Suffering, or pain in a broad sense,[1] is an individual's basic affective Affect refers to the experience of feeling or emotion. Affect is a key part of the process of an organism’s interaction with stimuli. The word also refers sometimes to affect display, which is "a facial, vocal, or gestural behavior that serves as an indicator of affect." experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm. Suffering may be qualified as physical[2] or mental.[3] It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and frequency of occurrence usually compound that of intensity. In addition to such factors, people's attitudes toward suffering may take into account how much it is, in their opinion, avoidable or unavoidable, useful or useless, deserved or undeserved.
Suffering occurs commonly in the lives of sentient Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive subjectively. The term is used in philosophy as well as in science fiction and (occasionally) in the study of artificial intelligence. In each of these fields the term is used slightly differently beings, in diverse manners, and often dramatically. As a result, many fields of human activity are concerned, from their own points of view, with some aspects of suffering. These aspects may include the nature of suffering, its processes, its origin and causes, its meaning and significance, its related personal, social, and cultural behaviors, its remedies, management, and uses.
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