my first impression of lecture was that something has changed drastically since i was an undergrad: these days, there is a constant clicking of fingers on keys throughout the lecture. it isn't so loud as to drown out the microphoned professor, but about 1 in 10 students has a laptop, and they're constantly typing. it's not so objectionable as background noise, but it's always there.
so the professor, whose name i should probably learn, was talking today about emotions in an evolutionary context. people who know me will be unsurprised to learn that i ate this up. it's funny: a lot of things he was saying seemed obvious to me, or were things i already thought about, but the whole concept of my own emotions being in some sense evolved was something that had never occurred to me before. from a personal perspective, i was trying to fit in how my emotional overdependence on people and how my insane breakdowns fit into any sort of evolutionary framework.
i still can't really figure it out. these are obviously very counterproductive things. hopefully the emotional trauma episodes are in the past, but regardless, it doesn't really seem to serve any purpose for one to be so panicky, traumatized, and depressed. so i spent some time thinking about this, while he was talking about actual uses for other negative emotions, such as fear (prevents us from doing stupid things; increases adrenaline, which increases fighting and fleeing skills, and so forth) and embarrassment (produces sympathy/forgiveness reactions in others, because it means that you know you did something wrong; is a strong negative reaction which prevents you from making the same mistake again.)
it seems that there is a general point to depression, and, extrapolating, suicidal thoughts. in principle, emotional trauma should be the ultimate deterrent; i've gone through these periods of incredible emotional instability, all having to do with relationships, and it would seem that i should simply never get in serious relationships again. but i don't actually feel that way; no matter how much i might believe that rationally, i intuitively still want a meaningful relationship with an amazing person who will probably leave me again. (i don't mean to be all maudlin about it; i'm just trying to be scientific. in practice, i'm sure that if i am so lucky to have an amazing relationship again, i will be very optimistic that it will last, as i always have been in the past.)
so that doesn't seem like a very rational reaction, and it also invalidates what would seem to be the primary purpose of the emotional doldrums that follow these breakups. i mean, i am learning very conscious lessons from this -- that i need to be less dependent on people and on one person in particular (i.e. the person i'm dating) for happiness, that i need to do a much better job of being considerate and understanding of what actually makes the other person happy -- but emotionally the reaction is not one of incorporation but one of loneliness.
i guess you might think that the emotion of loneliness is good, because it encourages you back into socializing, but for me it's actually the exact opposite. when i feel lonely i don't feel like going out and socializing; my instincts are to wallow, and only by forcing myself to step back and look at things rationally can i get out of bed. if anything, the emotion is incredibly counterproductive. there's also the business where people who are lonely and sad are simply not appealing. these aren't fun people to be friends with or date.
i'm not saying that i'm like that to the extreme (translation: be friends with me!), but this is my personal instinctive reaction to these emotions, and it doesn't seem very evolved.
another thing i was thinking of while he was talking was the evolutionary value of suicide and suicidal thoughts. i can see one possible answer; if you have suicidal thoughts because your life is awful, and you've been constantly rejected by the world, then it makes sense from a social perspective to get rid of you. you're a drain on society and you aren't contributing anything. so maybe we're wired to hit the self-destruct button when there is ample evidence that we won't fit in. obviously not all suicidal thoughts fit into this category, and this is certainly overly simplistic, but it does seem like there could be something there, selection on the group level (and even conceivably the individual level; by removing yourself from the world, you free up the emotional energy that your family is spending on you, allowing them to focus on people with a chance of reproducing.)
of course, no one will ever discuss suicide as a rational thing in a college classroom, probably with good cause, so i don't expect professor x to ever mention it. but it's curious, and it's one of the emotions i am most interested in.
and so i look forward to learning more about human emotion.