A woman who can't feel fear • Hacker News Board

Re: A woman who can't feel fear

#11

Post by tomsthumb » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 1:21 AM UTC

thret wrote: post #10

zo1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>" I've read that sociopathy may be related to a dysfunction of the brain's ability to sympathize with others. " Perhaps they fail to empathize or sympathize with their "future self", which is who they view as the recipient of whatever it is they should be scared of currently. Though of course, IANAP.

I don't think failure to sympathize with 'future self' is limited to sociopaths. I could give some common examples but I was up until 7am so I'm a little fuzzy at the moment.

Getting absolutely tanked on cheap booze is a good example.

Re: A woman who can't feel fear

#12

Post by im3w1l » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 1:38 AM UTC

tomsthumb wrote: post #11

thret wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think failure to sympathize with 'future self' is limited to sociopaths. I could give some common examples but I was up until 7am so I'm a little fuzzy at the moment.

Getting absolutely tanked on cheap booze is a good example.

whoosh

Re: A woman who can't feel fear

#13

Post by steveax » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 2:43 AM UTC

Davesjoshin wrote: post #5

Reminds me of this podcast from earlier this week.. http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/

Great episode - I highly recommend it.

Re: A woman who can't feel fear

#14

Post by ThrustVectoring » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 2:58 AM UTC

gwern wrote: post #7

This reminds me of discussions of pain asymbolia or not being able to feel pain (diabetes, leprosy): it's a crippling and dangerous problem. Fear, pain, guilty - the gifts no one appreciates.

Emotions are there for a purpose. Specifically, they're big levers in the brain for getting certain kinds of actions in certain kinds of situations. Anger, sadness, excitement, and everything. If you take a look at what causes them, and what people do when they have those feelings, you can get an interesting glimpse at our ancestral environment.

Re: A woman who can't feel fear

#15

Post by jonalmeida » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 3:22 AM UTC

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #3

golemotron wrote: post #2

This sounds a lot like sociopathy. I've read that sociopaths are not scared like normal people are in frightening situations. Maybe dysfunction of the amygdala is part of that too.

I've read that sociopathy may be related to a dysfunction of the brain's ability to sympathize with others. Perhaps it's a combination of the two. Who knows, it might have conferred a survival advantage in our distant past--bands of nomadic hominids might have had to kill and even eat each other at times.

That's a very interesting thought. If that hominid was indeed superior, there would be more of those genetic traits still around, but it's fear which is a double edged sword - it makes some wiser, and some not-so-wise.

Or maybe it's our turn (the homo sapiens who have fear) turn to die out, letting more fearless ones take place. Although, this sounds more of a fictional novel waiting to be written.

Re: A woman who can't feel fear

#16

Post by dewarrn1 » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 3:25 AM UTC

I've had the privilege of working with the patient described in the podcast. She's unique in any sense of the word.

Re: A woman who can't feel fear

#17

Post by simula67 » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 3:26 AM UTC

What would stop a person like this from killing herself if she is truly depressed ?

What stops her from killing herself out of curiosity ?

Would she make a better or worse soldier ?

I wish this woman did an AMA.

Re: A woman who can't feel fear

#18

Post by berberous » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 3:36 AM UTC

simula67 wrote: post #17

What would stop a person like this from killing herself if she is truly depressed ? What stops her from killing herself out of curiosity ? Would she make a better or worse soldier ? I wish this woman did an AMA.

I wonder if you can be truly depressed if you don't fear anything? Or does her lack of fear not encompass anxiety?

Re: A woman who can't feel fear

#19

Post by wyager » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 4:53 AM UTC

simula67 wrote: post #17

What would stop a person like this from killing herself if she is truly depressed ? What stops her from killing herself out of curiosity ? Would she make a better or worse soldier ? I wish this woman did an AMA.

Fear of death is not the only motivation for survival.

It is possible to rationally realize that dying would have negative utility, even failing to take into account fear of death.

In general, evolution tends to produce redundant systems for reproduction-critical activities.

Re: A woman who can't feel fear

#20

Post by cbd1984 » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 6:25 AM UTC

tjradcliffe wrote: post #9

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read that sociopathy may be related to a dysfunction of the brain's ability to sympathize with others. Perhaps it's a combination of the two. Who knows, it might have conferred a survival advantage in our distant past--bands of nomadic hominids might have had to kill and even eat each other at times.

Sociopathy is more likely related to mate competition than cannibalism, which is almost never practised for food, but rather for its ritual significance. Cannibalism was fairly widely and routinely practised in pre-political states--to the extent that in Polynesia there is a prion disease that appears to have evolved with cannibalism as a vector--but even amongst peoples where it was practised, in times of starvation…

> pre-political states

How is this not a contradiction in terms? Non-political humans seem impossible.