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Comment by mettamage | Hacker News Reader

Why are we evolved to do this?

Probably just in case the thing that would have made us die doesn't actually make us die so we don't fully process the horrifically traumatic thing that caused us to almost die

In case you end up not dying, it makes it memorable enough so that you won't reiterate the action causing you to almost die.

"Oh sh*t, that was traumatic. I'll never eat these gorgeous little berries if they caused that".

On the other hand... "maybe if I take just a bit less, I won't almost die but just have a great trip". Hence, psychedelics.

Stoned Ape Theory?

https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/evolution/stoned-ape-...

Bill Hicks: https://youtu.be/Sb5EjflughU?t=147

I don't think that would apply if you were e.g. a Greek soldier and you were impaled by Persian warriors

Certainly but it would only invalidate my point if I had stated it as universally true.

There’s no way that natural selection selected for this, simply because, well, after you die you won’t have offspring to inherit it.

It is just a side effect of some other mechanism that likely has a use during our lifetime.

What do you think of the other replies?

I read this quickly as "What do you think of the other reptiles?"

Well, does it matter? Every ‘we evolved X’ statement is tautological, and is more akin to bringing up the weather.

Until we can run control variables over billions of years…

When your brain dies, depending on what the issue is, your brain no longer works under normal circumstances.

If your heart stops, oxygen is going down, it could just mean that your brain regularitory features stop working as designed and it's firering more random.

More random / lsd / drugs can give you weird effects. Optical, sensorical etc. illusions.

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