/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12626720]

why do we feel sad when we see someone die, even an animal?
it's not like we had any survival advantage from them when they were alive
what's the evolutionary purpose behind this

[Anonymous No.12626829]

We have empathy to get along better with other humans and to take an interest in the survival of others in the group, because the ones who survived better were the ones in groups.
We get empathetic towards animals is because the resemble us to different degrees. This is why you'd feel sad when a cat dies, but not an insect.

[Anonymous No.12626841]

>>12626829
Sometimes I feel sad when I kill a mosquito

[Anonymous No.12626849]

>>12626841
ok

[Anonymous No.12626878]

You don't need an 'evolutionary' purpose to such an event because evolutionary psychology is a bunch of horse shit.

[Anonymous No.12626887]

>>12626878
This desu, man is more than an animal.

[Anonymous No.12626889]

From a genes-eye view there is an evolutionary advantage to such empathetic reactions among genetic, or probable genetic, relatives. Haidt (not a big fan of him, but he makes an interesting point here) suggests that our empathy for animals is just our empathy for genetic relatives being "hijacked," so to speak--that is, it is the same mental module which has mutated in function to cover death generally. That's an evo-psych explanation anyway. This belongs on >>>/his/ or >>>/sci/

[Anonymous No.12626896]

>>12626841
Same setties, they kill the poor, that's pretty based.

[Anonymous No.12627001]

You only have full empathy towards someone from your own tribe and the amount of empathy you have towards other beings corresponds to how much they resemble your kin in behaviour and are relatable so you'll have like 75% empathy towards gorillas, 50% towards negroes and 25% towards cows.

[Anonymous No.12627008]

WHY can't materialists into psychology?

[Anonymous No.12627227]

>>12626878
>>12626887
How do we destroy the biological reductionism pill?

[Anonymous No.12627245]

>>12626887
>muh exceptionalism

[Anonymous No.12627251]

>>12626889
This.

[Anonymous No.12627425]

>>12626720
I’ve seen people die in front of me and it isn’t sad. The first time I felt like nothing happened, everything and everyone kept going and I was thinking that I had to have some kind of reaction but I was just there feeling nothing. The second time I felt a sort of depersonalization where the transitoriety of life was so clear that I felt like the exterior or the world itself was communicating it to me (this was in an accident, so I had that adrenaline rush that made thinngs more intense). After that I kept recalling memories with the one of them
who was a relative and it isn’t sad either, I sometimes wonder if something would be different if he was alive or remember some trivial shit that happened and it seems so much more significant and warm than what it was when it actually happened.

[Anonymous No.12627428]

>>12626720
We do?

[Anonymous No.12627980]

>>12626878
It's so nice to hear someone here say such things. Evolutionary psychology is the biggest crock of nonsense I've ever encountered.

>>12627227
I don't know. I want to so badly though. Could ordinary civilians publish books against it and be listened to?

[Anonymous No.12628006]

>>12626720
Because it is a loss. Something exists, then it does not. It is irreparably gone, final.

[Anonymous No.12628011]

>>12626878
There is literally no other source for human psychology than evolution
You absolute fucking brainlets

[Anonymous No.12628038]

>>12626878
And the alternative explanation for human psychology is what exactly?

[Anonymous No.12628045]

>>12626878
this

[Anonymous No.12628108]

>>12626720
I don't feel sad seeing someone die, or someones corpse for that matter.
>inb4 edgelord
What is sad is people mourning.
Why have empathy for the dead? They feel nothing.
You have empathy for those suffering loss.

[Anonymous No.12628132]

>>12626841
I did suffer from rampant empathy into my early twenties, too, but don't worry, you'll get over it eventually.
Don't waste your worries on insignificant things; you don't have the time for that.
If you have to invest your feelings into something do it where it matters.

[Anonymous No.12628156]

>>12628038
>>12628011
Not them, but spiritual. We are the universe experiencing itself, rising up the ladder of consciousness. Presently we're humans. In future births we'll be something higher.

People who buy into evolutionary psychology don't actually look at human reality itself. They look at two things: animals, and human genitalia. They connect these two and say that because animals engage in simpler behaviors, primarily revolving around survival and reproduction, that this means that there's some sort of natural force named "evolution" which causes them to follow those orbits, and this "evolution" must apply equally to ourselves as well. Yes, that's it. All of reality is just a game of digestion and reproduction! Yes, that explains WHY there is even a reality in the first place! For digestion, and reproduction. That's the reason for the sun, the sky, the clouds, the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the wind, the flowers, and everything else. We can explain these on the basis of survival and reproduction, the telos which brought everything else into existence! And looking at human beings, we can safely say that all human activity - storytelling, music, language, romance, visual art, politics, clothing, socializing, vehicles, architecture, mathematics, history, literature and poetry, emotions, literally everything else about ourselves - these all reduce to our stomach and genitalia.

Hence why we find spirituality so all-pervasive among our species, and as we speak there are posters on this board telling others to remain chaste and not give away their life essence except with proper cause to. Or antinatalists claiming they'll never have children. Or anons who literally want to kill themselves. Why do these kinds do this? Because evolution is a sentient force which seeks only to propagate its species, through reproduction and survival, which all of our actions clearly reduce to, and we can't veer from even if we wanted to. Free will doesn't exist, evolution does. Brutality? That's evolution, only the fittest survive. Nature doesn't care about you, only survival matters. Morality? That's evolution too. Group survival is extremely important to her, she desires all her creatures to remain alive.

You're not even a real person, you're just an unindividual, unthinking breeding program for evolution to carry out her will through. Somehow you developed sentience and individuality along the way, and for some reason evolution designed beings who despise the very notion of evolution, and for some reason most normal humans don't focus on sex and survival every second of their lives, gaining their greatest contentment from working, socializing, reading, listening to music, being in nature, and many other activities unrelated to those of evolution.

I'm satirizing here, but not satirizing you. Just the incredibly poor-reasoned comments I've seen from people on the internet regarding muh ebolution.

[Anonymous No.12628181]

>>12628156
You literally don't have an alternative explanation. We understand how biological evolution creates animals, and we are another animal. 'it's spiritual' is not an explanation. The fact you would use so incredibly fucking weak an argument as 'we socialize and do other stuff than reproduce' indicates to me you haven't even attempted to understand how evolution works. We're social animals, like many others, it's part of how we reproduce. The only, and I mean only thing, you have is that consciousness hasn't been explained, and likely cannot be explained by science. That means fuck-all in terms of explaining human behavior, which doesn't even require consciousness to have a causal impact to be coherent.

You're so fucking stupid you don't even realize how dumb your arguments are, as though you don't learn about these concepts in first year biology, hell fucking highschool students are aware of how stupid 'but socializing isn't having sex' is as an argument. Half of your idiotic post is just stating stuff as though it were absurd without offering an explanation of why it's wrong or what your alternative is.

You should literally and unironically never post about this subject again you enormous fucking twat

[Anonymous No.12628315]

>>12628156
Okay, but do you have a single piece of evidence to support any of what you just said?

[Anonymous No.12628336]

>>12626720
'Evolution' isn't as perfect as people want it to be. Species can exist with traits that have no evolutionary advantage but just get passed down to chance. Questioning anything purely based upon evolutionary benefit is a fools game.

[Anonymous No.12628344]

empathy and the spirit

[Anonymous No.12628346]

>>12628156
>t. person who just watched 2001: Space Odyssey

[Anonymous No.12628450]

>>12628181
Yeah, great post buddy. Your idiotic doctrine claims everything to be for the function of survival and reproduction, by some mystical yet unobservable force named "evolution" which is "unintelligent" yet has a telos, and works through all living beings, and yet here I am railing against the idiocy of such a theory. I provided you an entire array of behaviors that have not even the slightest relation to muh survival or muh reproduction, and that if your theory claims those to be the central goal of biological existence, and the reasoning behind the psychology of all biological beings, then clearly we shouldn't observe these beings to behave so differently from such a thesis. If I'm so stupid, why not actually respond to my points instead of just berating me? You responded not almost not even to a single point, genius that you are.

Go eat some food and have some sex now, no need to waste your time on behaviors not relating to your survival.

>>12628315
Okay, but do you actually look at the reality in front of you, or do you just believe everything le scientists have told you as true? There is no "evidence" for evolution, either, it's entirely unobserved and unobservable, and is clearly nothing more than a mental construct made up by human beings, who are entirely accountable for their own actions.

You guys really don't seem to comprehend the basic fact that scientists are human beings, who posit hypothesis as to the nature of reality, and that these have value only to the extent they correspond with the reality they speak on. The observed reality in front of you is what's real - the hypothesis are speculations. The latter must match the former, and where it doesn't, the latter needs correction.

I'm not arguing further, you ebolutiontards are always insufferable, scientards in general don't even understand the manner by which a scientific theory works in terms of its relation to reality. Run along now, fill your heads with more delusions from Big Science.

[Anonymous No.12628463]

>>12628450
>there are creatonists on /lit/
lololololol

[Anonymous No.12628470]

>>12628336
There is no "force" or "telos" to it at all, is what I've been telling these buffoons. It's just a term that's been given to literally "what happens", meaning, some creatures survive and others don't, but there is no "force" with an "aim" to itself. The creatures that survive, survive. That's all there is, end of story. Nothing else to see or speak of here. It doesn't explain existence, nor the behavioral nature of beings itself, nor anything else about the nature of reality.

[Anonymous No.12628487]

>>12628463
Creationist? Never. I'm an uncreationist. Who said beings had to be created? I'm a pantheist and unironically believe reality is just a giant cosmic dream. If panpsychism takes over, views like mine will likely become more prominent.

[Anonymous No.12628513]

>>12628450
This is a very good impression of a retarded person.

10/10

[Anonymous No.12628550]

>>12628513
This is a terrific argument, I'm truly defeated!

[Anonymous No.12628556]

>>12628315
>thinks there's "evidence" for evopsych
lmao

[Anonymous No.12628558]

>>12628556
there's evidence the same way there's evidence that our eyes evolved to see
if you deny one you deny the other

[Grignr the Ecordian No.12628564]

>>12626720
My suggestion.

[Anonymous No.12628573]

>>12628558
Where is there evidence of the eye evolving? I'm genuinely curious. And, given the "blindness" assigned to evolution, I'm beyond bewildered at the fact that the entire animal kingdom wound up with eyes, all without design, and apparently by accident. I'm not a creationist as I said, but I don't believe the eyes "evolved". They were always here, in my view.

[Anonymous No.12628596]

>>12626841
If I see a rare insect I'll let it out instead of smashing it, but something common that actively attacks me? Fuck that.

[Anonymous No.12629260]

Bump

[Anonymous No.12629270]

>>12626720
We’re trained to. It isn’t innate. Empathy can be turned off.

[Anonymous No.12629311]

>>12628336
Fucking this. Some act like evolution had a plan an every trait has a purpose. That's not how evolution works

[Anonymous No.12629354]

>>12626720
>tfw I watched a cockroach slowly die after being drowned in Raid and almost brought myself to tears

[Anonymous No.12629424]

>>12626878

Indeed.

[Anonymous No.12629918]

>>12628181
>We're social animals, like many others, it's part of how we reproduce
Yes, and its also part of how we do literally everything else as human beings. You've explained nothing, all you've done is reduce the inherently social nature of human beings to retarded ideological selfish-gene reductionist logic.

>doesn't even require consciousness to have a causal impact to be coherent
Yeah, it remains coherent by adhering to a system which has the largest possible hole in its understanding of human existence. I'm SURE this will bring us great understanding lol.

Mainstream evolutionary psychology arbitrarily decides that reproductive capabilities and adaptationism, i. e. basic selfish gene theory, is the ultimate explanation of human behaviour. This is completely unscientific and based purely on unfounded ideology, and we could much more convincingly say that its the other way around and that the human condition is the prior force which decides, based on irreducible factors that will inevitably be social, cultural, and religious, which genetic material will continue on. Your clueless evolutionary model doesn't work as explanation for really any aspect of human life or society, see: retards such as Daniel Dennett to see how far people are willing to defend this shit.

Not OP, but your post is unbelievably dumb and I would be very careful in future about speaking with your level of confidence, even on an anonymous board. You know nothing.

[Anonymous No.12630080]

>>12626720
Because you are connected to something more than and above the material.

[Anonymous No.12630167]

>>12628573
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye
You can literally just google this shit you humongous idiot

>I'm beyond bewildered at the fact that the entire animal kingdom wound up with eyes
No they didn't, there are plenty of animals, let alone living organisms, without eyes. Your knowledge of basic biology seems to be at the level of a pre-schooler, no wonder you're so retarded