In
my mathematician’s incarnation, and in my loitering around the Institute Vienna Circle, I
came across Austrian Karl Sigmund,
the 2003 Gauss
Lecturer. Along with John
Maynard Smith (the “Etonian communist”) and American George Robert Price,
he is at least one parent of evolutionary game theory, a fascinating branch of
mathematics that applies game theory to biology or, rather, the evolving
populations of life forms. Its tools are valuable to my interest in crowd
phenomena. It defines a mathematical framework of contests, strategies and
analytics for Darwinian competition. There are indeed mathematical criteria to
predict the resulting prevalence of such competing
strategies, and evolutionary game theory establishes a rational basis for
altruistic behaviors within the Darwinian process. Unlike classical game
theory, it centers on the dynamics of strategy change; its determinants that
are not just competing strategies but, more importantly, the frequency of
occurrence of these strategies within a given population.
Humans
have superior adaptive abilities. They are far better than apes at imitation.
And they are receptive to praise and reprimand. Man is the perfect pet –
domesticated like no other, by ourselves. It is not unusual that a species
practices selective breeding on its own kind. Sexual selection is well known
since Darwin. An oft-cited example is the peacock’s tail: it does not
facilitate survival but only impressing the female of the species – although
recent research puts that in question. A male characteristic and the female
preference for it spread across the population.
Of
course, domestication does not only require selective breeding of just any
given characteristic. Said characteristic must also have an economic benefit.
What is the economic utility of humans? They don’t contribute commodities such
as wool or eggs, but they contribute services. There are other service animals
as well: horses serve as means of transportation, dogs as a hunting tool or an
alarm device. What purpose do humans serve? They serve as partners of other
humans. A partner is someone amenable to assistance, but only on condition of
reciprocity.
Indeed,
human readiness to cooperate
with partners, their “conditional
cooperation,” is a salient characteristic. And it is unique. While bees or
ants also cooperate on a large scale, they do so only within their beehive or
anthill, that is to say, with their own siblings. Humans are rather unique in
that they are capable of cooperating also
with individuals to whom they are not related.
Such
cooperation is grounds for the success of our species. There appear to be no
natural limits to the degree of our communal enterprise. That seems odd: should
evolution not favor creatures that primarily maximize their own interests?
