haidut

Member
Forum Supporter
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
19,798
Location
USA / Europe
...and vice versa. I have suspected for a very long time that pathologically selfish people may have a mental disorder of some sort or at least be under some kind of environmental pressure to develop such extreme behavior. Now, this new study says that selfishness may simply be a self-preservation mechanism as a result of extended periods of loneliness. Ironically, the resulting selfishness triggers further loneliness likely because the selfish people are both being avoided more by others and also because they actively isolate themselves from others by recognizing that selfishness is not a desirable trait that will draw mates/friends. Furthermore, selfishness and loneliness are really detrimental to health in the long run. More importantly, as the study itself said, when humans are at their best they are very helpful and cooperative. So, cooperation and altruism are the natural state of human affairs when health is good and we are surrounded by good people.
Hey, @Such_Saturation I think you will like this in light of the recent post you made on cooperation vs. competition.

Loneliness contributes to self-centeredness for sake of self-preservation

"...Research conducted over more than a decade indicates that loneliness increases self-centeredness and, to a lesser extent, self-centeredness also increases loneliness. The findings by researchers at the University of Chicago show such effects create a positive feedback loop between the two traits: As increased loneliness heightens self-centeredness, the latter then contributes further to enhanced loneliness. “If you get more self-centered, you run the risk of staying locked in to feeling socially isolated,” said John Cacioppo, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology and director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. Cacioppo and co-authors Stephanie Cacioppo, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the UChicago Pritzker School of Medicine, and Hsi Yuan Chen, a researcher at the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, published their findingsin Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin on June 13. The researchers wrote that “targeting self-centeredness as part of an intervention to lessen loneliness may help break a positive feedback loop that maintains or worsens loneliness over time.” Their study is the first to test a prediction from the Cacioppos’ evolutionary theory that loneliness increases self-centeredness. Such research is important because, as many studies have shown, lonely people are more susceptible to a variety of physical and mental health problems as well as higher mortality rates than their non-lonely counterparts. The outcome that loneliness increases self-centeredness was expected, but the data showing that self-centeredness also affected loneliness was a surprise, Stephanie Cacioppo said."


“Humans evolved to become such a powerful species, in large part due to mutual aid and protection and the changes in the brain that proved adaptive in social interactions,” John Cacioppo said. “When we don’t have mutual aid and protection, we are more likely to become focused on our own interests and welfare. That is, we become more self-centered.”

"...In modern society, becoming more self-centered protects lonely people in the short term but not the long term. That’s because the harmful effects of loneliness accrue over time to reduce a person’s health and well-being. “This evolutionarily adaptive response may have helped people survive in ancient times, but in contemporary society may well make it harder for people to get out of feelings of loneliness,” John Cacioppo said.

"...When humans are at their best, they provide mutual aid and protection, Stephanie Cacioppo added. “It isn’t that one individual is sacrificial to the other. It’s that together they do more than the sum of the parts. Loneliness undercuts that focus and really makes you focus on only your interests at the expense of others.”"
 
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
7,370
It isn’t that one individual is sacrificial to the other. It’s that together they do more than the sum of the parts.
This excess value to the mathematical sum is key to understanding. It is the opposite of a sacrifice, really. I think this is related to certain statements of the second law of thermodynamics.
 

Tarmander

Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2015
Messages
3,763
This is a great study. I have had phases of loneliness in life and I can attest to selfish thoughts being more prevalent in those times. "I am doing it all on my own, I deserve..."
 

Optimus

Member
Joined
May 6, 2017
Messages
61
Weren't the most intelligent and what we would call selfless people (not interested in business but invention) kind of lonely and non sociable (in our definition)? Tesla, Newton, Einstein etc. What about Peat himself.
 

Xisca

Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2015
Messages
2,273
Location
Canary Spain
Now, this new study says that selfishness may simply be a self-preservation mechanism as a result of extended periods of loneliness. Ironically, the resulting selfishness triggers further loneliness likely because the selfish people are both being avoided more by others and also because they actively isolate themselves from others by recognizing that selfishness is not a desirable trait that will draw mates/friends. Furthermore, selfishness and loneliness are really detrimental to health in the long run. More importantly, as the study itself said, when humans are at their best they are very helpful and cooperative.
Yes, self preservation, but it comes from the part of the mind that is called autonomic nervous system, particularly the vagus nerve.
This nerve has 2 parts, dorsal and ventral.
This comes from Porges and the polyvagal theory.
- The ventral part is responsible for social engagement, thus cooperation, help etc, any kind of mammal supportive interaction with either humans or animals that are also mammals. This transcend the species! (explains having pets, and when the pet is non mammal or even a doll, this is projection though imagination and it works too)
- Now the dorsal... and both cannot work at the same time...
Responsible of the freeze response in helplessness when one cannot fight or flight.
A selfish person just CANNOT relate because of the more or less anestesiated state! They need help and not being avoided! I guess they do not isolate because they see themselves as selfish but mostly because they are trying and not managing to relate properly, and it is too difficult, so they have to withdraw.

Just take the example of a person who is ill and suffers pain in bed. Some get better with contact, and some cannot stand it and ask to be left alone. In that case you know that there is some kind of freeze response. I think I would half obey the demand for lonelyness and find the suitable distance that the person can stand, because vago-ventral contact is the BEST stuff that can get people out of any collapse etc.
This is what can get people back to life in NDE too!
I have stayed some time on the side of a horse that was going to be sent to death for meat after an accident, and that could not be either killed or medicated for meat reason. I was a teenager but I knew I was supportive just by holding his head.
 

Integra

Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2016
Messages
118
I was standing on a platform waiting for the subway. There was only a couple of people scattered around, each looking at their phone, each emptily staring in front of them or far away into the tunnel, all wisely chosen strategies to protect their field of vision from other people. I was also maintaining my own little box of privacy as I stared at my own shoes, but when I looked up, my eyes met the most wonderful, warm, inviting, soul-pouring gaze ever. It was from a woman slightly older than me, but I instantly felt that I knew her. Her eyes were that of a mother I never had, a sister I never had, and of a true friend that I might never have. It felt like a mental hug. I quickly looked away, but it was too late. I felt a jarring pain in my chest, a smoky heat in my throat, and my vision was getting blurry from tears which I managed to hold in just until I boarded an empty corner of the train and pathetically cried like a lonely foreigner does.

I'll never forget that look.
I made a true friend for four seconds.

My point here is this: if one person's look had such a strong impact on a random stranger, imagine just what it would be like if we looked at each other with eyes charged with such feelings. Just my 2c and a sappy story, I guess.
 
Last edited:
B

Braveheart

Guest
"My point here is this: if one person's look had such a strong impact on a random stranger, imagine just what it would be like if we looked at each other with eyes charged with such feelings."

It's true...it can work
 
L

lollipop

Guest
I was standing on a platform waiting for the subway. There was only a couple of people scattered around, each looking at their phone, each emptily staring in front of them or far away into the tunnel, all wisely chosen strategies to protect their field of vision from other people. I was also maintaining my own little box of privacy as I stared at my own shoes, but when I looked up, my eyes met the most wonderful, warm, inviting, soul-pouring gaze ever. It was from a woman slightly older than me, but I instantly felt that I knew her. Her eyes were that of a mother I never had, a sister I never had, and of a true friend that I might never have. It felt like a mental hug. I quickly looked away, but it was too late. I felt a jarring pain in my chest, a smoky heat in my throat, and my vision was getting blurry from tears which I managed to hold in just until I boarded an empty corner of the train and pathetically cried like a lonely foreigner does.

I'll never forget that look.
I made a true friend for four seconds.

My point here is this: if one person's look had such a strong impact on a random stranger, imagine just what it would be like if we looked at each other with eyes charged with such feelings. Just my 2c and a sappy story, I guess.
This. Beautiful, thank you for sharing.
 
L

lollipop

Guest
This excess value to the mathematical sum is key to understanding. It is the opposite of a sacrifice, really. I think this is related to certain statements of the second law of thermodynamics.
I almost wrote about this and the second law of thermodynamics in your other thread. And I agree it is the multiplier that we need to remember.
 

mujuro

Member
Joined
Nov 14, 2014
Messages
696
I think this is related to certain statements of the second law of thermodynamics.

Entropy? How do you mean?

I thought it's more like an acquired-immunity or an adaptation to the 2nd law, since we are able to come together in uncertain and chaotic circumstances and benefit each other in a way which, on our own, we would never be able to in those very same circumstances. Together we are able to more efficiently use the entropic reality because time is a constant variable.
 

Regina

Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
6,511
Location
Chicago
I was standing on a platform waiting for the subway. There was only a couple of people scattered around, each looking at their phone, each emptily staring in front of them or far away into the tunnel, all wisely chosen strategies to protect their field of vision from other people. I was also maintaining my own little box of privacy as I stared at my own shoes, but when I looked up, my eyes met the most wonderful, warm, inviting, soul-pouring gaze ever. It was from a woman slightly older than me, but I instantly felt that I knew her. Her eyes were that of a mother I never had, a sister I never had, and of a true friend that I might never have. It felt like a mental hug. I quickly looked away, but it was too late. I felt a jarring pain in my chest, a smoky heat in my throat, and my vision was getting blurry from tears which I managed to hold in just until I boarded an empty corner of the train and pathetically cried like a lonely foreigner does.

I'll never forget that look.
I made a true friend for four seconds.

My point here is this: if one person's look had such a strong impact on a random stranger, imagine just what it would be like if we looked at each other with eyes charged with such feelings. Just my 2c and a sappy story, I guess.
There is a lady sweet and kind,
Was never a face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I’ll love her till I die.

Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,
Her wit, her voice my heart beguiles,
Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
And yet I’ll love her till I die.

Cupid is winged and he doth range,
Her country, so, my love doth change:
But change she earth, or change she sky,
Yet, I will love her till I die.

– Thomas Ford
 

BibleBeliever

Member
Joined
Jul 27, 2016
Messages
403
Location
Canada
Hard to say. Women are very social by nature and they are full of estrogen. They appear to need the social support.
I have read that high testosterone can cause one to want to be isolated, but it's all debatable. One's worldviews can easily change how social a person is.
It would be great to be social if one has a healthy family to be around and healthy people; a happy community who have similar views and strive towards the same goals.
However when one lives in a degenerate society, where there are no common interests, it probably is better for you to be separated from them.

Many scientists and other great minds have accomplished much when alone.
 
B

Braveheart

Guest
"Many scientists and other great minds have accomplished much when alone."...yes to that

ah, the wonders of solitude.....I really like being alone together with someone.....
 

nikolabeacon

Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2015
Messages
326
Weren't the most intelligent and what we would call selfless people (not interested in business but invention) kind of lonely and non sociable (in our definition)? Tesla, Newton, Einstein etc. What about Peat himself.
They all had Aspergers syndrome. Einstein was saved slightly since he had Serbian wife. :) and he loved Italian pasta and Serbian bread. And they didnt develop actually anything usefull or practical but its because they were detached from traditional knowledge. Also @pimpnametheraypeat is right about Tesla
He was probably involved in development of weapons and some harmfull technologies including x rays, as many other scientist were at that time , even his most mainstream inventions are actually not "his" at all. It was just most practical idea and solution at that time and its only a modification of already existing ideas. He was very good paid for that and he was very rich and ended in poverty for exactly the same reasons when he promised some big inventions but didnt realized them . This guy explains it very well.

He was also involved in eugenics movement.




Sorry to dissapoint other meta 200 IQ predictions and understanding of Biology but "Peating" will not stop aging and it will not increase your longevity and IQ obviously since it couldn' t solve even your poor digestion and liver health, sky high Serotonin and hair loss and poor cooperation abilities. Although Peat is noting better at cooperation with other biologists and scientists even on daily progesterone and anti serotonin drugs .it actually increases his Sarcasm. Dont forget to put your high Serotonin "lol" in the reply.

Traditional knowldge about commune and family is good to start to understand cooperation.
Without Honesty there is NO Integrity and later cooperation.
 

meatbag

Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2016
Messages
1,771
They all had Aspergers syndrome. Einstein was saved slightly since he had Serbian wife. :) and he loved Italian pasta and Serbian bread. And they didnt develop actually anything usefull or practical but its because they were detached from traditional knowledge. Also @pimpnametheraypeat is right about Tesla
He was probably involved in development of weapons and some harmfull technologies including x rays, as many other scientist were at that time , even his most mainstream inventions are actually not "his" at all. It was just most practical idea and solution at that time and its only a modification of already existing ideas. He was very good paid for that and he was very rich and ended in poverty for exactly the same reasons when he promised some big inventions but didnt realized them . This guy explains it very well.

He was also involved in eugenics movement.




Sorry to dissapoint other meta 200 IQ predictions and understanding of Biology but "Peating" will not stop aging and it will not increase your longevity and IQ obviously since it couldn' t solve even your poor digestion and liver health, sky high Serotonin and hair loss and poor cooperation abilities. Although Peat is noting better at cooperation with other biologists and scientists even on daily progesterone and anti serotonin drugs .it actually increases his Sarcasm. Dont forget to put your high Serotonin "lol" in the reply.

Traditional knowldge about commune and family is good to start to understand cooperation.
Without Honesty there is NO Integrity and later cooperation.

Do you have a recommended source for learning more about commune and family? Do you place higher value on honesty or cooperation?
 
Last edited:

nikolabeacon

Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2015
Messages
326
Do you have a recommended source for learning more about commune and family? Do you place higher value honesty or cooperation?
Both are important but without personal honesty and integrity there is no cooperation.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom