"For instance, my critique calls into question whether or not asceticism is really Buddhist at all."

Um, this guy named Buddha answered that a while back: no. (See the middle way.)

Given that the meaning of suffering you have in mind in your example is clearly different from the idea that Buddhists have in mind when they talk about suffering, is it really appropriate to try to link this idea to their way of looking at the world?

Also, where did you get the idea that a universe can achieve nirvana, and that this would occur when the universe is saturated with life? Your use of the Pali spellings of Buddhist terms suggests that you've been studying Theravada Buddhism, but I can't remember anything in what I learned about their views that would suggest anything like that. The idea you're talking about sounds almost like the Eighth Consciousness of the Yogacara school, though I'm not particularly well versed in this idea. Is this what you had in mind? If so, could you tell me more about it? And why would saturation with life have anything to do with an end to suffering?

One thing that pops out at me is that you seem to have defined cosmic "suffering" to basically mean "decay," but as far as we know, decay is simply a permanent feature of the workings of the universe. Accordingly, cosmic nirvana (which you've characterized as an end of cosmic suffering) would be impossible. No? And that seems rather antithetical to the way Buddhists like to think about the universe; it would seem to lead us to reject the last two Noble Truths (though they referred to suffering of a very different sort than we are discussing here).

An important question that remains for me is why you think that suffering is the product of decay. If my girlfriend walks out on me, then the correct account of my sadness does not point out that since the time when my girlfriend and I were together, the universe decayed, producing the current state. The point is that I was emotionally attached to my relationship with my girlfriend, and I am now filled with desires that are now frustrated.

Okay, there's a lot there, so let's try to address your points one by one. First, by "LTV," do you mean Labor Theory of Value? If so, what does the labor theory of value have to do with physics?

I hope it's not seeming like I just pick random topics and try to claim that they are related in mysterious ways :p

Okay I think this is an interesting idea, but we can safely discuss cosmic suffering without relying on it; if possible, I'd like to leave this point until later so we don't get side tracked and never finish the original conversation. If you'd like, though, we can talk about it in another thread.

I want to skip to your fourth point, because I think it represents one of the core problems we're working with here. You seem to be implying that the reason there is attachment, and therefore suffering, is because people naturally enter into some kind of biological systemic relationship with the objects of their attachment, and therefore when those objects are no longer able to perform their functions in the system, the individual experiences suffering. Is this a correct summation of what you were trying to say?

If so, then I'm not sure you're working within the tradition of Buddhist thought; this is not exactly the way that I've heard Buddhists speak of the relationship between attachment and suffering. A Buddhist would argue that there is no system composed of an attached individual and the object of his attachment; there is only a misguided mental habit on the part of the attached individual grounded on a static and persistent understanding of a set of circumstances necessarily characterized by permanent flux and impermanence. The suffering does not occur because of the flux, which is an inherent part of the universe, but rather because of the mental habit. That's why Buddhists like Nagarjuna argued that there's no real difference between nirvana and samsara; they're just two ways of looking at the same thing. Does that make any sense?

Thank you for your replies, Nick!

I don't really have a response, but I wanted to let you know that I'm thinking about what you said.