Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose? (2017)
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Re: Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose? (2017)
#2Does anything have an evolutionary "purpose"? I mean really. Why, really, is the human tailbone less "purposeful" than our hair?
Re: Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose? (2017)
#3I think it could.... It is the "do not keep doing the same thing if it isn't working".
Of course we are in a novel high stress environment so I think it can be triggered erroneously or we just need to now live through really shitty situations at work, etc.
I wonder if antidepressants in some cases encourage an individual to stick out/survive a situation they should really be escaping from?
Re: Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose? (2017)
#4Purpose maybe isn't quite the right word, but depression is evolved, and has a de facto social function, albeit a maddening one. It's a bit like chronic pain in that regard. Crudely, winning at social games and conflicts tends to impart hormonal advantages that help an organism win more. Being chronically frustrated tends to make the organism drop out of the games.
Re: Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose? (2017)
#5Purpose maybe isn't quite the right word, but depression is evolved, and has a de facto social function, albeit a maddening one. It's a bit like chronic pain in that regard. Crudely, winning at social games and conflicts tends to impart hormonal advantages that help an organism win more. Being chronically frustrated tends to make the organism drop out of the games.
Depression has a role in our nervous system and technically even lobsters can be depressed but it doesn’t mean that it has the same secondary social effects as with humans.
To put it simply purpose of depression can be completely different than the effects we experience it’s just that it doesn’t have any major disadvantages as far human reproduction goes so we didn’t had the chance to fuck it out of our gene pool.
Re: Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose? (2017)
#6I think it could.... It is the "do not keep doing the same thing if it isn't working". Of course we are in a novel high stress environment so I think it can be triggered erroneously or we just need to now live through really shitty situations at work, etc. I wonder if antidepressants in some cases encourage an individual to stick out/survive a situation they should really be escaping from?
I think you're onto it. If an organism is not successful in whatever circumstance, then it is for the benefit of the herd (and species) that the individual drop out and not propagate its genes further. It is a braking mechanism. A psychic-emotional watchdog.
Re: Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose? (2017)
#7I think the researches described in the article might have over-generalized the concept of "depression" a bit...
I feel what we call "depression" is actually a spectrum of symptoms -- although those symptoms might have certain shared common traits (such as strong inertia and not wanting to do anything), they actually could be quite different in other aspects. For instance, when you are not doing anything, it could be that you are ruminating; or it could also be that your body and brain are simply numb, and not thinking about anything.
The article says,
In this view, the disordered and extreme thinking that
accompanies depression, which can leave you feeling
worthless and make you catastrophize your circumstances,
is needed to punch through everyday positive illusions and
focus you on your problems. In a study of 61 depressed
subjects, 4 out of 5 reported at least one upside to their
rumination, including self-insight, problem solving, and
the prevention of future mistakes.
Re: Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose? (2017)
#8Tangential, but this psychologist argues that depression evolved as a behavioral shutdown mechanism to prevent humans from over-investing in tactics or behaviors that did not yield any benefit (from a dopaminergic standpoint) -- https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201604.... The reasoning is that we conserve energy by not pursuing "dead-ends". Naturally, this evolutionary mechanism is thrown for a loop in an existence where survival is assured, and meaning becomes the main spectre psychologically.
Re: Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose? (2017)
#9Does anything have an evolutionary "purpose"? I mean really. Why, really, is the human tailbone less "purposeful" than our hair?
Not having a tailbone has probably not been an evolutionary advantage.
Hair is an evolutionary advantage, not a big one but bald women don't mate as successfully as women with nice hair do, on average
Re: Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose? (2017)
#10Does anything have an evolutionary "purpose"? I mean really. Why, really, is the human tailbone less "purposeful" than our hair?
Not necessarily, the real suicides -- not those ones claimed to be but eventually not carried out -- terminate all evolution on the very specific subjects who perform that action.