Selfish genes and self destructive behaviors

[Mike Waller]

Reversal of Fortune

A poor man, oppressed by life, seeking to hang himself,

Climbs to fix the noose. Seeing, hid high upon a shelf,

A bag of gold, he leaves rejoicing. Finding it not there,

The owner then takes up the rope and dies in black despair.

Thus the human mind, when sent reeling by some blow,

Seems somehow constrained to quickly end the show.

 

 

The above is my reworking of a short poem said by the original translator to have been based on an epigram composed in Ancient Greece. If so, it is another example of the timelessness of the phenomenon which I have sought to make compatible with the genetic theory of evolution. At risk of boring those who have followed this topic, I restate my solution as follows:

 

1. For species whose method of reproduction includes careful selection of mates, the fact that prospective partners only express half the genes they carry presents a serious problem in gauging their true adaptive worth.

 

2. An obvious way round this is to use close kin as a guide to those hidden genes. It works for stockbreeders, it works for insurance companies, and when we look, we usually find that natural selection has long preceded us.

 

3.As natural selection can be viewed as an endless series of strategies and counter-strategies, the use of kin as a guide to true adaptive worth will almost certainly have favoured the emergence of a counter-strategy.

 

4. In this context the most probable counter-strategy would be the self-elimination of individuals whose performance was sufficiently poor in relation to close kin as to do them reputational damage in the context of mate selection that will have quantitative and qualitative reproductive consequences far in excess of the likely genetic throughput of the under-performing individual.

 

5. The most likely way of bringing this about would be for the usual processes of natural selection to progressively forge a link between a sense of failure (as induced by the reactions of significant others) to low mood, and then a further link between low mood and the range of dire physiological consequences we know now it to have.

 

This rational is either fatally flawed or one of the most important insights yet achieved in seeking to understand the human condition. I should much appreciate hearing from anyone competent to judge.

 

Edited February 20, 2012 by Mike Waller

[questionposter]

Reversal of Fortune

A poor man, oppressed by life, seeking to hang himself,

Climbs to fix the noose. Seeing, hid high upon a shelf,

A bag of gold, he leaves rejoicing. Finding it not there,

The owner then takes up the rope and dies in black despair.

Thus the human mind, when sent reeling by some blow,

Seems somehow constrained to quickly end the show.

 

 

The above is my reworking of a short poem said by the original translator to have been based on an epigram composed in Ancient Greece. If so, it is another example of the timelessness of the phenomenon which I have sought to make compatible with the genetic theory of evolution. At risk of boring those who have followed this topic, I restate my solution as follows:

 

1. For species whose method of reproduction includes careful selection of mates, the fact that prospective partners only express half the genes they carry presents a serious problem in gauging their true adaptive worth.

 

2. An obvious way round this is to use close kin as a guide to those hidden genes. It works for stockbreeders, it works for insurance companies, and when we look, we usually find that natural selection has long preceded us.

 

3.As natural selection can be viewed as an endless series of strategies and counter-strategies, the use of kin as a guide to true adaptive worth will almost certainly have favoured the emergence of a counter-strategy.

 

4. In this context the most probable counter-strategy would be the self-elimination of individuals whose performance was sufficiently poor in relation to close kin as to do them reputational damage in the context of mate selection that will have quantitative and qualitative reproductive consequences far in excess of the likely genetic throughput of the under-performing individual.

 

5. The most likely way of bringing this about would be for the usual processes of natural selection to progressively forge a link between a sense of failure (as induced by the reactions of significant others) to low mood, and then a further link between low mood and the range of dire physiological consequences we know now it to have.

 

This rational is either fatally flawed or one of the most important insights yet achieved in seeking to understand the human condition. I should much appreciate hearing from anyone competent to judge.

 

 

The notion that everything happens because mechanisms determine what happens is the religion of determinism, and determinism itself doesn't exist in reality. There are plenty of people who might be stuck with things such as mechanisms that produce too much of the chemical that causes depression, but they can fight through it if they want, and its not the only factor. As you have already ignored but I'll try say again anyway, many subconscious mechanisms play a part in evolution, but there is little or no evidence to support that consciousness itself has anything to do with that. So far every scenario you have presented involves centering around processes of subconscious mechanisms. I find the reasoning for why depression is still around without assuming that the genes themselves think based on the information you had given, but there's perfectly healthy people that can still want to commit suicide without actually having done anything wrong relative to their kin, and there still is probably suicidal losers who probably don't, and some who even become successful. Although its helpful to view things working as mechanisms in psychology, especially when people aren't using their heads, everything can't be crammed under that single principal. Not every single thing is some struggle, and why should it be?

Edited February 20, 2012 by questionposter

[Mike Waller]

The notion that everything happens because mechanisms determine what happens is the religion of determinism, and determinism itself doesn't exist in reality. There are plenty of people who might be stuck with things such as mechanisms that produce too much of the chemical that causes depression, but they can fight through it if they want, and its not the only factor. As you have already ignored but I'll try say again anyway, many subconscious mechanisms play a part in evolution, but there is little or no evidence to support that consciousness itself has anything to do with that. So far every scenario you have presented involves centering around processes of subconscious mechanisms. I find the reasoning for why depression is still around without assuming that the genes themselves think based on the information you had given, but there's perfectly healthy people that can still want to commit suicide without actually having done anything wrong relative to their kin, and there still is probably suicidal losers who probably don't, and some who even become successful. Although its helpful to view things working as mechanisms in psychology, especially when people aren't using their heads, everything can't be crammed under that single principal. Not every single thing is some struggle, and why should it be?

 

When the US 8^th Airforce deployed to England and started their air campaign against Germany, they suffered far heavier losses than had been expected. As many of these arose from fighter attacks, some bright spark came up with the idea of using the bomber force to destroy the factories that built fighters or made their components. The result was even heavier losses because, understandably, the Germans had anticipated such attacks and established a lethal combination of flack and fighter defences around such facilities. Summing up this disastrous new strategy, one commentator said that it was an attempt to resolve a very difficult problem (dealing with the fighters) by tackling an impossible one.

 

What has this to do with the present topic? My feeling is that I have successfully dealt with a very difficult problem in that, after decades of effort, I have come up with an explanation for the evolutionary persistence of depression and it its physiological consequences that fully accords with the genetic theory of evolution, itself, in my opinion, the only fully coherent explanation for the evolutionary process currently available. My difficult is that considerations of good manners are now confronting me with an impossible task: that of explaining my ideas in terms of Questionposters world view, something which remains as impenetratable to me now as it did when he or she first joined the debate. If there are those out there who can act as intermediaries, I should welcome their assistance. Otherwise, as I have previously suggested, I feel that QP and I shall simply have to agree to differ.

 

I also have a more general point to make. I have proposed that people (and other organisms) can be led to act other than in accordance with their personal evolutionary interests by considerations of family reputation. This should not be taken to imply that such considerations are at the forefront of their minds when they so act. As long as what they do has the effect of protecting family reputation, their proximate motivation could be as simple as a burning conviction that what they are doing is somehow "right".

Edited February 24, 2012 by Mike Waller

[questionposter]

When the US 8^th Airforce deployed to England and started their air campaign against Germany, they suffered far heavier losses than had been expected. As many of these arose from fighter attacks, some bright spark came up with the idea of using the bomber force to destroy the factories that built fighters or made their components. The result was even heavier losses because, understandably, the Germans had anticipated such attacks and established a lethal combination of flack and fighter defences around such facilities. Summing up this disastrous new strategy, one commentator said that it was an attempt to resolve a very difficult problem (dealing with the fighters) by tackling an impossible one.

 

What has this to do with the present topic? My feeling is that I have successfully dealt with a very difficult problem in that, after decades of effort, I have come up with an explanation for the evolutionary persistence of depression and it its physiological consequences that fully accords with the genetic theory of evolution, itself, in my opinion, the only fully coherent explanation for the evolutionary process currently available. My difficult is that considerations of good manners are now confronting me with an impossible task: that of explaining my ideas in terms of Questionposters world view, something which remains as impenetratable to me now as it did when he or she first joined the debate. If there are those out there who can act as intermediaries, I should welcome their assistance. Otherwise, as I have previously suggested, I feel that QP and I shall simply have to agree to differ.

 

I also have a more general point to make. I have proposed that people (and other organisms) can be led to act other than in accordance with their personal evolutionary interests by considerations of family reputation. This should not be taken to imply that such considerations are at the forefront of their minds when they so act. As long as what they do has the effect of protecting family reputation, their proximate motivation could be as simple as a burning conviction that what they are doing is somehow "right".

 

I problem is you aren't reading my posts at all, because mechanisms can be subject to evolution without consciousness having anything to do with that, and I already stated somewhere back that morals are relative, so I don't see why you think I'm making a big fuss with considering them in evolution. I hardly doubt that what your suggesting describes every single action, because honestly people can do things independent of chemical feelings and and recognize when their subconscious mechanisms implore them to do a particular thing, but they don't have to do it. Also, regarding morals, it doesn't even take a genius or any sort of intelligent mechanism to know that getting killed and stolen from is bad for you, and since people don't want that, they support an institution of rules against those actions. Plenty of people can change morals anyway, they can consider something good that use to be bad or vice-versa.

You might have a scenario where someone's brain associates particular objects or actions with fear such as when people become afraid of things for extended periods of time, but even if you are afraid and you don't even have to conquer those fears for any reason, you can consciously do so and by doing it over time your subconscious will adjust to that pattern and gradually not associate the releasing of the chemical that causes fear with a particular object or event. This is evidence to support that in fact your consciousness is a separate entity that is capable of even molding subconsciousness almost at will.

I already said I think some of what your saying is logical, but it's really just not as simple as "your genes think this, so this happens", your genes don't even possess the capability of conscious thought.

Edited February 24, 2012 by questionposter

[Lorri]

I have to say that I share your theory on the "selfish Gene". It fits to a certain degree a theory of my own that I had come up with in regard to a friend of mine who has for some years now, completely baffled me in terms of his particular condition. He is morbidly obese and seems to be in complete denial regarding anything that he should be doing to counteract the effects of his condition. He suffers from type 2 diabetes and all its attendant complications and when I have tried to discuss measures that he may take to improve his lot he merely says that he has to die of something and he’ll be happy to go soon. He has even stated that if things get too much to bear then he will take matters into his own hands and take his own life, thus ending any possible suffering. I looked at reasons why he was in such a state and then I had the idea that perhaps it wasn’t his fault that he was in this situation….that perhaps there was a genetic predisposition to his diabetes and his illness. I took into account the following detail of his background and came up with the following premise.

Both parents died from lifestyle induced deaths (Emphysema from smoking)

There were four children 3 boys and a girl (the girl was adopted but also showed certain traits which I thought could have been “learned” behaviors)

Both boys suffer from type 2 diabetes and exhibit an attitude of “I couldn’t care less” and have not been interested in reversing their condition or knowing the causes and possible future effects on their lives.

They both were attracted to and attractive to women who were co dependant and subject to lifestyle addictions which resulted in health issues for them both. My friend’s wife was a smoker and analgesic abuser who became locked into the world of drugs and addicts after ending their marriage. His brother’s wife was addicted to sugar and subsequently suffered breast cancer.

Both brothers seemed to pass on their genes to their offspring.

My friend has 2 sons, one of whom became a drug addict and subsequently died from a drug overdose and the younger child suffers from a deep sense of isolation and is very antisocial, and has difficulty relating to others. He was unable to speak to his teacher for the first 2 years of his schooling so this started from a very early age.

His brother’s children, 4 daughters, are all sugar addicts and their own children’s diets are awash with sugar in spite of the health warnings that are now so prevalent.

The younger brother is also on a very strange trajectory in his life. He stated that if he had to work for the best things in life then he would refuse to do that and just have what he could get with as little effort as possible and has lived his life accordingly with no ambition or thought for future success. I would be interested to know if anyone else has any other theories on this phenomenon. I am not at all well versed in the psychology of the human condition but having read your paper on this subject it would seem that my friend is simply a victim of his own genetic pool and can no more change his sad situation that he  can change the color of his eyes.

 

[SamCogar]

16 hours ago, Lorri said:

 I am not at all well versed in the psychology of the human condition

 

Most psychiatrists/psychologists are not very well versed on the “psychology of the human condition” either, so don ‘t let that be bothering you.

 

16 hours ago, Lorri said:

it would seem that my friend is simply a victim of his own genetic pool

 

Iffen he is a victim of diabetes, ….. then “YES”, ….. diabetes causes vary depending on one’s genetic makeup, family history, ethnicity, health and environmental factors. But one’s genetic makeup is not responsible for their family history, ethnicity and/or the environmental factors they were subjected to.

 

Excluding what you genetically inherits from your biological parents, ….. “you are what your environment nurtured you to be”. And your parent(s) are the primary source of your early nurturing.

 

The human brain-mind is a self-programming biological computer that functions via a subconscious mind, ….. and after one is birthed their sense organs begin uploading environmentally sensed data/info that is stored in brain neurons as, per se, “program code” that is only accessible via the subconscious mind. When a sufficient amount of enviro data has been uploaded and stored, then one’s conscious memory becomes functional, but subservient to the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind never sleeps, ……. but the conscious mind does sleep.  

 

There is no such thing as a "selfish Gene" ,,,,,, or “free will”.