James Turner

Does low mood have representational content? If so, what does it represent? Find out in my new paper, recently accepted in Philosophy of Science. philarchive.org/rec/TURWLM

New article with Fabian Hundertmark, "Moving Past Ahistorical Theories of Function and Malfunctioning”, out now in Biology & Philosophy

My article on the representational content of low mood is now out in Philosophy of Science doi.org/10.1017/psa.20…

@RealAdamHunt I think the main point of similarity though is that it's a very general framework that encompasses some more specific theories (e.g., social risk theory, disease avoidance/recovery theories). Low mood is a hammer--"Stop, disengage, conserve everything"--not a scalpel

Ha yes I should of course have mentioned our discussion too - I'm sorry, I thought it might be obvious by the episode sequence although I should have mentioned it by name - although I thought your formulation (and Nesse's; and even dans earlier work) was more about unpropitious circumstances and resources? I think that the major difference between that and the more generalist disengaging hypothesis is that it sits much more closely to syme and Hagen on signalling and eliciting social support, rather than primarily being about personal improvements by protecting etx

I've recently been fairly convinced that the best evolutionary hypothesis of depression's original function is disengaging from life. But disengaging is almost never the right strategy nowadays.... New podcast episode discussing this just dropped. youtu.be/3F0nF70o5-0?si…

@RealAdamHunt No worries! And yes, there are some subtle differences. At least as I spell it out, it's about reducing resource expenditure. In some cases that would involve signalling help (but probably not all cases). In all cases though, "stop doing things" is roughly the imperative.

@RealAdamHunt I should add that the idea was originally formulated in Nesse's 2000 paper, and later in his 2019 book. And, as you mention, Dan Nettle also has a similar idea. There are subtle differences between our formulations, but the general idea is very similar. Cool episode as always!

@RealAdamHunt I would say there's at least one recent paper in the literature that defends (something like) this idea. Mine! I frame it as reducing resource expenditure via (in part) disengagement, and I briefly discuss the idea that it subsumes other theories. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40420964/

Had a really interesting conversation with @RealAdamHunt on his Evolving Psychiatry Podcast about low mood and depression. youtu.be/4AObqE2-sHY?si…

Come see me debate whether depression is/isn't a functional signal (and more!)

This summer, August 31st, we are hosting an evolutionary psychiatry debate in Cambridge. Experts discussing whether depression is functional and whether evolutionary perspectives are more important in research or the clinic. Audience participation possible. Join us! buff.ly/daHzwQK

The next Evolutionary Psychiatry webinar in the WPA series will be on Thu 30 Jan at 6pm Speaker: Leif Kennair renowned evolutionary psychologist. His title: Is sustained negative processing adaptive? Register free: wpanet.org/evolutionary-p… @RealAdamHunt @Derektracy1 @JTAuthor

@Psychistential Or are they just following what medical experts tell them? 2/2

@Psychistential A recent BMJ article concludes "Exercise is an effective treatment for depression". And their eligibility criteria are "Any randomised trial... for participants meeting clinical cut-offs for major depression". So are people conflating two clinically different things? 1/2

I'm convinced that the whole exercise being a treatment for depression thing is a conflation between lay-language depression (a bit bluesy, maybe a low period) and genuine depression, which usually need expert assistance.

@JakubZN @eclecticherbal @SameiHuda @dawso007 I might be wrong about the facts regarding the history of bird wings here, but that's the in-principle story of what the SE theory would say in such cases

@JakubZN @eclecticherbal @SameiHuda @dawso007 Again, not a bird expert, but I imagine they are vestigial traits, so have no flight function (but are not DYSfunctional). I.e. in recent evo history they did not enable flight, so there was no effect to select for (but this was nonetheless not detrimental to fitness)

@eclecticherbal @SameiHuda @JakubZN @dawso007 Thanks!

@JTAuthor @SameiHuda @JakubZN @dawso007 Also, I just found your publication page and will dig in. Thanks for engaging!

@eclecticherbal @SameiHuda @JakubZN @dawso007 I talk a bit about them being the same system in my Erkenntnis paper. In brief, massive overlap in neural underpinnings, same defining effects, same types of distal causes. Second question is difficult re low mood. Not sure what you mean by "override".

@JTAuthor @SameiHuda @JakubZN @dawso007 This is a stronger framework that i initially thought, but I have more questions: How do we establish depression/mild mood are truly same system? How distinguish original functions from exaptations from dysfunctions? When does environmental mismatch override functional claims?

@eclecticherbal @SameiHuda @JakubZN @dawso007 That sounds about right. This isn't MY SE theory, however, merely the one I believe. I take this to be the most well-defended version of SE in the current literature

@JTAuthor @SameiHuda @JakubZN @dawso007 Thanks! To clarify -Your SE theory includes not just original selected functions, but also subsequently exaptation, multiple concurrent functions, and functions that may have evolved from what were originally side effects. Is this an accurate characterization of your framework?

@eclecticherbal @SameiHuda @JakubZN @dawso007 In theory, yes (though I don't know all the details about the evolution of feathers). Most modern SE theories are recent selection theories, so are happy to attribute exapted functions. It is possible, then, that feathers have the function of both flight and insulation.

@JTAuthor @SameiHuda @JakubZN @dawso007 Under your definition of SE would flight count as a function of feathers?