Dioxide2533

Evolutionary psychology on why humans don't kill themselves (book recommendation)

1 post in this topic

I wanted to make a short review because this book seems not well known and I thought it had insight I hadn't seen anywhere else.
It's important insight because it deepens understanding on self-deception.

The book is The Evolution of Life Worth Living by C. A. Soper

main points: (my summary)

- humans have been slightly detached from reality to survive since they got smart enough to kill themselves
- humans have a bias for positivity, slightly above neutral. Animals don't, because they don't need protection from possibly killing themselves since they don't have the capability.
- mental disorders like depression or psychosis, are a protective switch to remove capabilities from you so that you have a harder time trying to kill yourself to bypass pain, which would a be smart and rational solution, but bad for your genes replication.
- humans devote a lot of time to "useless" activities because they need to keep themselves happy to not kill themselves and pass on the genes.
- most mental disorders have such high comorbidity because they are kinda the same base issue: maiming your ability to kill yourself when you don't like life
- the labels for different mental illnesses are not so relevant because treatment is similar. Different therapies have basically the same success ratio. And the thing in common is mainly placebo from authority figure and caring and love from that person. So psychology is very pseudo-sciency.

Hope it's interesting for someone here

Edited by Dioxide2533

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!


Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.


Sign In Now