All kindness is selfish

[astrozombie]

I watched an interesting show the other night. In it, they dramatize some "true" events that are bizarre but are none the less considered true. The show depicted the story of George Price, whom at the time was an Atheist. He was an amateur mathematician who worked out a theorem that proves that altruism is an evolutionary trait that helps insure that one's genes are passed on and is therefor selfish by design.

He later became a believer in "God" and then committed suicide when he was never able to personally disprove his own work.

I understand the concept but not the theorem. To be considered a theorem as I understand, it must always be true in all examples given.

Here is a wiki link to the theorem:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_equation

If anybody can explain this to me in layman's terms, I would be grateful. I have a healthy understanding of algebra and geometry but this is beyond me.

I know this forum is loaded with some really smart guys and gals, so any simplification would be much appreciated.

There's something about what this supposedly proves that is in line with all beings here in 3D being STS but I want to believe that there are at least some examples that would make this false and thus not a theorem.

I just don't want to believe that all acts of kindness are selfish but I know that is just ego talking.

 

[Laura]

Yes, the idea is quite familiar from the book "The Selfish Gene".

I discussed this in an article somewhere years ago; if anybody remembers where to find it, let me know.

Basically, I guess what you consider as "proof" determines how you ultimately look at this. It may very well be true that the so-called "selfish gene" is simply a manifestation of the design function of the Living System to perpetuate Life/Information and we, as human beings, aren't all that special and that consciousness, as we experience it, could be a higher level survival strategy.

You might enjoy reading "The 5th Option" by Bryant Shiller on this topic and searching on the forum here for discussions about that.

 

[Rich]

Yes, the idea is quite familiar from the book "The Selfish Gene".

I discussed this in an article somewhere years ago; if anybody remembers where to find it, let me know.

I found two references: http://cassiopaea.org/cass/matrix_dna_illusions_alchemy.htm and http://cassiopaea.org/cass/supernovae.htm

 

[Buddy]

If anybody can explain this to me in layman's terms, I would be grateful. I have a healthy understanding of algebra and geometry but this is beyond me.

Steven A. Frank will explain it to you in layman's terms (see link at bottom of post). That is, he will show you the 'components' of evolutionary theory and natural selection that Price chose to represent and the mappings of these 'components' to the variables and numbers of his equation. You'll see the strengths and weaknesses of the work as compared with other people who use similar methods to work out answers to similar evolution-based questions.

You'll also understand the role of assumptions in the whole process - what they were for Price and why the Price equation endures.

What you won't find, at least what I haven't found any evidence of, is any mapping of the concepts of altruism, kindness, selfisness and design to this work. I don't know where all that came from.

Anyway, as Steven states it via an excerpt, the real issue is the same issue that's been with us forever...

...the general question of abstraction, as separating what we want from what we are presented with.

It is neatly packaged in the Greek verb "aphairein", as interpreted by Aristotle in the later books of the Metaphysics to mean simply separation: if it is whiteness we want to think about, we must somehow separate it from white horse, white house, white hose, and all the other white things that it invariably must come along with, in order for us to experience it at all [1, pp. 222–223].

Source:

Natural selection. IV. The Price equation
Steven A. Frank
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology,
University of California, Irvine, CA 92697–2525 USA
6 Apr 2012
19 page pdf: _http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.1515v1.pdf