TomHendricks474 wrote:

> 
> TH:
> Not all of this 'feeling of worthlessness' is directly based on natural
> selection. In humans we have cultural evolution too. That means that part of
> this problem is in our biological genome, and part is in the social behaviors
> passed down. And these social behaviors are outside of any genetics. And they
> are usually connected with our parents or key traumatic events in early
> childhood.
> 

Precisely.  I think you're starting to get it.   :)



        A Sketch of a Divergent Theory of Emotional Instability


Objective: To account for self-worth related emotion (i.e., needs for
    love, acceptance, moral integrity, recognition, achievement,
    purpose, meaning, etc.) and emotional disorder (e.g., depression,
    suicide, etc.) within the context of an evolutionary scenario; i.e., to
    synthesize natural science and the humanities; i.e., to answer the
    question:  'Why is there a species of naturally selected organism
    expending huge quantities of effort and energy on the survivalistically
    bizarre non-physical objective of  maximizing self-worth?'

Observation: The species in which rationality is most developed is
    also the one in which individuals have the greatest difficulty in
    maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth, often going to
    extraordinary lengths in doing so (e.g., Evel Knievel, celibate monks,
    self endangering Greenpeacers, etc.).

Hypothesis: Rationality is antagonistic to psycho centric stability (i.e.,
    maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth).

Explanation #1: In much the manner reasoning allows for the subordination
    of lower emotional concerns and values (pain, fear, anger, sex, etc.)
    to more global concerns (concern for the self as a whole), so too,
    these more global concerns and values can themselves become
    reevaluated and subordinated to other more global, more objective
    considerations. And if this is so, and assuming that emotional
    disorder emanates from a deficiency in self-worth resulting from
    precisely this sort of experientially based reevaluation, then it can
    reasonably be construed as a natural malfunction resulting from
    one's rational faculties functioning a tad too well.

Explanation #2:  Being the blind arational process that she
    is, mother nature instills in all her creatures a sense of their own
    importance (or of the importance of their needs) that is rationally
    inordinate.  And, as a species reaches a certain stage in its rational/
    cultural/memetic development, its members increasingly come to question
    this inordinancy, and increasingly come to require reasons for
    maintaining it (needs for love, acceptance, moral integrity, purpose,
    meaning, status, wealth, etc.).


    "Special concern for one's own future would be selected by
     evolution: Animals without such concern would be more likely
     to die before passing on their genes.  Such concern would
     remain, as a natural fact, even if we decided that it was not
     justified.  By thinking hard about the arguments, we might
     be able briefly to stun this natural concern.  But it would
     soon revive...  The fact that we have this attitude cannot
     therefore be a reason for thinking it justified.  Whether
     it is justified [i.e. rational] is an open question, waiting
     to be answered." (Derek Parfit)


Normalcy and Disorder: Assuming this is correct, then some
    explanation for the relative "normalcy" of most individuals would
    seem necessary. This is accomplished simply by postulating
    different levels or degrees of consciousness.  From this perspective,
    emotional disorder would then be construed as a valuative affliction
    resulting from an increase in semantic content in the engram indexed
    by the linguistic expression, "I am insignificant", which all
persons of
    common sense "know" to be true, but which the "emotionally
    disturbed" have come to "realize", through abstract thought,
    devaluing experience, etc.

Implications: So-called "free will" and the incessant activity presumed
    to emanate from it is simply the insatiable appetite we all have for
    self-significating experience which, in turn, is simply nature's way of
    attempting to counter the objectifying influences of our rational
    faculties. This also implies that the engine in the first
"free-thinking"
    artifact is probably going to be a diesel (i.e., the cure produces
    more of the disease).


    "Another simile would be an atomic pile of less than critical size: an
    injected idea is to correspond to a neutron entering the pile from
    without. Each such neutron will cause a certain disturbance which
    eventually dies away. If, however, the size of the pile is sufficiently
    increased, the disturbance caused by such an incoming neutron will
    very likely go on and on increasing until the whole pile is destroyed.
    Is there a corresponding phenomenon for minds?" (A. M. Turing).


Additional Implications: Since the explanation I have proposed
    amounts to the contention that the most rational species
    (presumably) is beginning to exhibit signs of transcending the
    formalism of nature's fixed objective (accomplished in man via
    intentional self concern, i.e., the prudence program) it can reasonably
    be construed as providing evidence and argumentation in support of
    Lucas (1961) and Penrose (1989, 1994). Not only does this imply
    that the aforementioned artifact probably won't be a computer,
    but it would also explain why a question such as "Can Human
    Irrationality Be Experimentally Demonstrated?" (Cohen, 1981)
    has led to controversy, in that it presupposes the possibility
    of a discrete (formalizable) answer to a question which can only
    be addressed in comparative (non-formalizable) terms (e.g. X is
    more rational than Y, the norm, etc.).  Along these same lines,
    the theory can also be construed as an endorsement or
    metajustification for comparative approaches in epistemology
    (explanationism, plausiblism, etc.)


    "So even if mathematicians are superb cognizers of mathematical
    truth, and even if there is no algorithm, practical or otherwise,
    for cognizing mathematical truth, it does not follow that the power
    of mathematicians to cognize mathematical truth is not entirely
    explicable in terms of their brain's executing an algorithm.  Not
    an algorithm for intuiting mathematical truth --  we can suppose that
    Penrose [via Godel] has proved that there could be no such thing.
    What would the algorithm be for, then?  Most plausibly it would be an
    algorithm -- one of very many -- for trying to stay alive ... " (D. C.
    Dennett).


Oops!  Sorry!  Wrong again, old bean. [me again]


    "My ruling passion is the love of literary fame" (David Hume).


    "I have often felt as though I had inherited all the defiance and all the
    passions with which our ancestors defended their Temple and could
    gladly sacrifice my life for one great moment in history" (Sigmund
    Freud).


    "He, too [Ludwig Wittgenstein], suffered from depressions and for long
    periods considered killing himself because he considered his life
    worthless, but the stubbornness inherited from his father may have
    helped him to survive" (Hans Sluga).


    "The inquest [Alan Turing's] established that it was suicide.  The
    evidence was perfunctory, not for any irregular reason, but because
    it was so transparently clear a case" (Andrew Hodges)



                               REFERENCES

1. Cohen, L. Jonathan, Can Human Irrationality be Experimentally
    Demonstrated?, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1981, 4, 317-370.

2. Lucas, J. R., Minds, Machines and Godel, Philosophy, Vol XXXVI (1961).
    Reprinted in Anderson's, Minds and Machines, and engagingly explored
    in Hofstadter's Pulitzer prize winner, Godel, Escher, Bach: An
    Eternal Golden Braid.

3. Penrose, Roger, The Emperor's New Mind, 1989; Shadows of the Mind,
    1994.
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