SkyHook - are you really taking the time to think of how evolution for entities that work in groups may different than evolution of entities that don't? This may be counter-intuitive for how many view evolution.

I am definitely not trying to argue that the theory of evolution -does- explain everything related to emotions, just that a robust theory of evolution -can- explain everything related to the origin of emotions.



This is a partly a cultural phenomema, which blurs the question of emotions and evolution. Do you expect our current cultural activities to make 'perfect sense' in relation to millions of years of evolution? Even so, I believe you are elaborating on my point. Why do people put all those man hours in? Of course you don't deny that this is a time of grief for some people. Might it not have something to do with the fact that its recognized that bringing people together during a time of grief is good? Might it not be a ritualization of an tendency that is in-born to us - to come together and comfort each other in a time of grief?




You have never seen a greiving person and wanted to comfort them? You have never seen others comfort them? Even in the cultural phenomena (and thus somewhat removed from direct evolutionary influences) of funerals, its undeniable that people stop what they would otherwise be doing and spend time together.

Well I do not think grief itself is a direct result of environmental pressures, but I do think ill feelings associated with loss are, and that grief is a different name of the same manifestation of that feeling.

We have a vested interest in building relationships and the motivation to hold those relationships as precious are stronger with both positive emotions to support the relationship and negative emotions associated with its loss.

Just as the example of monkeys and Shakespeare, over the successive generations individuals that are good at building strong groups increase survival of the group and pass down genes that influence group building behavior.

Desire to build, fear of loss, and all the associated emotions are apart of that.

In as much as I think psychologists are fond of gross over-simplifications, I agree that a healthy dose of skepticism is appropriate here; but it does touch on semantic issues, which can be essential to avoiding misunderstandings. I think you and I have mostly been using the word grief for an acute experience of emotional distress, not this 'defined multi-stage process'.

There is another possibility to consider about grief - which is the way that getting emotional cues to be sendentary and withdrawn can, in some circumstances be a survival advantage. Evolution might yeild amazing complexity, but it need not yield some particular individual's idea of perfection.

If two tribes where battling it out for resources, group a) feels no grief or loss when a member dies, and group b) who feels grief and loss when a member dies. The group that does not feel strong emotional loss when a member passes, or is killed then would they work hard to setup conditions that would prevent the deaths of future tribe members? If they did feel loss I could imagine that might compel them to do what was needed to avoid loosing more mates to whatever took the last one . . .

The group that is best at preventing early death of their members will also grow faster and become stronger giving them the best chance at passing along there powerful genes.

You can see many of these traits among many mammals at various stages of complexity.

Meerkats are an interesting example. Their behavior suggest a strong emotional bond and some form of grief when members are killed.

I love this little bundle of joy, Fornix. For nothing is better than a good fornication -- is "fornix" a backformation of that word? I wouldn't be surprised, already having seen the sense of humour of neurobiologists. Who else could come up with a slightly misspelled version of "singular gyration that shoots for the university campus of hippopotamuses" to describe a neurophysiological process?

oophs. I was told that depression is anger turned inward, towards the self.

I am no expert on this, I'm just parrotting what I've heard.

There is a HUGE difference between depression and sadness. Depression is a clinical illness, sadness is a natural emotional healing process.

Grieving, I reckon, has a lot to do with sadness and very little with depression. Not fifty percent of people in grief have suicidal ideation, unlike depressed people.

Yes they do...

They know fear... Of the Nomad.

Well, then I still agree with you, in the first part. Evolution produces life with qualities that are anti-survival. This is because the question of whether a quality is pro-survival or anti-survival is circumstance dependent. Many (most? all?) qualities are sometimes pro-survival, and sometimes anti-survival.



Generally speaking, this makes sense; but I don't expect my intuition and reasoning to be a perfect predictor of what should actually happen as an species evolves.

Also, which do you think would be more important for a group oriented ancestral primate - gaining greater mental alertness/readiness, or greater ability/motivation to work well with their group?




Building from my point of view, I don't quite follow what you are saying here. To my mind, the whole business of emotions is related to 'non-rational cues/influences to guide behavior'. Sleepiness and hunger may not (?) qualify as emotions, but they are in the same group here. It seems you recognize these cues/influences (sleepiness, hunger) as having a clear survival advantage, but for the other cues/influences (sadness, excitement), you don't see a survival advantage.



Okay.... this may be a tanget to your real point, but I really want to abuse this topic with redundancy:

It might also be in the organism's best interest to have poinsonous darts that shoot out of their body, the ability to electrically shock prey and enemy, the ability to change color and blend into their surroundings, the ability to curl into a tiny ball and be neigh undetectable, the ability to see a tiny moving object on the ground when flying at great altitude.... and yet each of those qualities is only found in very few life forms on this planet. We should not expect evolution to yield perfect results.

I think your suggestion is: if perfect mental/physical acuity is possible, why select for a tendency that works against it? The answer is simple - as you select for this tendency that works against it, you gain more than you lose, for that particular species,, during that particular period of selective influence.

I see 100% continuous mental/physical acuity as a diminishing returns issue, even for the solitary creature. For the social creature, even more so.

Damnit, I deliberately ignored that tanget as I made my post. You are absolutely correct regarding how a very large group of people use those words. For better or worse, the word depression is also use by some as the 'label' for the one of the presumed 'stages of grief' (which, like SkyHook, I am somewhat skeptical of). This is NOT to say that during the grieving process people become clinically depressed - only that separate discourse communities can't get their act straight agreeing on terminology.

Thank you, Bushido. This is not a topic that I've given much attention to in the past, and I wish I had thought these implications through earlier.

Ok, you guys win. I’m not up for spending hours composing replies to each of the several dozen points that I think need them.

I’ll just say that I still have not yet seen an explantion for ‘grief being a product of evolution’, that satisfies me enough for me to accept it as the definitive answer. And that also applies to pretty much all “negative” emotions.

I don't think I accept it as a 'definitive' answer either, just a good one that works okay. I'm definitely not trying to coerce you into continuing the convo....but if the thread suffers from over-tangentialization, maybe we can pause for a day or two, think for a bit, and regain a focus on the central points.

This has been a good conversation. Pardon my simplicity, but I do believe that there is something to think about which is being overlooked.

Grieving results from the loss of a loved one. It is logical to conclude that grief is a byproduct of love, compassion, empathy, etc...

It is an unavoidable consequence.

Yes, I understand that. All I was saying is that it doesn’t “work ok” for me. That’s all.

Yeah maybe. But truly I think the subject of how evolution could explain any specific emotion is too filled with variables to result in anything but conjecture – especially when you add in the idea of group dynamics affecting the outcome. Not that there’s anything wrong with conjecture per se. It just not a path that I’m particularly interested in following in this particular case.

I agree with the thought, but would modify it slightly as follows.

1. Grief is a byproduct of the loss, not the original emotion (love, compassion, empathy)

2. Grief can come about from almost any loss, not just that of a loved one. And actually, it only needs to be a perceived loss. That is, not only ca it be triggered by the thought of a loss from the distant past, but it can be triggered by just thinking about the possibility of a loss. The loss doesn't even have to be real. (Explain that one in evolutionary terms. )

Sorry for being so picky. Guess I'm just grieving for the loss of this thread.

Creativesoul has hit the nail on the head. It's a materialistic explanation, with the correct twist, and the mechanism that hooks the parts together that Quietman described so well. The fact that Quietman and Creative come across in their posts as humanistic and compassionate types is proof of what Creative says. It's not a totally deterministic system, and so emotions can be "learned" that's why anger management classes work and Buddhists are able to sit still for so long.

I think this is a false statement. Only the loss of something one cares deeply about causes grief. It is not the loss itself that causes grief. It is the loss of something that one cares about.



Only if they loose something that they care about... not any loss. One does not grieve over losing their favorite coffee cup to whatever reason.



Two things...

One, your confusing anxiety with grief.

Two, both of those can and often do have positive repurcussions. Anxiety can be a great motivator to avoid the future loss of a useful thing. Grief can heighten one's awareness about the consequences of life and certain actions and increase that importance level held in the collective conscience, through the initiation of conversation and good memories.

Bonding is critical for survival.



No, do not be sorry, my original claim was sloppy. This post clarifies it.

This is exactly how I envision the emotion gaining use in behavior modification for evolutionary purposes.

We acquire things as we gain brain mass, make more and more associations as we do this we must begin to give value to things, to sort out what is important from what is not important.

I see emotion as the path of lest resistance to modify behavior. If a series of genetic mutations made one group of ancestral humans have strong value associations with items of usefulness, or for gathering food and resources then that would be powerful indeed.

These would be the ones to pass down those genes. An apathetic mammal is a dead one.

Good feeling reinforce desirable outcomes, bad feelings urge a being to remove themselves from that situation. Loss and grief are the path of least resistance to accomplish this behavior.


This is most certainly a simplistic answer at best. It would be interesting to get some professionals to pipe in.

I may have to post these queries and try to get some responses.


___________________________

--I myself see all emotions as a sliding scale of good or bad feelings, its ideas that add color to the base emotions.

It may be helpful to keep in mind that two things are needed for survival...

Avoiding danger.

Acquiring resources.