When is a belief system a Mental Disorder?

I didn't have a soul-mate concept in mind. I just didn't think we worried too much about what some theoretical children in the future were going to look like and be like. When I was young I wanted to marry someone who was intelligent, goodlooking, and sweet. Admittedly, it's rather hard to get all that in one package. But I wasn't thinking about some supposed children we might or might not have. I just wanted such a person so I myself would be happy.

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Even newborn infants prefer the faces of supermodels to the super-ugly.

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And, conversely, studies also show that the cuter and more attractive an infant is, the more attention their mother will give to them, even to the point of being more likely to ignore a less-attractive baby who wanders off in a grocery store compared to keeping a careful watch over the cure one.

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But of course if someone marries someone completely different, say from a different race, that can be genetically rationalized too, right?

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Hybrid vigor.Of course, genetics are not destiny. We are strongly influenced by them, of course, but since we have consciousness as well, our actions and decisions in mate selection are a mix of the two.It is both nature and nurture, so to speak.

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All I can say to the whole thing is: How unromantic.

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I think it's pretty interesting, actually.Nothing about understanding such things makes my feelings for my husband any less.

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I just didn't think we worried too much about what some theoretical children in the future were going to look like and be like.

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Like crash has explained already, we don't have to consciously, actively, literally think about future children for it to influence our behavior.There is a genetic basis for lots of behavioral tendencies that you don't think about on a conscious level but they are at work, nevertheless.We can see this in disordered behavior, such as addiction or OCD. People with these genetically-influenced tendencies can more easily succomb to destructive behaviors than those without them. Yet few people who suffer from these disorders are consciously aware of the tendency until it negatively affects their lives. They just follow their desires and their impulses.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-21-2006 08:10 AM

[qs=schrafinator][S]tudies also show that the cuter and more attractive an infant is, the more attention their mother will give to them, even to the point of being more likely to ignore a less-attractive baby who wanders off in a grocery store compared to keeping a careful watch over the cute one.[/qs]A study done some years back (I'll look for it) adds an interesting angle to this, Schraf.By having people rate the likenesses between adult men and their progeny, the study found that a peak perception of paternal likeness, i.e., "looks just like Daddy," occurred at just about the time the infants became toddlers and thus capable of rug-ratting around under their own power, outside the arms of maternal protection.Conclusion: The genes were advertising themselves to their progenitor--I really am yours, you can invest in me with confidence.

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Oh, it's on an UNCONSCIOUS level. I see. I'm not sure how we could know that since it's unconscious.

As noted, it is possible to test unconscious behaviours. Of course, you don't do much testing of your own unconscious behavior. That is, however, likely to get a bit off topic so I suggest that is about enough.

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Oh, it's on an UNCONSCIOUS level. I see. I'm not sure how we could know that since it's unconscious.

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If you did some reading on basic human psychology you would know about it.It's a common human conceit that we are in control of and are even aware of all of our impulses, desires, reasoning, and motivations.There's lots of good evidence that shows that we are not.

Right. And those traits appeal to you because they connote a facility towards parenting. An intelligent parent is able to respond better to threats; a good looking parent is likely healthy and fit and lacks disease; and a sweet parent is not likely to abuse or harm their children. Irrelevant. The fact that it did not occur at the level of your conscious intellect is not contradictory with the fact that your mate choice was based on what would be best for your children.Or did you think that you're just attracted to certain characteristics at random? Why do you think you need those characteristics in a mate - and not, say, ugliness, denseness, or a sour disposition - to be happy in the first place? Random chance?

It's not always unconscious. But we can test it with statistics, as I've already stated. We find strong correlations between what people report as "attractive" and what would indicate strong genetic advantages in a mate.

Yes Scraf, it is common for people to infer conscious decision-making from discussions of adaptive behaviors. It is important to remember that organisms expressing particular behaviors need have no conscious appreciation for their choices - they are behaving in a particular way more often than in alternative ways because individuals expressing these behaviors in a similar context have left more offspring than those behaving differently. Conscious choice never enters into it. (This comment more for RR than for you).For example, females of some stalk-borers I study always lay their eggs in the plants with the fattest stalks available. They respond to stalk girth as a stimulus, but they don't KNOW that choosing fat stalks will make their offspring bigger. However, I know that because I weigh larva every year and measure plants. Females responding to this particular stimulus have been successful leaving progeny, so the response has been selected in females over time. It's much the same with lots of human behaviors, but you are never going to be conscious of *why* you respond in a certain way to a particular stimulus. And that does NOT imply determinism of behavior or lack of free will either.But to return to the question posited by the OP, I would say that a belief system becomes mental illness whenever it prevents you from acknowledging facts, causes you to deny the obviously true, or causes your consciousness to become significantly displaced from tangible reality. So basically all forms of religious mythology are capable of producing mental illness in their most ardent and extremist followers. Hence the suicide bombers.

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For example, females of some stalk-borers I study always lay their eggs in the plants with the fattest stalks available. They respond to stalk girth as a stimulus, but they don't KNOW that choosing fat stalks will make their offspring bigger. However, I know that because I weigh larva every year and measure plants. Females responding to this particular stimulus have been successful leaving progeny, so the response has been selected in females over time. It's much the same with lots of human behaviors, but you are never going to be conscious of *why* you respond in a certain way to a particular stimulus. And that does NOT imply determinism of behavior or lack of free will either.

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I just thought of another example for humans.Back in the day when we were still quadripedal and before we wore clothing, the female buttocks was the main sexual attractant.Now that we are bipedal and face each other and wear clothes, the males can't really see the buttocks any more, so larger breasts began to be selected for as a substitute buttocks.Breasts don't have to be protruding at all to be functional; indeed, they are probably only recently been considered sexual parts at all instead of mommy parts. In some cultures where people wear little clothing, breasts are not considered sexual at all.So, all of you who like big breasts, it's really big buttocks you are sticking up there on a woman's chest.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-21-2006 01:01 PM

Yes, Desmond Morris has written quite a bit about the monkey-human shift in traits signally sexual attractiveness. It also has much do with 'frontal' signaling as opposed to 'rear end' signalling accompanying the change in position of sex to a face-to-face orientation. It bears noting that what remains consistent is the clear association of sexual attractiveness traits with features directly indicative of female reproductive fertility.Human males still find all the following female features attractive.1. body shape (related to actual child-bearing ability).
2. breasts (related to child-nurturing ability, even if representing tranposed buttocks).
3. hair and skin textures and coloration (signals of overal health).
4. general indicators of youthfulness (directly correlated with potential future reproductive effort.These correlations have a lot to do with why we find these features attractive, but we don't *decide* to find them attractive because of the correlations. Rather, the correlations of these features with actual female fitness over thousands of generation have caused preferences for these features to become relatively fixed tendencies in the human population. No conscious decisions are required - we just 'feel' that way.

Some guys like big butts, and they cannot lie (you other brothers can't deny), so I'm not sure all that much has changed. Who knew Sir Mix-A-Lot was an evolutionary throwback? (Besides everybody that ever listened to his music, I mean.)

"We're still trying to understand the human mind and it's still more an 'art' than a 'science', assuming that 'science' has all the answers!" - MurphyIncorrect on both counts. Psychology is a science (we are trained in hypothesis testing befor we get to the good stuff). Science does not have all the answers but can be used to find them.