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purpose for grief?

(Keep in mind, I'm just guessing)

As far as a biological purpose is concerned, greif is another motivation for humans to continue to survive as a species. Its vaguely similar to the "If a species wants to survive, it will survive" principle.

I would imagine remorse as a motivation for humans against performing "evil" deeds.
 
If you believe the "Walking with Cavemen" series, the reason our species survived as well as it did is because we are social animals. Grief is necessary to foster strong bonds in a social group, if there was no grief their would be little incentive to ensure the survival of the other members of your tribe.

I don't think grief is unique to humans, either. I've seen dogs display grief-like emotion at times.
 
I could postulate a social purpose for grief.

Emotional attachment of some kind seems to be an essential requirement of grief, which makes it difficult to argue that there's a biological imperative at work.
 
EvilYeti said:
If you believe the "Walking with Cavemen" series, the reason our species survived as well as it did is because we are social animals. Grief is necessary to foster strong bonds in a social group, if there was no grief their would be little incentive to ensure the survival of the other members of your tribe.

I don't think grief is unique to humans, either. I've seen dogs display grief-like emotion at times.
Click to expand...
It does not follow that grief itself serves a useful purpose. The social bonding itself serves a very useful purpose, and it is possible that grief due to the loss of social bonding is a side effect.
 
I always thought grief seemed like a detrimental thing. Sometimes grief can almost incapacitate us. I can picture a cave-person grieving the loss of a partner and being unable to provide for the rest of the family for awhile.

I guess it couldn't be all that bad because we didn't die out.

If you believe the "Walking with Cavemen" series, the reason our species survived as well as it did is because we are social animals. Grief is necessary to foster strong bonds in a social group, if there was no grief their would be little incentive to ensure the survival of the other members of your tribe.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a pretty good reason to me. I hadn't really thought about it that way. I guess after grieving the loss of a loved one once, you'll want to make damn sure it doesn't happen again if you can help it.

Thanks everyone for your responses
 
This is strange, because I was thinking about this same question just last week. Here's my guess.

Maybe grief is just the side effect of a strong survival instinct. It doesn't serve a purpose, but if our species has a strong survival instinct and higher brain functions (emotions), it's going to happen.
 
arcticpenguin said:

It does not follow that grief itself serves a useful purpose. The social bonding itself serves a very useful purpose, and it is possible that grief due to the loss of social bonding is a side effect.
Click to expand...

I feel emotions demand a dualist nature in order to have any meaning. One can't have light without darkness.
 
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