"Bill" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:Hey Guys; is it just me or what?
Over the course of my life I have noticed a phenomenon which occurs when I start to come down with
an illness. Not when I have a full blown sickness, but just at the insipient stages where I'm just
starting to feel ill. I've noticed I become,,, err,,,umm,,, how should I say it,,, well I become
amourous?,, no I should say it, outright horney!
I believe there are 3 possible reasons for this (1 evolutionary)
1. It may be just a physiologic effect due changeing blood chemistry or hormones and thus just a
fluke.
Edit-out "just" and you'll be fine, philosophically, that is.
Quoted message said:
or
2. I suspect there could be an evolutionary benefit. Which is that in our evolutionary past, any
organism that becomes ill from a pathogen, would benefit reproductively if it took one last
kick at the cat so to speak. Many organism succumb to illness, and it might be natural
selection at work which favors any organism that might spread a few more genes around at this
critcal stage while it's still able to do so.
This is not such a far fetched explanation, IMO.
[It is my opinion because I have found it useful and possible to fetch fuel for my own "explanatory
philosophical terminology" from equally afar (as measured by evolution-theoretical standards).]
It quite plausibly (given our evolution-theoretical explanations for things) that such (a type of)
traits exists.
Not only that, but they have come to exist as an 'extensively permutated theme' through-out most
animal species.
Starting with an ancestral population of amoebic (single-celled/eukarotic) individuals: In adversely
impacting life-situations (e.g. "Irritating Cloud Type Situations"😉 that trigger an unsustainable
(hence decisively maladaptive) series of withdrawal reflexes, there are only three conceivable
behavioural outcomes:
1. that the primary reflex action is kept up untill complete exhaustion of vital energy (hence until
death occurs);
2. that some kind of Hibernatory coping mechanisms sets in - allowing the amoebic indiviudal to safe
its vital and potentially reproductive internal resources the dispersal of distressor (e.g. after
the erruption of the vulcanic "irritating cloud making" activity has ceased);
3. To (as you essentially suggested) take the basic evolutionary opportunity by "having a last ditch
dig at the cat" (to borrow from how you put it :-). The lineage-preserving evolutionary
opportunity being two-fold: that the offspring is a mutant form that is either immune or
insensitive to the "irritant" or even mutated so far from its parent form that it is inclined to
put the irritants into its mouth and to digest them! By the law of large numbers, such a far out
re-formulation of amoebic function might actually have occured more than once.
It is possible to ('bio_logically'😉 generalize and extrapolate from the possibility (inevitable
reality) of such a juxtaposition (or overlap); that is, a near enough life-situational coincidence
of a "selective Hibernation imploring type situation" (subtype of adversity type evolutionary
pressure that may be deservedly abbreviated to [censored] or alternatively, if a most general menaing
is intended, to HITS) and one or more "opportunity type evolutionary pressure". Later-to-have-
emerged brainy animals are normally automatically/inevitably transforming [censored] into corresponding
memories that
behaviour then also has a chance to be a coping mechanism that is triggered by the presence of a
[censored] and/or the insidious/internalized presence of CURSES. And of course, CURSES has rich
connections with hormones, immune system functions, hence CURSES inevitably play a predisposing part
in the development of very many diseases.
So, what you experience is an in principle 'post hoc predictable' (or understandable) outcome of the
complex interplay (including 'internal ebbing and flooding'😉 of (brain and other) chemicals;
More specifically (in this case) an interplay that occurs within your body when its defences against
disease and its "maintenance of ease" is (for some reason or "mixes of reasons" - dietary/viral/bacterial/social-
environmental etc.) starting to fail.
Quoted message said:
or
3. Maybe it's just me??
Again, just get rid of "just". %-)
Regards,
P
