Introduction to Cooperation Studies (4)
I started the syllabus with symbiogenesis, synergies, and other complex biological interdependencies to establish how life itself is grounded in cooperative arrangements as well as competition. The second module is about the ways culture (everything we learn from each other) and biology (everything we are born with) have interacted and shaped the evolution of human cooperation.
Here is a recording of the live session in which I lectured and interacted with co-learners about the biological and cultural evolution of cooperation.
Key to the transition from biological to cultural evolution is the notion of exaptation -- the development of a capability not by direct Darwinian adaptation (mutations that confer favorable survival circumstances spread through species over long periods of time) but by application of previously evolved adaptations to further environmental advantage. For example, feathers may have originally been an adaptation that conferred heat insulation advantages in cold environments, but may have been exapted to enable flight. In humans, our species evolved biological characteristics as adaptations to the environment that were later used culturally -- for example, humans are the only primates where the whites of our eyes are visible at a distance, which means that human babies can learn by paying attention to where their mothers and others are looking. We may have evolved the brain capacity for keeping paying attention to faces and behaviors of others of our species in order to participate in increasingly complex cooperative behaviors in groups (the social brain hypothesis). Together with our separate capacity to observe each other's focus of attention, our social wiring contributes to our capacity for social learning. Social learning is where culture kicks in. Once a human has figured out how to use our biologically evolved capabilities in a new and useful way, that exaptation can be spread through contemporaries (instead of just future generations) immediately (instead of taking place over millions of years). Exaptation and social learning kicked the biological evolution into a higher gear for our species.
Fundamental Texts:
In regard to the biological evolution of cooperation, this transcript of a talk by Martin Nowak gives succinct and clear descriptions of not just the key theories of group selection and kin selection, but a good overview of how Darwinian evolution -- and an overview of the game theory that Robert Axelrod introduced into this discourse. As Nowak points out, the transition from the all-species evolution of cooperative mechanisms through Darwinian processes to the human-only evolution of cultural mechanisms of cooperation was, and continues to be, radical -- expanding both the scope and pace of change.
Do primates share an evolved sense of fairness? Start with this: This video, a bit over 2 minutes long, is not only "the funniest moments" from de Waal's TED presentation, but gets the point across within the first minute.
In the 1980s, Robert Axelrod performed some psychology experiments based on game theory in order to probe possible solutions to one of humankind's most acute cooperation problems -- nuclear-armed nation states that don't trust each other. Some of my students objected to reducing human cooperation to game theory -- which was originally developed at RAND corporation to make sense of nuclear war strategy -- to which I respond by framing game theory as one lens for observing the dynamics of cooperation. Axelrod's "Evolution of Cooperation" is a foundational document that gives us a kind of microscope or telescope for viewing cooperation systematically. Margulis and symbiosis furnishes another lens. Peter Kollock's work on social dilemmas offers a different view. Ostrom's research on institutions for collective action furnishes another way to look at this necessarily interdisciplinary, multifaceted phenomenon. Margulis, Kollock, Axelrod, Ostrom and Henrich offer five different but related essential means of viewing human cooperation.
Axelrod's work is fundamental. Thinking about cooperation, evolution, game theory, and computer simulation led him to use what has since become the e. coli of cooperation studies, the computer-simulated interated prisoner's dilemma game, a strategy game that probes the ways human react when given the choice between assured self interest and potential but not guaranteed benefits of cooperation. Axelrod's "Three Conditions" brings the gist of his research to a practical level that can then be used as a lens for looking at collective action online: what are the most important conditions for ensuring cooperation among strangers in a competitive environment.