Evolutionary Purpose of Joy & Grief

[SinerAthin]

What are the evolutionary purposes of feelings such as joy and grief?

Does anyone know any notable works done in regards to these emotions, and their roles?

[Visna]

As with all things evolution, start with Darwin and work your way forward. Here is a wiki article on the evolution of emotions, it's fairly brief, but has some good links.

As for the two specific emotions I think grief serves two purposes. 1) It's a mechanism to prevent deaths of relatives or "allies", or at least make you try to prevent them in order to prevent the grief, that you know you will feel, and 2) it serves to portray us as good "allies", someone who could be depended upon should the excrement hit the fan. If a person responded to a loss by simply shrugging and saying "oh well, moving on", I would get the feeling they didn't care about me either, and so would seek new and better friends and "allies". Thus people in our distant past who didn't feel grief didn't last long, they didn't look after their children and they didn't forge alliances, both of those would put a cave dwelling early human and his/her children in an early grave.
Joy can be all sorts of things from the basic "an abscence of threats", to the more intricate pattern of strengthening the decision making process with an unexpectedly positive outcome of something. We can mentally "replay" the process, rehearse our course of action so to speak. On a sidenote that process might also explain why we relive traumatic events, only in that case it's a way to try to avoid them in the future.

[sumskilz]

In the most basic sense, they are motivations.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Then why do we still have people who don't care when people die? (i.e. me, although I do care when my pets die)

IIRC, Joy/Laughter stems from an old defense mechanism.

[hellheaven1987]

It is probably because those who can sense those emotions give them some sore of motivation/warning and allow the individual to survive better (and more, producing more offsprings), hence it is favorable during evolution.

For example, like those who experience joy during sex may persuade them to have more sex and produce more offsprings?

[Spear Dog]

The basic evolutionary purpose of emotions would be to help a child bond with an adult, as children are dependent on adult care for an unreasonably long time in biological terms, and consequently, for an adult to bond with a child and the child's mother who is also vulnerable during late pregnancy, birth and nursing. Emotions are the basis of social bonds.

If you're serious about notable works check out Erich Fromm on wikipedia and you will find a fairly concise overview of the works of the seminal psychologists and social psychologists who philosophised in the realm of the emotions.

Someone may be able to guide you towards more contemporary works regarding current thought.

[Himster]

To form stronger social constructs.

[Claudius Gothicus]

I don't think it has an actual function (purely pragmatic individuals who are merely oriented by rational goals can coexist, cooperate and reproduce)... it's more of a probable outcome of developing cognitive capacities that due to organic and informational constraints are not fully developed at birth, facing the challenges of "educating" a not-absolutely-organized mind. In other words having a consciousness.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

I don't think it has an actual function... it's more of a probable outcome of developing cognitive capacities and consciousness.

Why not Zoidberg both?

[Claudius Gothicus]

Well, first I would start by questioning the whole teleological perspective on evolution (be it biological, psychological or social), the belief that things happen for a pre-existing "need", to follow an "adaptive reason" in a particular way that has to be fulfilled. I believe that evolution happens as selective chance, probable outcome due to external-internal conditioning, there was no "need" for us to develop specific feelings (there's functional necessity but it's not as specific as we would like to believe it is) it just came with the package.

Once our human predecessors had reached a certain level of biological and communicational development due to complex, probabilistic and venturesome elements of our context (diet, hunting capacities, mating needs, etc.) the consciousness emerged... but as it emerges it creates it's own operational rules, which as long as not conflicting with the general necessity to adapt, can fully develop, feelings included.

[sumskilz]

I don't think it has an actual function (purely pragmatic individuals who are merely oriented by rational goals can coexist, cooperate and reproduce)...

A person who can no longer feel their emotions due to a specific type of brain injury can't really make decisions. Even though they can predict rational outcomes, they can't take any action, because they have no idea what they want. Without emotions, there are no motivations and thus no goals.

http://hss.caltech.edu/~steve/bechara.pdf

Well, first I would start by questioning the whole teleological perspective on evolution (be it biological, psychological or social), the belief that things happen for a pre-existing "need", to follow an "adaptive reason" in a particular way that has to be fulfilled. I believe that evolution happens as selective chance, probable outcome due to external-internal conditioning, there was no "need" for us to develop specific feelings (there's functional necessity but it's not as specific as we would like to believe it is) it just came with the package.

Once our human predecessors had reached a certain level of biological and communicational development due to complex, probabilistic and venturesome elements of our context (diet, hunting capacities, mating needs, etc.) the consciousness emerged... but as it emerges it creates it's own operational rules, which as long as not conflicting with the general necessity to adapt, can fully develop, feelings included.

All of your reasoning regarding evolution is solid in your first paragraph, but it's a mistake to consider consciousness an exclusively human (or even a primate) phenomenon.

http://fcmconference.org/img/Cambrid...sciousness.pdf

Also, emotions are the subjective experience of physiological processes we share with many species.

EDIT: I'm going to enlist Antonio Damasio again regarding consciousness...

[Phier]

A person who can no longer feel their emotions due to a specific type of brain injury can't really make decisions. Even though they can predict rational outcomes, they can't take any action, because they have no idea what they want. Without emotions, there are no motivations and thus no goals.

http://hss.caltech.edu/~steve/bechara.pdf

Interesting article. The geek in me immediately thought this though.



Unfit for duty.

[Claudius Gothicus]

Now that I think about it I tend to agree on there being a motivational basis (which of course erupts as a consequence of consciousness being able to operate beyond instinct). There is mere biological impulse, but a basic "want" guarantees higher degrees of complex interaction (which is a must in social animals), no matter how disorganized and irrational it can be at the beginning (culture and socialization take care of that); however I wouldn't consider that basic set of motives the synonym of the highly rationalized concepts of "grief" or "joy". An adaptive need for a "seek pleasure and avoid displeasure" mechanism seems like a basic enough concept.

[Condottiere 40K]

Vulcans suppress the expression of emotions, until mating season.

1. Motivation, much like the satisfaction after sex.

2. Empathy.

3. Social cohesion, communal binding.

[Aru]

They are pleasure and pain. You can go on from there.