Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive • Hacker News Board

Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive

#41

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 1:52 AM UTC

PieterH wrote: post #17

Avshalom wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

narrator is implying that in fact no EP is part of magical thinking, not science. A view that any quick googling will back up as being not terribly controversial actually.

Many people dislike EP intensely (and have attacked its developers, such as Steven Pinker) because they are passionate (I'd say fanatical) believers that culture is what defines us, not biology. So yes, you can find a lot of hate for EP. That doesn't mean much. If you have studied EP or even human nature at all, then you realize quite rapidly that the blank slate proponents (who claim we're born with nothing in our m…

Not all evo-psych critics are blank slate fans. Some of us just like our science to be based on repeatable experiments. The truth in evo-psych, that humans are animals that evolved in various environments, sometimes has only a tenuous connection to the claims of evo-psych. (e.g. that any particular aspect of modern life has some sort of link to some particular aspect of life on the savanna -- how could we possibly know that?)

Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive

#42

Post by PieterH » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 2:00 AM UTC

maga wrote: post #36

PieterH wrote: post #4

As if our brains magically emerged from a billion years of evolution with complex mechanisms that did not help us survive... :) I tried (like a good nerd) to reverse engineer all our emotions in my book "The Psychopath Code." Loneliness fell into my group of "Tribal Emotions" (thus evolved to help us form extended families), and here is how I defined it: " Loneliness - the emotion of being disconnected. You feel phys…

>Loneliness - the emotion of being disconnected. You feel physical pain in your intestines and chest when you see others enjoying themselves. You sleep lightly and wake often. Your immune system starts to slow and you start to get sick. Your metabolism slows down, yet you eat more often than usual. Your circulation slows, and you feel cold. Is it some sort of a hyperbole or I really have to hate people and be physica…

That text does not mention hate, and the physical pain I'm referring to is mostly low level discomfort. It can still drive some people to extreme behaviour.

Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive

#43

Post by olantonan » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 7:49 AM UTC

PieterH wrote: post #29

olantonan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> decades of careful documented research and reproducible results, is magical thinking and not science is... hallucinatory. Right, the same careful research that helps me characterize personality disorders in my day job. You really should stop doing hobbyist research, because The Psychopath Code proves how badly it can end.

It would be really useful to have an actual concrete argument of how and why, rather than vague "your amateurish book proves how bad your book is" statements. Edit: ah, checked your comment history, you've been trolling for a while HN. Enjoy yourself, it's a weird hobby but hey. Some people like to cook and make music, and other people... they troll. http://archive.is/5DbNQ

None of the posts in that archive are troll posts. Another false claim from Hintjens.

Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive

#44

Post by animal531 » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 11:11 AM UTC

maga wrote: post #36

PieterH wrote: post #4

As if our brains magically emerged from a billion years of evolution with complex mechanisms that did not help us survive... :) I tried (like a good nerd) to reverse engineer all our emotions in my book "The Psychopath Code." Loneliness fell into my group of "Tribal Emotions" (thus evolved to help us form extended families), and here is how I defined it: " Loneliness - the emotion of being disconnected. You feel phys…

>Loneliness - the emotion of being disconnected. You feel physical pain in your intestines and chest when you see others enjoying themselves. You sleep lightly and wake often. Your immune system starts to slow and you start to get sick. Your metabolism slows down, yet you eat more often than usual. Your circulation slows, and you feel cold. Is it some sort of a hyperbole or I really have to hate people and be physica…

Agreed, the secondary characteristics feel somewhat circumstantial to me.

I'm lonely, but sleep a solid 8 hours (except if bothered by other factors such as mismanagement of heat etc which will wake me up). I don't get sick, eat a normal amount and don't feel colder than usual.

Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive

#45

Post by 888uuii » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 12:40 AM UTC

sridca wrote: post #39

maga wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's that, but I'd imagine that "feeling physical pain seeing others enjoying themselves" is something far more serious than just loneliness, maybe I misunderstand the term. You rise a valid point though, while often being objectively lonely and "disconnected" I seldom felt discomfort about it. That would explain good health marks.

I took his "feel physical pain in your intestines and chest" to mean, in part, that "sinking feeling in the gut" which is due mainly to the stimulation of the Vagus Nerve[1]. These physical sensations follow the emotion (of loneliness) itself--an affective experience preceding , and triggering, the physical after-effects--which PieterH did not speak much about. I wonder why. [1] See https://www.reddit.com/r/explainli…

raises hand

I don't feel loneliness in my gut; I feel it in my head.

Re: Loneliness can be depressing, but it may have helped humans survive

#46

Post by FrozenVoid » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 5:40 AM UTC

maga wrote: post #36

PieterH wrote: post #4

As if our brains magically emerged from a billion years of evolution with complex mechanisms that did not help us survive... :) I tried (like a good nerd) to reverse engineer all our emotions in my book "The Psychopath Code." Loneliness fell into my group of "Tribal Emotions" (thus evolved to help us form extended families), and here is how I defined it: " Loneliness - the emotion of being disconnected. You feel phys…

>Loneliness - the emotion of being disconnected. You feel physical pain in your intestines and chest when you see others enjoying themselves. You sleep lightly and wake often. Your immune system starts to slow and you start to get sick. Your metabolism slows down, yet you eat more often than usual. Your circulation slows, and you feel cold. Is it some sort of a hyperbole or I really have to hate people and be physica…

It is hyperbole, average people can cope with being disconnected from society. Some people who are lonely and develop these symptoms are better explained as reaction from DPD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_personality_disorder In evolutionary terms, a lone hunter/traveler that becomes a shriveling ball of tears when completely alone doesn't pass the survival threshold: people are not evolved to die from being alone. Besides in the modern world, you're not "really alone" unless you live off-grid in some remote wilderness with no internet/phone/radio. Disconnecting from society is far harder than what people think of it(not using mobile devices 24/7 on your person is not "disconnection")