Competition, cooperation and their opposites
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Hi, Simon! (Can I call you that?) You wrote:
“Competition / cooperation” are standard terms and they express the essence of the situation in my opinion. If you think about it, if one is “an army of one”, then competition is inevitable.
I think you’re probably right, that competition likely rises inevitably where there is not cooperation. But something about that dichotomy is not sitting well with me, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Perhaps it’s the idea of an “army of one.” That sort of implies that there is no state of being in which one is solitary, not seeking cooperation, but is also not aggressive—ie. is not an “army.” That may have to do with my professional experience, in which I have worked with numerous mentally ill people who are not in any way competitive, but are also incapable of seeking out the necessary social interactions that would lead to cooperation. I am also mother to an autistic young man. He, too, is not competitive, generally, but had to be taught cooperation, as his natural preference tends toward being solitary. It is simply not in his nature to seek interaction, and thereby, cooperation.
It is an unfortunate byproduct of my work that I sometimes lose sight of the baselines of what “normal” psychology is, as I spend a great deal of my time interacting with those who fall outside of those norms.
IDK. If it gets any clearer to me, I’ll let you know! 🙂
DOK
Oh! I do like the final version of your matrix much better.
@daughterofkarl – the original diagram just had two axis labels, and I figured the rest could be filled in by deduction or whatever. I like this version, because it provides an “altruism/fairness” axis (at 45 degrees). I appreciate that not every loner is competitive. I hope this is captured in the new version.
“solitary, not seeking cooperation, but is also not aggressive” – possibly, that’s right in the centre of the axes?
Possibly, not too sure ESS and the Science behind it seems pretty standard now. Its even mentioned in The selfish Gene book.
What I was thinking was in terms of cooperation. What are the social functions of religion?They seem to be pretty universal in history_ so does religious behaviour have any evolutionary fitness values?
I have just read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. His thesis is that in the past religion was a behaviour which has non zero correlation with reproductive fitness. He means by this that it had a evolutionary fitness value for sapiens. He is Not saying in any sense that religion is true.
Just that it may have helped to create stable social structures when there was a change from hunter gatherers to farming, bigger social structure ( above 150 people).
I was thinking what useful functions religion has? If any
And if there are useful functions, how can an atheist make use of them without religious part.
One example is the recent trend in secular mindfulness (MBSR) which has scientific evidence of its effectiveness.
Mindfulness is originally a Buddhist practice.
Or MBCT developed @ Oxford University which is helping people with severe recurrent depression.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_cognitive_therapy?wprov=sfla1
As an atheist is it still possible to learn some useful stuff from religion?
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