...Ultimately selfishness?

Not always. Sometimes i feel sad that my freinds have died too soon, they could have had a few more good years, to enjoy with their family.

well, why would we feel sad if someone dies, if we made friendship/or have other relations with them in the first place on selfishness?.
Our genes might be selfish, not necessarily us(consciously).

Depends. On definition/understanding of selfish and on situation. Ultimately and as of now, nobody can prove either way, but I do not think it is unreasonable to assume that if someone we knew - were in relationship/interaction with - dies and we are sad, it is mostly because we are being selfish. We will miss, be without, not the one who died. Hope none close dies anytime soon as I am not ready to face the dilemma of whether to go to funeral or not.

Possibly. I do miss the human interaction.

Yep.

I don't feel that sad when people die. It's just a condition that happens. Sort of like short and sudden gusts of wind.



Shit! Does that sound bad?

Is the sadness we experience when someone dies of evolutionary benefit?

HAJiME wrote:...Ultimately selfishness?

Sure, we mourn our own loss, and the loss of what we imagine that person's future might have been. As I age, each funeral brings up an ever lengthening review of past losses.

Panderos wrote:Is the sadness we experience when someone dies of evolutionary benefit?

Interesting question. Will knowing the pain of loss make us more likely to choose the "better" person to risk that with? People at the age to pick a future parent for their children are (hopefully) less experienced on the lessons loss brings, so I don't see the evolutionary value. Enlighten me.

I think the evolutionary value is in the desire to help the group survive. The group being those we care about. The mourning is meerly a byproduct of caring.

At some point -- in childhood already -- we come to realise that the pain of loss is inevitable. (Rather desolatingly, the only way to avoid it is to die first... before one's family and friends do).
I don't think that the feeling of sadness is at all selfish, although one could perhaps indulge it in a selfish manner. However, the sadness can also lead to very unselfish behaviour. Empathy can prompt a person to perform deeds of kindness and mutual support in the face of loss.

Edit: Grimstad says it more elegantly! ^^

Here is the problem, reductionism as a means to explain technically is great, reductionism as a means to technically help us in assisting to make us happier is fine, except we are not senses and definitely not our genes either,
As I said earlier, if selfishness is the reason why we feel bad, then why not assume that our relations we have begin with or are due to selfishness and since it was due to selfishness, how can there be sadness?. If however we are sad, then how can it be selfishness?
Also, there are people who die out of sadness very soon after their spouses death or after divorce or heart break? How can that be selfishness?
There problem with selfishness is not that it doesnt explain things, the problem with it is that it explains everything, but I am not sure whether the term 'selfishness' is right at all?
Can we not assume, selfish electrons or cuckold atoms or swinging atoms?.
I think the term to use must be evolutionary dynamics.

When my grandmother died I felt what I suppose you could call pity. I never saw her, I was never close to her, I had no personal loss. I felt how I did because she had what I consider a pretty bad life. A fearful Catholic all her life, she slept apart from her husband and got up before him every day at 6am to clean, make his meals and run errands. All she did. Then she lived with Alzheimer's for probably 15 years which ended up massively humiliating her.

Not really selfishness there, but it was certainly depressing to think that's how her life turned out and how it ended.

HAJiME wrote:...Ultimately selfishness?

The short answer is yes. Grief/sadnesss is an innately selfish emotion. It indicates a feeling of loss. The feeling is about oneself,not the person or thing which has been lost.

That is an observation,not a judgment. I've never understood using selfishness as an accusation;it's who and what we are. Of course there are unselfish (altruistic) acts, many. However, in my experience there are no unselfish people.

Grief is a multi-faceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which a bond was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, and philosophical dimensions. While the terms are often used interchangeably, bereavement often refers to the state of loss, and grief to the reaction to loss.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grief


see also: Elizabeth Kubler Ross "On Death And Dying"

Animavore wrote:I don't feel that sad when people die. It's just a condition that happens. Sort of like short and sudden gusts of wind.



Shit! Does that sound bad?

It would if it was true. What it actually sounds like is naivette,industrial strength denial, or an indicator you have not yet lost a close first degree blood relative or spouse. Of course you may simply be psychotic.

gleniedee wrote:

Animavore wrote:I don't feel that sad when people die. It's just a condition that happens. Sort of like short and sudden gusts of wind.
Shit! Does that sound bad?

It would if it was true. What it actually sounds like is naivette,industrial strength denial, or an indicator you have not yet lost a close first degree blood relative or spouse. Of course you may simply be psychotic.

When my dad died, I was the only person smiling at his funeral. A few months later I was digging through a drawer and pulled out his watch. A single tear rolled down my cheek. That was the only grief I experienced. I do feel a little guilty about not telling him I love him when they loaded him in the ambulance though. I was pretty sure I'd never see him alive again.

Of course a part of it is. This is what grief is, it's the same feeling when you get dumped. Something that made you happy is no longer there.

gleniedee wrote:

Animavore wrote:I don't feel that sad when people die. It's just a condition that happens. Sort of like short and sudden gusts of wind.



Shit! Does that sound bad?

It would if it was true. What it actually sounds like is naivette,industrial strength denial, or an indicator you have not yet lost a close first degree blood relative or spouse. Of course you may simply be psychotic.

Ok. You found me out. I haven't lost anyone really close to me. People I know have a habit of not dying. Maybe someday...