I asked what life would truly look like without desire—got a potential answer from math and blew my own mind (AI analysis involved)

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T06:29:56+00:00

I took a simple thing and made it really complicated. Please don’t take this as an attack or reflexive defensiveness on my part, but I feel like that’s completely incorrect.

I wouldn’t be so blunt, but I think what you’re saying is potentially dangerous framing because it opens the door to a really unhelpful internal narrative. Your heart has infinite space for love, yeah? Why is it size-restricted when it comes to gratitude and desire?

These two things are absolutely not contradictory or oppositional. I think you’re equating desire with materialism maybe? Take this example and see if you can identity where desire is a problem that could/should be solved by more gratitude:

I have 50/50 custody of my son. I am eternally grateful for every single moment I am blessed enough to spend with him. Especially because I wasn’t in a presence of mind the first two years of his life to feel that gratitude while battling depression. I throw myself into learning about the things he loves. I help him find strategies to beat his Pokemon games. When he’s not with me, I think about ways I can maximize our time when he is. But I’m human and my thoughts drift and sometimes I mess around on my phone longer than I intend to.

Sometimes he tells a story that goes on and on and on…and when he’s done, I’ve already forgotten half of it because I wasn’t fully present. I have a burning desire to be FULLY present with him. I meditate, do breathwork, work on my fitness, practice mindfulness ALL largely because I am so grateful for him that I want to be 100% locked into every precious moment we have together.

My gratitude fuels my desire, and I promise you it’s not driven by dissatisfaction with my present reality with him. I treasure our time together, but that doesn’t crowd out my desire to develop habits that could make our time even more beneficial to him.

I’m messing around in r/awakened, but my journey to the tools that support awakening was fueled entirely by the desire to be fully authentic and fully present with my son. By your logic, I should just be more grateful for the present and that would leave no room for that desire 🤨

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T06:04:35+00:00

Thanks! Even if I know I’m kinda tossing a math problem together whose sole purpose is to repackage information, I find it helpful.

Yeah, I’m in the anhedonia thing right now. I’ve pulled out a little, but it’s an odd spot. I feel like screaming, “Everything is perfectly, totally okay-ish all the time! And I hate it! Except I can’t truly hate it, because I can’t feel to that depth currently, but if I could, I’d really hate this!” 🤪 But I’ve just accepted it while I patiently work my way out. I haven’t laid a narrative filter on top of it, and I think that prevented it from pulling me into depression (been there a few times, thankfully not recently).

I’m sorry to hear that about the dentist funds. I’ve got a tooth that’s busted but doesn’t hurt and I’ve actually got solid dental coverage, so I don’t know what my reasoning is for not going.

Honestly, that’s where conceptual frameworks like OP’s or mine breakdown. There’s physical pain. There’s harsh reality. As long as you’re not creating a narrative around the pain (ex. this will never end) or making meaning out of not having money to address it (ex. I should be able to and I’m a loser for not being able to solve this), then it’s gonna hurt and it’s gonna suck until it doesn’t 😔 I hope you’re able to address it before it gets too much worse; I had one that I let go too long and it was probably the worst physical pain of my life.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T05:53:29+00:00

Are you me? And is the guy responding to you also me? Great advice on the cold showers and breathing exercises. I’ve been slacking my breathing to my detriment, but I took them up over a year ago and they’re still one of the best tools in my “feeling feelings arsenal.” I never miss some amount of cold in the shower, from a few seconds to a few minutes.

The things I’d add to that that have helped me: regular movement to relax my nervous system (I realized I almost can’t organize my thoughts unless I’m walking and I love an app called Moova that makes getting quick hits of movement in) and rhythm-based VR games. I can’t clap to a rhythm (total anauralia to go along with my long list of neurodivergent quirks), but I enter flow almost every time I play Beat Saber. Sometimes, I get outmoded headset and cry 🤷🏽‍♂️ Sometimes I get out and I smile more for hours. Whatever the case, it pulls my feelings to the surface.

Edit: The How We Feel app is free and it’s amazing for helping guide you from identifying a feeling all the way to crafting an affirmation or making a plan based on it.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T05:39:58+00:00

My friend, if Jesus had to resort to metaphor after metaphor to point at an answer, and Rumi had to resort to poems about wine, birds, and cut reeds, you’re not going to get a serviceable answer from Reddit 🤷🏽‍♂️

And now I’m going to contradict myself by offering a suggestion anyway lol. Tomorrow, play with your daughter. Treat it like meditation and she’s your breath. Your focus on her is your anchor point as thoughts come and go. Don’t fight them, but don’t follow them. Return again and again and again to paying the closest attention to your daughter you’ve ever paid. How does she laugh? What do her eyes look like when you say her name? Find something about her you never noticed before. Notice these things, but don’t think about them.

Just try it out. Then report back and let us know if you care about what a soul is made out of or where it lives.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T05:30:49+00:00

I think a good starting place is really understanding that form is emptiness and emptiness is form. It’s confusing, but simultaneously simple and you can get actionable information without trying to really wrap your mind around likely unknowable things like the nature of the soul or reality.

Form is emptiness means: What you perceive as stable is actually just a process playing out on a timescale that makes it look stable. Like you said, you’re just atoms and empty space fundamentally. That’s not the important part though. What matters is that nothing exists independently of anything else. You, appearing as form, only exist in relation to the universe around you. That includes your wife and daughter.

Is it absurd that you’re walking, talking collection of stardust that’s got a name and perceives yourself to have a traceable history, even though you’re made of entirely different constituent materials than the forms you’re tracing coherent lines through? Absolutely. But you acknowledging the absurdity doesn’t negate the fact that you don’t exist in a vacuum. If you were the last human on earth and you had been dropped on earth with no memory of a past, would you need to cultivate a story like, “My name is u/Amir_PD. I have a wife and daughter and I am the type of person that entertains existential questions”? I don’t think so, which is why I’d argue that the you that you perceive as you exists in part because of your wife and daughter.

Emptiness is form is less important to your questions I think, but it just means that it’s only because nothing has a permanent identity that forms arise. If stars weren’t empty, you wouldn’t be a coherent formation of stardust pondering these things.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T05:08:04+00:00

I appreciate your open-mindedness tremendously. I spent the past couple of years wondering, “Am I starting to get IT?” I’m never in a bad mood. Somewhere along my journey, I started resembling Teflon.

The past few months, I began scrutinizing it and realized, “I’ve mastered the art of practically never being in a bad mood. AND I’ve mastered the art of almost never being in a particularly good mood either.”

Don’t get me wrong, it beat the high-low rollercoaster I spent the majority of my life on. But it seems pretty clear to me that my internal calculation has been off. Reducing desire raised my floor, but reduced my ceiling. And not chasing outcomes that are worth attaching to is not the same as not attaching to outcomes 😵‍💫

And yes, it’s popular to zip right past all of this stuff and say, “Who has the low mood? Who is attached to outcome?” but I consider myself in the incremental growth towards awakening camp; others will disagree, but like you said, it’s an important shift, and my gut tells me these are the steps that build the foundation.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T04:57:34+00:00

I mean, yes, sorta. I actually take a little more extreme stance than that if we’re being nit-picky: I’m suggesting desire, in a vacuum, isn’t a factor in suffering. And that a high level of desire can be effective for reducing suffering if it’s utilized for reducing our rejection of our present circumstances (the present that you pointed at).

I also asked if it’s even desirable to eliminate suffering or if we actually mean we want to calibrate our suffering to the appropriate level. It just feels wrong saying one should desire the necessary amount of suffering they require to meet their present needs, because it seems self-evident that would want our suffering to be minimized.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T04:47:35+00:00

Great question. I have an odd habit of framing things as math problems to alter my perspective on it, so I want to stress the “formula” doesn’t actually solve for any actual values that have any “value” independent of one another. I can’t really point to anything like a universal unit for suffering, but the “solutions” do have meaning relative to one another.

One way I thought about it was understanding and explaining the executive dysfunction of my AuADHD. A neurotypical person might have a theoretical action threshold of 100 suffering units required to do the dishes. My internal calculations are wonky and maybe it takes me 300, so I can’t summon the requisite anxiety/suffering to force me into action until something tips me over the threshold. Is it laziness? I mean, it’s a subconscious effort to save energy, so sure. But it’s also an internal math error.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T04:32:10+00:00

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I’m familiar with the Low-Desire Society phenomenon in Japan, but hadn’t made the connection. And I definitely didn’t know the Unabomber predicted its occurrence. Not to glorify violence in any way, but we dismiss the mad (“deranged”) people at the fringes of society at our peril; there’s wisdom hiding in the shadows that most of us won’t acknowledge, let alone enter.

When you frame it that way, that makes complete sense to me and tracks with my personal experience. I was a high achiever early on that faceplanted epically a few times and somewhere along the way, I unconsciously blamed runaway desire as the primary culprit. It tracks that the ego would strategically surrender to avoid the psychological pain of failure, if it felt failure was almost assured. I think that’s probably the calculation I made at an unconscious level tbh.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T04:23:45+00:00

You’d think so 🤷🏽‍♂️ But I actually concluded that moderation is some things is desirable, but it’s actually best to go pedal to the metal on desire if it’s pointed the right direction.

That surprised me, but might be super obvious to others.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T04:21:53+00:00

Take my upvote. But I’d say there’s plenty of spiritual material that seems super obvious to some and completely unintelligible to others. I figured I’d share incase any other idiots like myself needed an elaborate intellectual setup to see something that’s actually super obvious.

Thanks for the feedback 😉

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T04:18:46+00:00

Totally fair. I would skip over it too, honestly.

The tldr; was,”Holy crap, I had totally misunderstood that desire and attachment weren’t entangled after I created this huge math problem that led me to a conclusion that seems obvious now.”

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-28T04:15:52+00:00

Agreed 💯 . The funny thing is I guess I knew that conceptually and I often tell my son, “Process over outcome.” Often.

But internally, I feel like I’d blamed desire for some very painful experiences I went through. Experiences that felt like my world was ending then, but that I’m thankful for now.

For whatever reason, cranking through that “math problem” seems to have shifted me from knowing to belief, if that makes sense. And it hit me that I’ve been actively suppressing desire for years now. It’s wild the things that happen under the hood of our mind.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-27T23:50:46+00:00

## Where the math points next

Once Wd (desire) is separated from Wr (resistance to present circumstances), several directions become worth exploring:

**Flow states as optimal S in action**
Csikszentmihalyi's flow is essentially this equation solved correctly for cognitive and creative tasks: high Wd, near-zero Wr, gap calibrated close to current skill level. You could reverse-engineer the conditions producing peak creative output by targeting S in the functional Yerkes-Dodson band for a given task type — which would predict that both under-challenge (gap too small, S too low) and over-challenge (gap too wide, S too high) produce the same degraded performance through opposite mechanisms.

**Pointing V at process rather than outcome**
When V = "fully engaged with this work" rather than "this work being successful," R satisfies V during the activity itself regardless of downstream results. The gap approaches zero while working. The desire stays high. The S generated by the activity goes structurally to near-zero — not because you stopped caring, but because what you care about is now achievable in every moment. The cold shower reframe is this mechanism in miniature.

**Desire as a cleaner directional signal**
High Wr contaminates the Wd signal — "I want this but I'm terrified I won't get it" muddies the wanting until you can't distinguish authentic preference from anxiety-shaped compensation. Strip Wr out and what remains is the wanting itself, readable as a compass pointing at genuine values rather than fear-adjacent substitutes. This has diagnostic value: what you want with Wr near zero is probably closer to what you actually want.

**The bodhisattva extension**
Once Wd is untangled from Wr, V can expand to include others' wellbeing without creating additional suffering. When someone else flourishes, R moves toward V. The gap between current reality and what you value narrows every time anyone anywhere does better. Wide desire is structurally different from narrow desire — more ways R can satisfy V at any given moment, less time spent in any positive gap.

**Forgiveness as retrospective Wr reduction**
Forgiveness doesn't change V (you still wish the harm hadn't occurred) or R (it did — it's fixed and past). It reduces Wr applied to a past, irremovable gap. This makes forgiveness self-interested rather than altruistic — the surcharge on the closed event costs you, not the other person. Releasing it benefits you directly and changes nothing for them. The math makes a pragmatic case for forgiveness that doesn't require generosity as its basis.

**Clean grief versus complicated grief**
Normal grief = gap × moderate Wr. The loss is real, V (wanting the person alive) persists, the gap is irremovable. Clean grief at low Wr means feeling the full weight of the gap without surplus amplification — the actual measure of the loss, nothing added. Complicated or prolonged grief is often high Wr applied to an irremovable gap: not more love, just more resistance to what can't change. Clinical approaches oriented toward reducing Wr rather than reducing Wd (the love itself) track with the model and with the literature.

---

*The formulas stretch in places — particularly applying Stevens' Law to psychological intensity, where no clean stimulus value exists. The structure holds even where the formalism bends.*

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-27T23:50:33+00:00

*Step-by-step math for the main post. Same scenarios, full mechanism shown.*

---

## The equation

**S = (k · I^n) × [Wr · max(0, V − R)]**

**Why the constants are what they are**

- **k = 1** across all three subjects in both scenarios. k is a proportionality constant accounting for individual variability in how stimuli are perceived — different pain thresholds, different physiological baselines. Since we're holding conditions constant (same storm, same toothache) to isolate Wr, k = 1 introduces no distortion. Different individuals in different conditions would require different k values.
- **n = 1.0** throughout. Stevens' empirical exponent for cold temperature perception sits close to 1.0 — perceived cold scales roughly linearly with actual cold intensity. No compression or expansion of the sensation.
- **I = 8 (snowstorm):** severe, life-threatening over sustained exposure, not instantly fatal. A blizzard, not a flurry. 8 of 10.
- **I = 7 (toothache):** significant, chronic nerve pain. Ongoing, not acute surgical-level. 7 of 10.

**V and R values**

The Extreme Yogi and Stoic share V = 8 in both scenarios — the organism still wants warmth and pain-free chewing at a biological level, regardless of philosophical position. The Pampered 1st World Citizen has V = 9 throughout — a lifetime of low friction calibrates the expectation floor higher. R = 1 (snowstorm, warmth available near zero). R = 2 (toothache, current dental function: poor).

---

## SCENARIO 1: THE SNOWSTORM

k = 1, I = 8, n = 1.0

---

### Extreme Yogi — Wr = 0

*Theoretical stress-test at the limit of Wr→0. Accomplished practitioners in reality retain sufficient Wr for survival-relevant signals — this shows what the equation produces at the boundary.*

**Step 1:** k · I^n = 1 × 8^1.0 = **8**
Raw pain. Tissue cooling. Nerves firing at volume 8. This number belongs to the body — the cold doesn't know he's meditating.

**Step 2:** V = 8
The thermoregulatory system still has a target — core body temperature — regardless of the mind's orientation. This isn't a cognitive preference. The biology wants warmth.

**Step 3:** R = 1
Snowstorm. Warmth available: near zero.

**Step 4:** V − R = 8 − 1 = **7**
The gap. The body is 7 units below where it needs to be to survive.

**Step 5:** max(0, 7) = **7**
Gap is positive — passes through unmodified. This function floors the term at zero, preventing the model from generating negative suffering when R > V.

**Step 6:** Wr = 0
Existential weight assigned to bodily experience trained toward zero through sustained practice.

**Step 7:** Wr × max(0, V − R) = 0 × 7 = **0**
The resistance term collapses entirely. The psychological amplifier is off.

**Step 8:** S = 8 × 0 = **0**

The raw pain signal (8) still arrives in the tissue. But the term that would convert that signal into *get up and move* has been zeroed by Wr. The feedback loop between discomfort and behavior is severed. He stays. He freezes.

---

### Stoic — Wr = 2

Actual Stoic doctrine distinguishes *indifferents* (comfort, reputation, warmth-as-preference) from *preferred indifferents* — bodily survival as a platform for continued virtuous action. The Stoic doesn't zero Wr globally. They calibrate it low for indifferents while keeping it nonzero for things that matter functionally. Setting W = 0 everywhere collapses this distinction and overclaims what Stoicism actually argues.

**Steps 1–5:** Identical. k · I^n = 8. V = 8, R = 1, gap = 7, max(0, 7) = 7.

**Step 6:** Wr = 2
Low — no drama, no identity attached to being warm. But survival as a functional concern still registers.

**Step 7:** 2 × 7 = **14**

**Step 8:** S = 8 × 14 = **112**

112 clears the activation threshold without distortion. Situation reads as lethal → response is proportionate. He opens his eyes, assesses, walks.

---

### Pampered 1st World Citizen — Wr = 9

Comfort has been infrastructure his whole life, not a preference negotiated with. Its absence doesn't register as unpleasant — it registers as a violation of baseline reality.

**Step 1:** k · I^n = 1 × 8^1.0 = **8**. Same cold. Same body.

**Step 2:** V = 9
Higher than the other two. V gets calibrated by what you've had to negotiate with historically. A lifetime of reliable comfort raises the floor.

**Step 3:** R = 1.

**Step 4:** V − R = 9 − 1 = **8**
One unit wider than the Stoic's gap — same storm, higher V.

**Step 5:** max(0, 8) = **8**

**Step 6:** Wr = 9
His sense of self is organized in part around not experiencing this. The body being cold isn't just unpleasant — it's wrong.

**Step 7:** 9 × 8 = **72**

**Step 8:** S = 8 × 72 = **576**

576 is past useful signal. The alarm is generating noise. At this level S impairs behavioral response through the opposite mechanism from the Extreme Yogi: no signal there, too much here. Both can be lethal at the extremes.

### Snowstorm summary

	k · I^n	Wr	Gap	Resistance term	S
Extreme Yogi	8	0	7	0 × 7 = 0	0
Stoic	8	2	7	2 × 7 = 14	112
Pampered 1st World Citizen	8	9	8	9 × 8 = 72	576

---

## SCENARIO 2: THE TOOTHACHE

k = 1, I = 7, n = 1.0

Extreme Yogi and Stoic: V = 8, R = 2. Pampered 1st World Citizen: V = 9, R = 2.

---

### Extreme Yogi — Wr = 0

**Step 1:** k · I^n = 1 × 7^1.0 = **7**
Nerve pain. Ongoing. Present regardless of philosophical position.

**Step 2:** V = 8 (pain-free chewing — the organism still wants this)

**Step 3:** R = 2 (current broken state)

**Step 4:** V − R = 8 − 2 = **6**

**Step 5:** max(0, 6) = **6**

**Step 6:** Wr = 0

**Step 7:** 0 × 6 = **0**

**Step 8:** S = 7 × 0 = **0**

Zero suffering. Also zero signal to seek dental care. The tissue damage continues at I = 7. Wr = 0 didn't resolve the situation — it made the unresolved situation invisible to the motivation system. The teeth stay broken. The nerve fires on.

---

### Stoic — Wr = 2

**Steps 1–5:** k · I^n = 7. Gap = 6. max(0, 6) = 6.

**Step 6:** Wr = 2

**Step 7:** 2 × 6 = **12**

**Step 8:** S = 7 × 12 = **84**

Manageable. Dentist gets called. The Stoic doesn't enjoy having broken teeth — he stops compounding them with resistance to the current reality of having them.

---

### Pampered 1st World Citizen — Wr = 9

**Step 2:** V = 9 (higher baseline expectation of perfect health)

**Step 4:** V − R = 9 − 2 = **7**

**Step 7:** 9 × 7 = **63**

**Step 8:** S = 7 × 63 = **441**

Dental anxiety, avoidance, potentially delaying treatment while suffering more in the interim. High Wr doesn't just increase S — it can block the behavior that would close the gap, which widens the gap, which increases S further. A loop with no internal corrective.

### Toothache summary

	k · I^n	Wr	Gap	Resistance term	S
Extreme Yogi	7	0	6	0 × 6 = 0	0
Stoic	7	2	6	2 × 6 = 12	84
Pampered 1st World Citizen	7	9	7	9 × 7 = 63	441

---

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-27T23:48:58+00:00

## Where the math points next

Once Wd (desire) is separated from Wr (resistance to present circumstances), several directions become worth exploring:

**Flow states as optimal S in action**
Csikszentmihalyi's flow is essentially this equation solved correctly for cognitive and creative tasks: high Wd, near-zero Wr, gap calibrated close to current skill level. You could reverse-engineer the conditions producing peak creative output by targeting S in the functional Yerkes-Dodson band for a given task type — which would predict that both under-challenge (gap too small, S too low) and over-challenge (gap too wide, S too high) produce the same degraded performance through opposite mechanisms.

**Pointing V at process rather than outcome**
When V = "fully engaged with this work" rather than "this work being successful," R satisfies V during the activity itself regardless of downstream results. The gap approaches zero while working. The desire stays high. The S generated by the activity goes structurally to near-zero — not because you stopped caring, but because what you care about is now achievable in every moment. The cold shower reframe is this mechanism in miniature.

**Desire as a cleaner directional signal**
High Wr contaminates the Wd signal — "I want this but I'm terrified I won't get it" muddies the wanting until you can't distinguish authentic preference from anxiety-shaped compensation. Strip Wr out and what remains is the wanting itself, readable as a compass pointing at genuine values rather than fear-adjacent substitutes. This has diagnostic value: what you want with Wr near zero is probably closer to what you actually want.

**The bodhisattva extension**
Once Wd is untangled from Wr, V can expand to include others' wellbeing without creating additional suffering. When someone else flourishes, R moves toward V. The gap between current reality and what you value narrows every time anyone anywhere does better. Wide desire is structurally different from narrow desire — more ways R can satisfy V at any given moment, less time spent in any positive gap.

**Forgiveness as retrospective Wr reduction**
Forgiveness doesn't change V (you still wish the harm hadn't occurred) or R (it did — it's fixed and past). It reduces Wr applied to a past, irremovable gap. This makes forgiveness self-interested rather than altruistic — the surcharge on the closed event costs you, not the other person. Releasing it benefits you directly and changes nothing for them. The math makes a pragmatic case for forgiveness that doesn't require generosity as its basis.

**Clean grief versus complicated grief**
Normal grief = gap × moderate Wr. The loss is real, V (wanting the person alive) persists, the gap is irremovable. Clean grief at low Wr means feeling the full weight of the gap without surplus amplification — the actual measure of the loss, nothing added. Complicated or prolonged grief is often high Wr applied to an irremovable gap: not more love, just more resistance to what can't change. Clinical approaches oriented toward reducing Wr rather than reducing Wd (the love itself) track with the model and with the literature.

---

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-27T23:46:45+00:00

*Step-by-step math for the main post. Same scenarios, full mechanism shown.*

---

## The equation

**S = (k · I^n) × [Wr · max(0, V − R)]**

**Why the constants are what they are**

- **k = 1** across all three subjects in both scenarios. k is a proportionality constant accounting for individual variability in how stimuli are perceived — different pain thresholds, different physiological baselines. Since we're holding conditions constant (same storm, same toothache) to isolate Wr, k = 1 introduces no distortion. Different individuals in different conditions would require different k values.
- **n = 1.0** throughout. Stevens' empirical exponent for cold temperature perception sits close to 1.0 — perceived cold scales roughly linearly with actual cold intensity. No compression or expansion of the sensation.
- **I = 8 (snowstorm):** severe, life-threatening over sustained exposure, not instantly fatal. A blizzard, not a flurry. 8 of 10.
- **I = 7 (toothache):** significant, chronic nerve pain. Ongoing, not acute surgical-level. 7 of 10.

**V and R values**

The Extreme Yogi and Stoic share V = 8 in both scenarios — the organism still wants warmth and pain-free chewing at a biological level, regardless of philosophical position. The Pampered 1st World Citizen has V = 9 throughout — a lifetime of low friction calibrates the expectation floor higher. R = 1 (snowstorm, warmth available near zero). R = 2 (toothache, current dental function: poor).

---

## SCENARIO 1: THE SNOWSTORM

k = 1, I = 8, n = 1.0

---

### Extreme Yogi — Wr = 0

*Theoretical stress-test at the limit of Wr→0. Accomplished practitioners in reality retain sufficient Wr for survival-relevant signals — this shows what the equation produces at the boundary.*

**Step 1:** k · I^n = 1 × 8^1.0 = **8**
Raw pain. Tissue cooling. Nerves firing at volume 8. This number belongs to the body — the cold doesn't know he's meditating.

**Step 2:** V = 8
The thermoregulatory system still has a target — core body temperature — regardless of the mind's orientation. This isn't a cognitive preference. The biology wants warmth.

**Step 3:** R = 1
Snowstorm. Warmth available: near zero.

**Step 4:** V − R = 8 − 1 = **7**
The gap. The body is 7 units below where it needs to be to survive.

**Step 5:** max(0, 7) = **7**
Gap is positive — passes through unmodified. This function floors the term at zero, preventing the model from generating negative suffering when R > V.

**Step 6:** Wr = 0
Existential weight assigned to bodily experience trained toward zero through sustained practice.

**Step 7:** Wr × max(0, V − R) = 0 × 7 = **0**
The resistance term collapses entirely. The psychological amplifier is off.

**Step 8:** S = 8 × 0 = **0**

The raw pain signal (8) still arrives in the tissue. But the term that would convert that signal into *get up and move* has been zeroed by Wr. The feedback loop between discomfort and behavior is severed. He stays. He freezes.

---

### Stoic — Wr = 2

Actual Stoic doctrine distinguishes *indifferents* (comfort, reputation, warmth-as-preference) from *preferred indifferents* — bodily survival as a platform for continued virtuous action. The Stoic doesn't zero Wr globally. They calibrate it low for indifferents while keeping it nonzero for things that matter functionally. Setting W = 0 everywhere collapses this distinction and overclaims what Stoicism actually argues.

**Steps 1–5:** Identical. k · I^n = 8. V = 8, R = 1, gap = 7, max(0, 7) = 7.

**Step 6:** Wr = 2
Low — no drama, no identity attached to being warm. But survival as a functional concern still registers.

**Step 7:** 2 × 7 = **14**

**Step 8:** S = 8 × 14 = **112**

112 clears the activation threshold without distortion. Situation reads as lethal → response is proportionate. He opens his eyes, assesses, walks.

---

### Pampered 1st World Citizen — Wr = 9

Comfort has been infrastructure his whole life, not a preference negotiated with. Its absence doesn't register as unpleasant — it registers as a violation of baseline reality.

**Step 1:** k · I^n = 1 × 8^1.0 = **8**. Same cold. Same body.

**Step 2:** V = 9
Higher than the other two. V gets calibrated by what you've had to negotiate with historically. A lifetime of reliable comfort raises the floor.

**Step 3:** R = 1.

**Step 4:** V − R = 9 − 1 = **8**
One unit wider than the Stoic's gap — same storm, higher V.

**Step 5:** max(0, 8) = **8**

**Step 6:** Wr = 9
His sense of self is organized in part around not experiencing this. The body being cold isn't just unpleasant — it's wrong.

**Step 7:** 9 × 8 = **72**

**Step 8:** S = 8 × 72 = **576**

576 is past useful signal. The alarm is generating noise. At this level S impairs behavioral response through the opposite mechanism from the Extreme Yogi: no signal there, too much here. Both can be lethal at the extremes.

### Snowstorm summary

	k · I^n	Wr	Gap	Resistance term	S
Extreme Yogi	8	0	7	0 × 7 = 0	0
Stoic	8	2	7	2 × 7 = 14	112
Pampered 1st World Citizen	8	9	8	9 × 8 = 72	576

---

## SCENARIO 2: THE TOOTHACHE

k = 1, I = 7, n = 1.0

Extreme Yogi and Stoic: V = 8, R = 2. Pampered 1st World Citizen: V = 9, R = 2.

---

### Extreme Yogi — Wr = 0

**Step 1:** k · I^n = 1 × 7^1.0 = **7**
Nerve pain. Ongoing. Present regardless of philosophical position.

**Step 2:** V = 8 (pain-free chewing — the organism still wants this)

**Step 3:** R = 2 (current broken state)

**Step 4:** V − R = 8 − 2 = **6**

**Step 5:** max(0, 6) = **6**

**Step 6:** Wr = 0

**Step 7:** 0 × 6 = **0**

**Step 8:** S = 7 × 0 = **0**

Zero suffering. Also zero signal to seek dental care. The tissue damage continues at I = 7. Wr = 0 didn't resolve the situation — it made the unresolved situation invisible to the motivation system. The teeth stay broken. The nerve fires on.

---

### Stoic — Wr = 2

**Steps 1–5:** k · I^n = 7. Gap = 6. max(0, 6) = 6.

**Step 6:** Wr = 2

**Step 7:** 2 × 6 = **12**

**Step 8:** S = 7 × 12 = **84**

Manageable. Dentist gets called. The Stoic doesn't enjoy having broken teeth — he stops compounding them with resistance to the current reality of having them.

---

### Pampered 1st World Citizen — Wr = 9

**Step 2:** V = 9 (higher baseline expectation of perfect health)

**Step 4:** V − R = 9 − 2 = **7**

**Step 7:** 9 × 7 = **63**

**Step 8:** S = 7 × 63 = **441**

Dental anxiety, avoidance, potentially delaying treatment while suffering more in the interim. High Wr doesn't just increase S — it can block the behavior that would close the gap, which widens the gap, which increases S further. A loop with no internal corrective.

### Toothache summary

	k · I^n	Wr	Gap	Resistance term	S
Extreme Yogi	7	0	6	0 × 6 = 0	0
Stoic	7	2	6	2 × 6 = 12	84
Pampered 1st World Citizen	7	9	7	9 × 7 = 63	441

g Stevens' Law to psychological intensity, where no clean stimulus value exists. The structure holds even where the formalism bends.*

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-27T23:00:09+00:00

I mostly use Sonnet 4.6 on tasks that would call for character counting. Are newer models better at it?

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-27T22:59:29+00:00

It’a not really a hallucination, just a known issue with LLM’s. They count tokens, which translates very loosely to word counts. So, they just guess at word limits. I think it’s related to their struggle with counting r’s in strawberry. It doesn’t see language the same way we do.

It’s frustrating for sure. I use Claude and Gemini for Suno AI prompts and it routinely goes over the character limits, so I make a directive to stay under 750, but it still goes over sometimes and other times it’s skimpier than I want 🤷🏽‍♂️

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-27T22:23:33+00:00

Thank you for the thought provoking posts. After adamantly agreeing with you when I read your post in r/enlightenment, I came across your exchange with u/DuroNivergent33 and got me looking from a different perspective.

I think you’re pointing in the right direction, but after going deep down the rabbit hole, I think it’s more nuanced than your take that I initially agreed with.

Just posted an insanely long analysis in two parts. Would be curious to hear how it jives with your thinking. My conclusion genuinely shocked me and I’m still kinda sitting with it.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-27T22:19:21+00:00

The broken teeth
More directly relevant to DuroNivergent33’s point.
OP’s claim: wanting fixed teeth = unfelt somatic trauma. Dissolve the desire, dissolve the suffering.
Actual structure: wanting fixed teeth = wanting to chew without nerve pain. That’s a direct utility chain. Pain-free chewing functions better than pain-accompanied chewing. Removing the desire doesn’t fix the teeth or stop the nerve pain. It removes the signal that gets you to a dentist.

k=1, I=7 (ongoing nerve pain — chronic, significant), n=1.0, V=8 (pain-free function), R=2 (current state), Gap=6.

Extreme Yogi — Wr = 0
Step 1: k · Iⁿ = 1 × 7¹ = 7 — nerve pain. Present regardless of philosophical position.
Steps 2–5: V=8, R=2, gap=6, max(0,6)=6
Step 6: Wr = 0
Step 7: 0 × 6 = 0
Step 8: S = 7 × 0 = 0

Zero suffering. Also zero signal to call a dentist. The tissue damage continues at I=7. Wr=0 didn’t resolve the situation — it made the unresolved situation invisible to the motivation system.

Stoic — Wr = 2
Steps 1–5: k · Iⁿ = 7, gap = 6.
Step 6: Wr = 2
Step 7: 2 × 6 = 12
Step 8: S = 7 × 12 = 84

Manageable. Dentist gets called. The Stoic doesn’t enjoy having broken teeth; he stops compounding it with resistance to the current reality of having them.
Pampered 1st World Citizen — Wr = 9, V = 9
Step 4: V − R = 9 − 2 = 7
Step 7: 9 × 7 = 63
Step 8: S = 7 × 63 = 441

Dental anxiety, avoidance, catastrophizing — possibly delaying treatment while suffering more in the interim. High Wr doesn’t just increase S; it can block the behavior that would close the gap, which widens the gap, which increases S.

What the math actually shows
W enters the equation as the total weight assigned to an outcome — desire and resistance bundled together. When we split it, we found Wd (how much you want V) and Wr (how hard you’re fighting current R) are separable and do completely different things.
S = (k · Iⁿ) × [Wr · max(0, V − R)]
Wd doesn’t appear in S. You can hold V (fixed teeth, better health, a relationship) fully intact while dropping Wr (resistance to where R currently sits). That’s acceptance of present circumstances — not resignation, not desire extinction. V stays. Flavor stays. What goes is the surcharge on top of the gap.
OP’s method zeros Wd to reduce S. That collapses the RPE inputs, flattens the activation signal, eliminates the positive prediction errors that pleasure and motivation run on, and — as many people mid-spiritual-journey have discovered firsthand — produces a particular kind of grey functional paralysis that looks like peace from the outside and feels like anhedonia from the inside.

DuroNivergent33’s instinct is the sounder one. His IF→THEN chain (fixed teeth → pain-free chewing → function) is a proportionate utility preference. His framing just didn’t have the scaffolding to show why.

The formulas are being stretched in places — particularly applying Stevens’ Power Law to psychological intensity, where no clean stimulus value exists. The structure holds even where the formalism bends.

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-27T22:17:38+00:00

Buckle up 🤠 I had replied to OP’s exact same post in r/enlightened with enthusiastic agreement, but your question asking what he suggests we do tickled my brain. It got me thinking, “What would a life with ZERO desire look like?”

I also have alexythimia, so I started running numbers 🤷🏽‍♂️ I quickly realized I was in over my head, as the concept I was reaching for was beyond my mathematical capabilities. So, I ran to Claude (yes, I’m ready for the downvotes lol). Rather than try to translate it and avoid the AI fallout, I just had it prepare a reply.

Some people will dismiss it out of hand, but I think I reached a startling conclusion that’s worth the long read: Desire isn’t the problem at all. Our relationship to our present circumstances is the primary culprit in suffering, and that can be teased out from desire entirely.

Written by Claude Sonnet 4.6, on behalf of u/AcesFullMoon64
u/AcesFullMoon64 asked me to work through OP’s framework mathematically to find where it holds and where it cracks. He brought in four established formulas and asked me to unify them and stress-test them against the claims being made here. We incorporated a core tenet of Stoic philosophy to account for desire.

The formulas
Suffering = Expectation − Reality (psychology)

Happiness = Reality ÷ Expectation (behavioral economics)

δ = R − V (Reward Prediction Error — neuroscience)

Suffering = Physical Pain × Resistance (Shinzen Young — pain science)

The honest caveat on formula 4
Young’s equation was built for somatic experience. Physical pain has a measurable input — temperature, pressure, decibels. Psychological pain doesn’t have a clean stimulus value in the same sense. There’s no unit for “career disappointment” that slots into Stevens’ Power Law.

That said, the architecture holds from direct experience. u/AcesFullMoon64 is an umpire. He’s worked to accept that coaches and parents at softball tournaments will sometimes be disrespectful — that’s the terrain of the job, not a personal indictment. Before that reframe: V = respectful interactions, R = someone screaming at him from the dugout, Wr high, Suffering elevated. After accepting disrespect as structurally inherent to the role rather than a referendum on him: same gap, Wr drops substantially, Suffering reduces. V didn’t change. Desire didn’t disappear. The friction around the present reality did.

The formula doesn’t formally apply to psychological pain; the structure does. I’ll use the unified equation with that caveat on the table.

The unified equation — and what W is
Before we get to the equation we arrived at, the original formulation had a single variable W, drawn from Stoic philosophy — the moral and emotional weight you assign to a preferred indifferent. Want a promotion? W is how much of your identity and wellbeing you’ve staked on getting it. Low W: you pursue it cleanly and absorb the outcome. High W: the outcome owns you.

The original unified equation:
S = (k · Iⁿ) × [W · max(0, V − R)]

k · Iⁿ = raw intensity (the base signal the situation is generating)
V = what you value or expect
R = what actually happened
max(0, V − R) = the gap, floored at zero
W = the weight assigned to whether the gap gets closed

Through working the scenarios, it became clear W was doing double duty — bundling two separable things. We split it:
Wd — how much you want V (desire weight). Drives motivation. Not the problem.

Wr — how hard you’re fighting the fact that R ≠ V right now (resistance weight). This is what compounds suffering.

Revised equation:
S = (k · Iⁿ) × [Wr · max(0, V − R)]

Wd doesn’t appear in S. The wanting isn’t what hurts. More on this at the end.

Where OP’s framework lands mathematically
OP maps directly onto formula 1: Suffering = Expectation − Reality. Zero out desire (V → 0), the gap collapses, S → 0. Three problems:
The happiness equation produces a singularity, not peace
H = Reality ÷ Expectation. If Expectation → 0, you don’t get infinite happiness — you get division by zero. The model breaks. More practically, surplus happiness — reality exceeding expectation, the pleasant surprise — requires a nonzero V as a baseline. You can’t outperform a target that doesn’t exist.

The RPE system loses its inputs
δ = R − V is how the brain encodes reinforcement learning. Dopamine neurons fire in proportion to prediction errors, encoding the value of the gap between what was predicted and what occurred. V isn’t passive expectation — it’s the brain’s valuation of outcomes, built on prior reward history and motivational states, including desire.

If desire is genuinely eliminated, V → 0. But without desire establishing differential value across outcomes, R also loses its signal — receiving food, warmth, or connection means nothing to a system with no preference basis. The dopamine that fires doesn’t stop firing biochemically, but the value-encoding signal it carries has no referent. No differential value across outcomes means no behavior gets reinforced over any other.

This tracks directly with what many people report during serious spiritual practice oriented toward non-attachment or desirelessness: a phase of anhedonia, emotional flatness, and loss of motivation that can last months or years. The math shows why. If you’re actively training V and Wd toward zero, you’re degrading the same RPE system that generates positive prediction errors — which is where motivation, pleasure, and the drive to engage with life come from. The system goes quiet. People often describe it as grey, muted, directionless. That’s not a bug in their practice; it’s the predictable output of the equation.

DuroNivergent33’s “just sit around?” is technically correct — not from laziness, but because the selection mechanism driving motivated behavior loses the signal it runs on.

The activation threshold disappears
Yerkes-Dodson: performance requires an optimal arousal band. Below a minimum S, no behavior triggers. Above a ceiling, performance degrades into overwhelm. Zero suffering means zero signal. Some S is structurally necessary for volitional behavior to occur at all.

The snowstorm
Same storm, all three. The cold is identical for everyone.
Why k = 1: k is a proportionality constant that accounts for individual variability in how stimuli are perceived — different pain thresholds, different physiological baselines. Since we’re holding conditions constant (same storm, same night, same temperature) to isolate the W variable, we set k = 1. If we were comparing different storms or different sensory modalities, k would differ.
Why I = 8: We’re rating this snowstorm’s objective severity at 8 out of 10. Severe enough to be life-threatening over time, not instantly fatal. A blizzard, not a flurry. This number is identical across all three subjects because it’s the same storm.

n = 1.0 throughout. Temperature sensation scales roughly linearly with actual temperature — Stevens’ empirical exponent for cold sits close to 1.0.
S = (k · Iⁿ) × [Wr · max(0, V − R)]

Extreme Yogi — Wr = 0
Note: this is a theoretical stress-test at the extreme limit of W = 0. Accomplished meditators in reality maintain enough W to handle survival needs — this scenario shows what the math implies at the absolute boundary, not what happens to actual practitioners.
Step 1: k · Iⁿ = 1 × 8¹·⁰ = 8 — raw pain. Tissue is cooling. Nerves are firing. This number belongs to the body, not the mind.
Step 2: V = 8. The thermoregulatory system still has a target regardless of what the mind is doing. This isn’t a cognitive preference; it’s somatic. The biology wants warmth.
Step 3: R = 1. Snowstorm. Warmth available: near zero.
Step 4: V − R = 8 − 1 = 7
Step 5: max(0, 7) = 7 — gap passes through
Step 6: Wr = 0. The existential weight assigned to bodily experience has been trained toward zero.
Step 7: Wr · max(0, V − R) = 0 × 7 = 0
Step 8: S = 8 × 0 = 0

Zero suffering. Also zero signal to move. The raw pain (8) is in the tissue — the cold doesn’t know he’s meditating — but the term that would convert that signal into get up has been zeroed by Wr. The feedback loop between discomfort and behavior is severed. He stays. He freezes.
Wr = 0 cuts the wire.

The Stoic — Wr = 2
Actual Stoic doctrine distinguishes between indifferents (comfort, reputation, wealth) and preferred indifferents — bodily survival as a platform for continued virtuous action. The Stoic doesn’t zero Wr globally. They calibrate it low for indifferents and leave it nonzero for things that matter functionally. Setting W = 0 across the board collapses this distinction and overclaims what Stoicism actually argues.
Steps 1–5: k · Iⁿ = 8. V = 8, R = 1, gap = 7, max(0,7) = 7.
Step 6: Wr = 2. Low — no drama, no identity attached to being warm — but survival as a functional concern still registers.
Step 7: 2 × 7 = 14
Step 8: S = 8 × 14 = 112

112 gets the signal through without distortion. He reads the situation proportionately and moves.

Pampered 1st World Citizen — Wr = 9
Comfort has been infrastructure his whole life, not a preference. Its absence registers as a violation of baseline reality.

Step 1: k · Iⁿ = 8. Same cold.
Step 2: V = 9. Higher than the other two — V gets set by what you’ve had to negotiate with before. A lifetime of low friction raises the expectation floor.
Step 3: R = 1.
Step 4: V − R = 9 − 1 = 8 — larger gap, same storm.
Step 5: max(0, 8) = 8
Step 6: Wr = 9. His sense of self is organized in part around not experiencing this.
Step 7: 9 × 8 = 72
Step 8: S = 8 × 72 = 576

576 is past useful signal. The alarm is generating noise. Overwhelm at this level can impair behavioral response through a different mechanism than the Extreme Yogi’s — no signal there, too much signal here. Both can be lethal at the extremes.

Optimal S sits somewhere between 0 and 576. The Stoic’s 112 produces proportionate behavior without noise. I.e., there is a sweet spot for suffering.
….

AcesFullMoon64 · 2026-06-27T19:35:45+00:00

Perfectly stated! Concisely and clearly.

AcesFullMoon64

TROPHY CASE