Evolving toward Mutualism

Session Notes Sunday 10:30 (partial -- more to come)

Evolving toward Mutualism, hosted by J. Andrew Hoerner

When two organisms live in asociation over evolutionary time spans, they will typically coevolve. This coevolution can favor mutualism, or it can go in the dirction of parasitism or predation. In our session, we explored the biological concept of evolution toward mutualism as it might apply to social systems. 

A few terms: 

• mutualism: a kind of symbiosis in which both parties affect each other in a positivie way.
• parasitism or predation: forms of symbiosis in which one organism is favored and the other harmed

Initially, andrew presented three example of forces or situations that favor evolution toward mutualism:
Tying - the survival and reproductive success of two organisms are closely tied together. Evolutionary parasitology has found that when a parasite can suvive and propigate after the host's death, it is more likely to be highly virulent. At the other extreme, mitochodria were once free ranging organisms, but have coevolved past mutualism all the way to fusion-- our cells can not live without them, and they can not live outside of our cells. At the social level, there are many examples showing that long-term relationships are more conducive to mutually supportive dealing than short-duration or one-tie relationships.
conditional exchange - an interesting biological example is mycorizae, fungal fibers that feed water and minerals to tree roots in exchange for sugars and other nutrients. If the tree stops providing sugars, the fungi stop providing water -- and sometimes eat the root. A social example is our current our current capitalistic, economic paradigm.
detect (monitor) and punish - a biological example would be the way that our immune systems attack cancer cells, which have stopped paying attention to the well-being of the larger organizim in favor of their own reproductive success. The obvious social example is the criminal jusice system, but more subtle punishments, such a withdrawl of attention or facial expressions of displeasure,  are much more common.

Question:  Are there other example of situatis or factors that tend to suport coevolution toward mutualism in biological systems? Stuff from complexity theory, maybe, or from Prigogine's work on disipative systems? (unanswered)

Question:  How can these approaches be used to improve the tendency of social systems to evolve toward mutualism? Example: Tying: If each large corporation and all its subsidiaries globally were permanently tied to a single union representing all of its workers, this would better support coevolution towards mutualism between the well-being of the workers and the success of the corporation.

Question: Are there other factors favoring evolution toward mutualism that are unique to humanans and their social arrangements and are not available to biological systems? 

Our group identified several facto that influence coevolution in uman relationships:  intuitive judgements of harmony or discord; purpose and context; cutlivated intention (e.g. this Salon); various large group processes (e.g. Wisdom Councils, Open Space, World Cafe, Nonviolent Communication) that facilitate mutualism; feedback between players and within the system;etc.

Human systems (we think) may be unique also in the fact that we can feel a 'pull' towards future possibilities.   We also have other drives beyond self-interest.  Or, we can pursure our self interests without undermining the welfare of the whole.

Evolution is driven by relative, not absolute success. Can we effectively withdraw social approval from people who acquire wealth through exploitation?

One test of a workable system is to ask if a selfish 'mutant' invading a system can succeed?   But adjustment to an invasive force is evoultionary.  To varying degrees systems tolerate/embrace dissonance and diversity. 

Are some of the uniquely human tools mentioned above inherently usable only for good? Any tool can be misused. Bot if people are motivated primarily by power and control over others, some of these tools and processes are likely to uncongenial.

Books people made reference to:

Evolution's Arrow - John Stewart

Nonzero - Robert Wright

Symbiotic Man

Collapse - Jared Diamond 

See also related session: Michael Dowd on harmonizing individual interest with collective or planetary interest.