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Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

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Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#61

Post by int_19h »

hueving wrote: post #48
int_19h wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand the nature of the math correctly, altruism should be "beneficial" (from evolutionary perspective), if the number of people multiplied by closeness factor of their genes to yours ultimately translates to a larger portion of your genes propagating to later generations, than if you have expended those resources on yourself. E.g. suppose I have a loaf of lembas. I can eat it myself, and it increases my ch…

Evolutionary instinct is to create your own offspring, not your sister's/brother's. Why would there be an evolutionary reason to help your brother reproduce but not your friend.?

There is no such thing as "evolutionary instinct".

There are instincts that become ingrained as part of evolutionary process, and they are those instincts that correlate with genes that propagate more.

Thus, the genes that you inherited from your parents may activate an instinct that will make you sacrifice yourself (or at least reduce your chances to reproduce in the future), so long as that results in a larger portion of those inherited genes in the gene pool down the line - e.g. because some of your siblings, or even more distant relatives, survived to carry them on.

It's one other reason why "survival of the fittest" is really a very misleading way to put it - it's about "survival" of a particular package of genetic traits, not about survival of the species, much less individual specimen.

Evolution is a game of information propagation, in which actual living beings are heavily parallelized delivery channels, information transmitted is the configuration of channels, and there's non-random noise (environment) affecting signal propagation through those channels. The "winning" configuration is likely to involve some channels that do not transmit data directly, but are dedicated to performing error correction etc for other channels, that do transmit information about the entire configuration.

In fact, over time, you may even end up with a configuration that can dynamically allocate channels for error correction, if and when the noise becomes noticeable enough (i.e. environment gets more hostile), so as to not waste valuable bandwidth when it's not necessary. And then we call such things "altruism", "heroic sacrifice" etc.

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#62

Post by ygmelnikova »

This whole discussion sounds so academic and methodical, as though there's some formula or algorithm that, if we can just figure it out, will give us some kind of 'ah, there it is' moment.

Man is clearly dynamic, and has a spiritual side that can't be measured. One minute I'm altruistic, and the next I want the last seat on the bus. One day I'm giving away my old TV, the next I'm duking it out with some old lady at Walmart on Boxing day to get a new one.

Go figure.

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#63

Post by Vinnl »

aliceyhg wrote: post #39

Whenever conflict arises at work, I usually just take a pause and buy the other person a drink and get to know each other on a more personal level. Its fun doing this and usually it ends up with me understanding my coworker on a more human level and we come to an agreement and work better together. A few years ago I would have fought to have my way and as satisfying as it was to win (occasionally), the attitude is ve…

Work is an especially odd situation as "your way" is not necessarily to benefit you. Oftentimes, you both have the same goal ("what's best for the company"), but you disagree on how to reach that ("A is best" vs "B is best"). Once you realise and agree on that, conflicts become easier to resolve.

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#64

Post by sago »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #40
sago wrote: post #32

When I was working on evolutionary dynamics in the late 90s, a group of us from across the world were trying to build an evolutionary model that showed the emergence of altruistic behaviour. It was really really difficult. Even knowing exactly the kind of behaviour we wanted to show, it wasn't trivial to stack the dice enough to roll that outcome. I have since read a lot of arguments, a lot of post-hoc reasoning that…

> When I was working on evolutionary dynamics in the late 90s, a group of us from across the world were trying to build an evolutionary model that showed the emergence of altruistic behaviour. OK, math. There are 200 people in Group A. Each has the choice of taking 1 point for themselves or giving 2 points to the group. If everyone gives 2 points then everyone gets 2 points. If everyone keeps the 1 point then no one…

Try it. With actual evolving populations with inherited strategies, and without hard-coding group selection.

Without hard-coding the groups as separate evolving units, you'll have a hard time.

In general, it is easy to show the group behaviors you want if you can treat the group as atomic for the purpose of the model. But you've just moved the goalposts, your 'individuals' are not the unit of evolution any more, and you've simply set the required behavior in the fitness function.

So try it and see.

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#65

Post by bryanrasmussen »

gbrits wrote: post #55
negamax wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good example but in most real world cases choice will be to keep one point to themselves and give away between zero to one point to the group out of that one point. Now selfish behaviour kicks in as every individual wants to give as little as possible. But survivial of the group becomes crucial in face of an adversory. In that case everyone will contribute towards maximising group's strength. So in my understanding n…

But can it still be called altruism? Imho, helping out the group to preserve yourself disqualifies it as such; the selfish aspect is clearly there.

well altruism is an emotional response, if the brain has evolved to exhibit altruism it would be because the behaviors most likely to be exhibited by altruism were rewarded with survival and possibilities for procreation, as well as helping with the survival of those carrying your genetic material.

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#66

Post by D_Alex »

sago wrote: post #64
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I was working on evolutionary dynamics in the late 90s, a group of us from across the world were trying to build an evolutionary model that showed the emergence of altruistic behaviour. OK, math. There are 200 people in Group A. Each has the choice of taking 1 point for themselves or giving 2 points to the group. If everyone gives 2 points then everyone gets 2 points. If everyone keeps the 1 point then no one…

Try it. With actual evolving populations with inherited strategies, and without hard-coding group selection. Without hard-coding the groups as separate evolving units, you'll have a hard time. In general, it is easy to show the group behaviors you want if you can treat the group as atomic for the purpose of the model. But you've just moved the goalposts, your 'individuals' are not the unit of evolution any more, and…

But... under his conditions it is clear that everyone in the group with the least altruists dies. There also seems to be no particular benefit for an individual of getting more points than anyone else. No point trying anything, it is clear prima facie.

Whether this has any relevance to the real world is the debatable matter. I would argue that it does, there are many examples where strong communities have grown as a result of general goodwill and altruistic behaviours, and these communities prosper compared to those where exploitative behaviour is common. There is of course another element which a simplified model neglects - communities, once formed, exert a strong pressure on its members to conform to the norm, be it good or bad. This pressure has the effect that the individuals who depart from community norms are "evolved out" so to speak. In case of altruistic communities, this protects the group from infiltration by exploitative individuals. In case of exploitative communities, unfortunately, this perpetuates the communal problems. Eventually, if the two communities come into a conflict, the exploitative community will be eliminated.

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#67

Post by croon »

gbrits wrote: post #55
negamax wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good example but in most real world cases choice will be to keep one point to themselves and give away between zero to one point to the group out of that one point. Now selfish behaviour kicks in as every individual wants to give as little as possible. But survivial of the group becomes crucial in face of an adversory. In that case everyone will contribute towards maximising group's strength. So in my understanding n…

But can it still be called altruism? Imho, helping out the group to preserve yourself disqualifies it as such; the selfish aspect is clearly there.

Sure, but just "feeling good" for helping others could be viewed as selfish as well. But at that point it's just semantics. I think we need to call altruism altruism for the actions, regardless of your return net effects. Is charity not altruism because you happen to benefit from it 50 years later in societal growth?

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#68

Post by negamax »

croon wrote: post #67
gbrits wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But can it still be called altruism? Imho, helping out the group to preserve yourself disqualifies it as such; the selfish aspect is clearly there.

Sure, but just "feeling good" for helping others could be viewed as selfish as well. But at that point it's just semantics. I think we need to call altruism altruism for the actions, regardless of your return net effects. Is charity not altruism because you happen to benefit from it 50 years later in societal growth?

It totally is. I think the selfless aspects are highlighted more as they are for long term benefit. It also about definition of self from that point onwards..

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#69

Post by jondubois »

The best evolutionary strategy for a human is to pretend to be nice but to be selfish and manipulative behind the scenes.

Even if you make a mistake and damage your reputation, you can still move to a different city/country and start over with a clean slate.

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#70

Post by ghusbands »

jondubois wrote: post #69

The best evolutionary strategy for a human is to pretend to be nice but to be selfish and manipulative behind the scenes. Even if you make a mistake and damage your reputation, you can still move to a different city/country and start over with a clean slate.

As long as you don't want a family or career.
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