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“The grief triggered by the loss of loved ones does not appear to be an adaptation produced by natural selection as it does not appear to increase an individual's fitness in any way -at least not in non-social species. Depression caused by loss is more likely to be a by-product of the ability to form long-term attachment relationships. Grief is the price we have to pay when the attachment relationship is finally broken. This assumption is supported by the fact that a person may also experience symptoms of depression as a result of the death of their beloved dog, horse or other pet. The stronger the attachment, the longer the symptoms of depression last. On the other hand, the knowledge of the pain caused by the loss of an important person or pet makes us take more care of the people or pets that are important to us.”

“Evolution by natural selection tends generally to promote adaptations up to the edge of chaos -the boundary between order and disorder. Where all fitness-relevant regularities have been subsumed, what remains is noise, devoid of predictive utility.”

“The first, pian, is an ancient self-protective signal that enables animals to navigate fitness hazards in their external and internal environments. The aversiveness of pain is designed precisely to induce action to end or escape it. The second suicidogenic adaptation is the exceptional intellect of the mature brain, which is able to obey the imperative to escape pain, effectively but maladaptively, by terminating its own consciousness. These dual 'pain' and 'brain' conditions - motivation and means, respectively - are not only necessary for deliberate self-killing but sufficient.”

“The first, pain, is an ancient self-protective signal that enables animals to navigate fitness hazards in their external and internal environments. The aversiveness of pain is designed precisely to induce action to end or escape it. The second suicidogenic adaptation is the exceptional intellect of the mature brain, which is able to obey the imperative to escape pain, effectively but maladaptively, by terminating its own consciousness. These dual 'pain' and 'brain' conditions - motivation and means, respectively - are not only necessary for deliberate self-killing but sufficient.”

“When an organism can react in a protective way for little cost but potentially huge benefit (e.g. avoiding death), the optimal system expresses many false alarms. Vomiting may only cost only a few hundred calories and a few minutes, whereas not vomiting risks death from poisoning.”

“Suicide can help pass on an individual's genes to the next generation in a situation where that individual is a burden to their close relatives and their own reproductive potential is weak. By taking their life, an individual may contribute to the reproductive success of their close relatives and thus to the proliferation of their own genes. In such a case, that individual's close relatives would have one mouth less to feed and no sick individual to look after. Indeed, several studies have shown that suicidal thoughts and suicides are more common in those who have poor chances of reproduction and who feel they are merely a burden to their loved ones.”