Phobias = manner of death philosophy
 

Years ago I came across a philosophy that basicly said that the reason people have phobias is because if they didn't they would meet an early demise in the manner they are afraid of. In other words, someone who is afraid of heights, would die before their time, by being careless on a cliff and fall to their death, if it weren't for their fear. I don't buy into this philosophy myself but I would like to find it again, just to be sure I understand it correctly.

Has anyone heard of this before? Do you know who first proposed it? Where can I find it? Thanks in advance.

Sounds like one of those "old wives' tale" type explanations. In line with "you'll go blind" and all that.

So what your saying is that it proposed that, for example, a person who is afraid of midgets would be predisposed to being bludgeoned to death by a mob of little people?

A lot more people are afraid of clowns, cockroaches, mice, air-travel etc than are afraid of beds or cars. I would be surprised if the figures relating to manner of death had any statistical correlation with figures listing common phobias.

I was fifteen when I found this and for about 15 minutes thought it was pretty deep. Then I started thinking and realized how silly it was. The only reason I want to find it again is I'm thinking that nobody whould seriously publish something like that, because it only takes a moment to see that it doesn't hold up. So I want to find it again and see if my fifteen year old brain just missed something. Does this idea sound at all familiar to anyone?

Indeed, this is much closer to superstition than philosophy.

There might be some evolutionary purpose to phobias, if that's what you mean. Those who were afraid of heights were less likely to climb tall trees and thus were less likely to fall and die, or something like that.

I don't know what the midget phobia is all about.

But I think the idea of phobia destiny is superstitious nonsense.

i'm sure some of these phobias stem from death, but its definitely not the only root.

There are some psychological theories that say evolutionary process is partially responsible for why certain animals (spiders [ick], snakes, etc.) are feared more than others (rabbits, cows, etc), being that certain animals are more likely to be deadly. And also, it's also believed that humans have initial fears born into them (heights and IIRC loud noises) also for protection. Maybe that is similar to what you read earlier.

I nterms of classical conditioning, a phobia is a conditioned response of intense fear to a conditioned stimulus of the phobia trigger. This association was most likely made while the person was still developing physically and mentally and the brain had not finished growing and wiring itself. Something happened that strongly associated pain with the conditioned stimulus.

This event could have been a fall from a ladder that generated a fear of heights, or an relatively serious injury that occured at the same time that the unconditioned stimulus was introduced. It could also be a "crossed wire" in the brain, where the phobia has no discernable cause.