Evolution of Asperger, Bipolar people and psychopaths

[Mercy One]

I don't know if anyone will ever read to here but I found good genetic evidence for the hypothesis now (although changes in the neural crest cells seem to be more important in keeping us infantile than serotonin):

You have to combine the information from the video with the facts that:

1. The brain and behavior of autistic people seem is the opposite of that with Williams Syndrome.

2. The skull of autistic people versus body size is bigger and they show a greater sexual dysmorphism in skull (again means they are more adult, because you can distinguish adult males from females by looking at the skull more easily than in normal people).

 

[Eric Greenland]

I thank you very much Joshua and Au Naturel for reading this long and sort disorganized explanations of mine It helps me that someone is finally interested in what I think, this is just the way humans learn. But now I have run into the serious problem that I am just to disorganized and unconcentrated to keep good notes.

I have read an article somewhere that language has probably evolved by positively selecting babies that created unusual interesting voice patterns that have little useful information value but are good at drawing the attention of the parents because of their uniqueness. I guess the idea was that babys who could draw the attention of adults better (even if they where not so much in need at that moment) had a higher survival chance than those that couldn't. If the link to adult narcissism was made I don't know because I read only the first sentences. Unluckily I can't find that link anymore.

But I can find adult examples of "alpha babys" that produce "unusual and interesting communication patterns that draw a lot of attention but have little useful information value" :

Needless to say that statistically seen famous singers have a higher than average narcissism values.

But the problem is always the same: they gash a high number of physical resources in their permanent birthday parties and they draw attention away from the real babys in need (human attention is not infinite):

I would strongly recommend "The Attachment Effect" by Peter Lovenheim. Incredibly foundational stuff that seems to parallel your thoughts. If you like books.

 

[Eric Greenland]

Hypothesis: Modern humans use the emotional mechanism that was originally developed to regulate the behavior of children versus adults to regulate the behavior of people in hierarchies. Aspergers are to emotionally adult to fit in.

Hi,

I am a bipolar women– I have strong emotions which switch back from very happy to very sad. I have a high IQ too. I know from my friends that the Asperger can focus much better and especially longer on a task than me. So if there is someone interested in evolution I wonder if he could help me to order my thoughts and find error?

I have some hypothesis of how the difference between Asperger, bipolar people and primary psychopaths roughly came about in evolutionary terms.

My main intention is to stop the psychopaths because I think they represent an unfavorable (and pretty dumb) line of evolution that is unluckily winning now.

When it comes to Aspergers I have the opposite instinct, although I really don't understand them very well yet.

I made a table as a summary about what I think (or guess) are the main differences between the three groups. But if I make errors – which is likely because I am not an Asperger and luckily not a psychopath too– you are free to correct me.


If you think about psychopathy don't over-diagnose people in your surrounding. As I will argue neurotypical people are all a bit psychopathic but the distance to a true psychopath is still very very large. Neurotypical people usually have a sense for social justice too, and they don't fake many emotions.


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If one wants to picture this three groups of humans as different animal species I would say the bipolar is some kind of marmot that likes to live in a large group with not much of hierarchy, or a hierarchy that constantly changes. He shares resources with the group easily because it wants to survive as part of the group (manic spending if one is well off). Like marmots with their cries they are able to sacrifice (The marmot that cries and warns the others is the most likely to be spotted by the predator. When a maniac laughs loudly at someone aggressive this could be a similar mechanism). It could be a kind of less exact but speedy intelligence that is made for swarm communication. In a swarm less accuracy is usually not so much of a problem, because errors are averaged out by the group.


The autistic person must be from some kind of shy species with smaller groups where individuals have to watch themselves without the helps of crying marmots often. They hence pay careful attention to their surrounding to spot predators on their own. This might require an even higher intelligence than the bipolar, as a swarm intelligence can usually be effective even if the individual members are not so smart.

In a certain sense Asperger could be compared to wolves too. Wolves have a higher intelligence than dogs, but they can not hide or controll their anger as well as domesticated dogs (More sincere communication again, if you see anger as a form of communication).


Nevertheless both bipolar people and autistic people want to live and work as a group, this can be seen from their aversion to lies and or lies that cause aggression between group members, as well from their willingness to share resources. A sincere communication is less prone to factual errors.

Primary psychopaths are closer to domesticated dogs. Domesticated dogs have a lower fear level (lower cortisol levels just like psychopaths) and a lower intelligence than wolves. They are as well more attuned to status as they repoduce more serotonin (the brain of the psychopaths seems to be flooded with serotonin while still in the womb).

Be aware that serotonin is not the hormone that makes you happy (as thought) but the hormone that conveys you the feeling of being superior in status. It will make neuronormal more psychopathic in higher concentrations (lower empathy, increased speed in solving moral dilemmas.)

Because of the lower fear levels of dog and their willingness to – superficially- submit to a hierarchy they have the more „social“ and predictable behavior towards humans (they bite less, when humans don't respect them). But when it comes to manipulating human emotions to gain resources they seem to be very good (there are much more dogs alive now than wolves).

Now since the communication of the psychopath is not sincere it will cause a huge number of factual errors in the group, even the white lies of the bipolar would not always be beneficial here. This high number of factual errors will decrease the survivable abilities of the group against powers of nature. But this is no concern for the psychopath. Because if there is a survival problem psychopaths expect the people with the lowest status to pay the price and die, not the people who caused the problem. In this sense strong hierarchies are very evil and not really effective in generating knowledge.

In total I guess our species is becoming more psychopathic (brain size is decreasing, which probably means that IQ is decreasing. Violence level is increasing, but this increase has been temporary stopped by the modern state). I guess that violence in a modern state is less visible and in many ways even more psychopathic than in tribe societies. Means murders through mobbing are not counted as murders in states which make their violence level seem lower than it is. Prevention from reproduction could as well be counted as a fom of hidden violence in modern states. The positive interpretation of this decline in open violence however could be that through the rising of science neurodivergent people have found a way to fight back.

I wonder if the only reason why the social behavior of autistic people is deemed unacceptable is because they now live in a group that mainly consists of dogs and not of wolves, and the dogs make the judgment what should be normal behavior for the species. If that is right the Aspergers are more like the early humans.

I give you links that I hope support this ideas.

Effects of self-domestication on humans:

Rising violence in humans:

(PDF) The phylogenetic roots of human lethal violence


I as well speculate that psychopathy is in reality a form of not becoming an adult. In the video on self-domestication you see that our faces start to resemble more and more those of children. The genetic mechanism could be that whatever genes regulate the speed of the development of the brain and skull, speedd up the aging of the psychopaths brain to fast – it terminates most of it's development before that brain has developed the capabilities for emotions and true empathy. It is reasonable that logic (pattern recognition) develops in babies before emotion. Pattern recognition is important to learn anything. But emotions, especially honest emotions and body language are not so important for a small baby, especially a baby in the womb. It does not have to fulfill any kind of social responsibility in a social group yet. So why should it bind emotionally or have a sense for justice and duty? It's only task is to grow, and the parents in our species are mostly ok with sacrificing themselves so that the baby can focus on growing. A baby gets a high amount of attention without doing anything useful to receive that attention. It just needs to be a baby. The psychopath that chase for status does the same: they want a high amount of attention for doing basically nothing useful.

Edit: I include two links that show that serotonin could be involved in the maturing of emotions.

Serotonin drops when you fall in love. This actually makes sense, because when you want to found a family this is the latest point to become an adult: Love, Actually: The science behind lust, attraction, and companionship - Science in the News

Empathy can be decreased by taking a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (increasing the serotonin): Antidepressant treatment, not depression, leads to reductions in behavioral and neural responses to pain empathy | Translational Psychiatry

Dude...

"Narcissistic personality disorder is a personality disorder characterized by a long-term pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive craving for admiration, and struggles with empathy. People with NPD often spend much time daydreaming about achieving power and success, and the perceived injustice of failing to do so." Wikipedia

But OTOH, a little bit of narcissism is good for you. It is where self-love and self-worth come from. Too much of anything is bad for you and becomes a disorder. So does too little.

Aspies are often so beaten down by the world they lack any narcissism at all. Or they may retreat into a narcissism where they think they are right and everyone else is wrong.