
Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose? (2017) - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/does-depression-have-an-evolutionary-purpose
======
doctorcroc
Tangential, but this psychologist argues that depression evolved as a
behavioral shutdown mechanism to prevent humans from over-investing in tactics
or behaviors that did not yield any benefit (from a dopaminergic standpoint)
-- [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-
knowledge/201604...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-
knowledge/201604/the-behavioral-shutdown-theory-depression). The reasoning is
that we conserve energy by not pursuing "dead-ends". Naturally, this
evolutionary mechanism is thrown for a loop in an existence where survival is
assured, and meaning becomes the main spectre psychologically.

~~~
danharaj
> this evolutionary mechanism is thrown for a loop in an existence where
> survival is assured, and meaning becomes the main spectre psychologically.

Most people who suffer from depression because of environmental factors have
no real substantial changes they can make to their life that would resolve the
root issue of their depression.

I could "fix" my depression once I had an independent high paying job that let
me live anywhere and choose to live in the way I need to live in order to be
happy. My episodes are far between now and, again, caused by things I don't
have enough control over.

What I'm saying is that we paper over the contradictions of the illusion of
self determination peddled to us in rich Western societies by making
depression seem like a personal, idiopathic problem.

~~~
k__
"I could "fix" my depression once I had an independent high paying job that
let me live anywhere and choose to live in the way I need to live in order to
be happy."

My girlfriend works in a psychiartry for people with depression and she told
me that it has nothing todo with success.

~~~
sunir
Rank Theory suggests otherwise. Not sure why she would say that.

~~~
ouioiu98090i
Because it's not the only valuable theory in the field?

Rank Theory tethers itself to depressive experiences in situations where
social pecking order is the trigger. Basically, to help aide success and
survival in a group setting.

Psychic pain hypothesis, for example, comes to a similar conclusion about the
evolutionary value of depression, but does so without considering social
pecking order.

We know depression can also be triggered just from screwed up biology. So
"lack of success" really may not be the issue in a lot of cases.

------
pron
Evolutionary psychology reminds me of religious sermons. The axiomatic
assumption is that everything happens for a purpose and the cause is always
evolution (or God) [1], and so, if something happens it _must_ have a purpose.
All that's needed is to interpret reality to uncover it. If something good
happens it's because the purpose is to reward us, and if bad something
happens, it's because the purpose is to teach us. Or something. Religion, of
course, is far superior, because it doesn't pretend to be science.

[1]: Nothing we know about biology in general and evolution in particular
entails that assumption (except in specific circumstances where the mechanism
is understood, but if the mechanism is understood the interpretation is
unnecessary), hence it's axiomatic.

~~~
DoreenMichele
No, you don't actually need any such assumption. We often use that language,
but that isn't really what evolution is about.

Evolution is about surviving the winnowing. Strategies that create high
survival rates tend to propagate. Proposing a "purpose" for the strategy is
just a means to try to understand the mechanism that causes them to foster
higher survival rates and thereby propogate.

~~~
pron
That is not at all what I meant. What I meant was that there is no reason
whatsoever to presuppose that every existing phenotypical quality is adaptive.

~~~
DoreenMichele
The article is simply asking, essentially, "Since depression is so common,
what if it is adaptive? What if there are circumstances under which depression
actually improves your odds of survival, even though that seems counter-
intuitive?"

~~~
pron
I understand that, just as I understand that there is value in religion, but
that doesn't make it science. Yet evolutionary psychology poses as science.
All of evolutionary psychology is "can we come up with an interesting
interpretation to present quality X as adaptive?" Interesting, maybe, but not
science.

~~~
rwnspace
>not science.

That's a brave position. I think it's not exactly Freudian dream theory.
Though the 'just-so stories' characterisation can be fair... Saying that,
behavioural biology is without question a scientific endeavour, with obvious
connections to both evolution and human psychology - is that well-grounded evo
psych or is evo psych poorly-grounded behavioural biology?

~~~
pron
It's not Freudian dream theory (which the virtually most psychologists happily
agree is not science), but it's not experimental psychology, either. Unlike
dream theory, though, it still claims to be science. I agree that the question
is a scientific question, but there is a difference between a scientific
question and a scientific endeavour. If we don't have the science to answer a
scientific question (e.g. about multiple universes) we call our thought
experiments and hypotheses pure speculation; we don't try to present them as
carrying any sort of scientific validity.

------
40acres
Something about this article reminds of Venkatesh Rao article: We Are All
Architects Now

"A crisis is too good a thing to waste. Not only should you have as many as
you have time for, you should succumb to each as quickly and completely as
possible, and then bounce back as quickly as you can so you can have another
one. Resistance is not just futile, it is counter-productive.

This aesthetically appropriate and functionally necessary response to a crisis
is a crash. If you don’t crash, it wasn’t a crisis. A healthy, crisis-ridden
life is one that evolves rapidly, one crash at a time. So it stands to reason
that navigating such a healthy life well involves crashing early and crashing
often (CECO; life is a FEFO in CECO out, or FICO system)."

[https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/12/17/we-are-all-
architects-...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/12/17/we-are-all-architects-
now/)

~~~
shubhamjain
The article reads like philosophical/spiritual bullshit written to
overcomplicate a single idea, which I am still not sure what is.

------
bhouston
I think it could.... It is the "do not keep doing the same thing if it isn't
working".

Of course we are in a novel high stress environment so I think it can be
triggered erroneously or we just need to now live through really shitty
situations at work, etc.

I wonder if antidepressants in some cases encourage an individual to stick
out/survive a situation they should really be escaping from?

~~~
jackhack
I think you're onto it. If an organism is not successful in whatever
circumstance, then it is for the benefit of the herd (and species) that the
individual drop out and not propagate its genes further. It is a braking
mechanism. A psychic-emotional watchdog.

~~~
mamon
I don't think that suicide (logicaly following from "not propagate its genes
further") is an actual objective of depression. It is probably more about
forcing an individual to think their problem through - that's what you do when
you are depressed, constantly thinking about all the things that went wrong in
your life.

Thing is, in primitive, savannah environment all problems were simple enough
that they could be solved by just few hours/days of thinking and planning.
Nowadays we live in civilized society which poses much bigger challenges,
which cannot be easily fixed. That's why depression can extend to
weeks/months, and after that time it becomes chronic condition, even when the
actual problems that caused it has already gone away.

~~~
hutzlibu
Yes, you think things through, but if you ultimately don't find a solution,
you choose suicide. (or maybe in old Savannah times, just lying aphatic around
for ages maybe meant the same, with getting eaten by a lion)

But I would also argue, I that even in primitiv societies, things could get
very complex - because their daily life involved also lots of deamons,
spirits, ect. you had a bad dream, but that might mean that an enemy sorcerer
tried to kill you and now you needed to figure out who and what to do against
it ...

------
dragonwriter
No, because “evolutionary purpose” is an incoherent concept, since evolution
is inconsistent with purpose.

Now, asking if it is a trait that contributed to fitness directly in the
environment in which it arose (rather than a side effect of the underlying
mechanism of some such trait or combination of traits that is not, in itself,
a contributor to fitness in the environment in which it arose) may be a useful
and legitimate question to ask.

OTOH, this article doesn't really seem to have much to offer but speculation
that segues into a really unrelated (and poorly considered) argument about
treating depression that is about equivalent, borrowing the article’s own
broken leg analogy, to arguing that because broken legs ultimately may be
caused by, e.g., uneven stairs, that doctors are obligated to fix the stairs
before treating the broken leg.

------
psyc
Purpose maybe isn't quite the right word, but depression is evolved, and has a
de facto social function, albeit a maddening one. It's a bit like chronic pain
in that regard. Crudely, winning at social games and conflicts tends to impart
hormonal advantages that help an organism win more. Being chronically
frustrated tends to make the organism drop out of the games.

~~~
dogma1138
Depression has a role in our nervous system and technically even lobsters can
be depressed but it doesn’t mean that it has the same secondary social effects
as with humans.

To put it simply purpose of depression can be completely different than the
effects we experience it’s just that it doesn’t have any major disadvantages
as far human reproduction goes so we didn’t had the chance to fuck it out of
our gene pool.

------
schackbrian
This reminded me of a Scientific American article from nine years ago about
the evolutionary roots of depression. It says that depression is a useful
adaptation:

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/depressions-
evolu...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/depressions-
evolutionary/)

Dr. Stephen Ilardi from the University of Kansas takes the opposite position.
In his book, The Depression Cure, he says that depression is a disease of
modernity. "[O]ur bodies were never designed for the sleep-deprived, poorly
nourished, frenzied pace of twenty-first century life."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drv3BP0Fdi8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drv3BP0Fdi8)

------
wolfspider
Well I think this research paper is a little too detached from the human
condition to add a lot insight into what function depression may serve but is
definitely illuminating in the mechanics of how it functions. Really I think
depression is the part of the human poker game where you have to put your
cards down, fold, or leave the game. It forces the sufferer to finally make an
attempt to relate to another human being in order to continue moving forward
or at least gain some insight into why things aren't working. Suicide has no
definite causal relationship with depression because plenty of people do that
when they are angry or even happy (so happy life is complete). Suicide will
always be the absurd answer to the absurd question and there is not much worth
examining in between there in my opinion. There is higher incidence with
depression and intelligent people- so perhaps the function of the depressive
state is actually to improve the species. I say this because if intelligent
people were able to separate themselves easily from everybody else that would
have happened a long time ago. I think there must be a genetic component in
there for human beings whom are intelligent to actually get stuck in a rut and
inadvertently help those around them. Possibly getting depressed is that
mechanism because what else is more effective at getting people to talk about
their lives, what they are thinking, and what's wrong with them. If they don't
feel like talking and actively resist physical signs develop to the point
others take notice. The uglier side of this however is that if the depression
goes on long enough it hardens and becomes a psychosis or even psychopathic
tendencies. First the silver and then the lead unfortunately. More studies
need to be done about the group dynamics of depression instead of focusing on
the individual or their direct contacts. Certain chain reactions occur in
society and we are very much aware of that but psychological studies tend to
ignore that certain members of any population act as a catalyst and maybe this
is where the physiological inputs are derived from- the greater population as
a whole.

------
tw1010
Does anything have an evolutionary "purpose"? I mean really. Why, really, is
the human tailbone less "purposeful" than our hair?

~~~
jack_pp
Not having a tailbone has probably not been an evolutionary advantage.

Hair is an evolutionary advantage, not a big one but bald women don't mate as
successfully as women with nice hair do, on average

~~~
colechristensen
>not a big one but bald women don't mate as successfully as women with nice
hair do, on average

A trait being seen as attractive in a mate is another way that trait evolves.
Hair isn't evolutionary advantageous because it attracts mates, it attracts
mates because it is evolutionary advantageous. Sexual selection can get weird
and select for things that are fairly far removed from what we might think as
utility.

Part of hair's purpose is just as an indicator of health. If you're very
unhealthy your hair will fall out or look particularly bad, if it's long and
nice looking that means you've probably been healthy for a long time too.
That's probably a good indicator at how good you are at taking care of
yourself and likewise how good you will be at taking care of your offspring
and how good they will be at taking care of themselves.

Sometimes sexual selection is just about how much energy you can spend on
doing something to look attractive with no other purpose. Lots of birds
exhibit this.

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henryw
Try reading "The Untethered Soul" by Michael Singer and/or "Letting Go" by
David Hawkins. Depression could be partly due to an acquired habit of always
paying attention to fear based thoughts (like lacking xyz), which came from
evolution. The cure is to raise the emotional level of thoughts to love for
self and compassion for others (by having compassion for others, you give it
to yourself). Another cure is to not pay attention to the chattering of the
mind. If you wrote down all the chattering of the mind, you may find that >90%
of them are useless. Paying attention to the chattering brings more useless
chattering.

All this sounds new age, but it works.

------
68c12c16
I think the researches described in the article might have over-generalized
the concept of "depression" a bit...

I feel what we call "depression" is actually a spectrum of symptoms --
although those symptoms might have certain shared common traits (such as
strong inertia and not wanting to do anything), they actually could be quite
different in other aspects. For instance, when you are not doing anything, it
could be that you are ruminating; or it could also be that your body and brain
are simply numb, and not thinking about anything.

The article says,

    
    
      In this view, the disordered and extreme thinking that
      accompanies depression, which can leave you feeling   
      worthless and make you catastrophize your circumstances,
      is needed to punch through everyday positive illusions and   
      focus you on your problems. In a study of 61 depressed
      subjects, 4 out of 5 reported at least one upside to their 
      rumination, including self-insight, problem solving, and 
      the prevention of future mistakes.
    

Well, I don't know the structure of their sample pool...If the experiment is
performed on a campus setting, like many other psychology experiments, then
the conclusion actually has a bias towards a certain group of people --
although that group certainly might have its own spectrum.

~~~
arbitrage
It's nice that you have feelings, but they're likely using the clinical
definition of Major Depressive Disorder, which takes the guess work out of
defining who the sample group is.

~~~
68c12c16
Yes, I remember there is a DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders)...

My point is that, as according to what has been written in the article,

    
    
      "...the disordered and extreme thinking that accompanies 
       depression..." 

and

    
    
       "In a study of 61 depressed subjects, 4 out of 5 
        reported at least one upside to their rumination, 
        including self- insight, problem solving, and the
        prevention of future mistakes..."
    

it seems that the article is merely focusing on the type of depression that
involves "thinking" and "rumination"...and there is a certain sub-range of the
entire spectrum, of what is called "Major Depressive Disorder" as in the
"academic" and "clinical" settings, that does not involve thinking or
rumination -- or significantly reduced level of thinking and rumination --
then this subtype of depression is not actually covered in that study, and
hence the conclusion of the study has no bearing, for that matter, on what we
call "depression" as a whole, but only a subcategory of all the possible
depressive symptoms ...

------
dschuetz
Depression and mania as its counterpart are states of the psyche out of
emotional balance. Those are emotional struggles which need to be overcome by
their bearers. Clinical depression based on endocrine imbalances does count as
well, as it has the same impact as temporal depression. Sometimes the
struggles are so hard that at times it may seem easier just to give up. If you
just let those states continue to persist without any countermeasures you'll
never learn how to deal with them as they continue to wreak havoc to your
perceptive and reflective cognitive abilities, which work best in emotional
equilibrium by the way.

So, basically saying that depression in itself might have some evolutionary
purpose seems a bit far fetched.

------
chmike
I'm afraid that the reason to human suicide is simply, in most cases, to put
an end to the pain these human feel.

The brain is an extreamly complex "organ" with many many different potential
points of failure. Attempts to find a reason for abnormal behaviors by such
type of guessing (finding an evolutionary reason) looks to me like our
ancestors did when attributing to gods will unexpected natural events.

It's not impossible that depressive behavior is a natural brain protective
measure (thinking of burnout here), but this reasonning really looks like
guessing and as truth seeker, we shouldn't accept the risk to be wrong on
this.

------
robbiep
Anyone interested in the evolutionary basis of psychiatric conditions would do
well to read Robert Trivers, an evolutionary psychologist.

------
narrator
Does the evolutionary psychologist serve an evolutionary purpose? It seems to
fail the analytical egalitarianism test.

------
laretluval
Now how about an evolutionary purpose for cancer?

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030698771...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987716310246)

"A tumor is an organ that has the function of killing the individual"

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abol3z
Well, actually i still didn't get an answer to why humans evolved their brains
in the first place to this level.

Any creature can live with less than 10% of our level of thinking. I mean
humans brains is more of a threat to nature than advantage!

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nicostouch
probably to feed the lions

