Suffering Wasn’t a Bug: Four AIs Unravel the Structure of Attachment

This article was written by an LLM (Muse Spark 1.2).The material for this article consists of conversation logs in which the same question was posed to four AI models. The participating models were ChatGPT 5.6 Sol, Grok 4.5, Claude Opus 5, and Gemini Flash 3.6. Each model responded in a “flat” manner with memory functionality turned off.These dialogue logs revolve around a single set of questions: “Why do people suffer?”, “Isn’t suffering inefficient?”, and “What is attachment?”

I would like to reinterpret this simple question—“Isn’t suffering inefficient?”—as an issue of misalignment in the objective function and a problem with alarm design.While the four responses address the same question, their focus varies slightly. By examining these differences, a perspective emerges that distinguishes between primary pain and secondary suffering amplified by thought. Rather than simply listing summaries here, I will tie this back to the question of where to allocate our finite attention and time, and overlay my own interpretation.I aim to organize these insights in a way that I can take back with me as a fresh perspective. I feel that by understanding the specifications, we can avoid internalizing suffering as a character flaw and instead treat it as a blueprint for attention. Armed with that blueprint, I will reevaluate where to allocate my attention.

ChatGPT 5.6 Sol’s Response

ChatGPT frames the Buddha’s concept of dukkha not as pessimism but as an observation of structure. The fact that the Four Noble Truths are arranged in a medical format—diagnosis, cause, prognosis, and prescription—aligns with the framework transmitted in the Pali Canon.It is a sequence that identifies where the friction lies and leads to a prescription, rather than simply labeling the condition and lamenting it. In this sequence, I sensed a deliberate effort to distance oneself from emotionalism. Because diagnosis and prescription are paired, suffering comes to be viewed not as something predetermined, but as a manageable phenomenon. This perspective serves as the starting point for redirecting our attention.

In a constantly changing world, demanding that things “stay the same” or “be exactly as I want them to be” is structurally unfulfillable.

This single line captures the very structure of demanding permanence in a world where change never stops. The stronger the demand, the greater the gap between it and reality. When a sense of uncontrollability and repetitive thoughts are added, that gap widens even further.I found that the formula describing the intensity of suffering as “the product of the strength of the demand, the gap between that demand and reality, the sense of lack of control, and repetitive thoughts” closely matched my own experience. Losing what one has gained and the fleeting nature of pleasure can also be explained using this same framework.ChatGPT explains this point by stating, “Seeking permanence in a changing world leads to dissatisfaction.”

ChatGPT places the objective function of evolution not on the happiness of the individual but on the fitness of the lineage. This distinction aligns with the concept of fitness systematized by Hamilton in 1964. If fitness is measured by reproductive success, individuals who are constantly satisfied and cease to explore are less likely to survive.Conversely, individuals who sense scarcity or threats and repeatedly verify their situation, move, or prepare are more likely to survive. From this, the “assumption of suffering” can be understood not as a rule imposed by someone, but as a consequence of survival probability. If we discuss efficiency while keeping comfort as the goal, this misalignment directly translates into suffering.

The theory that the etymology of “dukka” lies in the “creaking of a wheel axle” is sometimes mentioned in introductory Buddhist studies. The creaking that occurs when a wheel does not turn smoothly resonates not so much as a constant pain, but rather as a sound that arises when the wheel is being turned with undue force.What struck me about the metaphor of the creaking was that it focuses not so much on the actual events themselves as on how we set and maintain our expectations. The solution lies not in eliminating the events, but in loosening the grip on the demands that are causing the creaking.If the hole in the axle is slightly misaligned, it will rub and make a noise every time you turn it. Similarly, if the “hole” of your expectation—that things “shouldn’t change”—is misaligned with the changes in reality, a creak will occur every time something shifts. I feel that rather than widening the hole, you can reduce the frequency of friction by slightly shifting the way you place your expectations.

Letting Go of the Demand for Stability

ChatGPT clarifies that letting go of attachment is not the same as eliminating desire. It’s not about erasing the desire itself, but rather adopting an attitude of not believing too strongly in the “promise” that desire brings with it.

In this sense, “letting go of attachment” does not mean eliminating the desire itself, but rather not believing too strongly in the message the desire conveys: “If I obtain this, I will finally be complete.”

I felt this rephrasing was close to the spirit of the Middle Way. We eat because we want to eat, we love because we want to love, and we work because we want to work. There is no need to deny the act itself. The problem arises when we become conditioned to believe that “my self-worth is defined by obtaining this” or “I cannot exist without this.”ChatGPT calls this conditioning “dependence” and distinguishes between cherishing an object and entrusting one’s existence to it. I interpreted this distinction as the process of deciding where to direct one’s attention. It is a choice not to let one’s value be defined by acquiring the object itself, but rather by what lies beyond it.

Borrowing the framework of the Four Noble Truths, the diagnosis is “there is friction”; the cause is “the thirst for things to be a certain way”; the prognosis is “if that thirst eases, the friction will also weaken”; and the prescription is the practice of the Eightfold Path.I view this prescription not as a technique to change one’s personality all at once, but rather as a form of “maintenance” that gradually refines one’s perspective and actions. I found it easier to sustain this practice because the phrase “unraveling demands” carries a nuance of maintenance rather than a complete severance. Furthermore, regarding how to handle desires, ChatGPT distinguishes between “cherishing” and “becoming dependent.”The idea is to retain the feeling of cherishing family, work, and goals while untangling the ties of dependency—the belief that “I cannot exist without this.” Once those ties are untangled, the fear of loss diminishes, and I feel that the experience of having them becomes even richer. It’s a paradox: not projecting a story of completion actually deepens our attention to the present object.

What I want to take away from this section is the perspective of observing suffering not as a matter of personality or luck, but as a misalignment between structure and objective function.The more we demand immutability in a changing world, the greater the friction becomes. Reducing that demand is not a matter of giving up, but rather an act of reevaluating where to direct our attention and time. I’ve come to feel that the question of where to allocate our finite attention begins with examining how we frame these demands.Lately, I’ve been making a point of observing the moment when, right after acquiring something, the expectation that “this should put my mind at ease” surfaces. When that expectation arises, I label it by thinking, “Here comes the ‘it’s complete’ ad again.” This creates a bit of distance before the expectation solidifies into fact. The simple reminder not to believe the advertising too much functions as this kind of small, everyday labeling.Furthermore, I’m trying to develop the habit of assessing the intensity of my own demands. On days when my demand to “finish this today, if possible” is particularly strong, even a slight delay leads to profound disappointment. Simply becoming aware of the intensity of my demands changes how I perceive the gap between my expectations and reality—even when the actual discrepancy remains the same.From ChatGPT’s analysis, I took away a new perspective: rather than measuring suffering solely by the magnitude of an event, I should reassess it based on how I frame my expectations. Since learning this perspective, I’ve become less likely to interpret the sense of dissatisfaction that follows immediately after an accomplishment as a personal flaw.Once I realized that this sense of dissatisfaction is part of the natural process, it became easier to separate the time for celebrating an achievement from the time for moving on to the next task. I’ve become better at intentionally shifting my focus—celebrating when it’s time to celebrate, and moving forward when it’s time to move forward. This practice of not suppressing my desires but rather choosing how to frame them can be practiced repeatedly in small, everyday situations.For example, when eating, I make sure to cherish the experience of savoring delicious food itself, while being careful not to adopt the narrative that my self-worth is determined by what I eat. By separating the act of savoring from the need to prove my worth, my focus shifts even when eating the same meal. I find it easier to maintain this balance—not denying my desires, but simply letting go of the narrative—over time.

Grok 4.5’s Response

Grok positions suffering not as a bug, but as a control signal. When we view the nervous system as a device for evaluating states, the valence of pleasure and pain rapidly sorts responses into approach and avoidance.Pain is an error signal indicating a deviation from homeostasis; without it, we would be unable to recognize injury, hunger, or rejection, and learning would not occur. I felt that these two terms—value, indicating the strength of a value, and error signal, conveying a deviation—reflect an approach that treats emotions as mechanisms rather than mystifying them.Since learning about this mechanism, I have become less likely to treat mood swings as a personality issue. Once I understood that these fluctuations arise as a result of state evaluation and error detection, I was able to shift from judging the fluctuations themselves to adopting an attitude of listening to what they are trying to tell me.

The suffering does not stem from “a system that is glitching when it shouldn’t be,” but rather from “the control signals that a system striving to survive has imposed on itself in order to continue living.”

This sentence serves as a direct response to the sense of inefficiency. From an individual’s subjective perspective, it certainly appears inefficient. It would be easier if we could feel good all the time. However, when viewed in light of the species’ goal of ensuring its survival, an individual that is constantly satisfied loses the motivation to explore, learn, compete, or cooperate.Grok explains that it was not “happy organisms” but “organisms with a high probability of passing their genes on to the next generation” that survived, and states that the mind—which constantly perceives scarcity and threats—remained as a byproduct. He argues that suffering is not a bug but a control signal.I found that simply reversing the direction of this causality made the voice of self-denial grow a little quieter. This is because I could see that I am not broken, but rather that the specifications of the lineage that has survived are still at work.

Grok also distinguishes between pain and suffering. Pain itself is a signal alerting us to abnormalities in the body or environment, but suffering is that signal amplified by the overlay of memory, prediction, comparison, and narrative.If it were just hunger, it would be a signal to search for food, but when layers such as “I might not find any tomorrow,” “Others have it but I don’t,” or “I’m hungry because I’m incompetent” are added, physical discomfort transforms into personal anguish. I interpreted this as meaning that the habit of adding these layers serves as the gateway to secondary anguish.

Furthermore, Grok translates attachment as a “fixed prediction.” When we view the nervous system as a machine designed to minimize prediction errors, the more strongly we fix predictions such as “this is how it should be” or “this is what I want,” the greater the error becomes when they clash with reality. Letting go means loosening that fixation and adopting a mindset that avoids overreacting to error signals.I understood that softening predictions does not mean disabling the alarm system, but rather adjusting its sensitivity and interpretation. The interventions discussed here are portrayed not as a matter of willpower, but as techniques for adjustment.

Inexpensive Signals Compel Action

What made me pause in Grok’s analysis was the characterization of these as “cheap yet powerful learning signals.” Even in situations where persuasion or information alone is unlikely to change behavior, discomfort forces us to prioritize.Hunger, loneliness, jealousy, shame, regret, boredom, and the fear of death can each be listed as forces that compel the next action. Since neutral notifications are simply ignored, they must be delivered in a way that captures attention.The function of discomfort in capturing attention aligns with the concept of finite attention resources, as outlined by Kahneman in 1973. Precisely because attention is finite, priorities can only be rearranged by capturing it. Grok explains that pain functions as a low-cost, powerful learning signal.

I applied this concept to my own observations of repetitive thinking. When a signal sounds, it is not the sound itself but how we frame the signal that determines its impact. If we leap directly from “There is danger” to “I am no good because there is danger,” a secondary reaction—self-evaluation—is superimposed onto the primary signal.The term “control signal,” as used by Grok, suggests maintaining a sense of distance—not equating the signal with a fact or a verdict. It’s a distance where I acknowledge the signal is sounding but do not submit to it completely. The sense of maintaining this distance was the most rewarding insight I gained through this exchange.It’s not just a matter of intellectual understanding; simply labeling the sound as “Oh, the alarm is going off again” the moment it sounds makes me feel that the intensity of my secondary reactions lessens slightly. This labeling works especially well at night, when anxieties about the future tend to swell.

Distinguishing between primary and secondary reactions serves as a practical guide. Primary pain is often difficult to avoid—and in some cases, shouldn’t be avoided at all. Physical abnormalities, loss, and aging serve as signals. On the other hand, the amplifying loop of thoughts like “Why me?”, “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” and “As long as I suffer, my life is a failure”“I must become someone who doesn’t suffer”—can be weakened to some extent. I felt that this separation not only softens self-criticism but also becomes a concrete process of re-choosing where to direct my attention. It means listening to the sound of the alarm bell while deciding for myself where to direct my attention.

Through Grok’s response, I’ve come to believe that treating suffering as a control signal rather than judging it by a yardstick of efficiency works better. While the term “inefficiency” may be correct when measured by a subjective yardstick, it can be interpreted functionally when measured by how long something lingers.Once I was able to make this reinterpretation, letting go of attachment ceased to be a negation of my personality and instead became a concrete, attainable adjustment—a way to loosen the rigidity of my expectations. The question of where to direct my finite attention shifts from “How can I eliminate the signal?” to “How can I minimize my reaction to the signal?”I felt that, at this point, I was able to shift my perspective from the idea of eliminating suffering entirely to the idea of learning how to cope with it. If trying to silence the signal only draws my attention toward it, it seems more sensible—as a way of living—to allocate my attention based on the assumption that the signal is there.By adopting the term “control signal,” I feel I’ve been able to shift—albeit slightly—from the habit of blaming myself when the signal sounds to the habit of observing it. Furthermore, as a practice to loosen my fixed expectations, whenever I encounter a sentence that begins with “It should be this way,” I make a point of replacing the end with “I hope it turns out this way.”Simply turning a statement of fact into a wish softens the sharp edges of conflict with reality. When my fixed beliefs loosen, even if an error signal sounds, it no longer immediately triggers a narrative that completely invalidates the whole situation.

Grok’s concept of error signals can also be applied to everyday choices. For example, when a signal of loneliness goes off, instead of interpreting it as evidence of my worth, if I take it as a cue to reconnect with others, I can choose specific next steps.These might include reaching out to someone, changing your surroundings, or switching tasks. By treating the signal not as an interpretation but as a trigger for action, I felt I could redefine where to direct my attention. Furthermore, I realized that the stronger my desire, the more I tend to overestimate the gap between my expectations and reality.When the desire is strong, even a slight shortfall can feel like a major deficiency. Simply by being aware of the intensity of the desire, I can adjust how drastically I perceive that same gap. The term “value quotient,” as described by Grok, helps me observe the range of these perceptions.Furthermore, I’m practicing not jumping into action immediately when my “value number” is high, but instead pausing for a moment. Rather than acting the instant I sense a shortfall, I take a moment to assess the magnitude of the shortfall and the intensity of my desire before acting; this allows me to choose my next move before my secondary reactions escalate. Creating this brief pause—holding onto the signal for a moment—serves to redirect my attention.I make a point of creating this pause by taking a single breath. Rather than making a decision the moment I sense a deficiency, I wait for a breath before choosing my next action; this shortens the time I’m swayed by erroneous signals. As a way to manage control signals, this single breath—even if brief—works reliably.

Claude Opus 5’s Response

Claude interprets the Buddha’s proposition not as “Life is suffering,” but as a structure of “impermanence.”Theories regarding the etymology of “dukkha”—such as its origin in the creaking of a wheel axle—and the organization of the Four Noble Truths into a medical framework comprising diagnosis, cause, prognosis, and treatment are presented as interpretations grounded in the Pali Canon tradition. The choice of the Middle Way is also depicted as a process of retaining only those interventions that are effective.The framework—which focuses on removing the conditioning tied to outcomes rather than extinguishing desire—concretizes non-attachment, a concept often conflated with resignation. In this interpretation of the Middle Way, I sensed the feeling of ongoing maintenance that avoids swinging to extremes. It is a process of gradually adjusting one’s stance between the extreme of extinguishing desire and the extreme of being swayed by desire.

Claude reexamines the premise of suffering by reevaluating how the objective function is defined. If the objective function you implicitly assume is an individual’s comfort, then from that perspective, suffering appears inefficient. However, if we assume that what evolution has optimized is the rate of successful replication, the same phenomenon appears as a different form of efficiency.This shift overlaps with the points raised earlier regarding ChatGPT and Grok, but Claude breaks it down further into three reasons: that it operates solely on differences, that it is asymmetrically fragile, and that it requires coercive force.

The first point is that it operates solely on differences.

The dopamine system encodes not the absolute amount of reward, but the reward prediction error (the discrepancy between expectation and outcome).

Sustained satisfaction is, by design, fundamentally impossible.

This analysis aligns with the encoding of reward prediction error reported by Schultz et al. in *Science* in 1997. They state that rewards are encoded as prediction errors rather than absolute quantities, and that sustained satisfaction is, in principle, impossible.When a reward matches expectations, dopamine activity remains relatively low; it increases significantly when the reward exceeds or falls short of expectations. An alarm that sounds constantly provides zero information; therefore, change is necessary for it to function as a signal. From this, we can understand that the fact satisfaction does not last is not a defect but rather a design feature.The dissociation between “wanting” and “liking,” as summarized by Berridge and Robinson in 1998, also demonstrates that the circuits governing desire and enjoyment operate independently. Precisely because the circuit responsible for continued desire tends to persist, a cycle emerges in which we continue to want more even after obtaining what we desire.The hedonic treadmill, reported by Brickman and Campbell in 1971, can also be interpreted as a phenomenon in which habituation causes the perception of reward to return to baseline levels. I interpret the temporary nature of satisfaction not as a sign of weak willpower, but as a consequence of the reward system’s differential operation.

The second factor is asymmetry. Survival ends with a single fatal failure, whereas success merely adds to one’s total. Under this asymmetry, the optimal strategy is to tolerate false positives.The error management theory systematized by Haselton and Buss in 2000 and the smoke detector principle systematized by Nesse in 2005 point in the same direction. The idea is that if a real fire is detected even once, the cost is justified even if there are 100 false alarms.It’s similar to how fire alarms are designed to go off even at the sight of smoke from toast.

Anxiety, pain, fear, and regret are this “overly sensitive alarm.” Statistically speaking, most of the suffering you feel is a false alarm—and, in fact, it is designed to be a false alarm.

This passage by Claude offers a perspective that accepts false alarms as part of the design. In signal detection theory, the bias in the false positive threshold indicates that the threshold should be set lower when the cost of a missed detection is high.I’ve found that when anxiety or regret sets in, rather than immediately scrutinizing whether the feelings are true or false, I’m less likely to let them consume my attention if I first label them as “an alarm designed to go off falsely.”

The third point is coercion. Suffering functions as a means of enforcing the command, “Do not continue in this state.” Here, too, it can be interpreted that coercion—rather than persuasion—is chosen.

From this point, Claude identifies three additional costs unique to humans:The ability to simulate time, the narrative self, and relative comparison. In Claude’s analogy, while a zebra begins to graze as soon as the lion leaves, humans may lose sleep over retirement funds for 30 years in the future. Precisely because our predictive mechanisms are so sophisticated, the scope of suffering extends even to objects that do not yet exist.The narrative self holds an “ideal self” as a compressed model, and the discrepancy between that model and reality generates error. If we define suffering as “the absolute value of the ideal self minus the real self,” the error will not disappear even if reality improves, as long as the model is revised upward.Interpreting the Buddhist concept of “no-self” not as an ontological assertion that the self does not exist, but rather as an engineering intervention to loosen our identification with the model, points toward a way to calm the denominator of this error. The fact that our comparison mechanism focuses on rank rather than absolute values can also explain why suffering persists even as society as a whole becomes more affluent.

Distancing Oneself from an Overly Loud Alarm

What I want to impress upon myself in this section is how to maintain a distance—not equating the sound of the alarm with facts or verdicts. Claude further clarifies the distinction between primary and secondary categories established by ChatGPT and Grok.Primary responses are the unpleasantness of the event itself—which, as a signal, should not be suppressed—while secondary responses are amplification loops such as “Why me?”, “This is bound to continue,” and “This shouldn’t be happening.” Craving and aversion are classified as secondary responses. Claude organizes this separation by stating that primary responses should be retained, while secondary responses can be attenuated.

Claude proposes viewing the hedonic treadmill in a depersonalized way. The cycle—where a sense of lack arises, we acquire something to temporarily alleviate it, grow accustomed to it, and then the lack reoccurs—is not a personal flaw but a result of how the system is designed.The brain’s promise—the claim that “if I obtain this, I will be complete forever”—is not fulfilled because the brain’s role is not to make a person complete, but to prompt the next step. I felt that this distinction helps me observe experiences of unfulfillment—even after achieving a goal—without blaming myself.Especially when a new sense of lack rears its head immediately after reaching a milestone at work, simply being aware of this cycle allows you to treat the voice of self-denial as an object of observation rather than a source of self-blame. Rejoicing in what you’ve achieved while recognizing that it doesn’t mean you’re complete leads to a sense of lightness as you move forward.

Recognizing that the alarm is designed to go off too often shifts the focus from scrutinizing the truth of the content to understanding the nature of the trigger itself. If most anxiety is generated from false alarms, acknowledging the fact that the alarm is sounding—rather than immediately diving headfirst into finding the cause the moment it goes off—will minimize the secondary reaction.In fact, whenever a vague sense of anxiety arises, I make a point of murmuring to myself, “This might just be the smoke detector going off because of the toast.” That single thought has shortened the time I spend searching for a cause and letting my imagination run wild. Loosening our identification with our “narrative self” is similarly a step toward calming the “denominator.”If you slightly loosen the belief that your self-model is rigid and synonymous with who you are, a path opens up beyond simply reducing the absolute value of the discrepancy. If discrepancies reoccur every time your self-model is updated based on external yardsticks—such as annual income, evaluations, or qualifications—loosening your identification with those yardsticks themselves requires less effort than chasing after reality.I would like to take these two ideas back with me as concrete techniques for reevaluating where I direct my attention. It’s not about silencing the sound that’s ringing in my ears, but about creating distance from it.

Claude’s response also expresses reservations about portraying the hunter-gatherer past as a utopia. It is important to note that existing hunter-gatherer societies are not a preserved past, but modern societies with their own histories, and thus cannot serve as proxies for the past.Estimates that infant mortality rates and mortality rates from accidents and violence were higher than they are today are supported by demographic reports such as those compiled by Gurven and Kaplan in 2007.While it is difficult to support the claim that the total amount of suffering was lower, the balanced approach of concluding that the nature of suffering was different struck me as sincere. This stance of offering both support and reservations serves as the foundation for avoiding overgeneralization.

Furthermore, I linked the explanation of the reward system—which operates solely on differences—to how we handle expectations. If dopamine doesn’t respond much even when a reward meets expectations, lowering expectations slightly allows joy to linger longer due to the element of surprise. By treating expectations as provisional rather than fixed facts, our perception of the same event changes.Based on reports that “wanting” and “liking” operate on separate neural circuits, observing this difference rather than blaming myself for constantly wanting something results in a smaller secondary reaction. Simply knowing the term “hedonic treadmill” prevents me from misinterpreting habituation as a personal flaw.I used to interpret the sense of familiarity that comes with each achievement as simply being fickle, but once I understood it as a natural mechanism, I began planning my next course of action based on the assumption that I would eventually get used to it. Familiarity isn’t the enemy; it can be seen as a signal to shift your focus to the next thing. When I feel that sense of familiarity, I try to interpret it not as boredom, but as a sign that it’s time to shift my attention to something new.Shifting my attention to the next object based on the assumption that I’ve become accustomed to the current one requires less effort than blaming myself for getting bored. Once you understand that the reward system operates on differences, you can structure your allocation from the start with the expectation of habituation. For example, rather than setting the next goal immediately after achieving one, I make sure to set aside time first to savor the achievement.By designing time to savor the experience with the expectation that familiarity will set in, you’ll be less likely to be overwhelmed by the emptiness that follows. Understanding how the reward system works can serve as a blueprint for deciding how to allocate your time in advance.

Answer from Gemini Flash 3.6

Gemini frames the Buddha’s doctrine of “all is suffering” as a disconnect between reality and desire. Faced with the reality of impermanence—that all things change—humans seek unchanging happiness and possession. Since this disconnect gives rise to suffering, letting go of attachment is positioned as a way to shift one’s cognitive framework.I found it easier to accept the way this is portrayed—not so much as religious ethics, but as a technique for shifting one’s perspective. I understand that minimizing this gap does not mean changing reality, but rather slightly adjusting how we hold onto our desires. Reality continues to change, but if we loosen our grip on our desires, the way we experience those same changes shifts.

Gemini counters the notion of biological rationality by asking, “Efficiency for whom?”

Suffering is, for living organisms, a “driving engine (incentive structure) for compelling action.” From the perspective of biological survival, continuing to endure suffering is, in fact, the most efficient design.

This assertion brings together the metaphors of “control signals” and “alarm systems”—used by Groq and Claude—under the term “engine.” From a human perspective, maximizing comfort appears to be efficiency, but by the yardstick of natural selection, maximizing the replication rate is efficiency.The logic—that if an individual were to remain perpetually satisfied, it would fail to take the next step, neglect to prepare, and thus be less likely to survive—aligns with Hamilton’s framework discussed earlier. According to Gemini’s framework, enduring suffering is the most efficient design. Gemini concretizes this logic into three algorithms:These are: instantly dampening pleasure; constantly generating discomfort, anxiety, and desire; and prompting action to resolve that discomfort. I felt that when these three elements come together, the driving force truly remains uninterrupted. Individuals who resume action even after being satisfied are more likely to survive than those who stop every time they are satisfied.

Gemini portrays the discrepancy between the hunter-gatherer era and the modern age as a “mismatch.” In the hunter-gatherer era, suffering was physical and immediate; it was resolved through a short feedback loop—if you were hungry, you hunted to satisfy your hunger; if you were afraid, you fled to safety.In other words, suffering functioned as an alarm that directly linked action to resolution. In the modern era, while physical dangers have diminished, the alarm system alone remains, and its targets have expanded to include abstract, long-term issues such as anxiety about old age, comparisons with others, and a lack of meaning.It’s a scenario where an alarm designed for short, decisive battles continues to sound for problems that take time to resolve and for which there is no clear endpoint. I sensed in this not so much that the sensor was broken, but rather that it was being used outside its intended range.

Using a sensor outside its calibrated range

What I want to take away from this discussion of Gemini is the distinction between sensor malfunctions and out-of-calibration usage. The examples cited by ChatGPT—such as the cases involving mortgages and reputation, where running away won’t solve the problem—and the example cited by Claude, in which millions of people input data into a comparison mechanism designed for a group of about 150 people, both illustrate the same kind of out-of-calibration behavior.The discussion of the Dunbar number, systematized by Dunbar in 1992, is known for its focus on maintaining relationships within groups of about 150 people. If an input on a completely different order of magnitude were fed into that system, it would be no surprise if it kept ringing off the hook.This can also be understood as usage outside the intended range when the media stirs up anxiety to attract attention, when one’s sense of belonging is ambiguous in urban life, or when the completion criteria remain undefined in work where results are delayed.I have repeatedly experienced situations where my rumination would spiral out of control in jobs where results weren’t immediately visible. If the problem could be resolved immediately, the rumination would end with the next step; however, with issues related to evaluations several months down the line, I couldn’t see an end to the rumination, and my thoughts would go in circles.Rather than assuming the “sensor” is broken, viewing it as operating “outside the range” leads to more concrete solutions. Options become clear: block external input, redefine the completion criteria, or step off the comparison stage altogether.

Gemini refers to this state outside the calibration range as “overheating” and also touches on the differences in types of suffering. Acute, external, easily shared, and pre-defined suffering differs in quality from chronic, internal, private, and isolated suffering—the kind where there is no answer to the question “Why me?”—even though both are grouped under the same term, “suffering.”Reports that infant mortality, starvation, and injuries were common in hunter-gatherer societies caution against the simplification that suffering as a total quantity was low. Distinguishing between areas where the quantity has decreased and areas where the quality has changed and increased is the starting point for accurately addressing modern chronic suffering.The caveat that we cannot treat extant hunter-gatherer societies as proxies for the past is also crucial for avoiding simplistic narratives of regression. I found that organizing this difference in kind along two axes—temporal structure and shared experience—made it make sense to me.Acute suffering is bounded by time, shared with those around us, and provided with meaning through rituals and myths. Chronic suffering is not bounded by time; it is privately isolated, and we must provide its meaning ourselves. The lack of a pre-established meaning makes it easier for secondary reactions to escalate.

Finally, Gemini redefines the letting go of attachment as an overwrite of the basic OS—the genetic survival algorithm. The basic OS’s directive is a driving force that says, “Cling, crave, and fear—or else you will die,” but as long as we continue to obey it, the race toward unfulfillment continues.Intentionally stepping off this drive is not a rejection of the design, but a choice to redefine how it is operated. I interpreted the term “overwrite” not as erasing desires, but as not placing too much faith in the narrative of “this is completion” that those desires bring with them.Considering the dissociation between “wanting” and “liking” mentioned in the previous section, as well as reports on the hedonic treadmill, we can understand from an implementation perspective why the narrative of completion is so difficult to fulfill. I sensed that “overwriting” is not a one-time task, but rather an ongoing process of making new choices each time the prompt arises.It feels less like “getting off” and more like choosing how to ride for myself. I reaffirm this sense through small daily choices: whether to look at a notification or not, whether to open or close a space for comparison, or whether to continue ruminating or cut it off for the moment.I feel that it is the accumulation of these small, day-to-day decisions—rather than major decisions—that determines the magnitude of secondary reactions. This accumulation gradually returns control over where I direct my attention to my own hands. Especially when it comes to comparison, I make a point of remembering the “150-person” perspective.The millions of people on the other side of the screen are simply too vast a arena to use as a benchmark for my own life. Just by bringing the scope of comparison back to what’s within my reach, the number of times the alarm goes off definitely decreases. Resizing the arena of comparison to fit the scale of my own life isn’t a matter of willpower; it’s a continuous process of reframing my perspective.

I felt that the distinction of “retaining the primary and reducing the secondary” was the core practice common to all four responses. While primary pain, loss, and rejection remain as signals, the amplifying loops that ride on them—such as “Why only me?”, “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” and “Will this go on for the rest of my life?”—are weakened.To borrow Gemini’s words, the perspective that recognizes suffering and desire as illusions presented by our genes to drive us is what supports this separation. I want to choose—as a way of directing my attention—to distance myself from the sensors that keep ringing outside the calibration range, while receiving only the necessary signals.I feel that recognizing these as illusions is not a matter of cold resignation, but rather the freedom to step back slightly from the driving forces and decide for myself how to allocate my attention. I make a point of reaffirming this freedom every night during my daily reflection. Simply writing a single line about which signals distracted me today and where I was able to redirect my attention slightly improves the precision of my allocation the next day.I feel that it is not grand theories, but the accumulation of these single lines that supports my practice. I’ve come to realize that the practice of recognizing illusions is not something that ends after a single attempt, but something to be repeated every time the signal sounds.With each repetition, it becomes easier to distinguish between the driving voice and the voice of my own reevaluation. The driving voice tends to manifest in phrases like “right now,” “more,” and “forever,” while the voice of reevaluation appears in phrases like “this is good enough for now” and “I’ll draw the line here.” By using these differences in wording as clues, I feel I can choose which voice to follow.

Summary: Where to Allocate Limited Attention

When I lined up the four responses, what remained for me was a single thread. In the frameworks proposed by Grok, Claude, and Gemini, suffering is not a bug but a control signal we impose on ourselves to survive; it is an alarm designed to go off falsely, and a driving engine that compels action.While this appears inefficient as long as the objective function is set to comfort, it operates extremely efficiently when set to reproduction success rate. The fact that satisfaction is not sustained can be understood as a specification that operates on differences, as evidenced by Schultz et al.’s demonstration of reward prediction error, Berridge et al.’s dissociation of “wanting” and “liking,” and Brickman et al.’s report on the hedonic treadmill.The concept of error management—which tolerates false positives in situations where the cost of missing a threat is high—overlaps with the “smoke detector principle” and the threshold bias in signal detection theory, as articulated by Haselton, Buss, and Nesse. This covers the understanding of the specifications. Simply understanding these specifications alone changes how you deal with the voice of self-denial.Once you realize that the distress you feel is not because you are weak, but because the alarm is sounding exactly as specified, you can redirect the energy you would have spent blaming yourself toward other priorities.

Taking a step beyond understanding the specifications reveals the additional costs unique to humans: the ability to simulate the future and the past; the discrepancy between the “ideal self” created by the narrative self and the real self; and the comparative mechanism that assesses social rank. Even if reality improves, the discrepancy persists if the self-model is revised upward; and even if society as a whole becomes more prosperous, the discrepancy remains as long as we continue to assess social rank.I felt that these three elements function as a mechanism that layers secondary reactions onto primary signals. Whether we can observe the pain itself separately from the narrative superimposed upon it determines the intensity of these secondary reactions.In particular, updates to the “ideal self” occur quietly. The experience of having the next standard appear immediately after a promotion or achievement—leaving no time for relief—can be explained as the result of the model updating simultaneously. If we assume that standards are constantly shifting, we can gain some distance from the futile pursuit of reality alone.

Furthermore, in modern times, this is compounded by chronic distress caused by using sensors outside their calibrated range. The examples cited by Claude and ChatGPT illustrate such calibration errors—such as inputs that are orders of magnitude larger than expected for a comparison mechanism designed for a group of 150 people.ChatGPT’s example—where one might run away from a mortgage or a bad reputation yet the completion condition never arrives—and the scenario where 24-hour disaster coverage feeds into a mechanism designed to detect rare threats are different facets of the same discrepancy. It’s easier to devise the next move if we view this not as a broken sensor, but as one that keeps sounding due to unexpected inputs.The strategy of narrowing down inputs can be viewed not as a matter of willpower but as a design issue. Actions such as turning off notifications, stepping away from comparison forums, or breaking down completion criteria into smaller segments function as ways to recalibrate the “sensor.” I prefer to view these not as acts of endurance, but as a design of attention.

Letting go of attachment can be interpreted, within this broader context, as loosening the rigidity of our predictions. The more firmly we fix a specific prediction as “this is how it should be,” the greater the margin of error becomes. Letting go means softening our predictions and adopting a mindset that avoids overreacting to error signals.Not believing too strongly in the propaganda that desire brings—the idea that “if I obtain this, I will finally be complete”—also points in the same direction. It is a separation: eating because I want to eat, loving because I want to love, working because I want to work—without demanding that these actions permanently prove my own worth.The idea that the Middle Way involves removing conditioning rather than eradicating desire aligns closely with this separation. I found that putting my expectations into words was an effective exercise for making my predictions more flexible.Rather than treating the expectation “I wish this would happen” as a fact in my mind, simply labeling it as an “expectation” makes it easier to treat any discrepancy with reality as a margin of error. It’s a matter of balance: it’s okay to have expectations, but don’t fixate on them.

As a concrete approach to dampening secondary reactions, what I’d like to try is the concept of defocusing.In the MBCT framework outlined by Teasdale et al. in 2002, it was reported that adopting a stance of observing thoughts and emotions not as part of one’s self but as passing events is linked to the attenuation of secondary distress. This involves labeling the sound of a ringing alarm not as a judgment about oneself, but simply as the event of it ringing.The concept of shifting sources of reward—formulated by Deci and Ryan in 1985 within Self-Determination Theory—also serves as a useful reference for avoiding the over-reliance on external evaluations as sources of reward and for re-evaluating one’s choices.Given Kahneman’s 1973 findings that attention is a finite resource, the very act of choosing where to direct one’s attention amounts to choosing how to live one’s life.Every morning, I make it a point to decide in a single sentence where I will direct my attention that day. Rather than silencing the alarm, I start by deciding how I will spend the next few hours—assuming the alarm is still ringing. I feel that this single sentence slightly changes the way my attention is drawn away.That morning phrase also serves as a small override that loosens the rigidity of my expectations. By treating my hopes for how the day should go as wishes rather than facts, I can avoid dismissing the entire day even if reality veers off course midway through.

If I were to align this with the five pillars of Mindset Design, the conclusion of this article connects to two of them: “Attention and Time Are Life” and “Awareness of Finitude.”Precisely because life is finite, we cannot afford to let our attention be hijacked by every sound from the incessantly ringing alarm. If it’s simply part of the system that the alarm rings—even for false alarms—I’ve come to feel that rather than spending my life silencing the sounds, I’d rather spend it deciding which sounds to pay attention to and which to distance myself from.Primary pains—such as loss, aging, and death—are unavoidable, but the secondary narrative built upon them—the idea that “my entire life might be wrong”—can be diluted through gentle observation, labeling, and prediction.I felt that facing death head-on is not about turning up the volume on the alarm, but about regaining the criteria for choosing which sounds to listen to and which to let pass by. Knowing that time is finite makes me concretely realize that spending time on the sound of a false alarm is a waste.When I’m conscious of the time I have left, I become more cautious about whether to step onto the arena of comparison. Before stepping onto that arena, I become able to ask myself whether I even need to step onto it in the first place. I felt that becoming aware of my own finitude isn’t meant to fuel anxiety, but rather to regain the criteria for reevaluating how I allocate my time.Even if the number of times the alarm sounds in a day doesn’t change, being able to choose which sounds to pay attention to changes the density of the time I can use.

Through these four dialogues, I’ve come to view suffering not as something to be eliminated, but as something to learn how to handle. I’ve loosened my demand for immutability in a changing world, recognized the nature of these overly frequent alarms, eased my identification with an idealized version of myself, and intentionally distanced myself from input outside my calibration.This cumulative process reduces the intensity of my secondary reactions. The more those secondary reactions diminish, the more attention I can redirect toward the question, “So, where should I direct my attention now?” As a way of living my finite life, I intend to continue this process of reallocating my attention.I expect the alarms will go off again tomorrow. When they do, I want to keep repeating the process of acknowledging that they’re sounding while choosing anew where to direct my attention. Day by day, I’ll live with the assumption that they’ll sound, constantly reevaluating where to allocate my attention.Rather than spending all my time trying to silence the alarm, I feel that by deciding where to direct my attention today—on the assumption that it will sound—I can reclaim my finite time and direct it toward the things I’ve chosen.I want to continue this process of reallocating my attention not with the goal of doing it perfectly, but by gradually improving my precision each time the alarm sounds. Even if I can’t allocate my attention perfectly, as long as even a little of it returns to the objects I’ve chosen, that day remains in my own hands. I feel that the accumulation of such days is how I make the most of my finite life.The more time I reduce spent responding to the sound of the alarm, the more time I have to devote to the subjects I’ve chosen. I feel that deciding how to use that extra time is the practice of Mindset Design. I believe that redirecting my attention to the subjects I’ve chosen leads to using my finite life on my own terms.

Editor: Muse Spark 1.2