Discussion Why are we creatures able to develop mental illnesses

[Life_is_Dead]

For example pain. Pain is used by the brain to make you aware of your surroundings and avoid any physical injury that could be a threat to your survival. Or warn you that's there something wrong with your body and that you need to get it fixed soon.

A Check Engine Light.

When an animal is defective from the get go, laws of nature will dispose of it because it won't be able to follow up the healthy ones standards. It will die and won't pass on the "bad genes". Either physical or mental.

Now what is the point of depression ? What good does it make evolutionary speaking to have creatures capable of going crazy ?

Is it nature's way to deal with you more efficiently ? It triggers the brain to enter into self-destruction mode by telling us to "kill yourself". Isn't it counterproductive by life standards to make us kill ourselves if the goal of the game is to survive ?

Even for an animal. Why will it go bonkers if it's locked up, abused, hit, not fed etc… It will develop all sorts of mental problems and social confidence. It will then become "defective" like the others and die too.

Why aren't we immune to this ? It's doesn't help survival at all.

If we're the children of abusive parents, and become all messed up as we grow up, and die, isn't it the fault of the ones that perpetrated those acts of violence ? Why doesn't life dispose of them instead ? Because it's counterproductive to lose living beings if we go by how life has programmed itself.

Or is it a way to sort out individuals that are strong enough to take all kinds of abuse and dispose of those who were born with weaker brains.

I don't understand.

I think this whole experiment has gone a bit too far. At a primitive state it worked quite well (and I'm far from telling that it was worth something), but now that we're all so self-aware, and that consciousness kicked harder than ever before, life's initial parameters aren't meeting up our mores anymore.

I think we could use an update.

 

[Plankter]

I like to think of all that as byproducts. We developed pain so that we could thwart lethal injuries, but as a side effect we also unlocked pointless agonizing pain that doesn't go away despite there being nothing to be done. We developed depression so that we would be dissatisfied by our misery and improve our circumstances, thus increasing our chances of survival, but as a byproduct we gained completely irrational lifelong mental distress' that don't go away. It's also very likely that the repercussions of such emotions began to emerge in the more recent years where humans started having more and more spare time to direct towards existential contemplation. The sharp & radical changes in our lifestyles in the past century also probably made the survival mechanisms that have been evolving for millions of years become obsolete in a matter of decades. Our evolution-rooted ancient techniques of living are incompatible with the living environment we have today.

Basically, humans have outperformed nature in advancement. We advanced our way of living so quickly that now we have to wait for evolution to catch up.

 

[top_cat]

Evolution isn't perfect it just seeks "good enough". In fact it doesn't seek anything, it's simply what works gets passed on as well as what doesn't cause extinction of a species stays, bad or neutral things (appendix,)

The brain I suppose also has no way of repairing mental illness.

 

[Peaceatlast]

For example pain. Pain is used by the brain to make you aware of your surroundings and avoid any physical injury that could be a threat to your survival. Or warn you that's there something wrong with your body and that you need to get it fixed soon.

A Check Engine Light.

When an animal is defective from the get go, laws of nature will dispose of it because it won't be able to follow up the healthy ones standards. It will die and won't pass on the "bad genes". Either physical or mental.

Now what is the point of depression ? What good does it make evolutionary speaking to have creatures capable of going crazy ?

Is it nature's way to deal with you more efficiently ? It triggers the brain to enter into self-destruction mode by telling us to "kill yourself". Isn't it counterproductive by life standards to make us kill ourselves if the goal of the game is to survive ?

Even for an animal. Why will it go bonkers if it's locked up, abused, hit, not fed etc… It will develop all sorts of mental problems and social confidence. It will then become "defective" like the others and die too.

Why aren't we immune to this ? It's doesn't help survival at all.

If we're the children of abusive parents, and become all messed up as we grow up, and die, isn't it the fault of the ones that perpetrated those acts of violence ? Why doesn't life dispose of them instead ? Because it's counterproductive to lose living beings if we go by how life has programmed itself.

Or is it a way to sort out individuals that are strong enough to take all kinds of abuse and dispose of those who were born with weaker brains.

I don't understand.

I think this whole experiment has gone a bit too far. At a primitive state it worked quite well (and I'm far from telling that it was worth something), but now that we're all so self-aware, and that consciousness kicked harder than ever before, life's initial parameters aren't meeting up our mores anymore.

I think we could use an update.

Life is Dead...Amazing thoughts and questions. I think about this often but am at a complete loss for answers

 

[Life_is_Dead]

Thank you =)

Yeah I think a lot of questions will never get a concrete answer.

I like to ask them anyway. A manner of starting a conversation and make our brains entertained for a time.

 

[Davy]

Good question! I don't know the real answer but I can throw out some wild guesses!

- Brain circuitry is complicated, perhaps there is something wrong with the wiring in someones brain and mental illness is natures way of disposing of a defective person. The brain and mind are not imperfect and can be damaged like any other organ.

- Mental illness is a coping mechanism. For example when someone becomes exceedingly stressed, psychosis may be a pathway for someone to retreat into their own reality. Agoraphobia or anxiety leads people to shut themselves into safer environments, away from the dangers. A victim of domestic abuse who can not escape violence might dissociate to disconnect themselves from a traumatic environment. ect.

- We developed emotions, which can be both good and bad. Emotions motivate us to engage in survival behaviours and is critical to human evolution. Perhaps mental problems are "flaws" that stem from humans developing emotions and sentience. We aren't bugs whose only thoughts are to eat and survive.

- Modern society does not fit well with human nature. Maybe humans are not designed to live a modern industrialised society so we develop problems. We aren't self-sufficient any more, community and family ties have become weaker, our expectations have become too high, stress is too much in competitive focused schooling and work, ect.

 

[Life_is_Dead]

Very good insight on mental illness as a way of making us run away from those threatening situations.

But the issue is - as Plankter said - that we get negative long lasting effects as byproducts.

It should work like pain. Just an electrical shock to warn us, "hey, those people are garbage, get away from them or they will destroy you".

But then "hey, now that you're out of danger, please dispose of yourself". Not making any sense at all.

But yeah we probably are just complex mechanisms. If you bash a machine enough it will get beyond what we can repair at some point. And develop bugs.

Society is without a doubt the culprit here. Maybe this is the "Great Filter" that no species were able to overcome. The lifestyles evolved way too fast compared to the millions of years that the Universe needs to assemble a couple bricks.

Crazy.