Recent accident where my 73 year old wife fell into a river off a high bank. She was frightened and clearly in pain. During what must have been one second, I assessed that she was in real trouble, and that I might lose her forever. I could see no safe way to get to her, so jumped in and hurt myself too, although not so much that I was unable to rescue her. My thought process was something like: she is going to die and she is frightened. She needs me by her, I don’t want her to die alone and frightened. She will be less frightened if I die with her.
Now, as a life long atheist, I know that she would not really be frightened if she was dead. There would be no distress, just as there was no distress when she had not existed before her birth. Yet, I still jumped in.
I wonder if it was some sort of drive to solidarity, or maybe Mutual Aid. Evolutionary gambling?
We are both recovering, so the jump may have been sensible, as well as foolhardy.