/sci/ - Science & Math » Thread #9341016

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Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 02:50:51 2017 No.9341016 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>9341025 >>9341047 >>9341050 >>9341086 >>9341366

If one of the deepest rooted cognitive aims of the nervous system is the avoidance of death to enable future reproduction, why is the body capable of committing suicide?

It seems like some sort of loophole that the brain can't protect against. Surely in the harsh times of the past, a suicide avoidance mechanism would have been selected for, and those without it would have been selected against?

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 02:52:30 No.9341020 Report

Quoted By: >>9341031 >>9341057

>a suicide avoidance mechanism would be selected for
no, why do you think that?

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 02:54:09 No.9341025 Report

Quoted By:

>>9341016
I hate to say this but have you tried killing yourself? This isn't meant as an insult but rather an exploration of the deeply-rooted defense mechanisms against this succeeding.

Most people require multiple tries or an elaborate plan that constantly involves steps that obfuscate the eventual result of your death to the rest of your perceptive midbrain and body, or tremendous willpower and a complete flattening of all emotional responses.

Emotions which arise from the midbrain structures, are inherently programmed to keep you alive, including grief and deep sadness. Suicide usually only happens after apathy has flattened all emotional responses to zero.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 02:54:41 No.9341029 Report

Quoted By:

People fear death. Even suicidal people find it difficult to commit. Anything more must not have been a significant enough pressure.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 02:56:00 No.9341031 Report

Quoted By: >>9341052 >>9341057

>>9341020
Explain or heck off

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 03:02:12 No.9341047 Report

Quoted By: >>9341057

>>9341016
>Surely in the harsh times of the past, a suicide avoidance mechanism would have been selected for
Sure. And people ARE averse to killing themselves. Taking it further and making it completely impossible to commit suicide probably starts interfering with other functions, for increasingly marginal gains.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 03:02:35 No.9341050 Report

Quoted By: >>9341115

>>9341016
i remember this quote about suicide though im not sure who said it.

"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing.

The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise.

Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 03:03:20 No.9341052 Report

Quoted By:

>>9341031
no u brainlet

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 03:04:27 No.9341057 Report

Quoted By: >>9341124

>>9341020
>>9341031
Because it increases survival and therefore reproduction rate

>>9341047
I guess what I'm saying is why isn't there a straightforward mechanism the brain can use to determine whether it is thinking about suicide? It's like the brain cannot even control itself

If someone is intently thinking "I am going to kill myself right now" and they do it, why didn't the brain know and just stop it instead of letting them do it? How can the sentience inside the brain know they're trying to commit suicide, but the brain cannot know and stop it?

« Mon 04 Dec 2017 03:13:04 No.9341086 Report

Quoted By: >>9341192

>>9341016
We kill ourselves to avoid greater harm. Also we cannot slowly kill ourselves. Try biting off your fingers or choking yourself to death. When people kill themselves they do it in a way where the force that killed them becomes out of their control as soon as they make the decision to do it, which is also out of their control when you really think about it.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 03:23:23 No.9341115 Report

Quoted By:

>>9341050
David Foster Wallace.

He's dead now. Guess how he died?

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 03:28:03 No.9341124 Report

Quoted By: >>9341135

>>9341057
The only structure of the brain that can know the exact contents of your thoughts is the frontal cortex and outer cerebral cortex. These are the only parts advanced and complex enough to do it, and hence, where thoughts originate from.
The lower and mid brain which is in charge of keeping you alive and aversion reactions such as fear cannot understand completely what is going on in the higher brain. It can however get a general picture of where things are headed most of the time. That's why apathy is even necessary to kill yourself, apathy involves suppression of the emotional centers of the brain from the top-down.

basically the part of the brain that can think the thought, "I am going to kill myself" and actually plan around it, is far too advanced for the rest of the brain to know exactly what its doing, but thankfully it does not have direct control of the body. The higher brain's functions are beneficial enough that it evolved but it is certainly very dangerous from a biological standpoint, that's probably why intelligence is rare

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 03:34:15 No.9341135 Report

Quoted By:

>>9341124
Thanks anon I guess you're right. The part of the brain that understands death and suicide is far removed from the part that avoids it. And even that part's avoidance is based on indirect means like nerve sensitivity and hunger, not on cognitive knowledge of impending death

All the same, anxiety when one has a gun to their head about to be executed can cause violent behavior to try and escape, which seems unavoidable. Maybe suicide just requires supreme mental control and is in fact a sort of indirect proof of free will. Like the burning monk photograph. Supreme dedication

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 04:06:09 No.9341192 Report

Quoted By:

>>9341086
You can bit your tongue hard enough to cut it and die from bleeding.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Dec 2017 05:48:12 No.9341366 Report

Quoted By:

>>9341016
When you start to study Humans living in tribal groups, you find that suicide is non-existent and that depression is very rare.
living closer to nature, failures would have died off naturally much sooner.
We have changed the rules. Our biology hasn't caught up. Give it a few million years.

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