Self interest can be complicated. Suppose I think I can solve a problem that makes my life easier some how. In the process of solving this problem, maybe I realize that is has greater value to me if I give the answer away. What is the evolutionary selection there? It may free up my time and reduce the risk for my offspring. Will the abil…
Self interest can be complicated. Suppose I think I can solve a problem that makes my life easier some how. In the process of solving this problem, maybe I realize that is has greater value to me if I give the answer away. What is the evolutionary selection there? It may free up my time and reduce the risk for my offspring. Will the ability to solve the problem and the ability to see that the value of spreading the idea propagate? It seems unlikely. I don't know if this example is strong enough to make my case, but think of the skills to make fire from friction. Or, do you think the firemakers kept things to themselves for aeons?
Sharing valuable info can be selected for if it benefits the individual and their kin. This could be the case if a) info sharing is reciprocated by others, b) the info sharer gets status from sharing, or c) the info is selectively shared with kin or allies. I think all of the above apply to the evolution (and psychology) of info sharing. So it still sits comfortably in the unholy trinity.
If I understand your points correctly then, there is a solid case for the sharing of resources, which would likely be selected for. Even vampire bats do this. The entire group benefits, which increases the chances of individual and offspring survival. Further, there is a probability that the process to decide could evolve depending on the family-group/larger-group sharing payoff, vs secrecy. This would also extend to group/group dynamics.
As for the foolishness of ideation, the economists probably have a head start on that.
So, the complicated nature of the analysis doesn't really preclude selection for the propensity of the fairly simple behavior.
As an aside, I find it easier to accept the evolutionary selection for a propensity to behave a certain way, rather than for the behavior itself. Behavior is largely learned. Groups and groups of groups all have language, but they are not all the same. Differing languages do generally solve the same problems. But to extend the thought, languages that do not have symbols and concepts of things, can belong to cultures do not have those things, so behavior can also not develop. And, what was once adaptive may also change. The Ik in central Africa gave up generalized reciprocity after their circumstances changed with the arrival of European colonists. This may have changed again over the last 4-5 decades, but the studies I read back then were depressing.
Yes, agreed on all this. I'd just add a few caveats. The group benefitting is a side effect; it's not the reason why the sharing behavior evolved--the sharing evolved to benefit the sharer and their kin. Also, the sharing should not be indiscriminate: it should be focused toward kin, or toward those who are most able and willing to reciprocate (i.e., trusted group members). And it should be restricted to high-variance resources, where group members are equally vulnerable to shortfalls and mutually benefit from reducing the risk. It shouldn't apply to resources that are a product of individual effort or skill. And yes, agreed that evolution does not select for behaviors directly; it selects for psychological mechanisms that regulate behavior. That is the key difference between evolutionary psychology and the behavior-focused "sociobiology" that preceded it.
Also agreed. Though, I'm interested in the caveats related to effort and to skill. Propensity for effort is heritable and trainable and perhaps your point is that sharing with "low effort" member is undesirable? Likewise propensity for skills, is heritable and skills are trainable. But since we require a group for survival, and since epigenetic changes can directly affect the next generation and the following one, it would seem that overall group fitness is still a benefit if undesirable epigenetic propagation can be reduced even in "less fit" members, assuming they contribute at a nominal level. After all, many of those "other" members/offspring are very likely to be involved genetically with the sharer's offspring.
The idea re effort: if I have more than you because I tried harder than you, or because I’m more skilled than you, then it does not benefit me to share with you, because I am unlikely to be in a situation where the tables will be turned and you will have more than me. That’s why it benefits me to share with you when the shortfall is due to luck--“there but for misfortune”--because luck affects us both equally and offers a greater opportunity for reciprocity. This explains why people feel little sympathy for lazy, stupid, or incompetent people, but feel great sympathy for unlucky people (especially when they are equally vulnerable to being unlucky in the same way). It explains a lot of our political rhetoric surrounding welfare. Some people even try to frame low effort or low talent as misfortune--it’s genetic, and that’s a kind of luck--to win sympathy for themselves or for their political allies, and maybe that tactic works on some people. Not sure. But the tactic itself is rooted in our evolved psychology. And yes, when our group’s fitness is linked with our own fitness, we will evolve to help our groups, by definition. But that just means we will evolve to monitor the world for situations when our group’s fate is bound up with our own (eg in war), and restrict our group altruism to those cases.
Nice, a way to separate propensity from economics and cost benefit rational choices. And, I see: unlucky genetics is a little easier to connect to medical issues, where there is a little more stomach for sharing the risk. Low effort/low skill can be more easily viewed as choice "cheating" even though there is probably a genetic lottery component to it.
Self interest can be complicated. Suppose I think I can solve a problem that makes my life easier some how. In the process of solving this problem, maybe I realize that is has greater value to me if I give the answer away. What is the evolutionary selection there? It may free up my time and reduce the risk for my offspring. Will the ability to solve the problem and the ability to see that the value of spreading the idea propagate? It seems unlikely. I don't know if this example is strong enough to make my case, but think of the skills to make fire from friction. Or, do you think the firemakers kept things to themselves for aeons?
Sharing valuable info can be selected for if it benefits the individual and their kin. This could be the case if a) info sharing is reciprocated by others, b) the info sharer gets status from sharing, or c) the info is selectively shared with kin or allies. I think all of the above apply to the evolution (and psychology) of info sharing. So it still sits comfortably in the unholy trinity.
Okay, thanks!
If I understand your points correctly then, there is a solid case for the sharing of resources, which would likely be selected for. Even vampire bats do this. The entire group benefits, which increases the chances of individual and offspring survival. Further, there is a probability that the process to decide could evolve depending on the family-group/larger-group sharing payoff, vs secrecy. This would also extend to group/group dynamics.
As for the foolishness of ideation, the economists probably have a head start on that.
So, the complicated nature of the analysis doesn't really preclude selection for the propensity of the fairly simple behavior.
As an aside, I find it easier to accept the evolutionary selection for a propensity to behave a certain way, rather than for the behavior itself. Behavior is largely learned. Groups and groups of groups all have language, but they are not all the same. Differing languages do generally solve the same problems. But to extend the thought, languages that do not have symbols and concepts of things, can belong to cultures do not have those things, so behavior can also not develop. And, what was once adaptive may also change. The Ik in central Africa gave up generalized reciprocity after their circumstances changed with the arrival of European colonists. This may have changed again over the last 4-5 decades, but the studies I read back then were depressing.
Yes, agreed on all this. I'd just add a few caveats. The group benefitting is a side effect; it's not the reason why the sharing behavior evolved--the sharing evolved to benefit the sharer and their kin. Also, the sharing should not be indiscriminate: it should be focused toward kin, or toward those who are most able and willing to reciprocate (i.e., trusted group members). And it should be restricted to high-variance resources, where group members are equally vulnerable to shortfalls and mutually benefit from reducing the risk. It shouldn't apply to resources that are a product of individual effort or skill. And yes, agreed that evolution does not select for behaviors directly; it selects for psychological mechanisms that regulate behavior. That is the key difference between evolutionary psychology and the behavior-focused "sociobiology" that preceded it.
Also agreed. Though, I'm interested in the caveats related to effort and to skill. Propensity for effort is heritable and trainable and perhaps your point is that sharing with "low effort" member is undesirable? Likewise propensity for skills, is heritable and skills are trainable. But since we require a group for survival, and since epigenetic changes can directly affect the next generation and the following one, it would seem that overall group fitness is still a benefit if undesirable epigenetic propagation can be reduced even in "less fit" members, assuming they contribute at a nominal level. After all, many of those "other" members/offspring are very likely to be involved genetically with the sharer's offspring.
The idea re effort: if I have more than you because I tried harder than you, or because I’m more skilled than you, then it does not benefit me to share with you, because I am unlikely to be in a situation where the tables will be turned and you will have more than me. That’s why it benefits me to share with you when the shortfall is due to luck--“there but for misfortune”--because luck affects us both equally and offers a greater opportunity for reciprocity. This explains why people feel little sympathy for lazy, stupid, or incompetent people, but feel great sympathy for unlucky people (especially when they are equally vulnerable to being unlucky in the same way). It explains a lot of our political rhetoric surrounding welfare. Some people even try to frame low effort or low talent as misfortune--it’s genetic, and that’s a kind of luck--to win sympathy for themselves or for their political allies, and maybe that tactic works on some people. Not sure. But the tactic itself is rooted in our evolved psychology. And yes, when our group’s fitness is linked with our own fitness, we will evolve to help our groups, by definition. But that just means we will evolve to monitor the world for situations when our group’s fate is bound up with our own (eg in war), and restrict our group altruism to those cases.
Nice, a way to separate propensity from economics and cost benefit rational choices. And, I see: unlucky genetics is a little easier to connect to medical issues, where there is a little more stomach for sharing the risk. Low effort/low skill can be more easily viewed as choice "cheating" even though there is probably a genetic lottery component to it.