TERMINOLOGY IN SCIENTIFIC ALGONOMY

DEFINITION OF SUFFERING

There is presently no widely used definition of suffering. Generally, suffering refers to an unpleasant pychological or mental experience, while pain refers to an unpleasant physical or sensory experience. However, a purely mental distress is sometimes called a pain, and a purely physical hurt is sometimes called a suffering. This is so because both physical pain and mental suffering are unpleasant emotional or affective experiences, and because there is no unambiguous word to refer generically to this kind of experiences.

It is proposed here, for algoscience's purpose, to use the term suffering for referring to any unpleasant experience, and to distinguish when necessary between generic suffering, elementary suffering, physical suffering, mental suffering, and eventually other kinds of suffering.

Suffering, or generic suffering, is used as a term to refer to any affectively unpleasant experience.

Elementary suffering could be technically defined as the psychoneural process that constitutes the conscious subjective unpleasantness which can be found in any unpleasant emotional experience. Possible synonyms are unpleasantness, negative hedonic affect, algic affect.

Physical suffering is a synonym for the word pain as it is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain : "Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage." Pain researchers often admit that 'pain' may occur without unpleasantness. It seems that the term nociception can be used for referring unequivocally to that kind of 'pain'.

Mental suffering could be defined, similarly, as an upleasant mental and emotional experience associated with actual or potential psychological damage. Possible synonyms are distress, suffering (without adjective when the context clearly points to mental suffering), emotional suffering, psychological suffering. It could be asked if 'mental suffering' may occur without unpleasantness, and if a neologism like nocimentation could be used for referring unequivocally to that kind of 'mental suffering'... Among the main experiences that may be called mental sufferings, there are despair, anguish, anxiety, dismay, depression, sadness, sorrow, grief, malaise, discomfort, dissatisfaction, discontentment, disgust, aversion, exasperation, anger, rage, hatred, hostility, envy, jealousy, privation, frustration, heartbreak, inquietude, fear, terror, horror, shame, guilt, remorse, humiliation, boredom, tedium, alienation, affliction, unhappiness...

List of Terms

Abolition of suffering

Affect

Affectivity

Algedonic

Algia

Algodicy (justification of suffering, metaphysics of suffering. cf. "theodicy")

Algology

Algogenic

Algonomy (or algonomics, cf. algology/algonomy-agrology/agronomy-economics-economy-political economy)

Algotelic

Antalgic

Antalgogenic

Atro- (cruel, terrible)

Aversion

Case of suffering

Cause of suffering

Control of suffering

Countercause of suffering

Dol

Dolor

Dukkha

Dysalgia

Eradication of suffering

Fight against suffering

Hedonic

Hedonimeter

Hedonimetry

Histalgia

Humane

Humanitarian

Infliction of suffering

Management of Suffering

Mastery over suffering

Mentalgia

Mnemalgia

Negative utilitarianism

Pain

Panetics (or anthropo-algogenic algonomy, cf. algogénèse anthropique or human-caused suffering)

Person or organization who contributes or goes against the production of suffering

Prevention of suffering

Psychalgia

Relief of suffering

Sufferer

Suffering

Socialgia

Studies on suffering

Synalgic

Synalgogenic

Unpleasantness

Key terms in meta tag of algonet html document

suffering, pain, science, discipline, algonomics, algology, panetics, algonomy, study, research, action, algo, algia, sufferer, problem, need, aversion, painful, affliction, distress, hurt, unhappiness, misery, sorrow, sadness, hopelessness, ill, poverty, famine, disease, illness, death, suicide, addiction, hunger, refugees, disaster, victims, underdevelopment, third-world, war, crime, evil, cruelty, infliction, solution, control, management, treatment, relief, prevention, abolition, fight, human, animal, rights, charity, humanitarian, humane, philanthropy, security, insurance, welfare, health, happiness, strategy, association, alliance, organization, network, global, world problems, affect, cause

Key terms in meta tag of panetics html document

Religious ethics, religious power, business ethics,
management ethics, environmental ethics, legal ethics, medical ethics,
media ethics, legal ethics, police ethics, Human Rights, Human Suffering,
Humanitarian Intervention, genocide, ethnic, cleansing, military
intervention, Pain, pain measurement, medical specialization, health cost
management, public health, Police, criminal justice, community policing,
riots, law enforcement, War, Peace Studies, Technology assessment,
environmental assessment, impact assessment, systems analysis, measuring
pain, utilitarianism, science policy

Here is a list of alternative names that is given for the problem of unpleasantness (PA7107) in the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential (note the puzzling absence of the word suffering in this list!) :