Life

Life as a phenomenon, is initiated by three conditions;

Replication or/and Growth,
Variation, and
Limited resources.

Define a living body to be anything that can replicate, vary, and that depends on the acquisition of resources or exploitation of others to continue its processes.

If replication continues, there will be competition leading to preference for bodies more capable of the acquisition of resources or/and exploitation of others.

Beings with co-operative behaviours can gain competitive advantage over those with competitive behaviours as a result of the emergence of synergies (benefits the whole is more than the sum of the parts). This is demonstrated on many scales from the multi-celled organisms to complex human societies.

The strategic choices are;

Acquisition strategies are only limited by the existence of resources.
- Attempt to destroy other beings who will compete for the resource leads to more availability when the resource is limited.
Exploitative (predatory) strategies succeed while the exploited (the prey) exist and are incapable of freeing themselves. Three questions need to be asked;
- Would more be gained by a cooperative strategy with those currently under exploitation and
- What is the extent of the the possible blow-back from the exploitation.
- What is likely to be the cost of the conflict that follows.
Cooperative strategies necessarily require the suspension of exploitative strategies for their implementation;
- But are vulnerable to deception and thus can fall back to exploitative strategies if not maintained, initially leading to benefits for the abusers but often finally leading to break down of the cooperation and therefore loss of the synergies gained.

The implementation of these strategies can include tactics to deceive other bodies by engaging in cooperative strategies while covertly falling back into exploitative strategies. This tends to lead to fall back to Acquisition and Exploitative strategies which is usually supported by bodies who see emmediate gains from them. However these stratagies withing a cooperative society are parasitic and so once they destroy the society they predate on they die out also, a parasite that kills its host dies with it.

Therefore the maintenance of cooperative societies is a priority. Evolutionarily this is done through moralities, i.e. behaviours that are directed at maintaining the society. Humanity endevours to codify rules based on these moralities into law.

Free strategies to adapt or secure resources are by their nature unconstrained and therefore competitive.

Co-operative strategies require constraint and cannot occur in an environment of unconstrained competition.

So in order to compete more effectively, co-operation is essential! But to what degree.

In a society where there is no competition between its members

Competition through adaptive or dominance strategies.

The concept that it isn't about dominance of resources but about fare distribution in order to maintain the society.

Social co-operation between bodies is fundamental to the formation of societies and social competition is fundamental to their demise. NOT TRUE.

7 April 2016

The major social problems are;

How does the society rid its self of parasites, i.e. those that use the society through deception. What is the optimal individual strategy within the society and what are the consequences of it on the society. Does it grow, shrink or destroy the society.

What strategies are being chosen by members of the society and what incentives are there for adopting those strategies.

What member selection mechanisms exist outside the society and what selection mechanisms exist within the society.