Philosophy of Everything

Fear

Fear. What is it? It's an emotion, a feeling of dread and anxiety that we experience when confronted with something threatening or harmful to us. When we're afraid, our hearts race, sweat pours down our brows, blood flows from every limb in search of the nearest exit, and even our stomach churns violently. The reason fear is so strong is because all animals have a natural instinct to run away from danger. And yet, most people are unable to control their emotions, no matter how much they try; sometimes they freeze up completely while other times they scream like banshees.It's not easy being human. We can't easily turn off our emotions, nor do we always know what causes them. Fear often seems to appear out of nowhere. But there must be some common factor between those instances where someone panics without any apparent cause and others who simply get angry at little provocation. Some researchers think this difference lies in our genetic makeup: if I'm scared right now then chances are my parents were too, since fear was present in the genes of cavemen long before modern humans walked upright on two legs. Even nowadays we still find traces of primitive instincts lingering within ourselves as well as in many of our close relatives—wolves, hyenas, lions and apes.In spite of its prevalence and universality, however, why does one individual feel terrified but another merely annoyed by loud noises or traffic jams? Why should anyone ever need to flee for his life just because he sees a spider scuttling across a wall near him? In fact, perhaps these questions sound ridiculous given that spiders don't attack unless provoked into doing so. Yet if you ask yourself "Why am I frightened?" instead of asking about your own feelings ("I've never felt anything quite like this"), wouldn't you also admit that spiders might actually pose more of a threat than any violent mugger armed with knives could ever dream of becoming? If everyone agrees that violence comes first (and only after having been threatened), isn't it obvious that certain fears would naturally arise among individuals living together under similar circumstances? Isn't it equally clear that such irrational reactions cannot possibly stem solely from "natural" tendencies inherited through millions of years of evolution?If so, then we must conclude that either fear is not really necessary to protect us against real threats or else that the very notion of "real" dangers has become obsolete. Either way, if we want to understand how we got here, studying fear will tell us a lot about how our ancestors made sense of their environment and themselves.The Instinctive Need to Be AfraidOne theory suggests that our innate drive to survive is nothing more than a collection of instinctual behaviors designed to keep us alive until the time comes when we can no longer reproduce. For example, if we live in a world filled with predators constantly searching for prey, it makes perfect evolutionary sense to develop an urge to hide whenever possible, which means running away from dangerous situations as fast as possible. If a predator finds me hiding behind a tree trunk, it's unlikely that I'll be able to avoid getting eaten. But if I decide to fight back and attack the predator, I may well end up dead myself, but at least I won't be devoured. This strategy is perfectly rational if it pays off in avoiding death. However, if I don't have any idea whether attacking or fleeing would make me safer, and if both options seem equally likely to lead to my survival, then fighting back becomes a risky venture. The outcome depends entirely on luck, meaning that the odds of winning aren't good enough to justify putting my life at risk. As a result, in order to maximize my chances of staying alive, I'd better choose to stay hidden.This explanation implies that our original instinct to seek shelter when faced with danger was initially triggered by the presence of large predators, thereby making it inevitable that we would continue to react this way today. According to this view, once we became aware of our instinct to run away, we found ourselves forced to accept that this tendency was going to remain with us forever, even though it proved useless against real threats. Therefore, the origin of our current fears must lie in the past, when our ancestors lived in a world full of predatory beasts.However, if this interpretation is correct, then we should expect to see evidence of ancestral instincts left over in our behavior today, including the same sort of urges we used to face in the distant past. After all, if the basis of our fear had changed radically in the course of history, we ought to be able to detect remnants of this change in our daily lives. So far, however, there is no compelling evidence that any of our ancient fears persist today. There are plenty of occasions when we exhibit exactly the same behaviors that our ancestors did thousands of years ago, but these behaviors don't necessarily mean that our ancestors' fears are still active inside of us.For instance, let's say that you're standing in front of a lion. Your heart races, your palms start sweating, and you find yourself thinking of your wife, kids, and friends. Then suddenly you realize that the lion is merely a stuffed toy, and you smile at the absurdity of your reaction. If this kind of scenario happens to you fairly regularly, you might assume that your response to the lion was due to an unconscious memory of a similar situation occurring thousands of years ago. But maybe you're wrong. Maybe you're simply reacting to a recent encounter with a real lion. Or perhaps you haven't encountered a real lion in ages and you've forgotten that such creatures are still capable of causing harm to humans.Similarly, imagine that you're walking down a dark alley late at night. Suddenly, a man jumps out of nowhere and grabs you. You scream, struggle, and kick him in vain. A few seconds later you notice that you're lying on top of a heap of garbage bags. You look around, convinced that someone stole your wallet or phone. Only then do you remember that the street lighting is pretty poor and that there's nobody nearby. Maybe you weren't attacked at all. Perhaps the whole thing was just a nightmare.How many times have you experienced a similar our instincts to run away from danger were originally activated by something that happened in the distant past. But the question is: Was it really necessary for our ancestors to be afraid of real predators in order to survive? Or was it sufficient to merely react to a threat that was perceived to be real at the time?A similar argument applies led by Daniel Kahneman propose that our fears are rooted in a fundamental conflict between two conflicting impulses: to avoid pain and to approach pleasure. In contrast to the former, the latter drives us to take action in order to achieve goals that bring us immediate satisfaction. The dilemma posed by the prospect of danger thus stems from the fact that each of these two desires appears to contradict itself. On the one hand, if I prefer to avoid pain rather than suffer it, then it follows that I ought to give up on whatever goal brought me pleasure. Yet on the other hand, if I value reaching that goal above all else, then it would be absurd to refuse to act in order to obtain it.Kahneman argues that this contradiction arises from the way our brains process information. Our brain continuously compares sensory input with prior memories of what it feels like to experience various sensations, thereby learning how painful or pleasurable they are. As a consequence, our brains are constantly comparing the actual sensation of something happening with the remembered experience of similar events. If the current sensation matches the memory, we feel happy; if it doesn't match, we feel unhappy. Thus, our brains are constantly judging whether or not we should pursue a particular goal. To put it in mathematical terms, the equation describing our decision-making process is given by V(P) = E – S, where P stands for the probability of achieving the desired goal, E represents the expected benefit of obtaining it, and S denotes the cost of pursuing it.