It is not a defect and it is a defect. I mean there is a big reasons behind such a response, but these reasons are often do not justify the severity of a response. Moreover bad memories could become worse with a time passing -- each act of reminding triggers an emotional response which becomes a part of memories.
So it is a valuable mechanism increasing fitness and survivability, but it is not perfect. Especially it is not perfect in a modern environment where there are very little hope to face a mortal danger. I believe it worked better 100k years ago for hunter-gatherers.
I dream sometimes that scientists found a way to fine tune a human mind for a modern environment to increase fitness. How humans would behave after such a tuning? Though it wouldn't work, I'm afraid, because society is obsessive about safety and if people started to behave recklessly, than society would try to create even safer environment for them. A few more iterations of fine tuning and there would be no fear of death at all.
"It is not a defect and it is a defect. I mean there is a big reasons behind such a response, but these reasons are often do not justify the severity of a response."
The issue is that the phrasing, and many peoples' mindset, seems to be that it's a trivial problem and solving it can be taken for granted; we just have to find the right trigger to enable the solution.
Generalizing from specific instances is the root of...well, isn't it the root of basically every intellectual and social problem there is? It's about as likely to have an on-off switch hidden somewhere as world peace.
So it is a valuable mechanism increasing fitness and survivability, but it is not perfect. Especially it is not perfect in a modern environment where there are very little hope to face a mortal danger. I believe it worked better 100k years ago for hunter-gatherers.
I dream sometimes that scientists found a way to fine tune a human mind for a modern environment to increase fitness. How humans would behave after such a tuning? Though it wouldn't work, I'm afraid, because society is obsessive about safety and if people started to behave recklessly, than society would try to create even safer environment for them. A few more iterations of fine tuning and there would be no fear of death at all.