These are excerpts and elaborations from my book "The Nature of Consciousness"
Competition vs Cooperation Darwin popularized the paradigm that
competition among living beings ("survival of the fittest") is the
force that shapes evolution. This is not what we commonly
observe. Nature is certainly cruel with the weak, but the weak have a tendency
to pool together and fight adversity. The whole concept of "society"
stems from the biological instinct to team together. Why would an individual help
another individual of the same race, thereby violating the principle of
"survival of the fittest" and lowering its own chances of survival? Back to the beginning of the chapter "Altruism" | Back to the index of all chapters |