that's irrelevant to my point. By gnat bites I mean very mild pain and by horrific torture I mean very very extremely severe pain.

And your saying one person is experiencing all this severe pain, while many thousands of people endure daily nuisance. Seems like a fine trade to me, frankly. Unless the one person is really interesting, and talented. Then they will probably do greater things for the world than to rid us of 'gnat-bites'.

Every living being when it is feeling a gnat bite and nothing else is by definition only feeling that, and so to add all those experiences up as if they outweigh the suffering of absolutely anyone experiencing horrific torture is to care about a total sum that is irrelevant to absolutely everyone's conscious emotions in actual reality because no one feels it. No one feels the sum total of gnat bites people only feel their own gnat bites. The imagination of the sum total is a different thing entirely to the real sum total. The real sum total doesn't actually exist in conscious experience.

What is your obsession with things being feelable? Dark matter exists, yet nobody (to my knowledge?) has felt it. Doesn't make any difference if they have anyway. What matters about the high number of obese children in the united states? What matters about anything that hasn't been pressed on you, such as AIDS or Malaria? Yes, let's just let them suffer, as their suffering doesn't exist inmy conscious experiences?

It doesn't matter whether any one person can feel that much pain. It matters that how much pain there is between things being noted. It doesn't have to have a useful application... but it does matter when the concept is applied to other concepts, and I note that many video games, droughts, battlefields, and other such things that have made use of combining all of X that Y is using/getting hit by, and then comparing it to the total that one has. Useful for quickly recognizing trends for changing tactics. When applied to pain, it has limited use... but applied to unit health being lost vs how much they can take, food stored during a drought vs how much is consumed by the people, or in recognizing a losing strategy before it's too late as too many of your men are dying vs not enough of theirs. As with any of these other cases, how much (pain) is the amount received by the many combined, and what can be done to reduce/raise it, or does it need to be changed at all?

Starting with the premise that you care about individual suffering it makes no sense to care about the sum total of suffering because not one individual feels that. You're caring about something bizzare that doesn't exist in reality then.

Are you suggesting that many people experience a daily nuisance in the form of 'gnat bites'? Because these nuisances exist in real life, and I could frankly do without all of the little annoyances, and I'm sure a heck of a lot of people would enjoy themselves more if they didn't have to either. The total is (again) more a matter of intrigue when it relates to pain than anything, though there can probably be some way to apply it. Maybe sell it to the Tea Party movement as a number of how much pain America feels, or something silly like that

Assuming that NO gnat ever causes as much pain whatsoever to any one person experiencing a terribly painful death then it makes no sense to care about the sum total of such gnat bites because NOONE experiences it. You're then not just caring about individuals but you're also caring about something that isn't real in experience.

No one experiences the sum total of all individuals' experience of suffering or pleasure, you care about that, you're not caring about real experience.

Nobody has to experience the lot of it... gnats are annoying to lots of people. If you want to make an argument, increase the number of people suffering the torture. 1 vs 10000 is hardly fair for the 1, as that could be overvaluing them by as much as 10000 times, or more. Frankly, I'd exchange the 1 person suffering for a fairly extensive list of small things that aggravate the lives of tens of thousands. That's a very efficient use of lives there... I'm personally quite proud to get anything more than 100 or so.

I certainly don't about "real" existence, and only marginally care that the one person is feeling intense pain while I can perfectly fix problems endured by 10s of thousands of people! But remember, that one person could be worth simply too much to allow them to be tortured. And it really is a small thing that they would fix anyway, though admittedly nice.

---

No it necessarily doesn't exist because no one experiences it. Suffering can't exist without a suffer to experience it. No one suffers the sum total of suffering.

And China doesn't because I've never experienced it

/sigh... *headache after saying something that stupid, even though it was sarcasm*