Do we have a lemming instinct?

[EGarrett]

I make the habit of paying attention to all the little quirks and "programming tricks" that evolution has put into my brain, and I noticed one very bizarre a few months ago...that I'd never read about before, and I just now remembered it. I also did some quick wikipedia research and I haven't found any documentation of it.

Anyway...I was driving home from work a few months ago...and I ran into a particularly bad bit of traffic. I came over a hill, and I saw nothing but cars for about as far as I could see ahead, and cars all around me and behind me, all stuck together.

...and at that point...I noticed that I felt an urge to kill myself. I'm not exaggerating or being funny. I felt a weird instinct that pushed me to find a cliff to jump off of or to otherwise self-terminate...specifically triggered by realizing I was in a situation where I was jammed up with far too many peple in far too small a space, with no solution in sight.

This was not a joke...if I picture the situation or something similar...I get a bit of the same feeling. It would seem that we have some sort of built-in suicide instinct that makes us start pruning our population if we get hopelessly overcrowded.

(note, I know that lemmings don't actually commit mass suicide, I just needed a title line that would fit and be descriptive)

 

[Puppycow]

I really doubt it. It just sucks to be stuck in a traffic jam.

People do stop breeding or commit suicide, but I wouldn't describe these behaviours as instinctual. I think we all have at least occasional suicidal impulses. For me they tend to come when I have some unpleasant task(s) looming and suicide seems like an easier alternative, but anything that makes you feel depressed and frustrated could do it.

 

[TX50]

I am given to understand that animals revert to a more antisocial state when
overcrowded. I know that there is laboratory evidence that rats and mice do
this - and possibly some anecdotal evidence that Homo sapiens does so
too.

 

[shuize]

Sounds like some sort of agoraphobia to me.

agoraphobia

Main Entry: ag·o·ra·pho·bia
Pronunciation: \ˌa-g(ə-)rə-ˈfō-bē-ə\
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek agora + New Latin -phobia
Date: 1873
: abnormal fear of being helpless in an embarrassing or unescapable situation that is characterized especially by the avoidance of open or public places
— ag·o·ra·phobe \ˈa-g(ə-)rə-ˌfōb\ noun

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/agoraphobia

Fear of crowded, inescapable places doesn't really sound that odd to me.

 

[Erin]

I'm one of those people who try to avoid train platforms, bridges and high places because I get the impulse to throw myself off. Seriously. I tried researching it and remember reading somewhere that it was quite common. I wonder just how common. Anyone got any Google information on that type of thing. Don't want to research it myself - It might put ideas in my head. ​

 

[Puppycow]

I'm one of those people who try to avoid train platforms, bridges and high places because I get the impulse to throw myself off. Seriously. I tried researching it and remember reading somewhere that it was quite common. I wonder just how common. Anyone got any Google information on that type of thing. Don't want to research it myself - It might put ideas in my head. ​

Those ideas pop into my head too, but I've never felt like I can't control it.

 

[Complexity]

Sounds like some sort of agoraphobia to me.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/agoraphobia

Fear of crowded, inescapable places doesn't really sound that odd to me.

I think the word you're looking for is 'claustrophobia'.

 

[Puppycow]

I am given to understand that animals revert to a more antisocial state when
overcrowded. I know that there is laboratory evidence that rats and mice do
this - and possibly some anecdotal evidence that Homo sapiens does so
too.

That seems to make sense from an evolutionary perspective as overcrowding would reduce individual's chances of successfully reproducing.

I read about an early zoo exhibit in England that went horribly wrong. A colony of baboons was put in an enclosure called "Monkey Hill." In the wild, females outnumber males and each male typically has his own "harem." In this zoo however, there were mostly males with just a few females. The result was mayhem.

 

[Erin]

"Those ideas pop into my head too, but I've never felt like I can't control it."

I control it but I also avoid these places if possible.

 

[AgeGap]

If you look at it from a selfish gene point of view, we may have this instinct to thin numbers down when we are overcrowded and resources are low. This may keep the gene pool going rather than letting it all die out. a Captain Oates effect.

Is this what Freud called Thanatos?


Back to the OP. Do we have a lemming instinct?
Not any more!

Agegap RIP

 

[Darth Rotor]

I make the habit of paying attention to all the little quirks and "programming tricks" that evolution has put into my brain, and I noticed one very bizarre a few months ago...that I'd never read about before, and I just now remembered it. I also did some quick wikipedia research and I haven't found any documentation of it.

Anyway...I was driving home from work a few months ago...and I ran into a particularly bad bit of traffic. I came over a hill, and I saw nothing but cars for about as far as I could see ahead, and cars all around me and behind me, all stuck together.

...and at that point...I noticed that I felt an urge to kill myself. I'm not exaggerating or being funny. I felt a weird instinct that pushed me to find a cliff to jump off of or to otherwise self-terminate...specifically triggered by realizing I was in a situation where I was jammed up with far too many peple in far too small a space, with no solution in sight.

This was not a joke...if I picture the situation or something similar...I get a bit of the same feeling. It would seem that we have some sort of built-in suicide instinct that makes us start pruning our population if we get hopelessly overcrowded.

(note, I know that lemmings don't actually commit mass suicide, I just needed a title line that would fit and be descriptive)

Do we have a meme-ing instinct?

Suicide is a behavior, so if behavior is preprogrammed into us, it still requires socialization to evoke in many cases. Consider the capacity to kill. Humans have it, and either develop it or suppress it based on behavioral cues. Since suicide is a subset of killing, you might say suicide is a second order inclination, related to the killing instinct.

Or not.

SUicide as a self eliminating bahavior probably needs to be accounted for in your hypothesis, given the likelihood of removing that trait from the gene pool when it is acted upon, in some cases before the trait is passed on.

PS: A traffic jam isn't worth killing one's self over. The rest of those schmucks, well, that's another story.

@ puppycow: Wouldn't the population thinning be more likely to manifest itself in killing others, rather than the self? The survival trait is commonly seen in most life forms as a consistent similarity.
DR

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Pedantic note: Lemmings don't have a suicide instinct.

Oh, that's what I get for having DR on ignore.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Pedantic note: Lemmings don't have a suicide instinct.

*whispers*
From the OP:

(note, I know that lemmings don't actually commit mass suicide, I just needed a title line that would fit and be descriptive)

And in the post just above you, a link to snopes that was the same one you posted.

You and I were thinking along similar lines, which might possibly mean that it's curtains for the free world. Was there a blood moon where you live last night?

DR

 

[IllegalArgument]

"Those ideas pop into my head too, but I've never felt like I can't control it."

I control it but I also avoid these places if possible.

I'm really glad to see I'm not the only one that has these impulses.

Happens maybe once a year in traffic, it's not overwhelming just a very distinct emotion.

Also, get those feeling around the same things Erin mentions.

I think it's the brain doing predictive analysis, what if I did it!

 

[EGarrett]

I really doubt it. It just sucks to be stuck in a traffic jam.

People do stop breeding or commit suicide, but I wouldn't describe these behaviours as instinctual. I think we all have at least occasional suicidal impulses. For me they tend to come when I have some unpleasant task(s) looming and suicide seems like an easier alternative, but anything that makes you feel depressed and frustrated could do it.

I've had the rational conclusion that suicide might be easier than putting up with the BS in my life. I'm not sure it's the same thing.

I realize that if I say..."I just felt it" then that's a creationist-style argument that is impossible to discuss. I'm going to try imagining the situation again or a similar situation (usually being on a beach or somewhere else barren and loaded shoulder-to-shoulder with just the flesh of more people does it) and examine it to be sure it's the not the same thing. I feel like it's very specific though, and it does make sense for that instinct to be there.

I am given to understand that animals revert to a more antisocial state when
overcrowded. I know that there is laboratory evidence that rats and mice do
this - and possibly some anecdotal evidence that Homo sapiens does so
too.

Any more information on this? Studies or names to search up? It might shed some more light on the issue.

Sounds like some sort of agoraphobia to me.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/agoraphobia

Fear of crowded, inescapable places doesn't really sound that odd to me.

I don't know if it's fear. Fear makes you want to run away or fight, right? This one actually seems more based in disgust than fear. That's the part of the brain that seems to be getting stimulated.

It seems triggered specifically when you're surrounded. Trying to imagine it, I can feel that the urge to run away is there when there's a way out, but when it's just a crowd as far as the eye can see...it turns immediately into the urge to self-terminate. Actually, that does help. It seems to only creep up as an urge when there is obviously no feasible escape from the situation.

I'm one of those people who try to avoid train platforms, bridges and high places because I get the impulse to throw myself off. Seriously. I tried researching it and remember reading somewhere that it was quite common. I wonder just how common. Anyone got any Google information on that type of thing. Don't want to research it myself - It might put ideas in my head. ​

As IllegalArgument said, it seems to be how our brain stops us from actually doing it. It imagines what would happen if we step off...which is a huge reminder NOT to do it...and it also triggers your adrenaline etc. to keep you alert and aware of that ledge.

BTW, I also avoid ledges and...balconies like the plague, for the same reason.

If you look at it from a selfish gene point of view, we may have this instinct to thin numbers down when we are overcrowded and resources are low. This may keep the gene pool going rather than letting it all die out. a Captain Oates effect.

Is this what Freud called Thanatos?

From wikipedia, the Thanatos thing seems to be based in adrenaline-addiction. This feeling seems rooted in disgust. When I try to imagine it also, it comes with a sort-of shut-off of my brain's rational mind too. Yeah, I feel that also when I imagine a situation that triggers the urge. There's disgust there, a strange sort-of instant irrationality, and the desire to grab something and stab myself or self-terminate somehow.

 

[Beerina]

I don't know that every last meme or thought that passes through a brain or set of brains necessarily has to have an evolutionary advantage. Things like religion-as-memes may be more akin to a parasite than a symbiosis -- something that harms its host(s) but doesn't harm them enough to kill them outright. Hence there is merely a gentle evolutionary pressure, at the biological level to get rid of it (the meme-level evolutionary pressure of religions to spread is obviously well-established) even if it serves no beneficial purpose at the biological level whatsoever.

That's in fact where I think "social evolutionary theorists" may be missing the point, by presuming every major factor in society, qua memes, must, ispo facto, have an evolutionary advantage to the organism or species as a whole. The massive (presumably) evolutionary advantage to the organism and species of intelligence could very well carry with it the tendency to produce parasitic memes that are bad but overwhelmed by the benefits of intelligence.

A new liver that produces many chemicals by some trick of physics, most of which are beneficial, might produce harmful ones that haven't been compensated for (either by evolution restricting production of same, or the rest of the body compensating to use, or at least not be harmed by, those chemicals.) But if the overall benefit of the chemicals is greater with than without, it will survive and prosper.

Intelligence may be that big rollover point akin to a sudden liver coming into existence, and we are at the relatively young stage where the body hasn't yet weeded out the harmful chemicals or changed to ignore their effects. So we live with very strong arms and legs, but a pasty white pallor and we vomit as a species occasionally.

 

[EGarrett]

I don't know that every last meme or thought that passes through a brain or set of brains necessarily has to have an evolutionary advantage. Things like religion-as-memes may be more akin to a parasite than a symbiosis -- something that harms its host(s) but doesn't harm them enough to kill them outright. Hence there is merely a gentle evolutionary pressure, at the biological level to get rid of it (the meme-level evolutionary pressure of religions to spread is obviously well-established) even if it serves no beneficial purpose at the biological level whatsoever.

Interesting post, with good points. I want to point out though, that I'm not talking about a meme, which to my knowledge is a thought or cultural idea...I'm talking about a specific urge/instinct that I felt. And one that reasoning backs up. Intuitively, that instinct could exist and would have good reason to be there. (After all, as John Nash taught us, if all of us fight when we're logjammed, we get bloody anarchy where everyone is screwed. But if a certain number of us feel that urge and go "take a long walk off a short pier," until the logjam is gone...then those that are left can go back to reproducing successfully. So a population with that "built-in" urge in that situation would outlast one that didn't.)

Intelligence may be that big rollover point akin to a sudden liver coming into existence, and we are at the relatively young stage where the body hasn't yet weeded out the harmful chemicals or changed to ignore their effects. So we live with very strong arms and legs, but a pasty white pallor and we vomit as a species occasionally.

Something to consider. When watching explanations for the evolution of the eye etc. though, it seemed to me that intelligence actually developed before most of our senses...because intelligence is what can adapt to "new" senses that mutations may give us. For example, the "light sensitive" patch of cells that eventually becomes an eye is only initially useful if you can come to associate the feeling of no-light (i.e. a shadow) on that patch with being near another animal or a threat. And you need active intelligence to do that. That's a bit of a tangent though.

 

[Gurdur]

There are various neurobiochemical accidents that can easily make you suddenly suicidal or at least ideational about it.

Fascinatingly enough, brucellosis (IIRC) can make you very coldbloodedly and dispassionately homicidal in ideation for short periods.

 

[Erin]

IllegalArgument,

I hesitated to admit the above but it is an interesting discussion. I'm really glad to see I'm not the only one. It was stronger when I was younger, not so much now. Your thoughts on the brain doing predictive analysis, "what if I did it!" I think there might be something in that. I had a young family and I actually got angry at myself for such 'thoughts', though it was more of an impulse than a thought.


EGarrett,

I didn't feel fear. I felt anger at myself for ever 'considering' such a thing since I had a young family to care for. Like you said, more disgust than fear.

I can't say I sensed ".. a sort-of shut-off of my brain's rational mind". I was able to realise what I felt and that it was wrong and take a step back and yet still felt a little upset by it. I was curious as to why, and then anger at myself for thinking it. Imagining the situation doesn't "triggers the urge" for me. I have to actually be in the situation then the impulse comes over me like a wave.

I'm going to be completely honest here and say that what came with the 'impulse' was that it didn't matter much either way whether I did it or not. It was almost like an 'option' accompanied with complete detachment of anything that meant anything to me.


Gurdur,

"There are various neurobiochemical accidents that can easily make you suddenly suicidal or at least ideational about it."

Adding this as it might help the discussion. My father suffered from depression and committed suicide. I don't believe there is a connection but others may think differently.

"Fascinatingly enough, brucellosis (IIRC) can make you very coldbloodedly and dispassionately homicidal in ideation for short periods."

Not that this is what I felt but it comes close to explaining the feeling of 'cold detachment' that I felt with the impulse.​

 

[TragicMonkey]

I had what I self-diagnosed as a panic attack once, in a very crowded mall around Xmas. There were suddenly entirely too many people around, too close, moving too slowly, and there was really nowhere to get away from them. It was very hot.

Except my instincts were not to self-destruction; instead, I got the rising urge to slaughter everybody around me in a spree of bloodtastic rampagery the likes of which you don't see outside of video games. Luckily I contained my bloodlust long enough to get to an exit. I wound up having to walk around nearly half the outside of a large mall to get back to my car, but I thought it best not to reenter that humid rat trap. Not without weapons, anyway.

I've been in equally or even more- crowded situations since without the slightest twinge of such desires, so I'm inclined to think it was just a one-off combination of chance circumstance.