The End of Rationality and Selfishness: A Story on the Asymmetry, Uncertainty and the Evolution of Cooperation 9811997519, 9789811997518

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Rui-Wu Wang

The End of Rationality and Selfishness A Story on the Asymmetry, Uncertainty and the Evolution of Cooperation Translated by Juan Wang

The End of Rationality and Selfishness

Rui-Wu Wang

The End of Rationality and Selfishness A Story on the Asymmetry, Uncertainty and the Evolution of Cooperation

Rui-Wu Wang School of Ecology and Environment Northwestern Polytechnical University Xi’an, Shaanxi, China Translated by Juan Wang School of Foreign Studies Northwestern Polytechnical University Xi’an, Shaanxi, China

ISBN 978-981-19-9751-8 ISBN 978-981-19-9752-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9752-5 Jointly published with Science Press The print edition is not for sale in China mainland. Customers from China mainland please order the print book from: Science Press. ISBN of the Co-Publisher’s edition: 978-7-100-20289-3 © Science Press 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Freud wrote that the history of science is the history of alienation. Copernicus showed that the earth is not at the center of the planetary system, Darwin supported that we are one species of animal among many others, and Freud believed that our rational activities are only part of the unconscious. We can now invert this perspective: We see that human creativity and innovation can be understood as the amplification of laws of nature already present in physics or chemistry. —Ilya Prigogine the End of Certainty Those who care most today ask: “How are human beings to be preserved?” But Zarathustra is the only one and the first one to ask: “How shall human being be overcome?” —Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Dedicated to those who have independent human dignity and thought, to those whom I have admired and therefore criticized, and to those who will or are also criticizing me

Preface

Your Culture and Faith will Determine Your View of Science A well-known instance of such intrusion (the loss of universality of scientific principles, the opposition between religion and science) is the recurring attempt to reintroduce finality into science, allegedly because the reiterated crises of causality prove it to be incompetent single-handed, but actually because it is considered infra dig of God Almighty to create a world which He disallowed Himself to tamper with ever after. In this case, the weak spots seized upon are obvious. Neither in the theory of evolution nor in the mind-matter problem has science been able to adumbrate the causal linkage satisfactorily even to its most ardent disciples.1 —by Erwin Schrödinger

At the beginning of writing the manuscript, my original plan was to take The Death of Nash—Who is His Most Determined Critic as the preface, but I felt it was too long, so I had to put it at the end as the postscript. In this postscript, the pluralism is interpreted through the multi-faceted and contradictory features of Nash’s character; absolute rationality and selfishness—the embodiment of monism is no longer the life of Nash, nor the future of science. The main idea of the preface that culture and faith will determine our view of science will be discussed in the last chapter Gods, Ghosts, Come Back! Who Will Fight Against God? which elaborates that Newtonian mechanics originated from monism in religion, while quantum mechanics is the revival of primitive simple polytheism. I didn’t intend to make a preface, but later found that if there was no clear explanation on how selfishness and rationality of “scientific concept” return to human nature and culture, I would have to write another chapter to introduce the scientific logic of rational man in economics and selfishness of natural selection. The concept of selfishness and rationality is the basis of classical sociology and economics to explain various complicated behaviors of human society, and it is also the initial starting point of Charles Robert Darwin’s thought of natural selection to 1

By Erwin Schrodinger. Nature and the Greeks. Science and Humanism. Trans. Bu-Tian Zhang. Commercial publishing House. 2016. ix

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Preface

understand biological evolution. However, absolute selfishness and rationality seems to be naturally a “fallacy”: according to the theory of “selfish gene”, parents take pains to raise their children because they want their children to inherit their genes; however, children help their parents selflessly or even recklessly, how can they expect their parents inherit their genes? Similarly, Florence Nightingale kept unmarried all her life and devoted herself to nursing. Henry Norman Bethune aided the Anti-Japanese cause and sacrificed on the Chinese battlefield. For those who are determined to expose the truth despite the suppression of authority and the abandonment of the people, what kind of return can they get from their actions? The workers of bees or workers of ants are desperate to help the queen bee or queen ant. These queens may come from other groups and have no relationship with the altruistic workers. What benefits can those workers get? No matter whether in emotion or in reality, it is difficult for us to explain our human behaviors with absolute rationality and selfishness as well as the altruistic cooperative behavior of biological individuals. I have reflected and asked questions countless times, and have been struggling and tangled between emotion and reason. After returning to methodology, we found that science is still a part of culture and belongs to human “subjective” behavior. Hence, the paradox may be readily solved. Stephen Jay Gould, a famous evolutionary biologist of Harvard University, once said bluntly in his book The Panda’s Thumb, “I think science is not an objective machine to obtain truth, but a typical human activity. People engaged in science are influenced by emotion, hope and cultural prejudice.” The quantum physicist Schrödinger said, “Although the pioneers of modern science seldom learn from the knowledge of the previous centuries, they did revive and continue the ancient science and philosophy.” Strictly speaking, science is a product of history and a part of human culture. We can even further extend it: science is a kind of faith! In a sense, science is a way of thinking held by devout scientists who are as persistent and determined as believers, rather than the truth of the existence of “objective facts”. The farther and longer we go on the road of science, the more persistent and firmer we will be, and the more steadfast anti-scientism will be produced. Modern science owes its ideology to Galileo’s experimental repeatability and the causality of Newtonian mechanics. Experimental repeatability is the embodiment of the practical operability of deterministic thinking. That is to say, you can obtain the result, so can others, as the objective law is unchangeable. Newtonian mechanics is to establish the idea of certainty through causal logic relationship. However, are the two cornerstones of modern science really so reliable? In fact, so far, no one in physics can completely repeat Galileo Galilei’s experiment of landing two iron balls at the same time. Similarly, no one in biology can reproduce Gregor Johann Mendel’s pea genetics experiment—the perfect ratio of 3:1 between red pea and white pea. On the contrary, scientific experiments perfectly explain that “Man cannot step into the same river twice”. What is the final conclusion of the causal logic in Newtonian mechanics which is also called typical monism? Newton reasoned out universal gravitation, and the initial force of gravity is the first driving force of God. Is Newtonian mechanics a science or a fallacy?

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The continuation of Galileo’s and Newton’s scientific systems in social economics and life science is the establishment of the concepts of selfishness and rationality. According to social economics, the motivation of a natural person’s various behaviors can be attributed to rationality or selfishness, that is, to maximize their own interests. However, why should we be selfish and maximize our own interests? Obviously, a person with scientific literacy and spirit shouldn’t take this for granted! Sigmund Freud attributed the fundamental motive force of human behavior to sex. He thought sex was the first driving force behind all our rational behaviors. Other scientists or philosophers believe it is due to “egocentrism”. The fundamental question is: why does sex, rather than other driving forces, determine the rational behavior of human beings? Similarly, what’s the driving force behind egocentrism? We finally return to the poisonous apple in Eden which may give us the ultimate explanation. Like Newton’s first driving force, the highest degree and ultimate rationality is the extreme Nihility—God, which reaches the same goal as Laozi’s (a great ancient Chinese thinker) famous remark—“Tao that can be described is not universal and eternal Tao. Name that can be named is not universal and eternal Name.” Natural selection theory of Darwin attributed all the dynamics of biological evolution to adaptation suitability, that is, selfish individuals tend to propagate more later generations and increase their life span. However, what is the driving force behind more reproduction and longer life? In his book Selfish Genes, Darwin thinks that the essential motive force of individual survival is to inherit more genes to later generations as much as possible, which is the basic premise assumption of kin selection theory. Finally, he thinks that due to the existence of the “replicator”, biological individuals tend to duplicate more copies that are the same as themselves, which is a typical philosophical view about the reason of purpose—it means that result is purpose or reason. There is one question that gene selfishness gives no answer: What drives the birth of the superman replicator? Why do genes copy themselves rather than others? At last, it returns to egocentrism and God. Truth always derives from fallacy. But more often, we have to admit that truth also comes from authority and blind obedience! The king can control your body through violence, meanwhile God can control your soul through education and preaching. Everything is created by God, so any result can be found in reason from God. With the help of missionaries and teachers, God ruled the world. Whether in a country with or without gods, blind people believe in science and God devoutly. But how many people will tenaciously ask: Who is God? The worship of authority and power make individuals lose themselves. Under the powerful influence of modern science and the baptism of education, even those who have never heard church bells, never doubted causality and monism, let alone God. Prometheus, why did you steal fire for mankind?—this is the question that God must marvel from the soul when selfishness and rationality face the selfless devil. God created a secret chamber for himself with monism, which made him not only a success but also imprison himself. Our thoughts collide back and forth in the room of monism, just like a ghost hitting the wall, striving to go ahead, but finally it has returned to its origin.

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You have to untie the knot through yourself. Maybe the only way to escape from the secret chamber is to have it destroyed by God himself. However, who is willing to destroy the achievements carved by his own life? What makes God unique is that he can use his own hand or painstakingly cultivate believers to bury themselves! Just as Jesus raised Judas to betray himself. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, born in a Christian family, asserted: “God is dead!” Nietzsche believed in the dualistic Zoroastrian God Zarathustra, who believed in the idea of samsara that all men are born equal. Born in a devout family, Einstein, Schrodinger and other quantum physicists coax God out of the altar in the name of God, and quietly worship the gods and many little ghosts. Thus, our belief has turned from monotheistic God to gods, to little ghosts, from monism to pluralism. The chamber of secrets may be broken! However, where will the wings of freedom fly? There may not be strong causality in the real world, but all “results” are actually included in the process. The formation of a result may be caused by multiple reasons. With a certain cause, there may not be a certain result. Causality may not always exist; thus, the real world will be full of uncertainty. Why do we always see the sun rise when we wake up every morning? But $100 carelessly dropped on the ground is always picked up by someone into his pocket and kept for himself? This paradox is caused by different observation angles and scales! In the Arctic, there is no sunset in summer, while in Antarctica, there is no sunrise in winter. If you are constantly shuttling between the Arctic and Antarctica, you may not have the concept of sunrise and sunset. It is completely chaotic! Similarly, as a passerby, you think the person who picks up $100 must keep it for himself. However, if you are a friend of this “mammonist”, there may be a completely different answer. There are a group of orphans waiting for him to buy bread in the house where he picked up the money! Or the monk dedicated $100 to God! Or the environmentalist turned around and put the $100 into the donation box. Of course, it could also be the alcoholic person who picks up the money and went to the restaurant to eat and drink. A drunken and hazy person may pick up the money and throw it away! Who can be quite sure what the purpose of the person who picked up $100 is? “Those who know too much are inferior to fools!” The absoluteness of monism, like absolute selfishness and rationality, is not the culture and belief of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, nor does ancient Greek culture have this gene. Schrodinger, who made pioneering contributions to quantum physics, returned to ancient Greek polytheism in his monograph Nature and The Greeks: Science and Humanism, and explored the source of the philosophical thought of quantum physics. After declaring the death of God, Nietzsche returned to the idea of samsara, which is the Buddhist idea. The soul embodies Taoism that “heaven and earth coexist with me, and all things are one with me”, “all things coexist without harming each other, and the Tao runs parallel but not contrary to each other”. It holds that human beings are a part of nature, and human beings are not the center of nature. They share the same spirit with “all men are born equal” in Buddhism (in China, it is common to see Taoist

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and Buddhist idols enshrined in the same temples). In Buddhism, the reincarnation of the soul, and in Taoism, “everything in the world is born of something, or is born of nothing” are just the belief that there is a mutual transformation between things, and that there is “Tao can be transformed into Tao, and Tao is unusual” existing in the law. It is such mutual transformation and uncertainty that constitutes the beauty of nature and speculation. As the Chinese saying goes, “Happiness is where misfortune underlies; misfortune is where happiness depends”, in such an uncertain world, does this mean that the world is in a chaotic and completely unpredictable state? Perhaps not so pessimistic. All beings and all things are like many peaks in a mountain range. There are main peaks, secondary peaks and side peaks. In a period of time, a main peak determines the nature of the whole mountain range, while in another period of time, the main peak may collapse, and other sub-peaks rise to the main peak, forming a new feature of the mountain range. When the main peak is stable, the features of the mountain range are stable and predictable. For human nature, perhaps selfishness and rationality are the main peaks in the mountain range of human nature characteristics, but the peaks of selfishness and rationality may collapse, and other characteristics of human nature will grow into the main peaks. God may only exist instantaneously, or as Einstein believed in Spinoza, everyone is his own God, and the eternal, dominating God is really dead this time. Human selfishness and rationality, the same as God, cannot be eternal in human nature! All Gods can be gods, and so can little ghosts! So far, I found that this is not my new scientific discovery! It is not only the prelude but also the view of science after my rebirth. It is also a journey to find a way to reconstruct the two cornerstones of modern scientism, repetitive experiment and causality logic. Xi’an, China

Rui-Wu Wang

Acknowledgement

—To those who helped me free from gods and beasts

After nearly 5 years of anguish and excitement, finally I finished this book. “Pain makes hens and poets cackle,” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche once said.2 However, I found that I was neither a hen nor a poet, but always hovering between hen and poet, namely between God and the beast. Whether trying to be a god or a beast, I have been selflessly helped by my colleagues, friends and relatives. I am grateful to them for their push and drag, and I’m lucky that I have not been led into heaven by the nihilistic divinity, nor into hell by the devil’s brutality. In 2000, under the guidance of my postgraduate tutor, Prof. Da-Rong Yang, I came across the fact that the classic cooperative relationship between figs and fig wasps was not always cooperative, but sometimes cooperative and sometimes competitive. This result cannot be explained by existing theories of economics and evolutionary biology. I then sent these results to Robert Aumann, one of the most reputed game theorist and statistician. At that time, he sent me a very enthusiastic reply, saying that this may be a self-organizing phenomenon, and that there is no theory to explain such a phenomenon at present. He encouraged me to persist in this study and commented such exploration is worthy of persisting for a lifetime. Later, I asked if I could come to his lab for a discussion. His reply surprised me: he was in his 70s and the lab had been closed for many years, but as far as I know he was still publishing papers! He won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2005. It was Robert Aumann who encouraged me to stick with my research instead of living at ease. However, questioning rationality and selfishness, a fundamental concept in economic, social science and evolutionary biology is destined to be a dangerous and challenging one. Our results show that the theory of cooperation in an equilibrium and symmetry system based on the basic concepts of rationality and selfishness is not credible, due to the errors in sampling of its supporting evidence and data analysis. 2

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, translated by Ming-Jia Huang: so, said Zarathustra, Lijiang publishing house, 2007. xv

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Acknowledgement

When I put the results into a paper, I found that the scientific discovery did not go as well as expected. I can’t get my paper published in almost any journal. It was not until 2008 and 2011 that these two papers were finally published with the persistent insistence of Kevin McCann, associate editor of Journal of Animal Ecology, a journal of the British ecological society, and with the help of Robert May, a physicist and ecologist and former President of the Royal Society. Another paper found that the evidence supporting kin selection on sex ratio evolution may also be explained by other mechanisms again due to errors in data analysis. The 83-year-old E. O. Wilson, honored as the father of sociobiology and one of Harvard’s greatest thinkers and a recipient of both the Crawford and Pulitzer prizes, wrote a recommendation letter to journals for this paper but has not yet worked. It took nearly a decade before it was published in 2015. Robert Aumann, Robert May and Edward Wilson are the authorities of science today. It is difficult to explain their souls in terms of rationality and selfishness. On the contrary, they perfectly illustrate that human beings can be selfless and possess an irrational divinity. It was them that deeply convinced me that animalistic people could evolve into gods. In addition to being fortunate enough to get the help of these deities, I was also fortunate enough to have an academic and philosophic discussion with Robert Trivers. After reading the first draft of the paper I sent him, this famous evolutionary biologist (Crawford 2007 recipient), who likes to wander in the red-light district and has no job, wrote me six emails one night to discuss it. When I wrote back to him, there was no reply. In 2013, he wandered off to the University of California, Santa Cruz, to discuss my paper with John Thompson (fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences). Although he never agreed with me directly, I read the manuscript he sent me, Ignorance of Fools: the Logic Behind Self-deception and Deception and I even suspected that I had stolen his thoughts in the chapter Who Is He, Who Is She? It’s a complex of man and woman. Robert Trivers was seen as aggressive, irritable, neurotic and even insane. After reading his books, I asked from time to time: Where are the normal people? He seemed a lone wolf who needs no understanding; he is more like a who Wolf evolved from a god whose animal nature is his divine nature. No true divinity is free from our beastly bodies. The same is true for me. Scientific research needs funding support. But when almost no papers got published during my difficult period, I was really lucky to get support from leaders of Kunming Institute of Zoology, CAS successively, such as Prof. Wei-Zhi Ji, director of the Institute and my tutor Prof. Jun-Xing Yang, who gave me continued funding, without which I would have given it up and changed my research direction. After graduation, I worked at Kunming Institute of Zoology, CAS, without the publication of any relevant research papers. The NSFC has given me continuous funding even though I have hardly published relevant papers. I sincerely appreciated and understood why NSFC has such a high reputation and esteem in China’s scientific community. Under the leadership of Academician Ya-Ping Zhang, Kunming Institute of Zoology, CAS, continued to support me, and I was encouraged to insist on my own research in accordance with my own understanding, which made me unforgettable all my life. Upon completion of the manuscript, Northwestern Polytechnical University granted me a publishing

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fund. “God wins the flowers of the world as the gift of human dedication.” I would like to dedicate this poem by Tagore to them. In the writing process of this book, Prof. Wen Wang, Qiang Qiu and Chi-Yu Zhang discussed and modified some biological details. My friends Yun-Hai Li, RenJun Song, and my assistants Xiao-Min Tian, Xia Zhao and Xia Ye helped me to modify some texts and illustrations. What moved me more is that Mr. Fa-Liang Luo, a Chinese teacher in my middle school, offered his advice for the revision of the manuscript. Post doctors He Zhang, Jian-Xiao Song and graduates Jia-Xu Han, Bei-Bei Hou, Yi-Cong Cheng, Si-Yi Wang, Hong-Long Li, Zhuang-Dong Bai and Ya-Nan Dong participated in many academic discussions in this book. Hong-Long Li, Min-Lan Li, Xia Zhao and Jia-Xu Han helped to make the illustrations. Chao Wang, a Ph.D. in quantum physics, and Jun-Zhou He, a Ph.D. in game theory, helped me with manuscript revision. “Knowing quantum physics is worth losing your job”, Chao Wang says. Working and discussing with colleagues and students who are so devoted to their careers and beliefs, even the hen would cackle like a poet, and the stone would think like the thinker. During the publishing of this book, Prof. Marco Anchetti and Dereck Dunn have helped me a lot with language revision and getting a contact with a suitable publication house. I am neither Lao tzu (the Representative of Chinese Dao) nor Nietzsche, who have conquered the vanities of human nature and are true gods as Nietzsche talks about himself by say Some people are born after death.3 I just worship god, never dare to want to be god, for I did not get rid of my animal nature, thus I would rather be a wolf but a being of divinity. If you are a beast, you need to eat meat and live a life, and you need the vanity once criticized by Nietzsche (e.g., publishing the book). I am grateful to these true friends above, who know my animal nature. “The sage has become decadent, and the idol is facing the dusk.” I once lost myself because of losing faith, until I saw the soul of my mother. As I wrote in the chapter The Gods Are Dying, But the Mother Lives Forever, only my mother knows who I am, a member of the human race, and can help me find my place between a completely empty belief and a completely materialistic reality. Although my mother had gone to heaven, I never felt her leaving. September 2019

3

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Man. Trans. Zhou-Xing Sun. The Commercial Press, 2016.

Contents

Part I 1

2

Introduction: The Paradox of Rationality and Selfishness . . . . . . . . . Selfishness and Altruism—An Eternal Contradiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Competition in Cooperation—The Problem of the “Tragedy of the Commons” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Volunteer’s Dilemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Darwin’s Demon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Main Idea and Framework of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Asymmetry and Uncertainty Selection—Start Thinking with a Hammer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cooperation and Competition—There Are Random Strategies . . . . . . . . Social Hierarchy and Social Cooperation—Twin Brothers . . . . . . . . . . . . Information Asymmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Differences in Evolutionary Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Asymmetric and Uncertain Behavioral Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Figs and Fig Wasps—The Mirror Image of Our Human Love and Hate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spatial State Change of Genes Induces Cancerization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Annoying Uncertainty—A Beautiful Halo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deterministic—Dead State—Dissipative Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Super Rational Strategy—Go Your Own Way and Let Others Talk . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Part II 3

Reflection on Rational and Selfish Values 3 3 9 10 10 11 13 15 15 17 20 21 23 26 34 37 41 43 45

The Evolutionary Dynamics of Cooperation

Homotropic Inheritance and Outbreak of Mass Incidents—Increasing Pressure Accelerates the Evolution of Altruistic Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Dilemma of Kin or Tag Recognition Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

49 49

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4

5

6

Contents

Homotropic Inheritance and the Origin of Sociality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Infectious Suicide and the Roots of Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acceleration in Evolutionary Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

51 54 56 57

Cooperation: Dynamics of Sexual Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Cost of Social Progress—Sexual Repression and Abandonment . . . Hero and Villain of the Same Origin, Good or Evil Depends on the Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Your Status Determines Your Profits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The More Stable the Environment, the Less Attractive to the Opposite Sex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gene Exchange, Sexual Reproduction and Entropy Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . Symmetry and Entropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Who is He? Who is She? It’s a Complex of Man and Woman . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

59 63

Cooperation and Slavery—Free Competition to Social Division of Labor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Completely Free Competition—The Road to Slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Human Genetic Modification and Human Super Organism . . . . . . . . . . . Globalization: Evolution of Super Organism and Redundant Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

65 70 72 74 76 78 80 81 81 85 88 91

The Significance of Our Survival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Survival Value: The Limitation of the Definition of Fitness . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Entropy Probability Selection—A Bridge Unifying the Natural Selection and Neutral Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Entropy Change in Non-equilibrium State—The Invisible Hand in the Process of Natural Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Asymmetry and Coexistence of Species—The Disappearance of Darwinian Demons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Part III Maintaining the Order of Social Cooperation 7

Union for a Long Time to Divide and Division for a Long Time to Unite in the Cooperative System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fists, Shadows, and Dices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Game Between Wei, Shu and Wu—Centralization and Alliance . . . Efficiency is the Product of Centralization; Innovation is the Product of Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Two Tigers Are not Allowed in One Mountain, Except One Male and One Female . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Game of Unity and Division is also the Game of Efficiency and Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

109 112 115 120 122 124

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References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 8

9

The Game of New Three Kingdoms—Cooperation and Competition in a Globally Changing World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Bourgeoisie—The Common Enemy and Friend of Different Civilizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The US, China, Russia—Different Pathway Depended Strategies . . . . . . Game Strategy Analysis of the United States, China and Russia . . . . . . . Reason Versus Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Maintenance of the World Order—The Great Negative Entropy . . . Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Great Unity Between Nations and Human Society . . . . . . . . . . . . The Disappearance of War and Chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . High Degree of Socialization and Great Unity—Integration of Freedom and Slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10 Path-Dependent Speciation and Stratified Co-existence and Co-prosperity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Path-Dependent Speciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stratified Co-existence and Co-prosperity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 The Unity of Life and Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Consistence Between Biological Sociality and Atomic Physical Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wave Particle Duality of Cooperative Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Gravity of Social Biological System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Egocentrism and Gravitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Planck’s Constant—Can’t I Touch It? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relativity of Observer Scale and Plasticity of Planck Constant . . . . . . . . The Essence of Planck’s Constant and the Discontinuity of Life Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spatiotemporal Similarity and System Volatility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Observation Angle and Scale Determine the Observation Results and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Discontinuity-Equilibrium Evolution and Evolution Path Dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Diversity of Species Origin and Evolution Path Dependence . . . . . . . . . . The Art Buried Deep Underground−Path-Dependent Speciation Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multiple Levels of Selection and Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

131 131 135 143 146 148 150 151 151 155 157 159 159 162 164 165 165 168 170 173 176 177 178 179 181 182 183 183 190 192 194

xxii

Contents

Part IV The Future of Human Beings and Reflection on Humanity 13 The End and Hope of Mankind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Tragedy of the Evolution of Human Cooperative Behavior . . . . . . . Cultivate an Opponent Who Can Kill You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Humans Will Evolve into Super Organisms, not Global Villages . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

197 197 201 205 208

14 Come Back Gods and Ghosts. Who Will Fight Against God? . . . . . . Pluralism and Monism of Human Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Gods Will Die, and the Mother Will Live Forever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

209 209 213 216

Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Part I

Reflection on Rational and Selfish Values

Chapter 1

Introduction: The Paradox of Rationality and Selfishness

As I have emphasized in several other articles, I believe that science is not an objective, certain machine of truth, but a typical human activity, in which people are influenced by emotions, hopes, and cultural prejudices. The cultural tradition of thinking has a great influence on scientific theory and often determines the way people think about conjecture, especially when there is no material to limit people’s imagination or conjecture.1 —Stephen Jay Gould

Selfishness and Altruism—An Eternal Contradiction But my truth is terrible: because people have been treating lies as the truth.2 —Nietzsche

Sima Qian wrote in his Shi Ji (also named Historical Records): Biographies of Merchants3 that “Hustling for benefit, all come; bustling for benefit, all leave”, expressing the essence of the hustle and bustle of everyday life: all people are chasing for profit! A thousand years later, in the book the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, generally hailed as the father of modern economics, said in the same way that the invisible hand behind people’s behaviors—the selfishness of human nature, always pursues its own interests. The selfishness, or we can use a more elegant word rationality, that explains almost all of our economic and social behaviors. We can use selfishness to explain why students study so hard to get into the top universities— rewards are higher. Similarly, selfishness explains why companies or individuals invest large amounts of money or energy in high-risk scientific researches or innovation—such results can yield higher additional profits. Selfishness, or rationality, so often is the basis of classical economics, which has profoundly influenced the social

1

Written by Goodell [1]. Written by Nietzsche [2]. 3 Written by Qian [3]. 2

© Science Press 2023 R. Wang, The End of Rationality and Selfishness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9752-5_1

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1 Introduction: The Paradox of Rationality and Selfishness

sciences, and evolved into one of the basic theoretical premises for our understanding of human behaviors. The idea has also profoundly influenced evolutionary biologists. Inspired by Adam Smith’s the Wealth of Nations, Darwin put forward the concept of “survival of the fittest”. Natural Selection assumes that individual organism is selfish, and “the fittest” is able to get more interests of individual organisms. Yet when regarding to individual organisms, interests refer to the number of their off springs and how long they can survive, both termed in evolutionary biology as “fitness” that is an organism’s total revenue. In a twist on the notion of fitness, Neo-Darwinism holds that the essential unit of biological inheritance is the gene, so the interest of an individual is the probability that passing his or her genes to the next generation and beyond. According to the Neo-Darwinian interpretation of evolution, the frequency of genes that can be passed on to the next generation is the biological benefits. Selfishness, the invisible hand, has influenced almost all of our understanding of the motives of human activities, and almost the starting point for our understanding of all biological phenomena. Some of Smith’s and Darwin’s followers even went so far as to believe that all human social activities and biological phenomena could be explained by the concept of invisible hand—selfishness. In the real world, however, there are social or biological phenomena which can’t be explained by it. For example, it’s difficult for us to explain why Henry Norman Bethune came to China to help Chinese people resist Japanese aggression and finally sacrificed his life here in China. Likewise, it’s hard to explain why those terrorists who hijacked planes chose to die with passengers though he bears no animosity towards them on September 11, 2001. In the biological world, there are also a large number of phenomena and behaviors that can’t be explained by selfishness—some social insects, such as soldier ants or worker ants, choose to commit suicide to defend their colonies in case of danger or invasion by foreign enemies; Similarly, on the African savannah, it’s often been observed that some buffaloes march forward courageously to protect their young from lions; In the Antarctic harshest environment, some penguins steal the eggs belonging to other penguins and bear the risk of severe cold to hatch and raise other penguins’ babies. In human society, there are also lots of adoptions, and some people even steal other people’s children and raising them as their own children. When Adam Smith and Darwin put forward their theories, they realized the theoretical dilemma of the notion of selfishness of rational man or the concept of survival of the fittest. Both Adam Smith and Darwin in their time had noticed altruistic behaviors that were contrary to selfishness and rationality, such as human donation to strangers and even sacrificing their own lives to help others, which is quite common in people of all ages and nations, but might be labeled with different colors. Terrorism, which we abhor so much, is essentially an altruistic act. These “extremely brave” people usually resort to means of suicide to attack others, by completely giving up their own lives while taking the lives of others, in the hope that the world will thus pay attention to their groups and their appeals. The global spread of such suicide attacks on innocent people since September 11, these attacks has been an issue that is well worth exploring (we will focus on it in later chapters).

Selfishness and Altruism—An Eternal Contradiction

5

At that time, Adam Smith had already recognized the inexplicability of altruistic social cooperation of the so-called selfish and rational man. He argued, in another monograph that he thought more important, the Theory of Moral Sentiments, that man was a higher creature, and could be selfless. Adam Smith made the contradictory premise in the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations. In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, people are selfless, while in the Wealth of Nations, people are selfish. In the history of science, how selfish individuals engage in altruistic behaviors is called “Smith’s mystery”. Darwin was also aware of the dilemma that his theory “survival of the fittest” was facing. In the nature, there are highly social insects such as ants, bees, termites. Worker ants (bees) do not reproduce at all, but rather help the queen ants or queen bees to reproduce; Moreover, soldier ants or worker bees often protect their colonies by committing suicide when they encounter natural enemies or external invasion. Apparently, “survival of the fittest” can’t explain the behavior of social insects in which many individuals give up their reproductive rights or even their lives to help others. There is no doubt that reproduction and life should be the best interests of an individual in the course of evolution. Darwin realized that survival of the fittest could not explain these biological phenomena, but he dodged this question in his book on the Origin of Species,4 noting only that such altruistic behaviors were an adaptation. By the turn of the nineteenth century, this “scientific” paradox had aroused a collective anxiety of western elites, which stems from the rise of Marxism that regards collectivism as their moral principle, and the oath of admission of the CPC is the direct embodiment of such values. “I volunteer to join the Communist Party of China (CPC), support the Party’s program, abide by the Party’s constitution, perform Party membership duties, carry out the Party’s decisions, strictly observe Party discipline, keep the secrets of the Party, be loyal to the Party, work actively, and strive for Communism in my whole life. I am always ready to sacrifice everything for the Party and the people, and never defect to the Party.” The basic ideas and beliefs are totally different to the western values, which believe that human nature is selfish, and only when individuals pursue their own interests selfishly can the interests of the collective or the society be realized. Therefore, the whole politics, economy and law of western society are constructed according to a basic premise that human nature is essentially selfish. The group selection theory has brought a far greater impact on the basic values and theoretical system of the West from the biological nature. Supporters of group selection theory believe that in biological evolution, the selected unit is not only the individual, but also at the level of group or species. As long as the group or species has an advantage in the competitive process, the group or individual organism can give up its own survival or reproductive interests to help the group. Wynne Edwards, one of the main proponents of the theory, once used the football team analogy that if each individual only wants to score goals with himself, the football team is bound to lose.5 The team can only win if individuals give up their own chances to score and give other players the chance and collaborate 4 5

Written by Darwin [4]. Wynne-Edwards [5].

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1 Introduction: The Paradox of Rationality and Selfishness

or cooperate with each other. In the biological world, there are indeed a large number of cases in which individuals in a group sacrifice their own reproductive interests or even their lives to ensure the success of the whole group. The best example of ants is a fire ant, which forms a ball and rolls out of the fire when confronted with a big fire. The outer layers of the ball might be burned to death, but the colony is preserved. The theory of biological group selection provides the mechanism of biological explanation for Marxism. The Communist movement also raised the questions about the basic values of the West, causing anxiety among western elites. In this social background, W. D. Hamilton, who later became a gifted talent of political economy was born. Under the inspiration of Adam Smith’s theory, Hamilton put forward the concept of generalized fitness. The theory was that the units of choice could not be at the level of the individual unit, but at the level of the gene. The theory indicates that the process of natural selection is mainly to increase the frequency of one’s genes in the next generation. Take the following analogy, genes are analogous to the commercial activity in which a merchant needs to make more profits, and the individual organism chooses to increase its genetic inheritance frequency. As for an individual organism, if it copies itself, it’s genes will be 100% inherited, and the correlation coefficient between the two is 1; If it’s their own siblings, the coefficient is 0.5; Half siblings, 0.25; and cousin, 0.125; If the correlation is infinitely small enough to be negligible, the coefficient is zero. Hamilton used the highly social Hymenoptera insects as an example to explain why the worker ants/bees do not reproduce, but rather help the queen reproduce. Social Hymenoptera insects such as ants and bees are mono-diploid species, among whom males are all descended from “unfertilized eggs”. An unfertilized egg means an egg without the father’s sperm. Thus, these males have only one set of chromosomes from the queen. Females (worker bees) develop from “fertilized eggs”, so they have two sets of chromosomes like mammals. Because of this particular “mono-diploid” trait, males inherit 100% from their mothers’ gene frequencies, while females, who need meiosis6 to produce eggs, inherit 50% from their mothers’ gene frequencies. The genetic similarity of each worker ant to its sister queen reaches 0.75, which means they share 75% of their genes. In other diploid species such as mammals, siblings are only 0.5, and parents are only 0.5 to their own children. Hamilton concluded that due to the high genetic similarity between the worker ants and the queen, selecting altruism to help the queen reproduce increased the frequency of her genes in the next generation compared to her own, so it is preferred to choose altruistic cooperative strategies. Supposing you have one or more sisters, if you take care of one sister and keep her alive, you can add 0.75 genes to your population (if you take care of four sisters, you can add three copies of the genes). By comparison, if you have a child of your own, you gain just 0.5 extra genes. Needless to say, natural selection favors taking care of a sister rather than raising her own children.

6

In meiosis of germ cells, chromosomes only replicate once, and cells divide twice in succession. This is a special division mode in which the chromosome number is halved.

Selfishness and Altruism—An Eternal Contradiction

7

Worker ants/bees who help their queen reproduce instead of reproducing have a higher chance of passing on their genes to the next generation than reproducing themselves, which is like two brothers starting a company. If you help your sibling start a company and earn more money than you do alone, and the wealth of the company belongs to both of you, then you will give up the opportunity to start your own company, which it is an inevitable choice to help your brother start a company. Based on the above logic, Hamilton proposed the concept of generalized fitness, believing that the unit of natural selection should be at the gene level, and the selection essence is to increase the frequency of its own genes being passed on to the next generation, so that the individuals with genetic relationships are more likely to form cooperative relationships. This is our modern standard theory of selection in evolutionary biology, also known simply as pro-selection theory.7 To be more precise, it’s worth popularizing a little bit of science about what kind of environment can produce a great thinker. It is said that Hamilton’s original major is political economy instead of biology! He just used to enjoy looking at insects like butterflies. When he was in college, he became interested in the altruism which Darwin’s theory of natural selection couldn’t explain, so he changed his major to evolutionary biology. Inspired by Smith’s notion of rational man or selfishness in economics, he developed a theory based on genetic frequency selection, known as pro-selection theory, which was later summarized in more colloquial language as “selfish” genes. Hamilton didn’t get credit for it, nor was his theory recognized. His faculty at the university didn’t accept his theory and he didn’t even get his Ph.D. But his alma mater still offered him a teaching position. At that time, Hamilton sent his paper to Professor Wilson, a famous social biologist at Harvard University, who believed his theory and began to introduce it. A few years later, Hamilton’s theory gained worldwide acceptance and gradually evolved into a selection theory in evolutionary biology, which also profoundly influenced the economic and social sciences. However, 11 years after Hamilton’s death, Professor E.O. Wilson, together with Professor Martin Nowak, one of the most famous biologists at Harvard University, published a paper in the Nature in UK in 2010, believing that pro-selection theory is not credible and should be abandoned.8 In his letter of recommendation to me, Professor Wilson directly challenged Hamilton’s theory: “Some young scholars and I, including mathematicians and social entomologists, have also begun to doubt the validity of the standard pro-selection theory. Your results, especially based on the results of the experiment, have completely different data and conclusions, which is a very important finding that will get a lot of attention.” Around the time of Hamilton’s theory of pro-selection, it was recognized that many altruistic or cooperative behaviors were not related to each other. How do unrelated individuals or groups evolve into cooperative relationships? Robert Treves’s reciprocal selection theory offers an alternative explanation. According to the reciprocal selection theory, if two parties exchange interests and gain benefits from each other which are difficult or impossible for them to obtain, in that case, even if two parties are 7 8

In 1964, Hamilton put forward the pro-selection theory, also known as Hamilton Theorem. Nowak et al. [6].

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1 Introduction: The Paradox of Rationality and Selfishness

not related, they could still form a stable and cooperative relationship. Robert Treves’s theory suddenly sounds plausible, but doesn’t hold up upon closer examination and faces a big logical fallacy, also known as the “prisoner’s dilemma”. Let’s start with a story to understand the paradox of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The story assumes that there are two suspected arsonists, and the police caught them up and lock them up separately. The police told them that if they confessed, they would get a lighter sentence that each of them could be jailed for only three years. But if one of them denied, and the other confessed, they would get a heavier sentence of five years. Both suspected arsonists knew that if they both denied it, the police would have no evidence to prove their guilt and they would be released without charge. Obviously, if the suspects cooperate with each other and take the word of denial, it is a win–win outcome. However, as a game process, the suspect considers that if he denies and the other one confesses, he will be punished severely. So both of them will confess in the end. In theory, choosing to confess would be the superior strategy for both sides. From this point of view, even if the two parties have a highly reciprocal relationship, it is still impossible to cooperate. It was not until 1981 that Robert Axelrod and William Hamilton worked together to resolve this famous theoretical paradox. Instead of playing the “prisoner’s dilemma” game once, the two talented researchers changed it to a game which was repeated many times. In other words, if the two suspects in the prisoner’s dilemma are changed from the premise that they only commit the crime once, to that they will work together before and after the crime. The two suspects then made very different strategic decisions about whether to confess or deny. The reason why the two can be combined is that they know each other well and will work together in future. At this time, the cooperation strategy of denial chosen by both sides is the strictest and most superior strategy for them. Mutually beneficial partnerships can thus be formed. The above-mentioned pro-selection, reciprocal selection or group selection theories are essentially derived from western contract thoughts, and their theories hope to realize the stability of cooperative relations through this kind of contract. When there is competition or conflict between partners, due to the reasons such as kinship, interest exchange or group interest, the partners adopt self-restraint mechanism and no longer make excessive use of the public resources or the resources belonging to the other party. Otherwise, it might lead to retaliation and loss of partners. However, the theory derived from the idea of contract cannot explain the “Tragedy of the Commons”,9 “Volunteer’s dilemma”10 and other similar problems.

9

Hardin [7]. Diekmann [8].

10

Competition in Cooperation—The Problem of the “Tragedy …

9

Competition in Cooperation—The Problem of the “Tragedy of the Commons” In 1968, Garrett Hardin, a famous economist, believes that as for a social cooperation system, public resources should exist among individuals of a social system. When they are fully utilized, any individual or behavior that does not break the space restrictions nor exploit other resources by self-restraint won’t get any revenue. Obviously, social cooperative behavior, especially altruistic cooperative behavior, is completely difficult for selfish individuals to achieve. Therefore, Hardin is pessimistic that the “Tragedy of the Commons” in the cooperative or coexistence system might be an unsolvable paradox. For the cooperators, the cooperation between the two parties promotes the utilization efficiency of resources, and the improvement of the utilization efficiency of public resources leads to the tension of limited public resources, which in turn will lead to a fiercer competition between the two parties. No matter how closely related or mutually beneficial the cooperative parties are, the competition for limited public resources will inevitably lead to the disintegration of cooperative relationship. The founders and supporters of the theories of pro-selection, reciprocal selection and group selection believe that the spatial differentiation within the cooperative system, which is the “border of Chu and Han, the two opposing powers” of the Chinese people, can solve the “Tragedy of the Commons” problem or the rational partner’s self-restraint mechanism can also solve the problem. However, let’s think this through: this space differentiation also faces an insurmountable theoretical barrier! If there is space differentiation in cooperation system, cooperation will result in greater competition among individuals due to the space limitation, and the mutations that break through the local space limitations can improve its fitness in the heterogeneous system. Thus, rather than to maintain the stability of cooperation system, spatial heterogeneity will inhibit the evolution of cooperative behavior. Selfinhibition theory also has the similar theoretical dilemma: if the cooperation system of the two sides formed a cooperative equilibrium, and the mutation or individual of the cooperation system resorts to uncooperative strategy, the individual or mutation can obviously improve their fitness (interest), then the cooperative Nash equilibrium will be disintegrated due to the diffusion of these “speculative” individuals. Selfinhibition is obviously not credible, either. The “Tragedy of the Commons” is once again a paradox in the theory of cooperative evolution. In the real world, not only can we see the father and son turn against each other, but also mother-daughter killing tragedies in the TV series, such plots in fact, whether among the common people or the nobles, are also a common occurrence. In ancient Greek mythology, Oedipus killed his father, while Li Shimin, the emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty, who controlled the reign of Zhen Guan in the most prosperous period of Chinese history, murdered his own brothers. The cruel tragedies we see in human society could be attributed to more complex reasons, but in fact their essence is the competition for resources, nothing but not in a direct way. In the biological world, stories of cannibalism and brother killing take place as well as in human

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1 Introduction: The Paradox of Rationality and Selfishness

world. Blood relations and interchanges of interests clearly do not account for this kind of bloodshed.

Volunteer’s Dilemma11 When a man falls into a river, who wants to risk his or her own life to jump into the river to try to save him? Similarly, who would risk offending the bad guys and punishing them for their crimes in remote areas, or in a country in chaos, or before the advent of the police in our human history? This problem exists not only in human society, but also in nature. In a group of foraging macaques, they need one or more of their own species to remain on high alert, even on special lookout, for leopards, wolves and other predators to pouncing on them. This reduces the chances that the patrolling and watchkeeping monkeys will be eaten. For highly social insects such as bees and ants, when an enemy invades, some individuals must defend themselves, and some of these individuals will sacrifice with their lives. If you’ve ever been stung by a bee, you likely recall the nasty side effects that followed the sting. When a bee stings, it usually has a sting in its tail that goes into your skin, but when it flies away, it leaves the whole tail and the sting on your skin. The bee can thus lose its life. As the fire ants roll through the fire in a ball, the individuals on the outside of the ball are killed by the fire, while only the individuals inside remain alive. Obviously, whether it is human beings or social insects such as ants and bees, some public service or individual sacrifice must be completed, or the whole group will face loss or destruction. The obvious question is: who is willing to pay the price or sacrifice their lives to help others or to engage in this kind of public service? The theory of Pro-selection deems that good Samaritans should save people who are closely related to them, but we see a lot of people who rescue drowning people are strangers. The reciprocal selection theory might argue that I go to save him or help someone else in the hope that I might get something in return from someone else in the future, but it’s also hard to explain the transnational, completely alien act of altruism in the real world, especially for those who risk their lives to help others, the paradox is even more striking: the basic logic is, if you lose your life, where do you expect to be rewarded?

Darwin’s Demon Darwin, like the economist, made a basic premise in his theory of natural selection: that individuals are selfish. Through competition, individuals who are better adapted to their environment will be selected. Even if individuals or species with stronger competitiveness have a very small advantage, in the process of evolution, 11

Diekmann [8].

Main Idea and Framework of This Book

11

these advantageous individuals or species will exclude other individuals or species through competition. Jonathan Silvertown had postulated a creature with all the characteristics needed to maximize reproduction, reaching large adult size shortly after birth, producing many off springs of large individuals and living long. Biologists call this imaginary animal the “Darwinian Demon”. There are two reasons to call it a demon. One is that if this animal were to appear, it would sweep away all other creatures and occupy the earth. The other is that something so powerful has never really appeared. Although the true Darwinian demon doesn’t appear in any living system, creatures with this demonic quality seem to be everywhere. As for social ants, termites, and naked moles, their queens are orders of magnitude who are more likely to live and reproduce than other individuals. Similarly, in an ecosystem, dominant species are much more numerous and productive than non-dominant and redundant species. So why didn’t natural selection continue to reinforce the selection? The Darwinian demon will emerge if certain individuals or species that have an advantage in both reproduction and survival continue to reinforce such selection over the course of evolution. So, what was it that Darwin’s demon didn’t show up? This is a question we have not yet answered.

Main Idea and Framework of This Book Since ancient times, many attempts have been made to explain these altruistic social cooperation behaviors, but so far, we still cannot effectively explain the paradox of Smith’s mystery, the Tragedy of the Commons, Volunteer’s dilemma, Darwinian demon12 and other theoretical paradoxes, let alone guide our social practice. The root cause of this paradox is the basic premise of Adam Smith and Darwin’s systems: rationality and selfishness. Rationality and selfishness, the basic assumptions of economics and evolutionary biology, are taken for granted. Today, however, it’s time to doubt its methods. The basic pre-suppositions of reason and selfishness in the systems of Adam Smith and Darwin are derived from Newton’s system of deterministic thought, or to be more specific, from Newton’s system of strict causality and monism. In general, we tend to think that any phenomenon or result we observe has a definite cause, and in the end all causes can be attributed to some basic and essential cause, which is from the basic paradigm of modern scientific system created by Galileo and Newton. The modern scientific methodology initiated by Galileo and Newton is the result of monistic philosophy in many philosophical systems, which can be attributed to the global victory of Christian civilization to a great extent. However, in the early nineteenth century, Planck, Dirac, Heisenberg and others finally broke out of the great gravitational constraint of the scientific methodology of Newtonian mechanics and almost completely reconstructed the methodology and philosophical system of modern physics. In the system of quantum physics, the strong 12

Darwinian demon is an ideal imaginary organism, quoted from Silvertown [9].

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1 Introduction: The Paradox of Rationality and Selfishness

causal relationship and deterministic relationship are denied, thus the philosophy of pluralism can be revived. We return to the primitive simplicity, the primitive polytheistic belief, thus the pluralism of human nature is rediscovered. Paradoxes such as Smith’s mystery and Darwin’s demon will be solved if we return to the diversity of human nature, instead of everything coming down to selfishness and rationality. In the introduction of this book, I first introduce the classical social cooperation theories such as pro-selection, reciprocal selection and group selection, and analyze the insurmountable theoretical and logical obstacles in these classical theories. A common feature of these theories is that they are based on the basic premise that each individual in the cooperative system should be selfish and rational. To put it in more physical terms, these classical theories assume that there is a strict symmetry between the cooperating parties. In other words, when the system reaches equilibrium state, each individual in the population or each species in the ecosystem has a same competitive ability. If they change their respective spatial position, the nature of the whole system will not change. All the above theories believe that as long as there is a high exchange of interests, kinship or group interests between the two sides of the game, the choice of cooperation is the best strategy, so the strategy has a high degree of predictability or certainty. In other words, if the mutual benefits or kinship coefficient is high, both parties actively choose to cooperate, so that the cooperative relationship can be maintained. Then, this book will analyze the cooperation behavior and the uncertainties of the actual social cooperation system in examples, which essentially stem from the asymmetric relationship of the cooperative system. In the later chapters of this book, I will discuss that there are three ways for the asymmetric relationship between the parties in the cooperative system: (1) asymmetry of payment or strength; (2) asymmetry of evolution rate or evolution path; (3) information asymmetry. With the real biological, economic, and political economy cases, the author also discusses how these three kinds of asymmetry affect the mutual relationship between social partners and the uncertainty of the mutual relationship. By comparing the living system with the atomic physical system, this book analyzes how to maintain the stability of the cooperative system through asymmetry (broken symmetry), and explores the physical power of egocentrism in biological systems. In subsequent chapters, the author will return to methodology to discuss the underlying causes of asymmetry and uncertainty. In his book the Deterministic End, Prygozin explicitly states that symmetry stems from the reversibility of time in physics, and asymmetry from the irreversibility of time (Einstein’s theory of relativity assumes that time and space can be transformed into each other).13 Such irreversibility of time leads to uncertainty in the physical world. In terms of living systems, Darwin’s theory of natural selection presupposes the reversibility of evolutionary processes, and its theoretical systems methodology is in line with Newtonian mechanics. Although atavism provides direct evidence that evolution is partially

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Written by Prygozin [10].

References

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reversible, the whole process is irreversible. The heritability of learned behavior— evidence supported by Lamarck’s theory,14 known as phenotypic plasticity, reveals that biological evolution accelerates or slows down under certain conditions, further supporting the irreversibility of evolution. Therefore, in this book, I will discuss how the irreversibility of evolution can lead to the asymmetry and uncertainty of systems in terms of methodology, that is, the principles of quantum physics. At the same time, I will combine specific cases of biology and human social behaviors to analyze the asymmetry and uncertainty of cooperation and their relationship with the irreversible characteristics of time. In the final chapter, the book will discuss the future of the evolution of the human giant social cooperation system—superorganism—and how this over-socialization will in turn lead to the collapse of the giant system. Reducing the division of labor and globalization may delay or overcome this tragedy. At the same time, this book reflects on the philosophical nature of the paradox of social cooperation theory from the perspective of methodology, and analyzes the objective reasons for the prevalence of monism, the dangers and tragedies of scientific methodology brought about by it. The return of pluralism will help us overcome the shackles of human thought and action. Finally, the book offers its own explanation to the possibility that pluralism can lead to loss: samsara. Perhaps as Nietzsche put it, “Samsara is 6000 feet higher than time and human cognition.” But Nietzsche exaggerates. In fact, Buddhism and many other simple religions, quantum mechanics have recognized samsara, just as metaphysics. In the final chapter of this book, I return to the nature of human culture in science through the words of god: “Is this a new discovery?”—God asks me, “Ask my disciples, god of science—theologian, your Newton, your Darwin!”.

References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

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Goodell SJ (2016) The Panda’s thumb (Tian M, Trans.). Hainan Publishing House Nietzsche FW (2007) Thus, spoke Zarathustra (Huang M-J, Trans.). Lijiang Publishing Ltd. Qian S (1982) Shi Ji/historical records. Zhonghua Book Company Darwin (2001) On the origin of species (Shu D-G, Trans.). Shaanxi People’s Publishing House Wynne-Edwards VC (1989) Evolution through group selection. Neural Darwinism. Blackwell Scientific Publications Nowak AM, Tarnita CE, Wilson EO (2010) The evolution of eusociality. Nature 466:1059–1062 Hardin G (1968) The tragedy of the commons. Science 1968:1243 Diekmann A (1985) Volunteer’s dilemma. J Conflict Resolut 29:605–610 Silvertown J (2005) Demons in Eden the paradox of plant diversity. Chicago University Press Prygozin E (2009) The deterministic end (Zhan M, Trans.). Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press

Lamarck affirmed the impact of the environment on species change. He proposed two well-known principles of “use and disuse theory” and “acquired inheritance”.

Chapter 2

Asymmetry and Uncertainty Selection—Start Thinking with a Hammer

Mankind is at a turning point, at the beginning of a new rationality. In this new rationality, science is no longer equated with certainty, and probability is no longer equated with ignorance.1 —Prygozin

Cooperation and Competition—There Are Random Strategies At the end of the eastern Han dynasty, a group of troops trod the pavement and walked wearily along an official road in the south of the Yangtze River. Some soldiers were especially exhausted and vulnerable. They hadn’t had enough to eat for days and the situation seemed to get worse. The leading general Zhou Yu suddenly thought of nearby rich Lu Su, and decided to go to Lu Su’s home.2 Lu Su gave Zhou Yu a warm welcome. He showed Zhou Yu his two granaries and said the general would take either of them. Since then, Zhou Yu solved the problem of food shortage and went through a difficult time in his military career. Thus, Lu Su got acquainted with the political and military core figures in the south of the Yangtze River, thus entered the political core circle in the south of the Yangtze River, and finally achieved his political ambition. From then on, Lu Su and Zhou Yu formed the most reliable political alliance and a cooperative relationship for their respective achievements. However, another version of the story between Zhou Yu and Lu Su is entirely possible. Zhou Yu, the military commander, was able to pillage Lu Su’s grain, a conventional form of resupply used by the armies in ancient wars and rarely condemned by the times or history. Likewise, Lu Su might as well organize its 1

Written by Prygozin [1]. Zhou Yu (175–210), also named Gongjin, was a famous general of the eastern Wu Dynasty, who was proficient in music. There was an old saying that “if the music is wrong, Zhou Lang will find although he is in drink”. Lu Su (172–217), also named Zijing, was an outstanding strategist and diplomat in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.

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© Science Press 2023 R. Wang, The End of Rationality and Selfishness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9752-5_2

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armed forces to protect their property, or even burn grain and lose both sides. This kind of confrontation is also common in the history of wars, even regarded as a brave act at that time. However, violent confrontation did not happen between Zhou Yu and Lu Su, but instead in Qin dynasty, an equally famous person, Shang Yang and Ang, had a completely different story.3 In the state of Qin, there was a man called Shang Yang. He was a statesman and worked out many reforms for the state. With the support of duke Xiao, he carried out the reform with an iron fist. Once building up his fame by rewarding people for moving a log, he established credibility for his reform. According to Records of the Historian, in order to gain the people’s trust before initiating his political reforms, Shang Yang (395-338 BC) announced that, regardless of whoever it might be, if anyone was able to move a huge log 30 m long from the southern gateway to the northern gateway of the market in the capital city, he would be amply rewarded. A certain person was bold enough to attempt this task and succeeded; hence he was immediately rewarded with a generous sum of money. After that, the people were convinced that Shang Yang was one who kept his word, and therefore, he was able to issue his new decrees unimpeded. The important thing here is “the establishment of credibility”—winning the people’s trust. In order to pass a country’s decrees unimpeded, one must first gain trust, which is imperative for issuing a decree. Only in this way can the support and allegiance of the common people be gained.

After making some progress during the reform, to test the achievements of its reform, the state of Qin decided to launch a war to retake its territory from its neighboring state Wei where Shang Yang also came from, When the Qin army gathered at the QinWei border preparing for war, Shang Yang sent a letter to Ang, the army general of Wei, asking the favor of meeting each other as old friends so as to avoid unnecessary death of people and waste of money due to the war. After reading the letter, Ang thought he could give it a try. On one hand, he thought he had a deep friendship with Shang, who served a different master though, so it would be nature if they both sit and have a talk. On the other hand, Qin and Wei are two powerful neighbors. The war between the two countries will lead to the destruction of human lives and the great loss of national strength for each other. When general Ang arrived at Qin’s camp alone, merely with several attendants, however, Shang Yang broke his promise, immediately arresting the general and sending his troops to attack Wei’s. The troops of Qin defeated the troops of Wei and recaptured the west-river area, which had been lost to the state of Wei. The two states of Qin and Wei returned to violent confrontation. In terms of individuals, Wei Ang didn’t form a cooperative relationship with Shang Yang, failing to peacefully solve the conflicts between the two countries, but in severe war against it, which result in a very different ending from the story of Zhou Yu and Lu Su during the Three Kingdoms period mentioned above. International political relationships in today’s world are similar to those of the individuals or groups, with great randomness of cooperation and conflict. Since 3

Shang Yang (395–338), a statesman and historian of the Warring States period, was famous for “Shang Yang Reform”. Ang, also known as Wei Ang, the Prime Minister of the state of Wei in the early Warring States period, was an old friend of Shang Yang. When Shang Yang attacked the Wei Dynasty, Ang was defeated in the west of the river.

Social Hierarchy and Social Cooperation—Twin Brothers

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Donald Trump won the presidency, the United States and China, the two-great economics of the world, saw a significant increase of conflicts in economy, trade, and even military and politics, blaming against each other on tariffs and currency. But we’ve also read Trump’s tweets claiming that he has a good personal relationship with the Chinese President Xi. The US President’s claim may not be widely believed—Trump has no need to blush when he lies, but the US and China share a common interest in denuclearizing the Korean peninsula. The same holds true for the United States and Russia, which continue to be hostile. While the United States continues to impose trade sanctions and political blockade and strike on Russia, the United States and Russia have in fact been cooperating in terms of intelligence in preventing terrorism and nuclear proliferation. For our human social behaviors, we take it for granted that the reality is that there is competition in cooperation, and competition also exists in the cooperation, but it may be necessary for us to answer the question: what on earth are we able to cooperate, or more willing to cooperate, and under what conditions, we tend to be more competitive? Or is cooperation or competition in the real world simply a random outcome? If so, our world would be in chaos. Apparently not! I’m glad I still live in an orderly world.

Social Hierarchy and Social Cooperation—Twin Brothers The weak serve the strong because the will of the weak to be master of a weaker power than himself convinces him: it is only the pleasure of being master that makes him unwilling to give it up. Ask a woman: having children is not about happiness. Pain makes hens and poet’s cackle.4 — Nietzsche

The phenomenon of social class is abominable for liberalism and democracy; for people who have a special complex of social cooperation and order, it’s an interesting and fascinating topic. Hierarchy, or social stratification, is a universal and almost unavoidable phenomenon for social species. The term division of labor has been used somewhat evasively as a substitute for social stratification, which is the status of individuals in society that determines their corresponding resource allocation. However, the term of social division of labor is extremely deceptive. It covers up the inequality of status among individuals, concealing the class differentiation or status difference between different individuals with the different nature of work. If the nature of the work is completely different, then the positions of individuals in each class can be reversed. But here’s the thing: The President of the country can say to the nightman that we are all essentially the same labor, just different in nature. But can the nightman ask the President if we can switch jobs? 4

Shang Yang (395–338), a statesman and historian of the Warring States period, was famous for “Shang Yang Reform”. Ang, also known as Wei Ang, the Prime Minister of the state of Wei in the early Warring States period, was an old friend of Shang Yang. When Shang Yang attacked the Wei Dynasty, Ang was defeated in the west of the river.

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In ancient Greek philosophy, the nature of social stratification has long been discussed. In his Republic,5 Plato divided the division of labor and cooperation among people from different social strata, such as the various parts of the human body. Different people need to bear different social functions and responsibilities, just like different organs of human bodies. Each organ must bear different functions so that the whole body can function normally. From this point of view, the social strata, like the organs of the human body, ought to have only a different division of labor, without the difference in the allocation of status and resources. But for a social system, it seems that everyone would be a horse rider rather than a horse handler. We don’t know if there’s a difference in status between organs in the body, like whether butts are more likely to take the place of face? So, the validity of the metaphor is questionable. For a social cooperation system, class divisions tend to solidify, and it’s often your birth that determines your social status. In slave and feudal societies, the status of Kings and nobles was usually hereditary, hence the status of slaves and commoners was “hereditary” as well. There is also solidification at all levels in a modern society, just not by heredity, but rather through resource control and hereditary connections. In most countries, whether where the high degree of democratization such as the United States, or where it is relatively more centralized such as Japan, you will see that the offspring of bureaucracy are still bureaucratic, usually the descendants of merchants more likely a businessman, and the offspring of civilian civilians. This hereditary status is changed mainly through education, social relations and direct inheritance, so that the descendants of people of high status may still be in a higher social status. In social animals, status is also hereditary. In Africa, the offspring of the female leader of hyenas get more care from the group and hence much stronger, and when the leader gets older, it is usually the daughter who ascend to the throne. In this social hierarchy, the status of each class is not interchangeable, so it is not appropriate to simply use the neutral term “social division of labor” with a vague, even confused understanding of the different nature of work resulting from this hierarchy. Instead, we can use a more academic term—the asymmetry of social status. The corresponding term, of course, is symmetry, which is a strictly defined term in physics. Symmetry means that the space positions of the two sides are interchangeable without affecting the properties of the system, that is, they are invertible in time or space, while asymmetry means that the spatial positions of the two sides are not interchangeable, and are irreversible in time or space. If the spatial positions are interchangeable, the nature of the system may change substantially. Obviously, in a system of social cooperation, nobles and commoners could not exchange their social functions, and the king could not exchange positions with ministers. If it happens, it will result in a revolution or great change in society. In social insect systems, this asymmetry has evolved to an extreme degree. In the social system of termites, bees, most people think that only the queen bee or the queen ant has the right to reproduce. Even though worker ants and worker bees have ability to reproduce, the offspring (eggs) they breed will be eaten by other worker ants/bees or by the queen ant/bee once being found, and these worker ants/bees will also be 5

Written by Plato [2].

Social Hierarchy and Social Cooperation—Twin Brothers

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killed by worker ants/bees or queen ant/bee. Once being transformed from worker ants/bees successfully into queen ant/bee, they increase their lifespan dramatically as well. Worker ants/bees typically live for only a few months, while queen ant/bee can live for years or even decades. They are much more suitable than those workers. In addition, in most cases there is only one ant queen or king in a colony. Once there are multiple queens, there will be fierce conflicts. In the end, either other queens or kings will be killed, or they will lead some worker ants/bees to leave and establish a new colony. Rarely does it happen to a stable bee/ant colony that a worker transforms to queen, unless the queen of the system has aged. In natural biological systems, only worker ants/bees can be transformed into productive queens, and never has a queen ever been transformed into worker ants/bees. In other words, the evolution process is irreversible. There is a huge disconnection between theory and practice in explaining social cooperative behavior! Whether it is pro-selection, reciprocity or abandoned group selection theory, the basic theoretical premise is that the cooperative parties are symmetric. If you are willing to spend a little bit of time to think of pro-selection, choose the basic theory of model, you will find that whether the payoff matrix, model building, or the basic ideas of modeling between the two parties are mutual— either you help me (whether interest or genes), or I help you, and ends up with the same effect: because of the genetic similarity or reciprocal relationship, choosing cooperation strategy yields higher benefits than choosing other strategies. Finally, no one is willing to give up the cooperation strategy to choose other strategies. This is the famous Nash equilibrium. Group selection theory is almost identical in ideas with that, but differs only in the specific dynamics that sustains cooperation. The theory of group selection holds that the two parties are willing to cooperate because the competition between groups makes it easier for individuals within a group to cooperate. Pro-selection and reciprocal selection believe that the motive force for choosing cooperation among individuals is kinship or reciprocity of interests.

With the asymmetry of species strengths, the strategies of strengths (higher level individuals) and weaknesses (lower-level individuals) will be correspondingly very different, or even the opposite. We can use the famous painter Repin’s Barge Haulers on the Volga to illustrate the differences in strategies between the two parties. Here the relationship between the boat owner and the boat tracker is in fact the relationship between the business owner and the employees. As for the relationship between the

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boat owner and the trackers, those who advocate class struggle more likely regard it as competition or the relationship of exploiting and being exploited. But entrepreneurs will tell you that this is a story of reciprocal cooperation. The two diametrically opposite views may be both right. God and the devil are sometimes two sides of a same coin! There is no doubt that the boat owners here exploit the trackers, because the earnings of the boat owners are in most cases higher than that of the trackers, and the number of wages allocated to the trackers is often determined by the boat owners. As a result, we often see trackers expecting higher wages (sharing more resources) while boat owners hoping to pay them less. Due to the difference in interests, some trackers take speculative strategies, such as laziness, corruption and other behaviors. Boat owners, however, who are allocated more resources in the game, tend to view the project as their own, and rarely resort to the speculative tactics of the trackers, but to strategies of supervision, punishment, or reward to the more honest, hardworking trackers. The different resource allocation patterns will inevitably lead to the corresponding behavioral strategy changes.

Information Asymmetry Hierarchy, or hierarchical differentiation, is an asymmetry we often see in social cooperation systems. But in fact, there are another two forms of asymmetry, yet closely related to hierarchical differentiation, one of which is information asymmetry, and the other is interaction or path asymmetry. Due to the differentiation of hierarchy, dominant individuals or higher-ranking individuals always control or occupy more resources, and high-status individuals will force low-status individuals to do more services for them through the allocation of resources, resulting in the phenomenon of “exploitation”. A direct correlation is that the number of higher-ranking or dominant individuals is usually fewer than the number of lower-ranking individuals. Back to the boat owners and the trackers that we discussed, there are speculators, but to a large extent, the boat owners don’t know who is speculative or lazy, or don’t know who is honest. In the process of human social cooperation, speculators even dress up as very honest people, so we see those corrupt officials or unscrupulous ministers, before the disclosure, all being dressed up as hard-working people, the main burden of the collaborators. And in nature, the phenomenon of speculation similar to humans is also common. When some individuals of bees go out to collect honey and pollen, their pollen baskets are often empty and the inside of the sac is empty as well. If you look closely at it, you will find them resting on leaves, perhaps sleeping, while others are busy working. When all the other troops are ready to return to the nest, they swarm together to avoid the inspection of the guard bees at the mouth of the hive. Obviously, information asymmetry does exist. It is difficult to judge each other’s strategy accurately between the boat owner and the trackers. For example, the trackers know better who is an honest worker and who is a speculator; the boat owner, on the other hand, often finds it hard to tell, and vice versa—the trackers are not sure

Differences in Evolutionary Paths

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whether the boat owner is capable to pay them or whether has been in financial difficulties for some time. In this game, the owner is the dominant side because he has the power to reward or punish the trackers and control the scale of the reward and punishment, but the trackers have no idea who the owner might reward or punish, when to punish or reward and how much reward and punishment will be. Even the different spatial states between the boat owner and the trackers (such as the different permutation combinations among the trackers) may lead to completely different interrelationships. Because of this information asymmetry, the strategies of both sides are diverse and random in this cat-and-mouse game.

Differences in Evolutionary Paths In a hierarchical social cooperation system, the interaction mode or evolution path of the cooperative parties is different because of the hierarchical relationship. It’s easier to explain this relatively academic problem through Barge Haulers on the Volga. The trackers on the weak side are not only in competition with the owners, but also with each other. So, as a tracker, would he prefer to compete with the trackers or with the owner? If there is a conflict between the tracker and the owner, he will be inclined to compete with other weaker trackers instead of competing with the stronger one because the boat owner is on the relatively advantageous side. The trackers, of course, could cooperate with each other to compete with the boat owner so that they could get more resources from the boat owner. In a specific social cooperation system, the advantageous party often faces more than one relatively weak parties, which constitutes the asymmetry of the interaction mode in the system. This kind of hierarchical differentiation not only leads to the different behavioral strategies between the advantaged and the relatively disadvantaged, but also leads to the change of their respective behavioral patterns. Generally, the advantageous side will tend to sustain their original behavior pattern and solidify it while the relatively disadvantageous side will tend to produce more behavioral mutations or strategic forms in the hope of changing the existing hierarchy, the best interpretation of which is “Poverty gives rise to the desire for change”. This phenomenon is not the result of my imagination, on the contrary, there are a lot of behavioral experiments or biological experiments. In a college game called Rock-Paper-Scissors, the researchers found that those who won more often chose the strategy they had used, while those who lost more often chose different strategies (evolutionary inertia, or inertia).6 It has been also found in social insect populations that the phenotypic plasticity of the high-level individuals is much lower than that of the lower-level individuals, and modern genetics has found the phenotypic plasticity can be inherited. We can hardly imagine whether the division of human social classes would have the same effect. If

6

At the end of 2014, 360 students from Zhejiang University were recruited to participate in the game “Rock -Paper- Scissors”.

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it happens, does that mean the likelihood of the sudden change or innovation of the aristocracy will be lower than that of the plebeian class? This is more especially true of the asymmetry of evolutionary paths in the cooperative behavior among species. To be clear, social cooperative behavior doesn’t only occur among individuals within a species, it’s more common among species, but we often use the term reciprocal cooperation rather than social cooperation. In my view, inter-species cooperation is not fundamentally different from intra-species social cooperation in terms of evolutionary dynamics and behavioral strategies, at least not as much as we imagine. And one of the things that needs to be made clear is that cooperation among species is so common that almost all species have close cooperation with one or more species. For example, our human beings have a highly reciprocal relationship with endophytes in our gut. There is also a reciprocal relationship between humans and livestock, such as pigs, which you might find it somehow difficult to accept. That humans raising pigs for meat and then ruthlessly kill them sounds like an exploitative relationship. But the benefits pigs get are out of imagination of those large-sized animals: whose genes have been passed down on such a scale? Who is free from predators and food scarcity? What kind of wild species can have such a large population? The cooperative relationship also exists among species. It’s found that in those systems with extremely close cooperation, species that are relatively weak evolve faster than those that are dominant. In Savannah of Africa, there is a tall plant called Acacia which has big hollow thorns and the thorns are full of ants inside. When animals such as giraffes feed on acacia leaves, the ants bite them. The giraffes then move on to feed on other plants. A highly mutually beneficial relationship has been formed between ants and acacia. Acacia plants are well placed to select industrious, patrolling ants and weed out opportunistic, lazy ones by controlling the size or presence of the plant’s hollow thorns. The scientists’ genome-wide analysis found that the mutation rate of ants was significantly higher than that of the dominant plants, at least in the early stages of mutually beneficial cooperation between Acacia and ants. The evolution of cooperation in asymmetric systems among species is also reflected in the differences in the propagation paths of cooperative species. Almost all animals have mutual cooperative relationship with each other, like the relationship between humans and their gut microbes. There are two ways that gut microbes can transmit: One is through mother-to-child transmission, in which the transmitted microbes have been screened by the mother, which is called vertical transmission; the other is through the environment and other similar individuals. When these intestinal microorganisms enter the body, the body will screen out the beneficial microorganisms and retain them, which is called horizontal transmission. These two different ways of transmitting intestinal microbes may lead to completely different evolutionary strategies, which in turn will also affect the relationship (cooperation or competition) between gut microbes and the human body (host).

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Asymmetric and Uncertain Behavioral Strategies In general, our intuition is that if there is kinship or alliance of interests between the two sides, the cooperative relationship formed by them is quite stable. In an asymmetric cooperative system, however, the typical feature of the relationship between both sides is uncertain. The instances of matricide and dudevorce have long existed in human society, although they have a kinship. There are completely reproductive cloning ants, genetic similarities among which within the group are almost identical, but when the group develops into a certain size and evolves into a social cooperative one, some individuals have adopted a strategy of speculation, such as failing to participate in the collective food gathering or defending activities. Obviously whether they are speculative or cooperative barely associates with their individual genetic similarities. In highly reciprocal cooperation systems such as inter-species reciprocal cooperation, it is found that almost all systems have speculative uncooperative behaviors. These uncooperative speculation or competition behaviors have great randomnss or uncertainty. Some of such behaviors are occasional, for example, some crime and theft behaviors are just caused by a temporary decision or even made upon weather. In some cooperation, individuals may be honest partners most of the time, but in some specific situations, they may turn to be speculators, which is also found in highly social insects’ groups. For example, some worker bees occasionally slack off on their foraging, resting behind leaves, but marker tracking shows that these individuals, most of the time, are diligent in their work, which may be interpreted as a sign that they were indeed tired that day. However, we can find that they have obvious speculative behaviors during returning to the nest: they follow other foraging bees back the nest, so as not to be spotted by the guards at the door of nest burrow. Such “deliberate” speculators also exist in a kind of fig wasps that pollinate the fig. Most fig wasps carry pollen to pollinate the fig in exchange for the food it needs to feed its offspring. The pollen baskets of some fig wasps develop normally, however, there is no pollen inside. Without doubt, carrying inedible pollen is a burden for fig wasps, and flying with such heavy loads will make the fig wasps more likely to be prey on their natural enemies. Thus, the speculators without carrying pollen clearly have an evolutionary advantage. Cooperators turn into speculators or competitors randomly, which is often unpredictable and highly sporadic. Another type of speculators or competitors is more predictable. In the highly social systems of bees and ants, some individuals are “natural” speculators, which is determined by their genetic properties. For example, some bees are born unable to lift the lid of their hives to feed their young, and some pollinating the figs are born without a pollen basket, making it impossible to collect pollen for the figs. To a certain extent, the occurrence frequency of these genetically determined speculators is predictable and it has a relatively fixed value in a specific stage, but in the historical evolution process, the frequency may be quite different. This kind of social speculators is also relatively common in human society. The reason why some people steal things is not that they need them, but they have an “addiction”

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to stealing, for which they want to steal it as soon as they see something even though they throw it away later. We may hear of such stories in the media about men who like to steal women’s underwear, but there is no doubt that the underwear is of no use to the thief. Those social speculators usually exist in a cooperative system with low frequency, because the pressure of natural selection will reduce the probability of their existence. We will continue to discuss this topic later. In the cooperative system, the uncertainty of the relationship between the two parties is also reflected in the uncertainty of the relationship between the honest partners. What we have discussed above is the existence of speculators in the social cooperative system. Obviously, there is a conflict of interests between the speculative individuals and the cooperative individuals, which leads to the uncertainty of their mutual relationship. However, even if all collaborators are honest, there will be likely competition. In a social cooperative system, there must be problems about common resources or services between partners, such as food, water and habitat space etc. With the increase of the number of individuals in the system or the improvement of resource utilization efficiency, these limited public resources will inevitably become strained. If these partners do not compete for other people’s resources, their own interests will no longer increase, while those who can plunder other people’s resources will get more interests or fitness, which is called the “Tragedy of the Commons” in the cooperative system. In the famous inter-species cooperation system, we once found there is a great randomness in cooperation and competition between banyan tree and banyan bees, because it’s more likely to be manifested as cooperative relationship when public resources are abundant, but when public resources are tight, it is more likely to be manifested as competitive relationship. Overall, the relationship between banyan tree and banyan bees fluctuates between cooperation and competition, but on average, the frequency of cooperation is greater than that of competition, so the system shows cooperative relationship. This random fluctuation between figs and fig wasps is highly similar to the social cooperation of human society or other animals. In the process of human social cooperation, it is almost impossible for us to find a permanent cooperative relationship or a relationship only with hostility rather than cooperation. In Sense and Sensibility,7 we can see the intimately close relationship among the mother, son and sisters. Meanwhile, we can also see that they hurt each other due to jealousy. The relationship between America and Israel is a typical model of cooperation among countries, yet there are also conflicts between them, such as a lot of divergences regarding some policies and strategies in Arabian countries. In 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama supported the resolution in a nonvoting manner by UN Security Council that Israel ought to stop settlement in Palestine. The coexistence of cooperation and conflict can also be widely found in animals, insects and other social cooperative systems. If you’re a fan of Discovery, you will see a group of monkeys that take care of one another and work together most of the time to be friendly and helpful to each other, like a harmonious scene in the paradise, but sometimes you just might find scenes of individuals suddenly fighting against each other violently to death. In African wildlife 7

Written by Austen [3].

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documentary, a scene that I will never forget is that a herd of African buffaloes were attacked by a group of lions. The buffaloes fought in solidarity against lions. The head of the buffaloes and another strong one (perhaps the second leader) were the bravest and they forced the lions back several times. But in the process of fighting, the chief accidentally got injured, and then an incredible thing happened: the second leader started to attack his leader’s back instead of rescuing him, making the leader attacked both from front and back, and finally the leader was killed by the lions. There are both cooperative and competitive behaviors in social cooperative system, which makes us feel confused. Since both sides benefit more from the cooperative strategy than the non-cooperative strategy, why should both sides compete, conflict and even kill each other? What is the reason for the simultaneous occurrence of cooperation and competition in the social system, and why doesn’t the social cooperation system disintegrate or collapse because of competition? This is a very vexing question. It reminds me of a very similar story in physics in the early nineteenth century. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the physics circle thought that the whole physics building had been completed under the framework of classical Newtonian mechanics, and the future work was just doing a little bit to help. However, just as the physicists were preparing to celebrate, several ominous clouds were floating in the sky, which led to the birth of quantum mechanics. In the study of social cooperative system or more extensive evolutionary biology, the pro-selection, reciprocal selection and almost abandoned group selection theory has completed Darwin’s natural selection theory after decades of development. It seems that we have seen the framework of social biology or evolutionary biology in a broad sense, but increasingly more evidence has proved the existence of competition and conflict in the process of cooperating, which can’t be explained by those classical cooperative theories. The competition like ominous dark clouds in the sky exists in the cooperative system. What can these dark clouds bring to the theoretical research of social cooperative system? At the same time when Nash proposed the Nash equilibrium, another famous game theorist Reinhard Selten, who was also awarded the Nobel Prize, pointed out that the Nash equilibrium was too strict. A Nash Equilibrium is a set of strategies that players act out, with the property that no player benefits from changing their strategy. Intuitively, this means that if any given player were told the strategies of all their opponents, they still would choose to retain their original strategy. Apparently, in a social cooperative system, due to kinship, reciprocity or inter-group competition, the strategy of choosing cooperation will yield more rewards than other strategies, so the cooperative parties will give up competition according to Nash equilibrium. Selten noticed that the concept of Nash equilibrium was too strict. If there were a strict Nash equilibrium, there would be no mutation or innovation in the system. If the system stopped evolving, the universe would be in absolute rest and complete darkness, and nothing could disturb the dead silence. In his opinion, the system would have random errors and the players’ strategies would not be stable at the Nash equilibrium, but would move up and down at the equilibrium. It’s like god’s hand. God knows there’s an optimal location, but due to something sort of like Parkinson’s disease, his hand is always shaking and he just can’t put it at that optimal location.

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Therefore, the Selten’s idea is also called the “shaking effect” in the literature. Famous theoretical biologist Carl Sigmund and Martin Nowak, a game expert at Harvard University jointly published a paper that the trembling hand effect also exists in social cooperative system, which explains the coexistence and transformation of different strategies as well as the diversity of strategies and heredity in the system.8 However, the modification of Nash equilibrium by “shaking hand effect” doesn’t solve the theoretical dilemma of Nash equilibrium. Those individuals influenced by the shaking hand effect would be weakened as far as their competitiveness is concerned in the process of natural evolution, whereas apparently individuals who do not “shake” or “shake” less will be more advantageous in evolution than those who shake violently or frequently, then natural selection would be more inclined to those making less mistakes. We all know that evolution is a constant, never-ending process in which individuals who don’t make mistakes eventually evolve. Jun-Zhou He, one of my doctoral students, increased the number of simulations of shaking effect from several hundred to several million times. After that, these shaking hand effect would disappear and eventually returned to Nash equilibrium. It was a very interesting process. It’s just like president election. There’s no doubt that the president will make mistakes, such as going to quarrel with his lover instead of delivering a speech at Congress as arranged, or initiating a war instead of resolving to negotiation, and apparently, we would not elect a president of this kind. Theoretically, we end up failing to elect a president who never makes mistakes, or produce a mechanism that makes no mistakes. We all seem to know that it is impossible not to make mistakes at all! So, we have to ask: is it our understanding of the mechanism that goes wrong? Or is God determining this unspeakable balance? If so, does God make mistakes, and who decides the probability of making a mistake?

Figs and Fig Wasps—The Mirror Image of Our Human Love and Hate One of our own studies seems to offer a whole new explanation for “what goes wrong with living systems”. We used to use a famous cooperation between species as a model system, which is a cooperation between a plant called the fig and an insect called the fig wasp. In their cooperation, fig wasps pollinate the figs, an altruistic form of pollination that is fundamentally different from what we usually observe in bees. The pollination of plants by bees is a kind of incidental or unintentional “planting” behavior, rather than a deliberate active behavior, because bees feed on the pollen and the pollen attached to the body touches the flower column of the plant without the intention of pollinating the plant. The pollination behavior of some groups is similar to that of honeybees, which belongs to the passive pollination type of honeybees. However, there is also a large category of fig wasps belonging to the active pollination 8

Nowak and Sigmund [4].

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mode. Such bees have developed a special pollen basket, and when leaving a mature fruit of the fig, they tried to collect pollen into the pollen baskets, but they don’t eat pollen. When they fly to the flowering of fig, they push into inflorescence with special flower structure. As a result, many will die in the fig in this special inflorescence or disability. After entering, fig wasps pollinate immediately to the fig, and begin to lay eggs in it. Before most of its eggs have laid, they die in the special inflorescence of figs. During the whole pollination process, the fig wasps do not feed at all. Here fig wasps have two cooperative behaviors of altruism: (1) The pollen sac is evolved, which carries little significance to them, except pollination to plants; (2) After entering the fig fruit, instead of laying eggs, they pollinate plants and usually die in the fruit cavity before finishing production (for a pollinating fig wasp, one or two days of life span in general, a few hours for pollination and laying eggs).

A parasitic pollinating wasp

A cheater without carrying pollen

A pollinator with carrying pollen

Obviously, fig wasps seem to have a high degree of reciprocal cooperation with figs, and there is a conflict of interest. Pollen pollination is a huge cost for small bees that are only a few millimeters long. They spend hours collecting pollen, and their lifespan is usually only a few hours. Carrying pollen requires heavy flying and

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is more vulnerable to predators. After entering the fig, they do not lay eggs first for their own benefit, but pollinate first and lay eggs after pollination. Many individuals die in fruit cavities before laying their eggs. If fig wasps don’t carry pollen but just lay eggs, they obviously have a greater evolutionary advantage. And the reality is the same. Some fig wasps do not carry pollen and some of the pollen sacs are even degraded (see fig wasp picture).9 This is one of the conflicts of interest between the fig wasps and figs. Another conflict is about the use of public resources between fig wasps and figs. After the fig wasps enter the fig fruit, the fate of the florets in the fig fruit has three possibilities: (1) being pollinated instead of being oviposited and parasitized by the fig wasps, so the florets develop into the fig seeds; (2) being parasitized by the fig wasps, these florets are probably pollinated or probably not. Once laid eggs and parasitized by the small bees, the florets can only develop into gall flower, and the larvae of fig wasps will feed on the wall of the ovary of the gall flower, and finally develop into the adult fig wasps, then the floret cannot develop into seeds; (3) neither being pollinated nor being parasitized by the fig wasps, the florets get aborted. For fig wasps, they can parasitize in more florets or all of florets, so that fig will produce no seeds; at the same time, the fig can produce more seeds by changing the style of floret length to prevent the wasps from laying eggs, which is another conflict between the figs and fig wasps. Let’s look at how the figs and the fig wasps, a cooperative system of nature, resolve their conflicts. Our experiment found that if fig wasps do not carry pollen, they become speculators in the cooperative system, that is, they do not pollinate the fig, but only lay eggs. We found that if there was only one or a few such speculators, the fig would shed its fruit and kill all the young bees. But, if more speculators just lay eggs without carrying pollen into fig fruit, the fig will not shed its fruit, and the larvae of fig wasps can continue to grow into adult wasps inside the fig fruit but in a higher mortality rate. Moreover, the more fig wasps enter fig fruits, the lower the growth rate is, which is closely related to the parasitic rate. Figs, like our cooperative system of human society, penalize individuals for speculating without carrying pollen, and the penalties vary. When speculators are few, the fig adopts the method similar to the death penalty of human society to kill all the bee larvae by shedding them; And for those speculators in a large number, instead of resorting to death penalty, the fig will turn to a bit lighter punishment, reducing its offspring development rate, similar to human’s salary deduction or jailing, to lower their yields. The survival rate of speculative bees’ offspring is closely related to their damage (parasitic rate) to the fig: the greater the damage is, the more severe the punishment will be. This lighter penalty would bring some benefits to the fig because the offspring of these speculator bees will develop into queen bees, and when they fly out of the fig, they will carry the pollen to other figs. For the figs, pollen dispersal is one of its benefits. Therefore, a lighter punishment than shedding will bring it some benefits. But if there are too few of them, the amount of pollen can be limited, and the development of a fruit requires a lot of energy resources, so shedding is a better option. 9

Kjellberg et al. [5].

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29

If the fig wasps are carrying pollen, the figs rarely shed their fruit, and most of the fig fruits can normally mature, and the development rate of the offspring of the small bees is very high. Apparently, in this inter-species cooperation system, the fig is the dominant party in the system, like the human king or queen, while the fig wasp is the relatively weak party. Figs use carrots and sticks to force most fig wasps to adopt cooperative strategies. Obviously, there is a fig penalty for not carrying pollen, that is, not cooperating, and a cooperative strategy for pollinating the fig would be more advantageous for the small bees. So, fig wasps and the fig can form a cooperative relationship. The fig in a dominant position, however, is not always effective and credible in punishing the fig wasps who do not cooperate in speculation. Speculative, uncooperative bees, like people, are not stupid. These speculators who do not carry pollen usually enter the fig with pollinators who do. The fig is completely incapable of imposing precise punishment on these speculative and uncooperative bees. This is similar to the relationship between business owners and employees. Some employees are lazy, but these lazy individuals usually do not appear alone, always in the group of employees who work hard. In this case, will the fig give up the punishment? What we found was no. One interesting finding was that when speculators mixed with honest collaborators, the dominant fig would impose collective punishment on the bees, and the fig would only punish or reward the bees based on its own earnings (that is, seed yield). If the fig is artificially pollinated by speculators or parasitic species that have all entered the fruit, the fig still rewards the honeybee as an honest collaborator, and the honeybee develops at the same rate as the pollinating honeybee. If all that come in are honest pollinators, but the pollen is removed by hand, and the fig is not pollinated, the fig will punish the bees as speculators. But when honest pollinators intermingle with speculative non-pollinators, the fig will punish or reward them according to their yield (seed yield). The offspring growth rate of fig wasps is strictly dependent on the seed yield of the fig. The more seeds there are, the higher the offspring growth rate of fig wasps will be. The fig is completely incapable of distinguishing between the honest bees and the speculators and imposing targeted rewards or punishments, but rather imposing collective punishments. In such cooperative relationships between species, the dominant individual fig is completely incapable of identification, thus such a “dumb” strategy is implemented, which actually works. The frequency of speculators in fig wasp population is actually very low, so the fig and fig wasps can maintain the long-term stability of their cooperative relationship. This is very similar to punishment in human society. When there is no ability to identify, or when it costs too much to identifying who is cooperating or who is not, group punishment is a more effective strategy for maintaining cooperative relationship. In the relationship between business owners and employees, it’s hard for the owners to tell who is working hard and who isn’t. Those employees with positive performance in front of business owners are likely to be speculators. Business owners, in fact, often adopt the strategy of figs against fig wasps with rewards or penalties such as layoffs and pay cuts based on changes in their earnings. This is especially true of cooperation or war between nations. It is very difficult for one

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country to identify the population of another country and implement different strategies. Friendly or hostile tactics are often employed against the national community, although everyone knows that there must be hostile individuals in a friendly country and there must be many friends in the hostile country, which is called traitors or collaborators by hostile countries. Due to the asymmetry or incompleteness of the information of both sides, the penalty of the dominant party in the cooperative system for the uncooperative individuals or behaviors of speculation is not always effective or credible. Thus, there is always speculation in the cooperative system. The honest and speculators live and prosper together. However, the frequency of their respective existence may vary with the abundance of public resources and the punishment intensity of the dominant party, so the coverage of the existence of non-cooperation between honest partners and speculators will fluctuate periodically. There is another conflict between the fig and the fig wasps: competition for public resources. The inflorescence of the fig belongs to the hypanthium. The fig fruit we usually eat are the fruit of an inflorescence, a large inflorescence with many small florets. Some fig species have a single inflorescence consisting of up to tens of thousands of small florets, while others have relatively small inflorescence consisting of dozens of small inflorescences. Obviously, a floret of the fig can either develop into a seed or is parasitized by wasps, but for the fig, the number of its florets is relatively stable. So, for the figs and their pollinating wasps, the two sides could compete for such kind of public resources as florets, and that wasps parasitizing in more florets will lead to reduction in the number of fig seeds. The opposite is also true that figs can adjust their structure, for example, longer styles can effectively prevent fig wasps from oviposition. Let’s look at how the Fig. 2.1 wasps system avoids this “Tragedy of the Commons” in biological experiments. Our experiment found that with the increase of fig wasps entering the fig fruit, the number of seeds and offspring of the plants increased at the beginning, which was a typical cooperative relationship. But as the use of public resources reaches saturation, the post generation of more wasps leads to the decrease of fig seeds, which is clearly a competitive behavior. Whether the two sides are cooperative or competitive depends strictly on the size of the unused public resources. When the unused public resources are abundant, the two sides are cooperative, while when the resources are strained, the two sides are competitive. The fig also adjusts its behavioral strategies accordingly. When the both sides in a cooperative relationship, the fig, as the dominant part, gives fig wasps more reward, so that the proportion of offspring development of the wasps is very high with only a few failing to develop. However, when the two sides are in a competitive relationship, the fig punishes the wasps, the proportion of offspring development will decrease, and the reduction degree would be intensified with the intensification of the competition. The intensity of rewards or punishments also depends heavily on the interrelationship between figs and wasps or on the size of the untapped public resource. In the mutual beneficial cooperative system of the fig and fig wasps, public resources are limited. With the improvement of the utilization rate of public resources, the tension of public resources will inevitably lead to the competitive relationship,

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Competition

Competition

Cooperation

Cooperation

Figs and Fig Wasps—The Mirror Image of Our Human Love and Hate

The number of wasp larvae

Common resource

Fig. 2.1 Wasps relationship fluctuation diagram

which will also lead to the disintegration of the cooperative relationship. How does the Fig. 2.1 wasp system avoid the disintegration of this cooperative relationship? One of our observational experiments found a very interesting phenomenon: the fig wasps in the lower temperature spend longer time to grow, so the size of the fig wasps is bigger than those in a higher temperature, and therefore the average oviposition efficiency of fig wasp is higher. We found that in winter, the oviposition efficiency of wasps increases and the length of the style correspondingly increases. Apparently, the longer style of figs can prevent wasps from laying more eggs, and thus prevents them from using too many small florets in winter, leading to the loss of the fig seeds. Similar phenomena have been found at different geographic scales. The higher the altitude or latitude, the more eggs the wasps laid. The fig style here is also significantly longer. What’s more interesting is that the length of the ovipositor of the fig wasps is also longer, which will lead to the fig wasps to use more fig flowers to lay eggs. There is an obvious “arms race” between the fig and the fig wasps. Because of this “arms race”, the longer style of the fig cannot prevent the occurrence of “the Tragedy of the Commons”. The dominant fig also has a more intelligent mechanism to prevent the tragedy from happening. Figures can avoid the excessive use of public resources by controlling the number of cooperative wasps, just as business owners control the number of employees to maintain the normal development of enterprises. The fig wasps enter the fig fruit to pollinate or lay eggs, through the fig fruit by a lot of bracts spiral composed of a channel, if there is no fig wasps in the blossoming banyan fruit cavity, the bracts constitute a channel to remain very loose, and the channel is almost open. The opening and closing of this passage are completely determined by the number of fig wasps entering the fruit chamber. If there are only a few, it will open for a longer time. If there are many wasps that have entered the fig, the bracts of the fruit will be closed quickly, so that even water cannot seep in after the closure, which is very tight. Through this way of controlling the number of cooperation, we can avoid competition due to the tension of public resources caused by too many partners.

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After the fig wasps enter the fig fruit, the fruit will then close its bract orifices, and it is usually difficult for the wasps to get out again, and then to choose other fig fruit. Even if the wasps can get out again, it has little strength or low probability to get into other fig fruit. That is to say, once fig wasps choose a partner, it is difficult to choose other individuals to cooperate, which is known in biology as the limit of diffusion capacity, and in economics as the exit cost. Obviously, the more difficult it is for the partner to find another partner, or to leave the original partner, the stronger the cooperation should be. Obviously, the fig in the dominant position here sets the diffusion limit for the collaborator fig wasps, resulting in its high exit cost. After entering the fig, the “harming others without benefiting oneself” behavior among fig wasps takes place. They are likely to interfere each other and even fight fiercely, which results in a decline in the utilization of public resources. As fig wasps pollinate first and lay eggs later, interference or fighting among wasps will lead to a sharp decline in their oviposition efficiency. The intensity is closely related to the number of wasps. Finally, many wasps die in the fruit cavity before laying eggs. The increasing number of fig wasps entering the fig will not lead to increasing utilization of public resources, but the decreasing utilization efficiency to avoid the occurrence of public tragedy. The partnership is thus maintained. Through artificial experiment design, fig wasps are arranged to enter the fig at regular intervals, so that the probability of mutual interference or fighting is reduced and the efficiency of laying eggs of the wasps is improved. As the number of the wasps get increased, the number of offspring get increased, which lead to the reduction of fig seeds, and the original cooperation between fig and wasps is transformed into a competitive relationship. In nature, due to the randomness of the change of common resources, the interference or fighting among small wasps also has a high randomness, so the relationship between fig and fig wasps has a high randomness. Whether they cooperate or compete, they fluctuate up and down randomly. However, due to the regulation mechanism of fig on relatively weak fig wasps, the mutual relationship between the two is mainly cooperative, with relatively low frequency of competition, so the system as a whole still maintains the cooperative relationship. Figures superb control and leadership skills are similar to those of some of our greatest statesmen and entrepreneurs. By regulating the length of the style, fig wasps can only use the florets with shorter style, while the flowers with longer style can develop into seeds, ensuring the yield of the profitable seeds of the dominant fig. It’s very similar to how we set the rules of the game as entrepreneurs. Part of the company’s revenue is left to the company through the system, and part of it is distributed to the employees. At the same time, the fig has designed mechanisms that make it difficult for the wasps to spread into other fig fruit. This is why figs create high exit costs for fig wasps. It is the ideal legal system that every entrepreneur wants: his employees can never leave for another company, and he can weed out the unsatisfied. While current laws and human rights regulations ensure that entrepreneurs restrict the personal freedom of their employees, it is clear that all the bosses are trying to create high exit costs for employees who jump ship. For example, employees should not be engaged in similar industries after job-hopping, and should withdraw from holding internal shares of the company.

Figs and Fig Wasps—The Mirror Image of Our Human Love and Hate

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The fig makes it difficult for the fig wasps to re-enter other fig fruit by rapidly closing the bracts’ passage, and only allows the fig wasps to utilize part of its common resources. Small wasps are more likely to compete with each other, resulting in a decrease in the efficiency of their use of public resources and avoiding the possible system collapse caused by competition with the dominant fig. This mechanism is also widely used in highly centralized human society. Within the enterprise, after ensuring that the income of all the people in the company is distributed, a part of the profit is determined to be distributed to the employees. However, the profits distributed to employees are not equal to each employee in a systematic way. Instead, competition among employees is encouraged to realize the so-called “more work, more gain”. Instead, competition among employees results in mutually beneficial cooperation between business owners and employees. However, if employees unite with each other through organizations similar to labor unions, they may have fierce conflicts with the business owners, and may even distribute all the profits of the enterprise, thus making the enterprise lose the development capital, causing the failure of the enterprise’s competitiveness. Such relatively disadvantaged individuals tend to compete with each other, rather than with superior partners, and also exist widely in animal social cooperation systems such as insects. In the social cooperation system of termites, the worker ant and the queen ant belong to one of the absolutely classic reciprocal cooperative relationships. Worker ants are responsible for seeking food and feeding the larvae, while queens for reproduction. Many kinds of termites have the behavior of mutual supervision among workers. In one species of termite, worker ants are perfectly capable of transforming into reproductive ants and developing into queens, but once individual worker ants are found to be prone to reproduction, other worker ants will swarm and attack in groups until they kill the worker ants with reproductive potential. The queen also secretes sex hormones that inhibit the transformation of worker ants into breeding ants. Obviously, if there is no such mutually destructive monitoring behavior among worker ants, the worker ants themselves may be transformed into queens, thus replacing the original queen, and the original queen-worker cooperation within the system will disintegrate and be replaced by a new queen-worker relationship. As the original queen gets old, worker supervision wanes and new queens emerge. Once a worker ant transforms into a queen, it immediately begins to suppress the transformation of other workers into queens. Such mechanisms are similar in highly centralized national or international relations. In a successful feudal dynasty, the emperors with absolute power did not always reuse the personnel of one faction, but used the “loyal” and “treacherous” officials from different factions at the same time to encourage them compete. As a result, the factions formed closer cooperative relationship with the emperors. The United States has used similar tactics to assert its global supremacy. In the US-led community of global hegemonic interests, in addition to the big brother—the United States, there are also many partners, including Japan, Australia, Britain, South Korea, and even China, at least in the later period of US-Soviet confrontation in the 1970 and 1980s. However, the United States does not want these partners to be united, at least not in their actions to support their own alliance. Instead, it intends to create friction

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between these partner countries. In this way, all countries will cooperate more closely with the big brother. The cooperation or competition between the weaker partners involves great randomness. The limitation of relative public resources is the main driving force for the competition between the disadvantaged parties, but unpredictable factors such as environmental factors, individual characteristics and even weather may affect the mutual relationship between the disadvantaged parties, resulting in the uncertainty of cooperative relationship between the advantageous parties and the disadvantaged parties.

Spatial State Change of Genes Induces Cancerization In general, many cells in our bodies live in harmony as part of a multicellular organism. But there will always be cells that will stand up to the subject and destroy their cooperation, and the doctor will tell you that you have cancer. A new way to treat cancer is to let cells resume their cooperation’s.10 —Martin Novak

As for the macro social system and even the ecosystem, the change of the spatial state of the relatively weak party in the cooperative system may lead to the cooperation or competition relationship between the weak party and the relatively superior party, thus leading to the uncertainty of the mutual relationship between them. There may be the same law in the micro world. For a cell, its effective function will depend on whether the various genes in the cell can cooperate stably. Clearly, it is an evolutionary instinct for each gene to express itself more. If a gene over expresses itself and the cell can’t regulate it back, it will evolve into a cancer cell. When cancer cells spread quickly, the body collapses, leading to the death of individuals. The internal regulation of these over expressed genes (that is, cell speculators) ultimately must go back to the internal regulation of the cell. I’m not a molecular biologist, and I have no idea how this gene interacts within the system, but what my intuition tells me is that the genes within the cell perform different functions, and the role of those genes in the cell should be vastly different. My intuition tells me that the relationship between the genes in a cell should resemble that of a highly social insect system. Some genes play a role in cells similar to that of a king or queen, while others act as worker wasps. In the gene society of the cell, some genes may control the expression and the sequence of other genes functionally, so as to dominate the allocation of resources within the whole cell, while some genes may serve the dominant gene and assisting it to complete its functional expression. Some of these genes may be inherently uncooperative and belong to the speculators within the system, and the system has specialized genes to suppress or eliminate these speculative genes. If the system’s internal surveillance 10

Written by Novak and Heifield [6].

Spatial State Change of Genes Induces Cancerization

35

gene is missing, or its expression is faulty, the cell will develop into a cancer cell. As the social system of insects, when the main genes (similar to the queen of ants) are aging and their functions are weakened, or when the external environment fluctuates drastically, the expression of the main genes themselves will be out of control, or their regulatory signals cannot reach other genes, the system will lose control, and cancer will occur. Another possibility of carcinogenesis is that there is nothing wrong with each gene itself. Carcinogenesis is not always a genetic mutation or genetic problem of the gene itself. Some carcinogenesis is caused by a change in the spatial position or spatial structure of normal genes. In a normal cell, the dominant gene dominates the distribution of resources in the cell’s genetic system, controlling the expression of other genes and the way other genes interact with each other. These relatively subordinate genes restrict each other, maintaining the cooperative relationship between the dominant gene and the relatively weak genes. The genetic system inside the cell thus maintains a relatively stable cooperative relationship. However, the relationship among the relatively weak genes in the cell may change under some special conditions, and the relationship of mutual inhibition may weaken, disappear, or even evolve into the cooperative relationship of mutual promotion. In this case, the relationship between the relatively weak genes and the dominant genes is transformed into a competitive relationship. If the dominant genes cannot effectively adjust the relatively weak genes back to the mutual inhibition relationship, the weak genes in the gene system may be overexpressed, and the carcinogenesis will also occur. The factors that cause changes in the interrelationships between genes in cells are complex. The availability of key resources inside the cells may be one of the possible factors leading to changes in their interrelationships. For a cell, changes in the amount of nutrients, hormones, and signaling mediators between genes in the cell may lead to changes in the relationship between genes in the cell. Changes in the cell’s external environment can also cause similar effects. For example, when cell selection pressure rises in the external environment, the dominant genes inside cells may probably consume more resources to deal with the external environment of selection pressure, and accordingly the function of inhibiting the weaker genes’ expression may be weakened, which can also lead to genetic transformation of relationship of weaker genes in cells. Within cells, genes may also be horizontally transferred to other cells, but they are less likely to spread to other cells, similar to social insect systems in which individuals are less likely to spread to other populations. The dominant genes in the cell inhibit relatively weak genes more strongly and are usually effective. The degree of asymmetry is of the more extreme type. The key functions of cells may all be directly or indirectly controlled by the dominant gene, and even the regeneration rate and expression of relatively weak genes in cells are regulated by the dominant gene, while the metabolism or regeneration rate of the dominant genes themselves is much slower. When the dominant genes are relatively old, the likelihood of the weak genes changing their relationships increases. Speculative, harmful gene frequencies are also more likely to occur under such conditions. Cells are more likely to become cancerous.

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In cases where the genes cannot spread or escape to other cells, it may be optimal for the dominant genes not to directly pay the cost of punishing harmful mutations. This is because these harmful gene mutations are also harmful to the weak genes, and the damage to the weak and dominant genes is infinite. Since these weak genes cannot escape from the deteriorating environment, they may actively pay the cost to kill or punish these harmful mutations. Within the system, where genes cannot escape or spread, surveillance mechanisms may evolve. Such self-organizing surveillance or punishment is optimal for the dominant gene. A gene with a specific function is essentially a piece of DNA. These functional pieces of DNA are linked together to form chromosomes. How these uniquely functional pieces of DNA (genes) are linked together is still controversial. Modern research seems to show that these myriad genes form a spatial network, and genes are the nodes of the network. Genes are linked by weak chemical bonds. However, the genes with functional clusters vary in size and function, which leads to the great differences in the function of genes in the whole network. The expression and function of these genes are related not only to the functions and properties of the genes themselves, but also to the location of these genes in the entire network. The traditional view is that genes are fixed on the chromosome, and they have a certain position, distance and order. They can only change their relative position through the exchange of restructuring, and change their relative properties by mutations. Nobel Laureate Barbara McLintock found that genes could “jump” from one position of the chromosome to another, or even “jump” to another chromosome, and its corresponding function changed as well.11 Biologists have found that in Escherichia coli, pieces of DNA with special “insertion sequences” that are inserted into other genes are not foreign, but come from other parts of the bacteria’s chromosomes. Then it was found that there were similar units in Salmonella that could move freely among plastids, chromosomes, and phages and transmit resistance to drugs. The discovery of gene hopping indicates that spatial position transfer between genes can occur, and these spatial position changes affect gene expression or behavior, which may affect the behavior and phenotype of the whole organism. These characteristics are very similar to the social cooperation systems of ants, wasps, and the Fig. 2.1 wasp cooperation systems we studied. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the different spatial states of fig wasps lead to the completely different interactions of fig and fig wasps. Whether it is cooperative—or competitive—depends on the different spatial forms of fig wasps. However, the cooperative relationship increases the benefits of both sides, while the competitive relationship may lead to the disintegration of the cooperative relationship between fig and fig wasps, which may lead to the collapse of their ecosystem. Therefore, changes in the relative spatial position of genes may cause differences in gene expression, and may even result in the expression or non-expression of such effects as power switch. These genes move up and down, or swing, jump and rotate left and right, which will affect the relationship

11

See McLintock’s two papers: Origin and Behavior of Maize Mutation Prone Sites published in 1950 and Chromosome Structure and Gene Expression published in 1951.

Annoying Uncertainty—A Beautiful Halo

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between genes, and may eventually lead to different properties of the entire gene network, such as stability or breakdown (like cancer). The dislocation of gene expression sequence can also lead to disruption or breakdown of the overall cellular system. The interference of the external environment and changes of genes, like aging, may cause the dislocation of genes expression, which may result in disturbance of intracellular signal if the signal of disorder is not timely adjusted, which in turn will lead to the chaos and collapse of the entire cell system, or even probably to similar cancerization. For an uncertain system, such spatiotemporal dislocation of gene expression may or may not lead to the disorder of the gene network of the cell system, and the cell may adjust the stability of the whole cell gene network through rapid repair measures. However, interference or pressure from the external environment may lead to changes in gene spatial location or expression sequence, thus affecting the stability of cell gene network.

Annoying Uncertainty—A Beautiful Halo Uncertainty is very annoying, and for us, the general public, it can lead us to boredom, anxiety and restlessness. Imagine if you never knew what tomorrow will be like, just as people in the former Soviet Union never knew who would wake up the next morning in their own bed or in a KGB cell, would you be comfortable? Similarly, if you are never sure that you will have a good breakfast tomorrow or that you will go begging hungry, it may be better to die than to live that way. In turbulent times, when people are uncertain about the future, despair or even suicide will rise sharply.12 Uncertainty can be more destructive than our comfort zone allows us to imagine. In daily life, the instinct of human beings is to avoid uncertainty, the aversion to which is like that to feces and dead bodies. The instinct will choose to escape. This instinctive revulsion has also directly influenced the way we think about science, and even the great mind of Einstein. When Einstein saw the young physicist Heisenberg’s paper on the uncertainty theorem (the uncertainty of microscopic particles), he tapped his pipe and gave his classic, deterministic thought: I don’t believe God decides the world by rolling dice. I must quote a famous saying by John Dewey, a famous expert in the history of science that any scientific discovery is undoubtedly imprinted on the human mind. This is a criticism to science in a rather polite manner. Let’s look at another famous paleontologist Stephen Gould’s comments on science: “As I have emphasized in several other articles, I believe that science is not an objective, certain machine of truth, but a typical human activity, in which people are influenced by emotions, hopes, and cultural prejudices. The cultural tradition of thinking has a great influence on scientific theory and often determines the way people think about conjecture, especially when there is no material to limit people’s imagination or conjecture.”

12

Written by Durkheim [7].

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Gould, a biologist and philosopher of science, saw the whole of science as man engaging in a self-deceptive circular argument. Mankind’s aversion to uncertainty has given rise to a strong preference for the idea of equilibrium (certainty) and stability. From the modern scientific methodology of repeatable experiments pioneered by Galileo, to the establishment of the symmetry and certainty in Newtonian mechanics, a complete scientific demonstration has been established for our emotional needs. Physics calls this determination conservation or equilibrium, while biology and ecology call it stability. In fact, the revised equilibrium and certainty ideas also admit that there is a certain degree of uncertainty, but they think that this uncertainty is caused by the error that is resulted from the interference of the environment. If we study the relationship between the uncertainty within a system and the uncertainty caused by environmental errors, there are essential differences between them. The uncertainty caused by the environmental error is strictly external, so that in the long run the error term will fluctuate randomly up and down, and the sum of the resulting errors should equal zero. However, the uncertainty caused by the internal system is different, which may be a function of some endogenous dynamics. In other words, the magnitude of endogenous uncertainty is not completely random, but may vary with some change in dynamics. The prevailing explanation for this endogenous uncertainty may be chaos. We do find that cooperative system is consistent with the characteristics of chaotic system. One striking feature of the chaos effect is that it flourishes with small initial changes that can lead to a complete change in the nature of the system, known as the butterfly effect.13 The butterfly effect says a butterfly in Panama could cause a storm in South America by flapping its wings. In the reciprocal cooperation system between fig and fig wasps, the development time of fig fruit is longer in winter, so the individual of fig wasp is larger and the life span of it is longer in winter. Young wasps lay eggs more efficiently in winter than in summer. It is a little change in the difference of oviposition efficiency of wasps, the Fig. 2.1 wasps completely reversed their relationship. Fig and fig wasps are cooperative in summer, while they may be competitive in winter. But in the whole year, fig and fig wasps are mainly in the cooperative relationship. The main reason for this up-and-down relationship is the fig’s carrot-and-stick strategy. This is because figs reward those with high pollination efficiency and punish those with low pollination efficiency but high spawning efficiency, so that over the long-term evolution, those wasps with higher pollination efficiency than spawning efficiency are selected by figs. The whole cooperative system can thus be maintained relatively and stably. The evolutionary significance of the existence of uncertainty in the cooperative system, rather than the equilibrium and stable state advocated by the classical idea of determination, is remarkable. If the system is in equilibrium and stable state, then the individuals and species of the system have the optimal evolutionary strategy. If there is optimization, then individuals or species of the system will not choose other strategies, mutations in the system will not be preserved, and for human social systems, there will be no innovation. The whole social cooperation will therefore 13

Lorenz [8].

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39

enter a dead end! However, if there is uncertainty in our social cooperation system, which is a non-equilibrium state, then there is no optimal in any form of strategy. A good strategy may also lead to the loss of its interests. The choice of a cooperative strategy may also lead to the punishment of the other party, thus resulting in the loss of its own interests. In this way, alternative strategies are possible, and it is possible to understand why speculators, diligent cooperators and neutral individuals can coexist and prosper in the cooperative system. Even when the initial point in the system changes, the whole system may change from a cooperative state to a competitive state, and the interrelationship within the system completely reverses, thus changing the nature of the system. The original system will disintegrate and new features will emerge. This is evolution. If the world is deterministic, then we can understand biological evolution or human social activities in the same way that we understand the physical world with the guidance of Newtonian mechanics. Newton thought that if we were given the initial state of a particle, we could predict the state of that particle at any time and in any space. In the deterministic world of life, I can also predict the behavioral strategies of individual organisms, the spatial positions of species and the direction of evolution in the future. In the same way, for us as human beings, we can predict exactly our state and our spatial position in the future, next year and even decades. Obviously, this is the most ridiculous understanding! But even you think it can explain other individual or group behavior, our individual behavior goes beyond those biological laws, and we can only do pure conceptual speculation on a philosophical level. The uncertainty of chaotic systems seems to give us a nice explanation. For a chaotic system, the behavior of individuals cannot be accurately predicted. But chaotic systems are not without rules. The chaotic system as a whole is still regular. Our most common vortex phenomenon is almost a typical chaotic system. No one can predict the trajectory of the water molecules in flowing water at a single level, but the flow is obviously regular and swirling. One of the most important characteristics of chaotic systems is the randomness and uncertainty of individual behavior in the system, but the properties of the whole system do have certain rules, which strongly depends on the initial value of the behavior of individuals in the system. A small change in the initial value of an individual’s behavior may lead to a revolutionary change in the system, but the nature of the system may not change. This is also the conclusion of the famous physicist Stephen Hawking: from this point of view, a scientist’s predictions may not differ from those of a fortune-teller. For a social cooperative system, or as a secular person, we’re more interested in what that initial value is, how much this initial value changes, and whether the system may change or collapse. Fortunately, in the Fig. 2.1 wasp cooperation system, we found the pollination and spawning efficiency of wasps, which is a ghost like system hidden in the cooperative system. The nesting efficiency, or more accurately, the ratio of pollination to spawning efficiency, changed slightly, and the Fig. 2.1 wasp partnership in summer turned into a competition in winter. For other cooperative systems, it may not be so easy to find the initial value of the system. For human systems, it can be anxiety, resource allocation, productivity, and so on. This change

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in the initial value of human society or biological social system is likely to lead to social change, turbulence, or even the complete disintegration of the system. For a cooperative system, cooperation and competition exist at the same time, and their frequency is strongly dependent on this undefinable initial value of the system. In reality, we can only deal with this system as a black box, which brings us back to Schrodinger’s famous cat. Schrodinger’s cat is the name of the famous thought experiment about cats being both dead and alive, proposed by the Austrian physicist Schrodinger in 1935, proposing the truth about the uncertainty of quantum mechanics.14 Schrodinger’s cat assumed that a cat was kept in a sealed container containing a small amount of radium and cyanide. If the radium decayed, it will trigger the mechanism to break the bottle containing cyanide, and the cat will die. If radium did not decay, the cat would survive. According to the theory of quantum mechanics, there is a probability of the decay of radium. If the radioactive radium is in the superposition of decay and no decay, the cat should be in the superposition state of death and life, which is called “Schrodinger’s cat”. According to classical physics, one of these two outcomes must occur in the box, and the outside observer can only know the result inside by opening the box. But in the weird world of quantum mechanics, whether a cat is alive or dead must be “measured” by an outside observer after the box is opened. When the box is closed, the system remains uncertain, and the cat is both dead and alive. The experiment was designed to demonstrate the bizarre aspects of quantum mechanics that sound absurd when it expands from particles to macroscopic objects such as cats. For a cooperative system, we have no way of knowing whether the individuals within the system are cooperative or competitive. This is as hard to judge as the individual motivations within a human cooperative system. A loyal subordinate will faithfully report all kinds of information to his leader, but some urgent information may be fatal to a leader who is sick or extremely anxious, or even cause him to die in a panic attack. The nature of this loyal subordinate to the leader is like assassination. On the basis of this result alone, it is impossible to tell whether the subordinate was loyal cooperation or a speculative spy who deliberately killed the leader. There are many examples of good motives that may bring negative effects. In the cooperation between fig and fig wasps in the natural system, honest pollinators pollinate the fig, but the fig may punish these honest pollinators as speculative parasitic wasps. In the real biological cooperation system, there is indeed a paradox like Schrodinger’s cat. We can’t judge whether the individual is cooperative or competitive. The existence of many suspense cases and wrongful convictions in human society may not only be the limitation of detection technology. Maybe “true is false, false is true” is the real world!

14

Schrödinger [9].

Deterministic—Dead State—Dissipative Structure

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Deterministic—Dead State—Dissipative Structure One thing that is quite certain and quite necessary, is to tell you again the significance of certain events that we all strive for and yearn for. We want our future or our behavior to be definite and predictable, both for us as individuals and for groups such as states and units. The point of evolution is to try to improve one’s ability to compete or to modify the environment to make his life and environment more stable, that is, more certain. The lions will fight to protect or seize a high-quality hunting ground because a hunting ground with abundant prey provides a stable source of food for the lions. A lion, like a man, does not wish to live a life where there is food today and no game next week; The beaver goes to great lengths to dam the river and create a safe habitat, just as we humans have spent our entire lives trying to have a safe house, so as to reduce the uncertainty risk caused by natural enemies and environmental changes and thus to achieve a stable life. For us humans, the goal of almost all our efforts is to try to achieve a stable life with a predictable future. Parents, from the birth of their children, devote all they can to ensure better education and learning more skills. Parents with greater ambition educate their children on social skills and ways of thinking. The essence of these efforts is to hope that their children will get a higher and better social status when they grow up, or like traditional Chinese society, to leave more legacy to their children and lead a more stable life. For parents themselves, they try to accumulate more wealth, hoping that the state or society can provide safer and more effective security. In the developing world, the rich live a privileged life, but many of the rich tend to migrate to the United States and Europe, where legal system is sound and social security is more reliable, to live the lives of ordinary people. This is because in these countries with sound legal system and reliable social security, the certainty of their life is higher. Not only do we ordinary people like certainty, but scientists and thinkers like the predictability of certainty—the logic of science, the beauty of it. From Galileo’s free fall experiments, Galileo actually determined the basic logic of science—repeatability. When we discuss or state our scientific findings, the results we present must be repeatable, that is, the results of your experiments can be replicated by others, and otherwise they are not scientific. This is the thought foundation that the certainty thought is solidified in science as its basic logic. Newton, the epoch-making giant of science, solidified the idea of certainty with such a complete set of methods as Newtonian mechanics. The motion of matter can be precisely traced by man. Life science and social economics have also been developed under the guidance of Newton’s mechanics. With the development of experimental economics, Galileo’s repetitive experiments as well as deterministic and predictable Newtonian mechanics have been brought into full play in the humanities. Experimental economics is the method of biological and physical experiments to introduce the study of economics, the study of human behavior. As we feel on a daily basis, many of our actions are entirely predictable and repeatable validation of human behavior. Vernon Lomax Smith, who won the Nobel Prize in 2002, made a pioneering contribution to this field using laboratory experiments.

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As we have argued before, the idea of certainty is flawed if we think about it. As Prygozin argues in his book that there may be no such thing as a completely certain event in the real world, and uncertainty is closer to the truth. There are generally two types of uncertainty in physics: one is the uncertainty generated by the complexity of evolution of a deterministic system, which is called chaos; the other is that of the microscopic particles proposed by quantum mechanics. Life phenomena generally correspond to multi-body systems, with a large number of degrees of freedom, and the state of individuals seems to be certain in principle, but the state of the whole group is uncertain. The complexity of the system itself will lead to uncertainty in the life system. For living systems, genes, individuals, and populations may also be as uncertain as microscopic particles themselves. For an individual, whether you are sick or healthy is hard to be justified. It is impossible to say for sure whether the same gene is good or bad for other genes. In an uncertain living system, we also use the parameter “entropy” of physics to characterize the evolution of the system’s properties for the multi-body, high-degreeof-freedom system in the phenomenon of life. Entropy corresponds to disorder and chaos, and at the point of maximum chaos (maximum entropy), the system will no longer evolve, which is called “thermal death”. From the point of view of statistical physics, the evolution direction of closed systems is certain, always towards the increase of entropy value. For example, if we put a drop of ink in water, the ink will spread through the water until the concentration of ink in the whole liquid is equal everywhere, at which point the system will not evolve and maintain a stable state. However, nature will also see that there is no uniform distribution (equilibrium state). The concentration of substances in the lake will evolve over time to form a specific orderly distribution, and stay the same over a relatively long period of time, rather than evolve to the same concentration. The “sharp distinction between Jing and Wei rivers” is such a case. The sediment concentration on the Wei River side is significantly higher than that on the Jing River side, and this order can be maintained for a long time. This order does not exist in a long-term stable state. The synthesis of proteins, the self-organization of cells, the formation and evolution of species and the formation of ecological landscape all correspond to this situation. Obviously, this kind of order cannot be explained by the equilibrium theory under the deterministic thought framework. For social biological systems or living systems, the concept of equilibrium is also rooted in our brains, but equilibrium theory cannot explain many biological phenomena. In natural ecosystems, we often see that one species is in the absolute dominant position in the system, especially in temperate or cold zones, where one or a few species almost constitute the landscape of the natural system, while most species remain very rare. Obviously, in equilibrium thinking, these rare species will certainly increase their fitness, or population size, over the long term, until all populations or individuals have similar fitness, or similar equivalents. But our intuition tells us is that species in an ecosystem are not evenly distributed. For a social cooperative system, the disequilibrium distribution of fitness among individuals is more obvious. In termites and ant systems, the queen ants monopolize almost all the reproductive rights and

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lives longer than worker ants or wasps. Apparently, the total fitness predicted by equilibrium theory should be similar to that of worker ants and worker wasps. The reason for this paradox is that the life system is essentially an open system, and the guarantee of the orderly maintenance of the system often requires the system to stay away from the equilibrium state. Prygozin, the famous chemist, discovered an open system far away from equilibrium. By constantly exchanging material and energy with the outside world, the system can produce self-organization phenomenon through internal action when the change of external conditions reaches a certain threshold, which makes the system spontaneously change from the original disordered state to the macroscopic ordered state in space–time and function, forming a new and stable ordered structure. The new structure under the non-equilibrium state is the dissipative structure. As long as the system obtains the entropy flow in the process of material and energy exchange with the outside world, that is, “negative entropy” is continuously obtained from the outside, the system may maintain a state of lower entropy than the equilibrium state, and the orderly state may be maintained. For a social biological system, the system continuously exchanges energy with the outside world through food, but the energy that the system obtains from the outside is much higher than that dissipated by the system. This imbalance between input and output maintains the overall order (stability) of the social cooperation system. And this social biological stability can be explained by the theory of dissipative structure.

Super Rational Strategy—Go Your Own Way and Let Others Talk In the western world, the theory of symmetry and equilibrium originated from the idea of contract holds that if we want to realize our own interests in social cooperation, we must consider the needs of the other party. The two sides of the interaction reach an agreement through negotiation and tacit understanding, so that they can achieve the best benefit of relative conditions and maintain a stable relationship. This kind of thought has a profound influence on everyone in the maintenance of business, social and political systems in the western world, and the basic social structure system is derived from such cultural foundation. It also deeply influenced the philosophy view and methodology of natural scientists. From Galileo, Newton to Adam Smith and Darwin, the basic theoretical framework of natural science is derived from this cultural source. The famous physicist Prygozin systematically discussed the ideological source and philosophical basis of the certainty caused by the symmetry of physics in his monograph The End of Certainty. From Adam Smith’s classical economics to Darwin’s evolutionary biology, it is from similar cultural ideas that individuals are selfish and rational. Thus, through the exchange of interests, sharing of similar genes and ecological differentiation, human society or biological and ecological system can maintain a stable equilibrium. Strong culture is universal, so the scientific view born of ideological culture is generally accepted as the basic

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concept of science, and even changed the thinking mode of Asians with deep-rooted hierarchical thought, especially the thinking paradigm of scientists. For the first time, Prigozin clearly clarified that asymmetry will lead to uncertainty from the origin of methodology and philosophy. I have not examined whether Prigogine has the Oriental Asian cultural genes, but most physicists who are opposed to the idea of symmetry and balance do have Oriental genes. Chen-Ning Yang, Tsung-Dao Lee, Shoichi Ozawa, Masatoshi Koshiba and other physicists who found symmetry breaking, do have the face of an oriental, and their bone marrow is undoubtedly imprinted with the gene of Confucian hierarchy, which is a part of the asymmetric thought we understand. In an asymmetric system, we cannot determine the strategy of the high-level or low-level individuals, and there will be great uncertainty in their behavior. The President of the United States, the world’s overlord, frankly and directly told his opponents that he used the uncertainty of his strategy or policy to force other countries to cooperate with the United States. In a country with deep-rooted hierarchy, whether it is the feudal emperor or the president of the Republic, its system form has undergone tremendous changes. However, a successful supreme leader must make it impossible to predict his strategy and behavior. Corresponding to the vulnerable ordinary people, their individual behavior is also difficult to predict. Their behavior is highly plastic and can be changed according to the situation at any time. The change may not necessarily obtain higher income, but may be completely caused by random behaviors. When we morally criticize the people of China and other Eastern countries for their lack of integrity, it is in fact extremely unfair.15 This is the inevitable result of the system and culture in which the asymmetry and endogenous uncertainty will increase, and the corresponding is the variability of individual behavior. In an uncertain world, will we still choose our best strategy based on each other’s strategy? This is certainly impossible. Because the other party’s strategy may also be uncertain, it is difficult to determine their own strategies. In such an uncertain world, Lu Xun, an Oriental thinker and writer, incisively summed up the best strategy for us: “go your own way and let others talk”. We use a more cultural concept to name this “fool” strategy—which we call “super rational” strategy, to distinguish it from the rational concept in classical theory. In an asymmetric and uncertain system, where individuals make decisions based only on their own benefits or ideas, the system can maintain higher stability. In fact, if you talk to a good negotiator, you will know, in many cases, that’s what they do. At first glance, the concept of super-rationality seems to be a purely human cultural concept. Is there such a mechanism in the natural life system? We do feel the existence of this super rational mechanism in the cooperative system between fig and fig wasps. In one experiment, we put honest and cooperative wasps carrying pollen into fig fruit at regular intervals, because life span of the wasps is short, they are less likely to meet each other in the fruit. Therefore, more wasps carrying pollen enter fig fruit, and they can transmit more pollen to the florets. At the beginning, the number of pollinated florets increased, the wasps laid more eggs and the proportion of its 15

Written by Stavrianos [10].

References

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offspring development is higher. At this time, the two sides show a cooperative relationship. However, the total number of florets that can be pollinated and developed into seeds or be laid to grow into young wasps is limited, with the wasps becoming more, the higher the number of wasps ovipositing, the less the number of seeds of plants. At this time, the fig punished the wasps as speculators (not carrying pollen), and the offspring development ratio of wasps decreased with the increase of the number of pollinators. In another experiment, we artificially pollinated the fig and put totally speculative wasps or parasitic wasps in the fruit. Instead of punishing the wasps, the fig rewarded them as honest pollinators. Whether the fig rewards or punishes the wasps is not necessarily related to whether the wasps are honest in carrying pollen or speculating not to carry pollen. The punishment or reward depends entirely on the yield of its seeds. If the seed yield is high, it will be rewarded, but if the seed yield drops, it will be punished. There is obviously a super rational strategy. We did a simulation analysis. In the asymmetric social cooperative system, the adoption of super rational strategy can significantly improve the level of cooperation and promote the stability of the social system. Moreover, the higher the degree of reciprocity between individuals in the system is, or the higher the cost of exiting the system is, the higher the probability of cooperation will be. The negotiation behavior of human society can better reflect this strategy. Think about the negotiation process between the US President Donald Trump and the North Korean General Secretary Kim Jong-un. How much consideration do the leaders of the two sides have for others or for each other when they make their own strategies? Similarly, for individuals, does a would-be entrepreneur really care about the reaction of his parents, family or friends when preparing his own business? Especially for a social system with a large number of individuals, it is almost impossible to fully understand each other’s strategies or information, so it is more likely to directly determine their own strategies based on their own interests, hobbies or judgments. Thinking like a fool with a hammer might just be another advantageous strategy. That may be the truth of the saying, “A man of great wisdom often appears slow-witted”.

References 1. Prygozin E (2009) The deterministic end (Zhan M, Trans.). Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press 2. Plato (1986) Republic (Guo B-H, Trans.). Commercial Press 3. Austen J (1970) Reason and sensibility. World Book Publishing Company 4. Nowak M, Sigmund K (1993) Chaos and the evolution of cooperation. Proc Natl Acad Sci 90:5091–5094 5. Kjellberg F, Jousselin E, Bronstein JL, Patel A, Yokoyama J, Rasplus J-Y (2001) Pollination mode in fig wasps: the predictive power of correlated traits. Proc Royal Soc Lond B: Biol Sci 268:1113–1121 6. Novak M, Heifield R (2013) Super collaborators (Long Z-Y, Wei W, Trans.). Zhejiang People’s Publishing House

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7. Durkheim E (1996) On suicide (Feng Y, Trans.). Business Press 8. Lorenz EN (1998) The butterfly effect. J Marine Forec 9. Schrödinger E (1935) The present status of quantum mechanics by E. Die Naturwissenschaften. 23–48 10. Stavrianos (2016) Global general history: from prehistory to the 21st century (Wu X-Y, Trans.). Peking University Press 11. Wang RW, Sun BF, Yang Y (2015) Discriminative host sanction together with relatedness promote the cooperation in fig/fig wasp mutualism. J Animal Ecol 84, 1133–1139

Part II

The Evolutionary Dynamics of Cooperation

Chapter 3

Homotropic Inheritance and Outbreak of Mass Incidents—Increasing Pressure Accelerates the Evolution of Altruistic Behavior

The corridor has already been mentioned where fifiteen invalids hung themselves in succession and also the famous sentry-box of the camp at Boulogne, the secene of several suicides in quick succession. Such facts have often been observed in the army: in the 4th regiment of chasseurs at Provins in 1862, in the 15th of the line in 1864, in the 41st, first at Montpellier, then at Nimes, in 1868, etc. In 1813 in the little village of Saint-Piere-Monjau, a woman hanged herself from a tree and several others did likewise at a little distance away. Pinel tells of a priest’s hanging himself about Etampes; some days later two others killed themselves and several laymen imitated them. When Lord Castlereagh threw himself into Vesuvius, several of his companions followed his example. The tree of Timon of Athens has become proverbial. The frequency of such cases of contagion in prisons is likewise affirmed by many observers.1 —Émile Durkheim

The Dilemma of Kin or Tag Recognition Mechanism Suppose you or a primate monkey find a tree full of peaches while wandering alone, in this situation, both of you will face a decision-making problem: will you enjoy the ripe peaches alone or invite other wanderers to share? If you’re willing to share, you can scream,“Hey, hey, guys, come on! Here are a lot of peaches! Come on!” Hearing that, they may rush over, scramble for the peaches and even may not leave you one. If you choose to share, it means you adopt the strategy of cooperation. But you may still lose a lot in this condition: you have to strenuously call for others, get the same few amount of peaches as them, or even your deserved peaches will be shared. Instead, you can also enjoy the peaches by yourself. If you can’t eat them up today, you can continue tomorrow. After all, it takes time to find a tree full of peaches and it can’t be found easily. However, it’s going to cause great waste if you are not able to eat up all the peaches alone. What’s more, today’s finding doesn’t mean the same luck will come to you tomorrow or next month. Possibly, you will not find any food for a long time. Obviously, it is more advantageous to enjoy the peaches 1

Durkheim [1].

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without cooperation in the short run, but in the long run, it is not a dominant strategy. A rational strategy is to share with others to obtain long-term stable food sources, which is in line with long-term interests. But who is willing to take the first step to share or help others? This is a basic problem in reality. And if you don’t get paid from others, your earnings will lower and you will lose the advantage of evolution. Actually, the above problem is essentially a technical problem, and also a problem of evolutionary dynamics: that is, how can you find or meet an altruistic partner like you, or what mechanism can help you judge whether some of the wanderers you entertain will have the same altruism and they are also cooperative individuals? Under natural conditions, the frequency of gene mutation of appearing such an individual is 10–7 , which means there is only 1 person out of 1,000,000. Accordingly, the probability that two individuals with the same altruism will meet together is the quadratic power of one millionth, which is almost one in 100 million. In terms of probability, it is almost impossible for two altruistic cooperators to meet randomly and cooperate. Richard Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene,2 put forward the marking behavior, which is known as the Green-beard Effect. He believes that collaborators have evolved a marker, such as green beard, which is used to identify their cooperative behavior by other collaborators. There is a paradox that the probability of two individuals with green beards meeting is extremely low, and it is almost impossible to happen in a finite population. More importantly, if cooperative behavior and green beard are mutually independent, the probability of an individual having altruistic cooperative behavior and green beard at the same time will be 10–14 , and the probability of two individuals with such characteristics meeting will be 10–28 . For a finite population, it is almost more impossible. A vaguer term “kin recognition” mechanism is used in the kin selection theory. It deems that individuals can identify those who are related to themselves. Some people think facial features can be used to the identification while others think it may be through smell. However, it seems unconvincing firstly for human cooperation, no matter what kind of mechanism is assumed. For kinship, besides the unreliable legend of blood dropping for relatives in ancient times, it seemed the only way to identify the related individuals was the identification from parents or neighbors. But modern biotechnology can achieve kin identification through paternity testing. The random sampling data of paternity testing shows that illegitimate children in the United States, Britain and France account for 48, 51 and 42% of the total number of newborns. Comparatively, China is relatively conservative, but the proportion is still up to 17.9%3 , 4 Apart from finding the fact that extramarital affairs are widespread in human beings and adoptive fathers regard the children as their own through paternity testing technology, no one believes that bacteria, insects and primates can also use the similar technology to identify their cooperators. Kin recognition is difficult for individuals of the same species, even among different species there are also deceptions which are difficult to identify. A Chinese 2

Dawkins [2]. Mitsuhiro [3]. 4 Wang [4]. 3

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idiom “The turtledove occupies the magpie’s nest.” is an example of mimicry and deception among different species that are difficult to detect or identify. Here the turtledove is a kind of bird called cuckoo. Cuckoos do not make their own nests but lay eggs in other birds’ nests, and make other birds hatch and feed their offspring. Reed warblers are often deceived to raise cuckoos’ children. A cuckoo is good at camouflaging. It destroys an egg of the reed warbler’s nest, and then mixes its own egg in it. Its egg is exactly the same as the reed warbler’s and can’t be distinguished. The cuckoo’s young bird is very ferocious, and openly does bad things in front of their “foster parents”. The little cuckoo is not only greedy for food, but also squeezes its brothers and sisters born to their foster parents out of the nest and make them fall to death, enjoying their adoptive parents’ love alone. And the poor reed warblers must run around looking for food for the little cuckoo.

Homotropic Inheritance and the Origin of Sociality Homotropic inheritance was first proposed by French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who published Animal Philosophy5 in 1809, in which he systematically expounded the earliest evolutionary theory. He emphasized that ambient condition was the main reason of biological variation and made a huge boost to biological evolution. Charles Robert Darwin, a British biologist, published the book Origin of Species in 1859. He believed that biological variation, heredity and natural selection could lead to changes in biological adaptability. For being supported by sufficient scientific facts, Darwin’s idea has stood the test of time and occupied an absolute dominant position in academia for more than 100 years. Later, the establishment of gene theory and central law almost made Lamarck’s theory of evolution forgotten. However, with the deepening of research, it is found that many phenomena are consistent with Lamarck’s evolutionary theory. For example, recent studies show that children’s learning ability is closely related to their parents’. The stronger the parents’ learning ability is, the stronger the children’s learning ability will be. Obviously, this acquired learning ability has been passed on to the next generation, which is Lamarck’s evolutionism. Lamarck put forward two famous laws in the process of studying animal behavior and organs interaction: one is law of use and disuse, the other is homotropic inheritance. In his opinion, it is not only the cause of variation but also the process of adaptation. He said, “It is very clear if a great change in an environmental condition becomes constant for an animal, it will develop new habits”. He proposed that species can change, and its stability is relatively significant. When environmental conditions have a direct influence on living organisms, biological evolution begins. Directly influenced by the new environment, the habits of organisms change. Some frequently used organs evolve while the infrequently used organs gradually degrade. After such continuous improvement and perfection of their adaptive shapes, species 5

Lamarck [5].

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can gradually change into new ones and these acquired shapes can be passed on to future generations, which makes the organisms gradually evolve. For example, giraffes turned to eat leaves of tall trees due to environmental changes, thus, their necks gradually became longer; Moles lost their sight because their ancestors had burrowed into dark holes for generations. He said: “Everything is due to the longstanding influence of the environment, or due to the long-term use or disuse. The acquired changes of various organisms—whether they belong to sexual reproduction or asexual reproduction, can be transmitted to the next generation due to natural forces.” The origin of sociality seems to be closely related to the mechanism of homotropic inheritance. At least one of our experiments can prove that. Jian-Xiao Song, a postdoc of mine, and Bei-Bei Hou, a postgraduate, used a one-celled organism Escherichia coli (usually abbreviated as E. coli) to study the origin of sociality. They added right amount of antibiotics to the living environment of E. coli. These antibiotics can effectively inhibit the growth of E. coli at low concentration and kill those at high concentration. However, some individuals of E. coli mutated and developed resistance at high concentration of antibiotics, which relieved the environmental pressure, so the mutants survived. When the mutant E. coli and wild-type E. coli were co-cultured in an environment with high antibiotic concentration, it was found that drug-resistant E. coli and non-drug-resistant E. coli formed a cooperative relationship, which improved the survival rate of the whole group. In the cooperative system of E. coli—a lower microorganism, the altruistic individuals that mutated into high-tolerance ones had longer growth time than low-tolerance ones in the process of relieving the pressure of antibiotics, so the growth rate of the high-tolerance E. coli is lower than that of low-tolerance E. coli, which is the price paid by mutating into high-tolerance E. coli for cooperation. Like other social systems, which individuals in the cooperative system of E. coli can mutate into high-tolerant collaborators and how these individuals form a stable cooperative group is still an unsolved mystery. An experiment with different antibiotic concentration gradients was conducted to see under which conditions low-tolerance E. coli can easily mutate into hightolerance ones. We were surprised to find that when E. coli was domesticated in the medium with low antibiotic concentration for a period, and then put into the medium with high antibiotic concentration, the number of mutated bacteria with antibiotic pressure relieving increased significantly. The longer the domestication time was and the higher the domesticated antibiotic concentration was, the higher the frequency of mutation with antibiotic pressure relieving would be. The experiment shows that the law of homotropic inheritance or the law of use and disuse really exists in E. coli, and at least there is such a mechanism in the generation of mutation to relieve antibiotic pressure. This genetic mechanism of homotropic inheritance or the law of use and disuse may have stronger universality for the evolution of cooperative system. When the external pressure increases, individuals within the population will feel such changes. The pressure may due to some biological factors, such as predation by natural enemies and interspecific competition, or external abiotic environmental factors, such as habitat variation, changes in nutritional resources such as food, etc. Those

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individuals who are relatively sensitive to changes in environmental pressure may produce more stress reactions, which will change or adjust the internal environment within the population to cope with external changes. Accelerating active adaptation to resist the external changes is one of the stress reactions. The mutation of those cooperative individuals is one of the characteristics of adaptive response. When the external pressure increases, the more sensitive individuals will first allocate more resource areas to cope with the pressure, thus the pressure allocated to reproduction was reduced. One of the possible results of the adaptive response to the increase of environmental pressure is to try to change the internal environment within the population, and help those non-mutated individuals who are insensitive to the environment at the same time. Cooperation was born in such a process! Cooperative individuals born under the mechanism of homotropic inheritance or the law of use and disuse are no longer random mutations, but actively adaptive mutations under specific environmental conditions. In this way, the mutation rate is likely to increase non-linearly and reach a very high proportion when pressure increases. In the experiment of E. coli, when antibiotics are increased to a certain concentration, the probability of mutating into altruistic cooperation with the ability to degrade antibiotics can almost reach 100%. Under such conditions, altruistic mutant individuals can easily meet other altruistic mutant ones, thus form a stable genetical population. According to Darwin’s natural selection theory, the paradox that it is difficult for altruistic mutant individuals to form a stable population can be solved! Without the prerequisite of forming a stable genetical population full of altruistic collaborators, sociality can be evolved from non-social groups in a relatively short ecological scale. We all know the phenotypic plasticity, which can be simply defined as different phenotypes of the same genotype affected by different environmental conditions. It is an adaptation of organisms to the environment. Phenotypic changes include behavioral changes, physiological changes, morphological changes, growth changes, life history changes, etc., which can occur on individual plants or spanning generations. Unfortunately, phenotypic plasticity was not accepted by biologists until 1980s. Previously, it was ignored because biologists thought plasticity was against Mendelian Inheritance. Now, a series of simple and accurate experiments prove that plasticity does exist, and phenotypic plasticity reflects the relationship between organisms and environment. It is being favored by ecologists and geneticists. “The orange growing in Huainan (south Huaihe River valley) is called tangerine while the orange growing in Huaibei (north Huaihe River valley) is called trifoliate orange.”6 indicates that the same plant growing in different places will show great differences in morphological features, and the differences of forms or behaviors will in turn affect its genetic characteristics.

6

It is a Chinese idiom, extracted from Yanzi’s Spring and Autumn Annals. It means that when the orange trees of Huainan are moved from the soil and climate conditions in which they grow to Huaibei, they become trifoliate orange trees which only bring forth bitter trifoliate oranges, no longer the sweet tangerines. Naturally, species differ in different ecological environment.

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Actually, phenotypic plasticity is another expression of homotropic inheritance or the law of use and disuse. Modern biology finds that for the origin of cooperation, there aren’t great differences among the cooperators, the receivers and the speculators. Genomic studies have found that there is no genetic difference between the queen ant and the worker ants of social ants and termites, but they are only different in methylation that is phenotypic plasticity. From another perspective, it suggests that cooperators’ phenotypic plasticity may simply be a representation of homotropic inheritance or the law of use and disuse under certain conditions. In the social system of ants and termites, the queen or king ant and the worker ants may experience different intensities of pressure or have different tolerance to environmental pressure, which may lead to the differences in their morphology and behavior. Whether a bee, a type of social insect that we are familiar, can develop into a fertile queen depends on its early nutrients. If the egg is put into the royal palace by worker ants, it will be fed with royal jelly and its larva will later develop into queen bee, while other larvae which are not put into the palace will feed on pollen and grow into worker bees in the future. Highly social insects such as ants and termites also have great randomness in which individuals can become reproductive queens. If some termites can find a corner to live alone and stay away from the inhibition of the queen’s pheromone, they will soon develop into fertile supplementary reproductive ants. Especially when the queen in the original colony grows old or dies, other workers will soon become fertile supplementary reproductive ants. The sociality of ants is also very similar to that of termites. Worker ants can develop into queen quickly if they are kept alone and away from pheromone inhibition by the queen. In highly social insects, work in cooperation with a due division of labour is more likely a result of the phenotypic plasticity of individual organisms, which will show different degrees of social division and cooperation behaviors under different selection pressures.

Infectious Suicide and the Roots of Terrorism With the increase of external environmental pressure, the frequency of mutation to cope with the pressure will also increase. It will no longer linearly increase because the internal living environment within the population will be changed by the mutated individuals, which may accelerate the occurrence of adaptive mutation. The mutations continue to increase their stress along with the increasing environmental pressure. Due to the uncertainty of the response and without the so-called optimal stress-coping adaptative value, excessive stress-coping behaviors will cause death. There are active coping strategies and passive behaviors for individuals to cope with environmental pressure. Passive stress-coping behavior is avoidance or indifference. There are few truly indifferent behaviors, after all, stress reaction is common in any organism. Desperate suicide will occur when individuals who often escape or are more negative find the pressure is infinite and they can’t successfully escape. Such mutated individuals will also change the internal environment of the group and may erupt due to nonlinear accumulation. In the case of great pressure of

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selection, individuals within the group learn altruistic or suicidal mutation behavior, or when the pressure reaches a threshold, multiple individuals will develop altruistic or suicidal mutations simultaneously. This is the infectivity of altruistic or suicidal behaviors. If there is a density promoting effect among the mutations and they are transmitted to each other through signal transmission, the outbreak of “infectious” mutation may occur. The increase of environmental pressure may also cause some more “sensitive” individuals in the group to actively adjust their own behavior to cope with it, which is the active stress response that will also sacrifice the uncertain earnings in the future— reproduction, or even completely give up reproducing to achieve survival first. Similarly, it is possible to take greater risk of life sacrifice to cope with the increase of external pressure to change the internal environment of the population. One of these active risks is losing one’s life, which is active suicide. The increase of environmental pressure may lead to the increase of mutation that risks one’s life to alter the internal environment. Moreover, if there is the same mechanism of homotropic inheritance or use and disuse, the frequency of mutation will therefore increase non-linearly with the increase of pressure. Likewise, there is not a linear relationship between the incidence of suicidal mutation and the pressure of environmental selection. However, if there is a network relationship and mutual density promotion effect among mutated individuals, a massive outbreak of such active suicide will be seen under certain conditions, similar to infectious growth. Bees, as a social group, can better explain the phenomenon of individuals’ infectious suicide attack within the group through signal transmission. They usually keep the stings in their bodies, once they are invaded, they will stick them out. Bees rarely sting people or other animals for no reason unless it’s out of self-defense instinct. Only when the worker bees are threatened or the swarm is harmed, will they launch an almost suicidal attack. The bees will die after stinging since bee stings are composed of a back sting and two abdominal stings, the end of which is connected with the large and small poison glands and internal organs and the tip of which has a barb. The barb will hang on the skin of the person after a bee stings, thus the sting cannot be pulled out. When the bee flies away, its internal organs will be strained or even removed, so it will die after the sting. When you are being stung by one or several bees, you will not suffer from their continuous attacks if you can calm them down effectively. However, if you continue to irritate them, more and more worker bees or even the whole swarm may launch suicide attacks on you. When bees attack the enemy, it will produce a density promotion effect or similar cumulative effect and the early attack will aggravate the attack behaviors of other individuals within the group. Like the acceleration effect in behavior, the mutation at genetic level may have the same effect. In the process of genetic mutation, the previous mutation effect will cause more favorable mutations, and this kind of density promoting effect will accelerate the occurrence of mutations.

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Acceleration in Evolutionary Rate Acceleration, a concept in physics, is the ratio of the speed variation to the time taken for the variation. It is a physical quantity to describe the speed change of an object. Its direction is the direction of the speed variation, same as that of the resultant external force. In evolutionary biology, natural selection theory, especially modern molecular biology theory holds that the frequency of mutation is uniform, independent of environmental selection pressure. However, paleontologists found that the number of species increased dramatically during Cambrian, which was called the Cambrian Explosion. Known as a major suspense in paleontology and geology, it has plagued academia all along. The period (from 542 million years ago to 530 million years ago) is considered the beginning of Cambrian in geology, and a large number of invertebrate fossils suddenly appeared in Cambrian strata in more than 20 million years. They came into being rapidly and immediately. A series of animals whose forms were roughly similar to modern animals emerged collectively at that time, such as Arthropods, brachiopods, vermes, sponges, chordates and so on, forming a thriving scene in which many kinds of animals coexisted. It was called “Cambrian Explosion” by paleontologists because in the older strata of the early age, no obvious fossils of their ancestors had been found for a long time. In a relatively short historical period, the speed of species occurrence is obviously similar to physical acceleration. Different hypotheses about the causes of the Cambrian Explosion or acceleration are attributed to increasing pressure caused by changes of the external environment. A popular hypothesis, put forward by two American physicists in 1965, is that the Cambrian Explosion was caused by a physical factor—the level of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere. In their opinion, the atmosphere of the early Earth contained little or no free oxygen, which accumulated as a result of photosynthesis by Precambrian algae. Metazoans need a large amount of oxygen. On the one hand, it is used for respiration. On the other hand, oxygen absorbs a great deal of harmful ultraviolet rays in the atmosphere in the form of ozone, which protects metazoans from harmful radiation damage. Some biologists put forward other hypotheses based on the ecological relationship of organisms themselves, among which the biological harvester hypothesis was the most representative. It was proposed by American ecologist S. M. Stanley. For most of the 2.5 billion years of the Precambrian period, Stanley argued, the ocean was an ecosystem composed of simple primary producers like prokaryotic cyanobacteria. The community in this ecosystem was single and invariable ecologically, and the trophic level was also simple and unique. Because the physical space was tenaciously occupied by this kind of species with few types but large amount, it evolved very slowly and never had abundant diversity. The key to the Cambrian Explosion was the emergence and evolution of herbivorous harvesters or protozoans that ate prokaryotes (cyanobacteria). Harvesters create more chances for greater diversity of producers, and the increasing diversity of producers lead to the evolution of more particular harvesters. The pyramid of trophic level developed rapidly in two directions: the lower producers had many new species, enriching the species diversity, and at the top

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of the pyramid, new “harvesters” were added to enrich the diversity of trophic level. Consequently, the biodiversity of the whole ecosystem was enriched continuously, leading to the Cambrian Explosion. Those scientists have not found direct evidence to prove the “Harvest Theory” yet, however, some indirect evidence supports the theory, one of which is from the Precambrian stromatolites which are composed of algae and contain the most abundant producer communities of the Precambrian. Today, stromatolites are found only in barren environments that lack metazoan harvesters, such as salty lakes with excessive saltness. The abundance of algae in the Precambrian strata probably reflects the scarcity of harvesters at that time. In addition, ecological field studies also provide some indirect evidence showing that in an artificial pond, the introduction of predatory fish will increase the diversity of plankton; removing sea urchin from the diverse algal community will make a certain algae dominant in the community but reduce the diversity. The change of abiotic factors or biological factors will alter the original living environment, and to some extent, it may cause a relatively long-term change and the pressure brought by this change is probably like the E. coli experiment we did. As mentioned in the previous part, when I continuously add antibiotics, the mutation of E. coli increases significantly, and it is nonlinear. One of the opposite evolutionary dynamics is that under some special conditions such as a very stable environment, the probability of mutation of a species will be reversed, which will reduce the frequency of mutation. In the whole process of biological evolution, the evolutionary rate of organisms will move forward in waves.

References 1. Durkheim E (2005) Suicide: a study in sociology (Spaulding JA, Simpson G, Trans.). Routledge Classics 2. Dawkins R (2012) The selfish gene (Lu Y-Z, Trans.). CITIC Press 3. Mitsuhiro N (2012) A study of the life courses of legitimate/illegitimate children in the late Tokugawa period. J-STAGE 19(35):133 4. Wang C-T (2012) History of the Chinese family planning program: 1970–2010. Contraception 6(85):563–569 5. Lamarck (1938) Animal philosophy (Mu S-L, Trans.). Commercial Press

Chapter 4

Cooperation: Dynamics of Sexual Selection

We believe that the establishment of civilization is brought by sacrificing the satisfaction of the original impulse for survival; and we also believe that civilization is to a large extent being constantly created new, since everyone who makes a fresh entry into human society repeats this sacrifice of instinctual satisfaction for the benefit of the whole community. Among the instinctive forces thus utilized, the sexual impulses play a significant role. They are thereby sublimated, i.e., they are diverted from their sexual goals and directed to ends socially higher and no longer sexual.1

—Sigmund Freud The movie The Sent-Down Girl, adapted from Ge-ling Yan’s novel of the same name tells a story that reflects our real life.2 The heroine Xiu Wen was born in Chengdu, a southwestern city of China. She lived happily with her parents and a younger sister. The story began in 1975, at the end of the Cultural Revolution, at that time, the “Educated Youth Going to the Countryside” movement was still going on (sending young urban youths “go to work in the countryside” was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). Xiu Wen, as an educated youth, was sent away to a remote village in the Sichuan Province steppes for manual labor in 1975. A year later she’s sent even further to a more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding. Lao Jin lost his penis in an early battle with other Tibetans, and therefore had no desire for sex like ordinary men. He genuinely cared about the innocent 1

Freud [1]. The Sent Down Girl is a 1998 Chinese film directed by actress Joan Chen set in the 1970s of the Cultural Revolution, which was the Best Feature Film of Taiwan Golden Horse Award.

2

© Science Press 2023 R. Wang, The End of Rationality and Selfishness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9752-5_4

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young girl, fetching water and digging baths for her. With the passage of time, Xiu Wen also came to trust Lao Jin. However, after her appointed time to be sent back to the city passes and no news happened, Xiu Wen became anxious and often lost her temper with Lao Jin. While hearing that other peers had succeeded in returning to the city, she longed to go back. Under the promises of a clerk working in the department of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives to bring her back to city, she lost her virginity. Lao Jin has to hold his tongue though he knew that Xiu Wen had been tricked. Afterwards she was played with by privileged men in turn. Unable to remain silent, Lao Jin railed at her selling her body. Unexpectedly, she retorted sarcastically, “What a good-for-nothing you are! You cannot take care of even such a trivial matter!” Xiu Wen lost her virginity, but was still yet to have the chance to return to the city. Moreover, she was pregnant without knowing who the father was. Lao Jin took her to the hospital to get an abortion. When Xiu Wen learned that someone cut his toes to get the chance to back to city, she decided to follow suit to fake an injury, then she gave a gun to Lao Jin. Desperate and weary of the world around him, Lao Jin fired at Xiu Wen and then killed himself. The movie reflects a basic rule that sex is cheap when power and resources are controlled by privileged groups, which is the same to both human beings and animals. We can clearly derive two important rules for sexual selection: (1) The reason why Xiu Wen choose the clerk of Supply and Marketing Cooperative is that she believed he had privileges to help her run away from rural areas. It is obvious that females, especially human women, prefer to choose privileged individuals no matter passive or active; (2) We can also see that Lao Jin is completely obsessed with Xiu Wen, though he lacks sexual desire. Eventually he shot her and killed himself. Sexual intercourse and reproduction are not the only forms of male selection. The castrated male (human male) still has strong male selection motivation, but he will show it in other forms (See the painting below by Salvador Dalí).

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In the above painting of Dalí, tigers and elephants have extremely developed limbs, trunks and muscles, but their drives for the muscularity are beauties—the dynamics of sexual selection. However, we can ascertain another implied moral meaning: these giants actually are beyond the reach of the beauty—sex. In the human world we can simply understand such results, such as sexual dysfunction, artificial castration, and peculiarity in choosing a sex partner, overly high expectations, or some physical restrictions like imprisonment or lack of social ability. All those elements can possibly bring many individuals difficulties in releasing their sexual pressure, instead of turning to pursue other aspects that can raise their competitiveness or social

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status. It turns out that men of fitness and success, are still yet quite far away from the beauty—the true sex. They may even forget about it at last. Those individuals repressed from sex drive can possibly become a truly altruistic hero such as Jesus and Sakyamuni. Indeed, we may see many instances of successful philosophers and scientists like Nietzsche and Newton who kept unmarried all their life, but due to that reason perhaps they became among the anointed in Philosophy and Science. That Hitler having penile dysfunction illustrates the strong drive generated from the repressed hormone. The statue of The Emperor has No Balls shows us the talents of Trump from another perspective. We can’t even tell if the artists worship Trump or not. In the movie, sexual repression is the reason why Lao Jin protected Wen Xiu to such an extent. Another heroism originates from high sexual hormone expression. Within a species, sexual hormone expression of individuals varies. Some are born with high sexual desire whereas some are born with a hormone deficiency. The individuals with excessive hormone secretion may be more active or aggressive in many aspects, and become more adventurous, more “heroism”, not only greedier for beauties. It goes without doubt that these individuals are likely to experience more risks, especially those hyperactive ones, thus increasing the risk of being eliminated from the group. Likewise, these risk-lovers are more prone to success, and even become the absolute overlord of their society or group. For any realistic group or population, individuals vary in size, degree of aggression, “intellect” etc., which will eventually influence their status and competitiveness. The stronger the competitiveness of the individuals is, the more the resources will be allocated, including not only natural resources such as food and space, but also the priority in mating. The hierarchical system will further consolidate the difference in competitiveness, which constitutes one of the basic traits of asymmetric interrelationships among individuals. In a group with hierarchical system, some high-ranked individuals even completely monopolize the resources, including mating rights. Among highly social insects like ants and termites, only the queen or king ants can mate and reproduce. However, modern research finds the worker ants are reproducible, not as the past classic theories claimed to be. Research finds that worker ants or bees have full or potential reproductive capacity. In many highly social species such as ants, termites and bees, worker bees or ants soon reproduce when the queen bee or ant becomes senile or dies. In a normal, healthy colony of bees or ants, workers may actually reproduce by stealth, but once found by the queen or other workers, they may be killed or driven out of the colony together with their eggs and larvae. Therefore, it is difficult for us to find worker ants or worker bees reproduce in a healthy and normal ant or bee colony. For those privileged individuals, controlling the resources means that they can compel relatively disadvantaged individuals to serve and cooperate according to the will of superior in the material realm, as well as in the realms of spiritual, development, and code of conduct. There isn’t much difference between king ants and worker ants or bees genetically. The queen or king ants secrete pheromones to inhibit gonads of other worker ants which directly influences their development, or even transform

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them into soldier ants with a special physical structure at the loss of its reproductive function. For most worker ants or bees, their reproductive function can be partially or entirely restored after king bees or queen ants age or die. Advantageous individuals not only provide resources such as food and space, but also provide substances like “spiritual opiates” for vulnerable individuals, in order to firmly control them and force them to actively serve and cooperate. A type of termites can produce a seemingly useless liquid in its anus, which worker ants like to lick. The worker ants after licking will become more active and work harder. The more the works lick, the harder they work, and the substance that makes them work harder is dopamine that excites the worker ants’ nerves. Cooperative behaviors of insects are quite similar with that of human beings. Advantageous groups in human society also control the resources first, and then compel or command the relatively vulnerable individuals to cooperate through the resource allocation, even take the initiative to choose cooperation. The relatively vulnerable ones, as a result, are ensured the right of survival by cooperating with advantageous groups, which in turn allows or provides them with material or spatial resources, and even spiritual opium needed by the disadvantaged. We may see directly in a country or ethnic group, in order to control the disadvantaged or vulnerable groups more effectively, the advantageous group provides belief and worship for them to meet their expectations to live on. The suppression of superior individuals on inferior individuals will lead the oppressed to choose two extreme strategies. The vulnerable individuals will demonstrate lazy or even parasitic behaviors due to the decrease of dopamine and hormones caused by suppression. In social insects, the proportion of inactive individuals can reach as high as 70%. Likewise, in human society, there are also many inactive individuals. From ancient times to civilized modern society, such lazy people are everywhere, but with different proportions. Another extreme circumstance is those individuals can possibly evolve into highly altruistic individuals because their dopamine and hormone levels are too high to release. For example, among social termites, those with high dopamine or who ingest the dopamine released by the queen will evolve into brave soldier ants. In human society, some marginal groups (Socially disadvantaged individuals) will transform into valiant knights, warriors, philosophers and poets, etc. The fact that Bushido prevailed in Japan is closely connected to the highly hierarchical system.

The Cost of Social Progress—Sexual Repression and Abandonment Each animal, therefore including “philosophical animals”, strives instinctively after an optimum of favorable conditions, under which the whole strength can be released, and achieves his maximum consciousness of power; with equal instinctiveness, and with a fine perceptive flair which is superior to any reason, every animal shudders mortally at every kind of disturbance and hindrance which obstructs or could obstruct his way to that optimum (it

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4 Cooperation: Dynamics of Sexual Selection is not his way to happiness of which I am talking, but his way to power, to action, the most powerful action, and in point of fact in many cases his way to unhappiness). All philosophers up to my time that marked as great—Heraclitus, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Schopenhauer—were unmarried. One could not even imagine them married.3 —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Why do people wear underpants? I have asked this question since I was a child, as a protest being forced to wear underpants. However, as a scientific question, I heard a report that raised a similar question during my Ph.D. studies. Professor Zhong-Yi Wu, the head of the Department of Evolution and Ecology at the University of Chicago, put up the same question in a report: since mating behaviors of all the animals are in public, why do only humans prefer to mate in private? In other words, why are humans the only species to further privatize their genitals by wearing underpants? Just as the previous chapter mentioned, biological evolution is cooperation, especially altruistic cooperation, achieved at the cost of reproduction. Civilized behaviors of human beings, such as the evolution of wearing underpants and the covert sex, have evolved to inhibit or limit reproductive behavior similar to that social insects such as bees and ants inhibit the reproduction of worker ants or bees through hormones, but in a different way. If sexual taboos of human are seen as human restraints or restrictions to promote civilization, a correlative question arises: if the sexual behaviors are restricted passively, why does it make individuals feel ashamed not wearing underpants or openly mating? For this question, we may return to the sense of shame first, or more precisely, how morality evolves. Morality itself is the product of rights. It’s an instinctive advantaged behavior of animals to imitate individuals higher in rank, which means the recognition of the code of conduct for human beings, enhancing their social status. The nature of “Like attracts like” is the recognition of such similar behaviors, which can increase their fitness. In this way morality is an emotional response originating from hoping to gain recognition from higher ranks. Other codes of conduct of human can better illustrate such mechanism. In China, it’s a widely recognized virtue to help elderly such as giving seats to them in a bus, which has consolidated its position through the ruling class in the past dynasties. If a young man fails to do this, at least in public, he or she will feel ashamed. Whereas for the young people in America, not giving seats to the elderly or helping them and calling the name of their parents won’t bring the young sense of shame because the entire American society advocates democracy and equality, including the equality between the young and the old. If the elderly accept the seat or other favors offered by the young, it will make them feel ashamed. For human society, limiting or inhibiting the premature reproductive behavior of vulnerable young individuals can promote them to make more contributions to the group, which is called a type of parental exploitation in The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life, a monograph by Robert Trivers. In a more social ant colony, the queen ants inhibit the reproduction of other young ants (workers), worker ants may serve the whole colony at the expense of 3

Nietzsche [2].

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almost abandoning their reproductive capabilities. For human, the species, education, culture, etiquette, institutions and other social mechanisms are also playing a similar role as the queen ants do. The young people will provide more services to social development by restricting or delaying reproduction (late maturity). For individuals, delaying childbearing or even giving it up, they are more likely to gain social recognition and obtain higher achievements. As Nietzsche rightly pointed out, many highly successful people kept unmarried in their lives. They are the most selfish, and yet they gain the highest social status and the highest profits. On the other hand, they are the most selfless. They sacrifice, or even give up reproduction, and all of their success ultimately benefits all individuals within the group, almost everyone. “The more he aspires to the height and light, the more strongly will his roots strive earthward, downward, into the dark, into the deep, into evil.” Selfishness and altruistic acts seen in human nature are of the same origins.

Hero and Villain of the Same Origin, Good or Evil Depends on the Perspective And I myself-do, I thereby want to be man’s accuser? Ah, my animals, this only have I learned thus far, that for man his most bad is necessary for his best,— That all that is most bad is the best power, and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must become better and worse.4 —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Although among the social insects such as bees and termites, most of the worker bees or ants are unable to reproduce, they actually have the ability to reproduce, they just do not have the opportunity to do so. We can see in a bee or ant colony, some individuals work very hard, while some remain lazy or some are completely speculative. Once there are seriously ill individuals at risk of infection, some individuals in the colony need to clear the infected, similar to the courageous and altruist acts volunteered in the human society. When the group environment fluctuates widely, some individuals in the group responsible for foraging, building, taking care of, and rearing of the nest group have the opportunity to become individuals in charge of reproduction. What we found in our own research experiment is very interesting: the more generous the workers are, for example, the more active they are in feeding other workers (secret substances from their tails), and the more they are cared for by other workers. Those generous individuals have a significantly higher levels of sex hormones and more developed gonads than those who are stingier. When the queen ant dies, they become the first to convert to reproductive ants. It is obvious that the higher the input cost to help the ant colony is, the more likely it is to become a supplementary reproductive ant or queen ant, thus obtaining higher reproductive return. This is the biological version of the law in economics that risk is directly proportional to profit. 4

Nietzsche [3].

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Another phenomenon is that other individuals in such a highly hierarchical society take risks to adopt the speculative strategies, which has the same high costs as diligent and cooperative individuals, but also brings high returns. In such a highly asymmetric system, once the speculative strategy is found, it will suffer from a similar phenomenon. We can easily see such cases in the CCTV program “Discovery”. In a highly hierarchical social system, once the individuals succeed in speculation, they will have better opportunities for development without paying any price to help other individuals or provide public welfare services. They can have better development, more opportunities and easier access to high positions, or to be the queen ant or the monkey king, and the benefits are unlimited. In extreme systems of social insects such as ants and bees, kings and queens monopolize almost all reproductive opportunities. In slave and feudal human societies, once becoming a king, he could monopolize almost all the resources of the country and have numerous consorts and concubines. When the benefits of being king are extremely high or unlimited, those who are secondary individuals may accept the “oppression” of the superior and choose the cooperative strategy. First you have to survive, then wait and seek the chance to reproduce. For them, when their survival is threatened or under pressure, it is inevitable to sacrifice the reproductive ability—which is a big penalty. In many insects systems, they may even be killed, just as the instance of termites. In a bee colony, lazy individuals (who do not carry pollen) are not allowed to enter the hive. For the worker bees who lay eggs secretly, once found, they will be eaten by other worker ants. In a highly social nude mole society, the lazy ones who do not work hard will be driven out of their nests by the queen mole, and will be more easily hunted by other predators without shelter. For monkey, the first is to ensure survival, or better survival. Under such circumstances, individuals may invest more limited resources in development or activities related to survival, such as making themselves stronger and thus having a greater physical advantage. More social activities may help individuals enhance their social position. The higher the rewards of dominance, the higher cost or more risks one may face, which may include potentially losing its life In a social system, the higher the asymmetry is, the higher the queen’s rewards are, the higher the chance to win a higher position by taking a risk even at the price of losing his life. Of course, this risk-taking acts include cooperative behaviors in which one may sacrifice his own life in order to help others, which is considered highly altruistic. Le suicid written by French sociologist Emile Durkheim, was published in Paris in 1897. It classified suicide into four types: egoistic, altruistic, anomic and fatalistic.5 Altruistic suicide is an extreme form of cooperation or helping others—sacrificing one’s own life, which is the intrinsic motivation for altruistic suicide. The higher the expected return of cooperative or altruistic help, the higher the chance of taking risks, including sacrificing one’s own life, to help others. But the lower the current yield, the lower the chance of taking risks.

5

Durkheim [4].

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In a society with a high degree of asymmetry, there are several such winner-takeall voting methods used. Individuals choose to pay high cost or even risk their lives in order to get higher profits. Likewise, if the actual returns individuals obtain are too few to survive, it is also possible to risk high costs or loss of life (suicidal behavior) to gain high status and control more resources. Some extreme behaviors or terrorism can well explain this speculation of the theory. During the republican period of China, the instances of Si-Tong Tan (representative of reformist of Qing Dynasty) and ChingWei Wang (intimate of Yat-Sen Sun) are the best evidence. Both believed the rulers of the late Qing Dynasty were no longer able to lead Chinese nation to resist foreign force, let alone to rejuvenate, and therefore needed to be reformed or overthrown. Both of them took suicidal measures to help their compatriots in China. After the failure of the Hundred Days’ Reform in 1898, Tan had chance to escape but he chose to stay instead. Under the circumstances, he knew clearly that he would be executed by the Qing Court. Likewise, Wang attempted to assassinate the Regent Zaifeng, and he knew for sure that such assassination at that time left virtually no chance to live afterward. Unexpectedly, in the case of Si-tong Tan, Qing Court executed him without unexpected mercy, but he soon became a great hero respected by all Chinese people. On the contrary, Ching-Wei Wang was arrested for assassination and wrote a famous poem that showed his will to be a glorious martyr for the cause of revolution. Wang should have been executed but was released unexpectedly and became a great hero worshiped by millions of people. If there had not subsequently been some accidents, it should have been Ching-Wei Wang rather than Kai-Shek Chiang to be the President of the Republic. Let’s look at terrorism. Terrorism is a word with serious moral bias or discrimination, but the act of terrorism itself is a very old phenomenon. Its essence is a kind of extreme behavior that vulnerable groups attack other groups by suicide. The Kamikazes were the highest form of terrorism during World War II, but no one called that suicidal attack in war terrorism. During the later years of World War II, in order to resist the powerful superiority of the US army and save its defeated situation, according to Bushido spirit, Japan made deliberate suicidal crashes into enemy targets, usually ships, air-craft and troops. The objectives of “fight to the death” strategy were reflected in its battle slogans: One Plane for One Warship, One Boat for One Ship, One Man for Ten of the Enemy or One Tank, a code which posed a great threat to the Allies. This is a typical instance of terrorism in which a weak party tries to reverse the decline of the entire group in an extreme act. If a kamikaze did survive the war, he would be a great national hero. Modern terrorism has the same roots. In modern society, the Christian civilization has achieved a dominant position, whereas the Islamic civilization is relatively oppressed. In a world where Islam is less respected, the Islamic world needs a new Muhammad or a hero like Jesus in Christian religion to save them. Bin Laden and the 9/11 terrorists were actually attempting to sacrifice themselves for the respect of the Islamic world and become their own “Mohammed”. Indeed if 9/11 terrorists survive, it goes without doubt that they would become great heroes in the Islamic world. No

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one has investigated how powerful Bin Laden was in the Islamic world, but I suspect no one can deny his influence in the Islamic world. Excessive repression and gender inequality can contribute to despair among vulnerable communities, while terrorist acts might create an opportunity to change the situation. If they can survive, these extreme behaviorists will become the heroes and leaders of their community. This suicidal terrorism resulting from class oppression happened in different ethnic groups or nations, as well as in the different ethnic groups in a country. Excessive oppression can easily cause the strong “heroism” complex of some individuals in the suppressed classes. Individuals with heroism complex may attempt to achieve their “hero” dream through high-risk behaviors, including suicidal behaviors. In 2010, fourteen workers of Foxconn Technology Group (hereinafter referred to as Foxconn) committed suicide by jumping from a department building in less than one year. At the very beginning, these suicides were condemned as disrespectful to their lives and responsibility for family and society by the media and public opinion. The contagious suicides became the concern of the society and the government at that time. Unfortunately, the media did not give the public some real and objective analysis of the causes, but only blindly condemned these suicides. I was trying to get in touch with the Foxconn to see what exactly caused the suicide. However, conditions then at the factory made it almost impossible for outsiders to enter. According to a clue that Foxconn workers post online, I entered a QQ zone of a staff. Through chatting I found the workers in the factory of Foxconn thought that they were doing simple and boring jobs as robots did. The management ignored the needs of the workers without communication or respect. Employees see no future for themselves and are so tightly managed that they have few opportunities to communicate with the outside world. It seemed that all wanted to vent the sense of pressure, yet no chances were given. A chain of suicides jumped off buildings in the hope of drawing social attention to improve their working conditions. But the overwhelming criticism of the society on them made Foxconn employees more depressed and seek justice nowhere. During the chat, I mentioned that such celebrities and social figure such as Guo-wei Wang and Lau Shaw—both famous Chinese writers also chose to commit suicide. It’s not that they are cowards or escapists, but that they are people with true heroism. They chose to do so because they fought for the rights of the same oppressed people. In fact, some of the most dignified people would choose this kind of active suicide. I also mentioned the wide concern aroused by the series suicide by jumping from the building in Foxconn, and part of academics thought that those accidents were not individual acts lacking of responsibility. Undoubtedly it has some connection with the whole social system and corporate governance. At that time, Premier Wen mentioned that such extreme behavior had its social roots. I suggested the employees immediately unite and act collectively to continue dialogue with Foxconn and the government to present their demands. At this stage, they were more likely to be taken seriously. One of the chat group members later said that he had planned to jump off the building again, but after talking with me, he decided not to suicide but to report their current situation to the government and related organizations.

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It was not long before the chat group shut down so that I found no more chance to get in touch with them. Afterwards with the intervention of the government, labor union and non-governmental organizations, the findings published by the government showed that the management problems of Foxconn did exist. The “infectious disease” of Foxconn suicides had been curbed, and in recent years there have been no suicides within the company. In a highly asymmetric social system, if the hierarchy is too rigid, the vulnerable groups feel no chance to participate in the allocation of resources or achieve their dream of “becoming king or queen” or feel desperate, they are more likely to choose high-risk tactics like committing suicide, which could magnify and easily set off a chain reaction. The higher the degree of asymmetry is, the more rigid the hierarchy will be. Once this kind of risky behavior succeeds, the more benefits the “king or queen” will gain in such a highly asymmetric society, and the higher the probability of taking risks will be. However, in a relatively symmetric society, it is obvious that the returns after successful risk-taking are not as high as those in a highly asymmetric society, so the probability of choosing such high-risk behaviors is correspondingly lower. The politics of Asian countries suggest the fact that asymmetries might lead to higher risk-taking acts. In Asia, democratic elections are held in some traditional countries and regions with strong totalitarianism. But we can still find electoral chaos: During the election, politicians would resort to all means to seize power, even launching military coups. Then they will abandon consultative democracy even despite winning power through elections. For example, recently politicians in Thailand and Pakistan launched military coups to win power. We can also see this in South Korea, Pakistan and Taiwan where democracy is relatively fragile. In Thailand and Pakistan, they simply seized power in military coups. It goes against the principle of democratic elections. In the countries considered to be flawed democracy, the degree of the asymmetry is relatively higher. In the process of regime change, the process of power struggle is more intense. In centralized North Korea, regime change is accompanied by partial factional killings; In more democratic Thailand, the change is more moderate, but clashes between military and civilian leaders have often led to mass demonstrations, and social unrest has been accompanied by regime change. The repetition of similar historical events demonstrate that there are inherent commonalities. In the asymmetric social system, it shows its strength to achieve a higher competitive position through extreme competition, thus obtaining respect and status recognition so as to achieve higher returns, which is a characteristic of evolution. Altruistic behaviors would gain respect or recognition as well, possibly higher social status. Just like the left and right hand, the evolutionary tactics of selfish competition and altruistic behaviors stem from the manipulation of the same “king” gene. In our study of termites, we observed that such extreme altruistic behavior is correlated to the social class of termite society. In the colony of termites, some individuals accidentally became infected with deadly mites and will soon die if the mites are not cleaned in time, but infected termites cannot clean themselves, other worker ants need to brush the mites off their bodies with their antennae. Worker ants that

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help with the cleanup are susceptible to mites with a high rate of infection at more than 80%, which is almost a suicidal behavior to help these infected individuals. Through observation we found that the higher level of class differentiation, the more ant workers come to offer help. In the organization with a lower level of class differentiation, there are little or even none to help, till the infected die and are buried. The more obvious the class differentiation is, the more suicidal behavior is present, just as Nietzsche described in Dithyrambs of Dionysus6 : Ultimate Will To die thus, As once I saw him die— The friend who threw divine thunderbolts and Glances into my dark youth. Sportive and profound, A dancer in the battle— The most cheerful among warriors, The gravest among victors, A fate standing upon his fate, Hard, reflective, calculating: Trembling because he triumphed, Rejoicing in that he triumphed dying: Commanding while he died— And he commanded that one destroy… To die thus, As once I saw him die— Vanquishing, destroying …

Your Status Determines Your Profits Power means controlling others in some way, whether it’s political, financial, religious, or spiritual.7 —Osho Rajneesh

In a highly asymmetrical society, the dominant groups monopolize more resources so that the relatively weak groups have to choose to serve or cooperate with them. Obviously, in the face of resource shortage or direct oppression by the advantageous groups, the vulnerable individuals have to give in to look for larger space to existence. 6 7

Nietzsche [5]. Rajneesh [6].

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In such circumstances, the more competitive the pressure is, the less resources the ulnerable individuals will allocate to reproduction, or even give up reproduction altogether and allocate more to survival. Only when things get better are there more chances to reproduce. For the dominant side, the absolute control of resources might lead to changes in reproduction and survival strategies. For many social animals, such as hyenas, lions and monkeys, if an individual ranks high in their communities then they will be given priority over controlling resources, or have priority over resources. But their social behaviors are fairly elastic with no solidification of class differentiation. Therefore, the status of monkey kings or lion kings needs to be maintained with high costs because they can be defeated by other stronger individuals at any time. Thus, in such a social group, the monkey kings and the lion kings have a trade-off between survival and reproduction. Some studies have found that high levels of fitness and low levels of fitness may be similar. Though there are more chances for the former to reproduce, the high-rank individuals have to spend more energy and physical strength defending their privileges, which may lead to early aging or death. A survey confirmed that African wild dogs of kingship are more likely to die or age prematurely due to the energy required to maintain their kingship. Whereas African wild dogs at low rank might live longer and have more chances to have a love affair stealthily, eventually there isn’t much of a difference between the junior and senior wild dogs in the number of offspring.8 For those social species where social identity is highly solidified and the chances of identity transformation among individuals are low, between high-level and low-level individuals, there may be a completely different balance on reproduction and survival. For instance, within the highly social insects of bees and ants, the labor division has been consolidated. There are chances that worker ants or bees transform into queen ants or king bees, but the chances are almost zero. And for some worker ants or soldier bees, they are completely irreversible and their identities are completely solidified. So there are less pressure to queen ants or king bees. With little pressure to survive and extremely abundant resources, they can not only prolong their lifespan but also increase their reproductive capability, the best tactics for them is to clone or live forever. The most ideal situation is that the queen does not breed and she will live forever, but because the worker ants will die, there will be no one to offer service, and finally there will be a shortage of resources. For the queen, the pressure of survival is relatively small and the resources are rich, so more females and less males are bred. The more humble he is, the more motivated he is to be the king of the universe, even if he is as humble as a worker ant. Oppressed by the superior ants, some worker ants are irreversibly transformed into solider ants, which completely lose the ability to reproduce, but cannot be reversed. In fact, the worker ants are also largely solidified, and their gonadal development are inhibited, but their body sex hormones are still secreted with the potential and motivation to reproduce. In spite of that, there are few chances for worker ants to reproduce. In a highly hierarchical society, worker ants are oppressed and invest less in reproduction, or even give up reproduction altogether and survive first. Obviously, it’s the advantageous strategy for woker ants 8

Creel et al. [7].

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when being oppressed. Why do worker ants still live laboriously? Indeed they are waiting for the chances after queen ants die because the older the individuals get, the greater the chance of transforming into queen ants or kings who are responsible for reproduction. Weaker individuals are opportunists, and the opportunist behavior that leads to the weak individual is exactly what the advantageous individual does.

The More Stable the Environment, the Less Attractive to the Opposite Sex It is obvious that in a favorable environment, individuals can quickly improve their fitness through prolongation of lifespan or clone asexual reproduction. I believe if environment is good enough to live forever, no one would like to adopt a kid. Likewise, one of the peculiar phenomena of our species is that the richer the countries or the families are, the fewer children they will have, the higher the chances of not having children will be. It is the same as other biological systems. Giant pandas enjoy living conditions like an emperor while being kept in captivity with the result that they don’t reproduce or even lose interest in it. Similarly, plants in a stable and richnutrition environment are prone to clone instead of sexual reproduction. As sexual reproduction becomes less meaningful, so does mating between the sexes. In that case, the significance of sexual attraction also decreases. The essential motive force of sexual reproduction is to reduce the entropy value inside the system, that is, to improve the genetic diversity of individual organisms or populations. In unstable conditions, sexual reproduction increases the entropy of a system thus increasing its genetic diversity so as to raise its capability to cope with change in environment. Obviously, the larger the differences among individuals are, the stronger driving force of gene or information fusion is, like the two bottles of fluid. The greater the difference in concentration, the greater the power of fusion between them. The higher the asymmetry between individuals or species (the greater difference) is, the more effective it is to reduce the entropy of the system through mating or gene exchange, such as interbreeding between male and female, plasmid transfer and gene penetration between protists such as viruses and other higherranking life forms. However in a stable environment, the driving force for responding to environmental change decreases, so does the drive for the entropy decline. In a stable environment, the dynamic response to environmental change decreases, and the dynamic response to entropy reduction decreases, too. In a more stable environment, the evolutionary dynamic will arise for the mating of symmetrical sex, which will effectively increase the fitness of individuals. Higher similarity—one of the more symmetrical features, is more likely to be selected for sex. Feminization of men and masculinization of women, which is also our tendency of aesthetic choice, has become the trend of evolution and selection in a stable society. Thus, we can clearly see evolutionary dynamics that the more symmetrical the species is, the more likely the system is to reach equilibrium and become dead. There

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is another force against the increase in entropy—namely the genes or information flow of the species. In the more symmetrical species, the genes or information flow are more easily to occur which cause the value of trophy decrease. Interspecific mating or plasmid transfer is more common and frequent in lower, more symmetrical protists or more symmetrical plants. For species with higher asymmetries, the incentive to reduce entropy is high if the living condition is unstable—this is because such species need internal diversity to adapt to the diversity of the environment, and the incentive to reduce entropy is also high. Due to the evolution of higher path dependence of asymmetric species, the path of entropy reduction through interspecific mating is cut off. For such species, entropy reduction is realized through individual differences within the organization, for example, there are huge differences between males and females in ants and bees. In a more stable environment, the system entropy reduction power that can improve individual fitness will be weakened, and the driving force of mating with more similar individual will improve spontaneously. Mating between different species brings the greatest effect of information or entropy reduction; Among individuals of the same species, the effect of entropy reduction was also greater among those with large differences between males and females. More similar pairs of males and females have a lower entropy reduction effect, while highly similar pairs of males have a lower entropy reduction effect. In nature, hermaphrodites are more common in animals such as mussels and nematodes, especially in plants, where same-sex mating occurs. The extreme case of similarity is self-identical, and its particular form of mating is self-fertilization, where the entropy reduction effect is zero. In fact, many plants, such as peas, rice, and animals like mussels and nematodes all have self-pollination. Similarly in a more stable human society, the number of samesex partners with high similarity is increasing. The occurrence of homosexuality and narcissism is a more adaptive behavior, and the reason behind this is that environmental stability leads to the decrease of entropy reduction. In a stable system, the incentive to cope with external risks decreases, while symmetrical mating increases reproduction efficiency or extends the life span. The incentive to improve efficiency induces individuals to prefer a more symmetrical same-sex mating or self-mating. A more symmetrical same-sex mating or self-mating makes little energy reduction, thus makes it easier to be evolved in a stable environment. Asymmetric and outbreeding systems can reduce the trophy value in a system with changeable environment, thus increase its capability to cope with changing circumstances and the survival ability of individuals. This is to say, the whole biological system will evolve from symmetric and inbred systems to asymmetric and out-breeding systems in the process of evolution. In a more stable environment, homosexuality and self-mating will be more flourished. But in a continuously stable environment, spontaneous mechanisms including same-sex mating and self-mating, will increase the entropy of the system which eventually leads to the collapse of system.

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Gene Exchange, Sexual Reproduction and Entropy Flow What puzzles evolutionary biologists as well as me is why animals takes great pains to sexual reproduction since parthenogenesis or vegetative propagation is perfectly feasible and has been shown to be more efficient at passing on genes. Although the pursuit of a boyfriend or girlfriend is indeed a pleasant thing for the young, such mutual pursuit between men and women has many visible and invisible costs in addition to roses, time and etc. For a male praying mantis, it takes long to pursue its girlfriend, and the male mantis could be devoured during sex, which is a high cost. The expense of sex is also reflected in the huge price paid for mating partners. Usually the reason behind a knight’s duel is to win a girl’s heart more than for the honor. It’s exactly the same with the hormone level of fight between two oxen or ram. Humans are more implicit—for the honor while the oxen fight are more explicit. The oxen takes whatever it takes in the face of a cow or ewe in estrus. Indeed many animals are crazy and irrational in such situations, and easily fall prey to nearby predators. Compared with humans, incidences of corruption and even wars also stem from the attraction of the opposite sex. From the prospective of evolution, sexual reproduction takes not only time and resources, but also brings huge risks, which is an uneconomical evolutionary strategy. Technically speaking, it’s possible for organisms to resort to parthenogenesis or clone, whatever animals, plants, let alone microbes. Aphids reproduce asexually when the conditions are favorable, rapidly expanding populations, and convert to sexual reproduction when conditions are less favorable. The efficiency of asexual breeding is much higher than sexual one. Of course, sexual reproduction has some unique advantages, otherwise it may be replaced by more efficient asexual reproduction. One of the widely acknowledged advantages of sexual reproduction is the exchange of genes. When a reproductive egg binds to a sperm, the chromosomes in the cell that carry the genetic information recombine. Chromosomes from the mother’s egg fuse with chromosomes from the father’s sperm, and genetic information is exchanged. Such an exchange brings more genetic information to the newborn individual. However, if the population is propagated by cloning, no matter how excellent the original mother is, the population will eventually degenerate and possibly become extinct. This is evident in plant breeding. For many plants, such as potato reproduction, our modern technology is perfectly capable of selecting the best-quality parent plants and then, through a culture of cells, rapidly producing a large number of high-quality seedlings. However, as any experienced potato company knows, this method of reproducing high-quality potato seedlings cannot be repeated indefinitely, as the quality of potato seedlings will rapidly deteriorate during cloning. A cloned species must achieve gene exchange in some way, otherwise it will degenerate due to single clones reproduce. This process is actually the process of entropy increase in the evolutionary process of species, which may lead to the collapse of the system due to entropy increase. In the process of cloning and reproduction, species will eventually lead to population extinction due to random drift of genetic information, that is, the system collapses. In addition to reducing entropy through

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information exchange within species through sexual reproduction, biological species also extensively exchange genetic information through plasmid transfer. In fact, in a large number of smaller organisms, many species maintain continuation of the population through asexual reproduction, but these species have a wide range of fusion phenomenon, which is actually similar to the sexual reproduction of eggs and sperm fusion. Similar cell fusions occur among different species. Many lower organisms reproduce asexually. However, information flow (entropy flow) can be realized through the horizontal transfer of genes. Thus, entropy reduction of the system can be realized, so can the information flow. For higher organisms, the entropy is reduced mainly through sexual reproduction. An organism taking a different path, similar to sexual reproduction, and reducing the rate of self-mating will have a higher rate of gene transfer (promoting gene flow between species). Selfmating organisms that fail to reduce their entropy through horizontal gene transfer might face system collapse and eventually disappear due to increased entropy. Virus infection and spread can also reduce the entropy of the system by promoting the exchange of genetic information among different species. Genetic information is at the core of life phenomena. As one kind of life form, the spread of viruses is the inheritance of their genetic information in essence. The virus itself can’t replicate or inherit genetic information, therefore they must attach to the host cell. When a virus enters a cell, it breaks down and releases nucleic acid molecules (DNA or RNA) that replicate and multiply inside the cell using cellular machinery. The carrier of viral genetic information can be either DNA or RNA. Regardless of the nucleic acid type, the replication, transcription and translation of the virus all depend on the host cell. In particular, some viruses can integrate their genome (genetic information) into the host cell for replication and inheritance. For example, the genome sequence of endogenous retroviruses accounts for about 8% of the entire human genome. In turn, many viruses can acquire genes from their hosts, making them have a stronger ability to survive. In addition, bacteria, as another life form, can also transmit genetic information through horizontal transfer and other ways to acquire drug resistance and enhance their survival adaptability. In these ways, genetic information is exchanged among species or different individuals of the same species, thus lowering the entropy value of species or individuals and promoting the sustainable survival of living systems. A great irony is that the convergence of humans and the policy of bullying and extermination of other “weaker” races have caused us to cease to have a reservoir of decreasing entropy. Historically, there have been many different races around the globe, and the coexistence of multiple human races has been the norm. But each time Homo sapiens arrived at a new site, the native human race was quickly wiped off the face of the earth either by fusion or substitution. Around 10,000 BC, there were thousands of human civilizations on earth. By 2000 BC, there were only a few hundred civilizations left. By the year 1450, the varieties of human civilizations had declined sharply, and the overwhelmingly majority of human beings were already closely linked, living in the “Asia-Africa world” consisting of Asia and Africa. The remaining 10% or so of the population can broadly be divided into four worlds of considerable size and complexity. Over the next 300 years, the vast Asia-Africa world annexed all the rest. In 1803, the British established the first colony on Tasmania,

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marking the absorption of last independent place into the Asian-African sphere of influence. Over the course of hundreds of years, the Asian-African world gradually “digested” all the regions it had swallowed up. Today, almost all human beings accept the same geopolitical, economic and legal system, and use the same scientific system. The economic monetary order, the political imperial order and the religious order make it possible for the world to realize a global family.9 The process of globalization leads to the rapid integration of different nations and races, which will reduce the differences of genetic information and completely realize the equalization. In the process of industrialization, or late agrarian period, the advantaged ethnic groups or nations had invaded, deprived, even killed ethnic minorities, which caused the sharp decline of diversity of genetic information within humans. The number of vanished races or ethnic groups may be much higher than that of our existing races or ethnic groups. With the advancement of human medical technology, we now have the power to counter the possibility of virus integrating with human genes. Besides, the abuse of antibiotics and the simplification of food will further reduce the possibility of gene transferring between intestinal microorganisms and hosts through the intestines. The entropy of human society will increase spontaneously while the restraining force of lowering entropy is being weakened by human beings themselves. If humans are doomed to die, it means we have lost the driving force of entropy decrease, which lies in the progress that human made including advancement of technology and culture, and the competitive advantage of us existing species.

Symmetry and Entropy If there is no external information exchange, namely entropy flow, a more symmetrical species will be more likely to cause the population system to reach equilibrium due to entropy increase, thus entering a dead state. A more symmetrical of biological species, and its genetic expression or other functional path dependence is lower, so genes between interdependence of organs is weak. They can play their function all by themselves, that is to say, the expression of genes and the function of organs depend less on the expression of genes or the function of organs by themselves. In a more symmetric system, increases of entropy happen more easily. Entropy increases with time, but these more symmetrical species have evolved a mechanism for going against the increase of entropy, which makes it easier to have entropy flow with the outside world or other species, or we say more information exchange. In terms of the physical structure, the standard spherical structure is completely symmetrical (radial symmetry). One-celled organisms are thus more symmetrical in their physical structure, which can quickly exchange information or energy with other substances efficiently. Also, plasmid transfer easily occurs between different kinds of cells or

9

Harari [8].

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cells of the same kind, or even two cells directly fusing into one cell. These mechanisms increase the information exchange between cells and the outside world. After evolution to a higher organism, its symmetry is gradually broken and its asymmetry increases. For most higher plants and animals, plants are more radially symmetrical, so most plants are more prone to interspecific hybridization. For evolution, its essence is a process of symmetry breaking or asymmetry increasing. In the process of increasing asymmetry, due to the problem of path dependence in evolution, the more asymmetric the system or species is, the more difficult it is to generate entropy flow with early differentiated species or systems. In other words, the higher the asymmetry is, the more difficult it is for interspecific mating, and the more likely it is for intraspecific or related species to mate. Similarly, the probability of interspecific communication through virus and plasmid transfer will decrease with the increase of asymmetry. But driven by the environmental fluctuations, species or systems with high degree of asymmetry have a higher need for diversity, which is also the driving force of trophy decrease in species or systems so as to accelerate gene exchange between species and systems. It is also one of the strategies of trophy decrease to increase its gene exchange by enhancing the heterogeneity among individuals, plasmid transfer or information exchange through viruses and microorganisms. The paper published in Science by Professor Wen Wang, who studies the origin of new genes and genomics in my department, provides compelling evidence for this point. After making entire genome sequencing of all the existing ruminants, Professor Wang has found a great deal of gene exchange in ruminants, as we know that higher animals such as cattle and sheep are incapable of species hybrid. That is to say, the offspring will be sterile even if the hybridization is controlled artificially. For instance, after a donkey is hybridized with a horse, the mule is incapable of reproduction. It is still unclear how these ruminants achieve such wide genetic exchange, though, the path of trophy decrease through the intraspecies gene flow does exist. As above mentioned, the gene or information flow carried by plasmid transfer through viruses or microorganisms may be responsible for the flow of genes in these higher mammals. For a species with more asymmetric physical structure (only in appearance), the functional expression of genes and organs has a stronger path dependence. Different gene or organ functional expression sequences may lead to completely different behaviors, individual characteristics, and even different species. The population characteristics of the individuals also had a similar effect. Such path-dependent expression will reduce competition among genes, organs and individuals, thus improving overall efficiency. Due to its strong path dependence, the probability of gene exchange between different species decreases and the difference between species increases. Similarly, the phenotypic behavior or even the expression of genetic genes of individuals within the same species are pathologically dependent, and the differences between individuals will therefore be greater, such as the differences between males and females, and the differences between individuals of different classes or divisions of labor may also be increased. The greater the difference between individuals within the species, the greater the difference between genes or information, the greater the

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entropy flow or information flow between individuals within the population is prone to occur. In some way, evolution is a process of symmetry breaking in essence. The spontaneous process of life is entropy increase, which leads to equilibrium and symmetry. In a perfectly balanced symmetrical condition, the system collapses and life dies. The evolutionary dynamics of life is the process of symmetry breaking and entropy reduction. The higher the asymmetry of the species or individual is, the stronger the path dependence of the evolution in genetic and behavioral expression is and the higher the relative efficiency is. The evolutionary process of life is actually the result of a game between the two kinds of interactions.

Who is He? Who is She? It’s a Complex of Man and Woman Penis and spermatozoa are male symbols; The egg, the organ that produces it, and the creatures that has the egg, are female. In both sexes the organs are formed solely for sexual function; They are likely to develop from the same “inner” tendencies into different forms. In addition, other organs, body shapes, and tissues show individual differences; But this is not permanent and fixed, but there are many variations. These are the second sex we know. Science will still tell you the opposite of what you expect, and all this will probably mess up your feelings. He draws your attention to the fact that parts of the male sex organs also appear in the female body, albeit in a shrunken state; and vice versa. This means that they appear as an “intersex” phenomenon, as if a person is not all male or female, but both sexes—only in one sex more than the other. You would then ask yourself to be clear about the idea that there is a very large fluctuation in the mixture of male and female elements in an individual.10 —Freud

Life begins when a sperm fuses with an egg, and two separate cells merge together to form a new individual. It’s like a couple forming a family, two individuals once again forming a new organic unit. A fertilized egg has the same evolutionary dynamics as the formation of a family, and the difference lies in the degree of closeness between individual units. The sperm and egg cell in the fertilized egg are integrated into each other while the integration of men and women in the family keeps the independence of individuals. But there are also new families in nature, which are similar to the combination of male and female in which sperm and egg are completely embedded. The angler fish living in the deep sea live in such mechanism. The male angler, in simple terms, are parasites of female ones. When he finds his partner, he bites her belly and sticks until the two fish become one. While biting, his lips will start to melt. Then, his internal organs will also start melting and fuse into the female’s body. Eventually, his entire body will fuse into hers. The only thing that will remain is a pair of gonads which the female can later use to impregnate herself. The female angler, however, defies this notion and can fuse with multiple males. The mechanism of completely embedded combination between male and female is virtually the same as the combination of a sperm and an egg. 10

Freud [9].

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Just as a man and a woman form a new family, sperm and egg form a new fertilized egg. No matter in the cell stage, the development process of the fertilized egg, or the stage of an independent individual, the two parts of sperm representing male characteristics and egg representing female characteristics still maintain their independence as the man and woman in the family. It’s just that the proportion of “male” and “female” in fertilized egg cells, infants and adults is different. In the process of fusion, the sperm and egg are actually fighting at the same time—leading to the sperm and egg to determine their dominance by means of a struggle. The process is actually sometimes brutal, and the outcome can lead to the failure of integration—the failure of pregnancy. In the process of infant development, “male” and “female” cooperate to grow into a normal individual, but they also struggle for their own interests at the same time. “Male” and “female” both fight for the domination, which is characterized by their gonadal development and the balance between male and female hormone secrets. If female hormones occupy an advantageous position in the regulation of hormone and sexual development, the individual will grow into a typical female with a well-developed female sex organs and obvious female temperament, and vice versa. However, if the secretion of both hormones is not controlled well, the “male” hormones and “female” hormones are in a balance of more symmetry, then both sexes will be expressed in equal amounts and the “male” and “female” in the body will have a violent confrontation. There are medical cases in which certain female individuals also have male sexual organs, such as well-developed penises and testicles. Likewise, some men have well-developed breasts, similar to women’s, and are more feminine in temperament. Through the man-made regulation of hormones, humans can make young boys completely feminine, typified by “Shemale.” Men and women are like a U-shaped continuum. When female hormones are dominant, they tend to be feminine while male hormones are dominant, they tend to be masculine. If the hormone asymmetry is expressed, the gender characteristics are evident and the drive for entropy flow of gender is greater. Correspondingly, the attraction between the sexes increases, and also the tendency of sexual intercourse enhances. If the hormones are symmetrically expressed, the confrontation will become more serious, the drive for entropy flow will decrease, the attraction of fusion between both sexes will reduce, the individual are more likely not to have interest in opposite sex, such as animals like mussels and butterflies. Hermaphrodites are common in plants. The asymmetric expression of male and female sexual functions is influenced genetically and externally. In a more stable condition, the system will spontaneously evolve into symmetry. More neutral or even intersexual people will increase in frequency considerably. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, asymmetry is good for cooperating and maintaining stability of the social system, but extreme asymmetry will lead to mutations and loss of innovation, even the collapse of the system. The same is true for the expression of both sexes within the individual. Asymmetric expression is beneficial for the female and male to improve their personalities, temperament and physical and mental development, but over-high expression of asymmetry will also cause diseases or abnormal development of the organisms.

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References 1. Freud (2009) Introductory lectures on Psychoa (Luo S, Trans.). BaiHuaZhou Publishing House 2. Nietzsche FW (2016) On the genealogy of morality (Zhao Q-F, Trans.). China Commerce and Trade Press 3. Nietzsche FW (2007) Thus Spake Zarathustra (Huang M-J, Trans.). Lijiang Publishing House 4. Durkheim É (1988) Suicide: a study in sociology (Zhong X-H, Trans.). Zhengjiang Renmin Press 5. Nietzsche FW (2016) Dionysos-Dithyramben (Sun Z-X, Trans.). China Commerce and Trade Press 6. Rajneesh O (1996) The wisdom of the sands (Lin G-Y, Trans.). Xuelin Publishing House 7. Creel S, Creel NM, Monfort SL (1996) Social stress and dominance. Nature 379:212 8. Harari YN (2011) Sapiens: a brief history of human (Lin J-H, Trans.). China Citic Press 9. Freud S (2009) Introduction to psychoanalysis, new theory (in Chinese). Baihuazhou Literature and Art Press

Chapter 5

Cooperation and Slavery—Free Competition to Social Division of Labor

Now, instead of looking at the totalitarian states like Germany, Italy or Russia as separate worlds, they are in fact the result of our shared liberalism. … The characteristics of the history of these countries in the years before the rising of totalitarianism are not very different from those of our liberal system. The external conflict is the result of a shift in thinking in these European countries…1 —Hayek This is the secret of the soul: it is only when the hero leaves the soul that a superhero approaches the soul in a dream.2 —Nietzsche

Completely Free Competition—The Road to Slavery Imagine in a completely free competition group, without a doubt, individual competition ability does exist difference. Genetic endowment varies from person to person. Some individuals have more physical advantages than others, while others have more intellectual advantages. Some individuals are better at smelling and others are better at hearing. Of course, many individuals’ genetic endowments also have natural competitive disadvantages, and many individuals even have congenital physical defects and lack of competitive ability. This is the difference in physical function, physiological process and other aspects, while the competitive ability also strongly depends on the individual’s social attributes and natural opportunities. A bee egg, if it happens to be placed in a king’s nest by a worker bee, will develop into a queen because of the different nutrients the larvae takes in, while her siblings will develop into worker bees because they feed on pollen instead of royal jelly. There is no genetic difference between worker bees and queen bees. Similarly, children born into royal families are more likely to inherit more heritage, and correspondingly, are more likely to become high social classes and the leaders of the society after receiving good education and 1 2

Written by Hayek [1]. Written by Nietzsche [2].

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training from an early age. However, children born into civilians or poor families have difficulty in receiving good education and training from an early age, and are more likely to become laborers at the bottom of the society. Among other higher animals, family background also strongly influences an individual’s future competitiveness. In the hyena group with strict hierarchical relationship, the queen’s daughter received more care, including priority of feeding and more group protection when threatened by foreign enemies. The queen’s daughters had a significantly higher chance of inheriting the queen in the future contests for the throne than the offspring of other individuals. This is similar with the human feudal monarchy succession system. Clearly, we cannot define an individual’s competitive ability solely on the basis of genetic qualities. Just like our individual human beings, a person’s ability to succeed in competition is not only determined by his own excellent qualities, but also determined by other factors, such as opportunity, background and so on. The improvement of individual competitive ability not only depends on its own quality, resource possession ability and opportunities, but also strongly depends on the competitiveness of its group and its own social relations. Sub-adult male lions usually hunt together in groups before they take over the throne. The probability of success obviously depends on the size of the partner’s ability and the number of individual partners. So there is a trade-off between population size and food distribution. The larger the group, the more successful the hunt, but the less food was distributed evenly. As a result, bigger isn’t always better in a group. If food can be easily obtained, it can also easily cope with other selective pressures from the outside world, such as predation and etc., then living alone is clearly a superior selection strategy. The greater the external selection pressure, the greater the need for a larger group to cope with. The larger the group, the greater the selection advantage. The different size of the prey, the size of the pride, is a good indication of this form of strategy. For example, the number of individual lions with wildebeest as the main prey was significantly lower, while the number of individual lions with bison as the main prey was significantly higher. For lions, living alone may be a better strategy if the pressure of predation or competition between groups is not too great and they can easily obtain food and protect their territory. In fact, cheetahs living in the same area, which mainly prey on smaller animals—gazelles, are more likely to hunt alone, thus they choose to live alone rather than in groups like lions. In the case of sub-adult male lions, it is clear how they form a cooperative alliance to cope with predation pressure and group competition. When these sub-adult male lions are driven out of the original pride after the leader of the group has been replaced, they are not yet able to hunt large prey on their own, and can only hunt small animals, or even survive on decaying food. In the course of wandering, they will gradually become acquainted with other wandering individuals, gradually hunt together, and form a solid alliance. When they reach adulthood, the predation alliance does not break up. Instead, it works together to rob other male lions of their territories and their wives. This alliance does not disintegrate when they acquire territory and a pride of females, but instead collaborates to protect their territory from other males.

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Similar mechanisms also exist in the human social cooperative alliance. In a free competitive society, if one person unites others into a cooperative alliance, they will not only improve their own competitiveness but also gain an advantage in the competition with other individuals. Obviously, this behavior will be learned and replicated by other individuals. In this way, there will be competition between different coalitions. If the group is more likely to win when it competes with other groups, the arms race effect of inter-group competition will lead to the larger groups. However, the larger the group, the lower the average amount of competitive resources allocated to the individuals. So there will be such a delicate balance between the size of the group and the average benefit of the individual. Within a population, there are differences in competitiveness among individuals. This difference will lead to the evolution of hierarchical differences within the system. The greater the competition among groups, the greater the benefits of cooperation among individuals within the groups, and the degree of reciprocity is increased by external competition. The cost of group competition failure is also collective, and failure will lead to the reduction of individual benefits of the group. Because of the asymmetry of information, the punishment from the winner of the competition to the loser of the group is also collective. The failure of group competition also differs for individuals within the group. For superior individuals, the relative loss caused by group failure is also higher than that of inferior individuals. The higher their status is, the higher their relative loss is. Therefore, superior individuals within a group have higher motivation to maintain the stability of their cooperative relationship than inferior individuals, so as to improve the competitiveness among groups and obtain higher benefits. For the mutual relationship between individuals within the group, the higher the degree of reciprocity, the higher the probability of mutual cooperation, accordingly, the lower the probability of betrayal. In such a case, the credibility of the superior individual’s punishment for betrayer or speculator will also be increased. The credibility of such punishment also depends on the ability of individuals within the group to diffuse or the cost of withdrawing from the group. Obviously, the more difficult it is for individuals within a group to spread out, or the higher the exit cost is, the more credible the speculation and betrayal punishment of superior individuals against inferior individuals will be. The superior party directly or indirectly improves the efficiency of cooperation within the group by punishing the speculation and betrayal of the inferior party. The asymmetrical hierarchical nature of the system and the competitiveness between groups thus form an arms race. The greater the competition between individuals, the higher the possibility of forming group alliance, which will also lead to the increase of competition between groups. The greater the competition between groups, the more rigid the hierarchy within groups, and the higher the efficiency of intra-group cooperation. The evolutionary history of the emergence of extreme dictatorships in human society is similar to the hierarchical evolution of the cooperative system in biological society. Before World War I and World War II, global overcapacity led to intensified competition among countries. And it is even more important for each country to build strength within itself against external competition. Therefore, more autocratic

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politics had appeared in Germany, Spain and Italy in succession. Besides, in the process of game step by step, the United Kingdom led by Churchill and the United States by Roosevelt, as well as other countries with relatively liberal traditions, also follow the footsteps of dictatorship of Hitler and Stalin.3 During the World War II and for a long time after that, countries around the world were evolving in a more authoritarian direction to some extent. This more centralized politics, or we can say asymmetrical politics facilitates the consolidation of state forces in response to more intense external competition. In the field of thought, the government regulators group represented by Keynes occupied the absolute upper hand. Due to the huge consumption of the World War II, the problem of overcapacity was alleviated, and competition between countries was relatively reduced after that. The trend of international politics also began to change gradually, and the autocratic politics gradually turned to the liberal politics. Liberalism, which was represented by Hayek’s thought, began to become the mainstream. In European and American countries, relatively liberal politicians gradually hold power in each country from the 1960s. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, China, which had a tradition of centralism for thousands of years, also stepped into a more liberal and democratic historical period. In a society of completely free competition, the intensification of competition will lead to an arms race among competing groups. If the arms race is not curbed, the differences in the competitive ability of these groups will eventually emerge, with the character of clear strength or weakness. In the end, a pattern of strength and weakness will be formed, and even the weak groups will lose its group characteristics completely and join the large groups as individuals. In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, China was an almost completely free competition society. However, it was its completely free competition that led to the evolution of the state towards dictatorship and monopoly in the late age of this period. Around the world, there is a similar situation. Competition among nations, just like the gangdom, has no strong legal and arbitration institutions to restrict such free competition. When the spatial or geographical barriers disappear with the progress of science and technology, the world will be unified by one country or group.4 Absolute freedom will inevitably lead to absolute competition, while competition will inevitably lead to intra-group cooperation to gain competitive advantage. Moreover, centralization and dictatorship can effectively improve the cooperation efficiency of groups and thus enhance the competitiveness among groups. In order to survive, individuals in the group will voluntarily give up their own development opportunities, and even reproductive rights, so as to choose to cooperate with superior individuals until they are completely enslaved. In a highly cooperative social system, resources will be monopolized and hierarchical differences will be gradually solidified. In human society, culture, system, order, morality and even religion play the role of consolidating and strengthening

3 4

Written by Hayek [3]. Schelling [4].

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such monopolistic or hierarchical social order, so that the hierarchical difference between individuals in the society will be further strengthened. The solidification of behavior by hierarchy, which is in fact the division of labor in social behavior, will lead to the unitary of individual behavior at all levels that will improve the efficiency of individual behavior. As in a factory, the greater the division of labor among groups, the higher the overall efficiency of the company and the individual’s own earnings. Human social system, due to the reduction of communication barriers among individuals, groups or countries, the division of labor is no longer between individuals in the group, but in the whole human society. This kind of division between the various industries has improved the efficiency of the whole society dramatically and the competitive capability of human beings explosively, which achieve the unique superpower on earth living system. In insect systems, for instance, ants and bees, the social division of labor is more refined and solidified. Some worker bees just collect water, while honey gathering and pollen gathering are undertaken by different individuals. Even reproduction and labor are divided, as queen is responsible for reproduction only, while labor can only be done by worker bees. This division of labor improves the population growth ability among bees. However, in the social system of ants, bees and other animals, the division of labor can only take place in the same population, but not among different ants and bees population, because resource exchange cannot take place among different population. Therefore, its division of labor is much lower than that of human society in terms of improving its social efficiency.

Human Genetic Modification and Human Super Organism The evolutionary history of human beings is the process of the continuous expansion of their living groups, which directly promotes the social division of labor, while the latter promotes the improvement of efficiency, which is the most critical driving force for the progress and development of human society or the successful expansion of the population of human species. In the process of globalization, the human species will eventually evolve into a group, and the division of labor among individuals within the group will reach the highest form. The whole human population will be like a super organism, and it is difficult to live independently without other individuals or groups. It was a slow process, but humanity has been plodding along this path since its birth, and its pace began to accelerate after the Industrial Revolution. In the early stage of human society, the division of labor is actually the direct expansion of groups or clans, which leads to the differentiation of individual control over resources and realizes the basic division of labor in the society. Generally, individuals with higher status control more resources. With the formation of tribes and primitive states, the aristocracy or social ruling class in the society control the main resources of the whole society, and then they regulate social values, morals, laws, education and so on, further consolidating their social division of labor and hierarchy. This is a slow and partially reversible process. For the ruling class, in order

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to make different class voluntarily accept such hierarchy, they don’t only lie that the emperor was a son of Heaven, but also implant social etiquette and moral norm in people’s minds through the powerful political strength of the state. The typical moral norm of Confucianism, “the monarch treats the official with courtesy, the official serves the monarch with loyalty”, is a model of this kind of moralization of social hierarchy. With the intensification of social division of labor, the relative inequality among human individuals also intensifies, which in turn further intensifies the social division of labor. During the agrarian era, an individual might perform multiple roles simultaneously throughout his or her life. For example, a farmer can farm, breed, repair tools, and of course take a role of family chef, who in addition to cook, also needs to grind flour, thresh grain, butcher pigs and chickens. In the era of high industrialization, finding such a versatile farmer is almost harder than finding a panda, especially in developed countries. Under the banner of freedom and democratic morality, capitalists, with the help of state power, turn relatively free farmers and anarchists, (that means families and tribes free from government jurisdiction) into proletarians. The state and capitalists directly manage individuals without the need for families and tribes to speak for them. Under the dual power of capital and the state, the proletarians lose the ability to survive independently and take the initiative to enter enterprises with more detailed division of labor. They may only engage in a single skill all their life, such as automobile polishing, pastry making, or scientific experiment and thinking. Once leaving these enterprises or their unique communities, there are few people who could survive in the wilderness as Robinson did, whereas in primitive gathering society or farming society, everyone can live alone in the wilderness. The intensification of division of labor is accelerated rapidly with the progress of science and technology mastered by human beings. In the early days of capitalism, the process of direct control of individuals by capital and the state was to integrate tribes, families, and individual members of families into a larger unit directly—an enterprise or a state. However, in the era of globalization, capital and state directly integrate individuals into a large unit of the whole human population, and the division of labor occurs in the whole process of globalization. The United States and Japan are responsible for high-tech innovation, China and India for production, Africa for the production of agricultural products, Switzerland for fund management, Maldives and Thailand for leisure and entertainment services. Every country and individual enjoys the simple and comfortable life brought by the social division of labor, while morality elevates such a fine division of labor into professional spirit, which everyone enjoys. It is in this context of globalization and division of labor that social efficiency has been rapidly improved, and the entire human society can invest more wealth and manpower in scientific and technological innovation activities. Advances in technology have not only improved our material lives, but also allowed us to reach the moon and Mars where inhabited by immortals and we cannot reach before. Advances in biotechnology have the potential to transform ourselves into omnipotent gods or demons. Since Dolly was born, it has become technically possible to remold or even create an individual of human being through biotechnology. Jian-Kui He, of Southern

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University of Science and Technology in China, succeeded in implanting an edited embryo into a woman and using genome editing to cut off the genetic pathway of HIV infection in cells, as a result, the woman gave birth to two baby girls. It is under the moral banner of individual medical assistance that the prelude to human self-transformation begins. It is clear that we can overcome certain diseases through genetic modification, and in the same way, we can completely modify our offspring according to our wishes. For example, if we need a superior intelligent man, we can modify certain genes that affect intelligence. Or if we need someone with unique physical skills, we can also modify our genes in the same way. Such human-directed modification may not be widely used under the influence of religion, morality and tradition, but it is possible to develop underground, which may be more profitable than underground money laundering and drug trafficking. When such genetic modification becomes widely accepted, it will be fashionable for us to achieve a more elaborate division of labor through genetic modification. Human societies will see that, like ant societies, some individuals who feed the larvae but do not clean up, and some individuals just clean up, not reproduce or defend. Accelerating the division of labor through genetic modification sounds cruel and callous. Yet the cruel, unforgiving side of humanity has been perfectly preserved over the course of evolution. Cannibalism was the norm in primitive societies, and it still remained in some nations until modern times. It has been taken for granted since ancient times that parents to remodel their children in the hope of higher benefits. In ancient China, parents could castrate their sons and send them to the imperial palace as eunuchs, which was considered honorable by many families. Poor families, even some high-ranking people vied with each other to send their daughters to the imperial palace as maids. Despite the faint hope of being favored by the emperor, in fact, it was almost as difficult to enjoy a perfect life as a eunuch. This is actually an extreme form of division of labor planned by parents. However, much of the behavior in modern society are encouraged by us and regarded as the life of individual free choice, just without dissection, which has no difference from the extreme division of labor in nature. In our modern society, no one thinks that ladyboys and sumo wrestlers are strange, nor does anyone see Buddhists or monks as outcast of society. We even admire those artists and scientists who give up getting married and having a family for the sake of art or science. However, genetic modification brings unique technology, survival skills, as well as popularity and respect in some special fields, which attaches more importance to immediate interests rather than future interests of human beings. What is the reason for human beings not welcome such technological progress? When genetic modification is widely accepted, those who oppose it will be seen as traditional guardians, and it will be possible that the first person to do so will win the Nobel Prize. Through the acceleration of genetic modification, our social division of labor will accelerate rapidly, and society will be more tightly controlled by the elite groups. Any individual will be unable to survive independently without its group, and the whole human group will evolve into a super organism, just like a single cell in the human body. In the end, we will lose ourselves, create a society and ultimately forfeit humankind.

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Just like human social activities, the improvement of efficiency caused by division of labor is a double-edged sword. The refinement and solidification of division of labor also leads to the singleness of individual behavior in the human social cooperation system, which may reduce the individual’s ability to survive alone. For a living system, the refinement and solidification of the division of labor at all levels in the system will reduce the diversity of individual behaviors, which in turn will lead to the reduction of genetic diversity. A reduction in behavioral and genetic diversity will inevitably lead to a reduction in the adaptability of individuals or species to changing environmental conditions, thus increasing the risk of extinction of the species. It may be questioned that excessive social division of labor will lead to the local extinction of species or populations. It is easy for biologists to point out the opposite example: diptera termites, hymenoptera ants, bees and other social insects have a high degree of social division of labor, but they also have a long evolutionary history. And their species are very competitive, making them one of the most competitive species in the current ecosystem. After so many environmental changes and upheavals in history, why can these species still exist? Two mechanisms might explain it: (1) Insects belong to the species with relatively early origin in the evolutionary history, and the degree of genetic or behavioral specialization is not very high, so the plasticity is relatively large in these two aspects. Even if a specialized highly social species becomes extinct in the course of environmental change, other species can rapidly evolve a similar species to fill the niche. (2) Insects with high sociality improve the competition ability and growth ability of the population because of division of labor, specialization and curing behavior, which are relatively easier to spread to different geographical space. It is easy for other populations to substitute the extinction of an excessively socialized local population, so from the global perspective, these highly social insect species are also stable.

Globalization: Evolution of Super Organism and Redundant Population In the traditional agricultural and industrial era, the cooperative relationship between people was mainly limited to relatively small unit systems such as tribes, nations and companies in specific regions, and the direct cooperative relationship was higher than the indirect cooperative relationship. However, the essence of the current globalization process is to extend the cooperative relationship to the whole human beings, and finally evolve into a super cooperative organization. In the process of this super cooperative organization, the global division of labor is intensifying and the efficiency is also further improved. As we have discussed above, with the intensification of social division of labor and the improvement of the degree of cooperation, the asymmetric hierarchical order is also intensifying, thus the imbalance of resource allocation will be further expanded. This is definitely not just a theoretical prediction, but the distribution of wealth in societies has actually provided strong evidence for

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this kind of understanding. If we compare the gap between rich and poor and the Gini index within a country, at the same time, we compare the proportion of each country in the global wealth, the result is quite obvious that with the acceleration of globalization, the distribution of wealth, no matter within countries or between countries, is more uneven, that is to say, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. The process of globalization has generally improved the productivity of the society and increased the total wealth of the society. But it also intensifies the control of some “social elites” over the whole society. The concentration of wealth and the improvement of efficiency have greatly increased the surplus personnel in the society, and the “redundant personnel” in the human society, which means these people do not work at all, will increase sharply accordingly. “Redundant personnel” are also abounding in other highly social insects or mammals. In social groups of ants and termites, up to 80% of individuals are sometimes inactive. In a large group of lions or monkeys, it is common to see some elderly, weak, sick and disabled individuals. In a non-social group, especially when resources are under strain, it is almost impossible for such “redundant individuals” to survive. For human society, the process of globalization leads to the social division of labor finer and the degree of asymmetry increased, thus the distribution of wealth is more and more unequal. The “elite group” with monopoly power is thus better able to feed more “redundant personnel” cheaply. Due to the progress of science and technology as well as the continuous breakthrough of taboos and ethical bottom line, the living cost for individual human beings is constantly decreasing, and even human beings can be created through industrialized production. In developed countries, the state or the capitalists can provide food and basic living materials to the poor people for free, and the people who receive food can live a convenient life to get enough calories. Even they don’t need to heat food by themselves, as for the food itself, as long as it tastes good enough, there is no concern at all about its composition or nutrition. We are domesticated by the taste of cheap food from infancy, including tasteless milk, factory-raised chickens, ducks, pigs, cows and so on. Our food has also been processed with enough technology to satisfy the vanity of human stomachs, even the completely forbidden material just like horse meat, sick chicken, bark and bone can be made as palatable food, and these can make ordinary people feel as comfortable as gods. Simple and cheap food, like opium, will induce the social elite to produce more food and cultivate more subjects who are strongly dependent on them, and it will also numb the nerves of the common people, enjoying the food that has never been compared, and enjoying the unearned easy life like a queen. Think it over, how different is this from the pigs, cattle and chickens that we raise today? The common people are being enslaved, but our common people are “enjoying” the servitude of this social cooperation. This kind of behavior, which is similar to factory production, has greatly reduced the cost of labor production, which in turn further increases the proportion of “redundant population”. Nor is this large proportion of “redundant population” as “useless” as it seems. On the one hand, when the group suffers a severe environmental disaster or foreign invasion, at this time the society needs a large number of new personnel to

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supplement, and these “redundant personnel” play a key role to maintain the sustainable system. It acts the role like the military, in peacetime, the country keeps a large number of “useless” military personnel. But when it comes to war, these useless troops are the key power to guarantee the security of nation. On the other hand, these people is ready to deliver talent or genes to the elite group. As we mentioned above, the more successful the class, the more conservative and inert the individual is, while the lower the class, the more diverse the behavior is and the greater the ability to innovate. As the “elite groups” age or decay, the few “mutated” individuals who are kept in the civilian class will enter the elite class and supply fresh blood or management methods or new ideas to the elite class. Just as the old Chinese saying goes, the duck knows first when the river becomes warm in spring. Ordinary people and small and medium-sized enterprises are the first to feel the changes brought about by the process of globalization. As a result of globalization, the monopoly of large enterprises is enhanced, the market opportunities for individual entrepreneurs or small enterprises are sharply reduced, and the distribution gap of global social wealth increases. It is not uncommon to see reports in the media that Indian or Swedish farmers, small business owners and other ordinary people parade through the streets or protesting against globalization before a meeting of heads of government. No matter you are in industrializing countries such as India and China, or in the post-industrial highly developed countries such as America and Britain, you will find that the traditional craft industry, small farmers and processing enterprises are in a sharp contraction or even disappear eventually in rural areas or small towns, and even family cooking, yard vegetable in daily life in China rural areas are gradually out of people’s sight. Instead of working at sunrise and returning home at sunset, rural China is more likely to see people have nothing to do, chatting on the side of the road or just playing mahjong or poker. Globalization leads to the homogenization of people’s behaviors and needs around the world, thus reducing the differentiated needs of the general public. The way in which large companies or multinationals increase efficiency and reduce costs will eventually kill off small local firms. The globalization of human beings leads to the homogenization of the whole human beings, and individuals, groups and nations are more closely connected and interdependent with each other. A potentially fatal drawback of such a homogeneous super-population is that it is less able to resist disturbances from the external world or the environment, and even some small events or disturbances may lead to drastic fluctuations or even extinction of the entire human population. In the process of homogenization, some genetic genes of human beings will be lost, and some unique genetic information of small populations will also be lost in the process of blending into large populations. These unique traits, including even “harmful” genes, may be beneficial, or even the Noah’s Ark that saved humanity in some special circumstances. In particular, when humans consciously modify their own genes, a large number of “harmful” genes will be screened out. And environmental change, the homogenization of the entire human population may not be immune to this kind of environmental change. Or the environment mutates some kind of super virus, which may infect the whole homogenized human beings and then lead to the extinction of human population.

References

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References 1. 2. 3. 4.

Hayek (1997) The road to slavery (Wang M-Y, Feng X-Y, Trans.). China Social Sciences Press Nietzsche F (2007) So said Zarathustra (Huang J-M, Trans.). Li Jiang Press Hayek (1997) The road to serfdom (Wang M-Y, Feng X-Y, Trans.). China Social Sciences Press Schelling TC (1960) The strategy of conflict. Harvard University Press

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Chapter 6

The Significance of Our Survival

The theory of explanation that most economics take for granted is the one that can be traced back to a common belief that the famous seventeenth-century physicist Isaac Newton was undoubtedly successful in explaining the mechanics of the Solar System. Newton’s explanation was that the Solar System is in a mechanical equilibrium, one that is completely and rationally determined. Accordingly, if we know all the facts, then given the laws of mechanics, we could determine all the particular aspects of the state of equilibrium (position, velocity, etc.) by means of ordinary rational argument. The philosophical impact of his alleged success was that it led economicts to believe that all economic phenomena could be explained relative to an ultimate and unavoidable state of equilibrium (a balance of forces) by explaining each variable’s role in the maintenance of that equilibrium. …For the late nineteenth century physicists, the failure of Newton’s explainatory method presented a serious dilemma. …Not until the early twentieth century did physicists recognize that there is another ‘rational’ response which would allow for an alterative to Newton’s mechanics. One vedsion of the new alternative allows us to give explanations by accepting the concept of what might be called ‘natural probability’ in place of ‘natural causes’ or ‘forces’.1 —Lawrence A. Boland

Survival Value: The Limitation of the Definition of Fitness What is the significance for a living individual to survive? This is a question that life scientists and sociologists are striving for. People engaged in classical economics can give a clear answer: the purpose of people’s all activities is to maximize the interests, even as simple as the pursuit of wealth/profit. It is true that such a simplistic concept can help us understand a lot of human social and economic activities, but it cannot make us understand the whole human activities. The concept of maximization of interests is difficult to explain human reproduction and care for the elderly, religious behavior, and terrorism.

1

Boland [1].

© Science Press 2023 R. Wang, The End of Rationality and Selfishness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9752-5_6

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Biologists have come up with a more effective concept—fitness. They believe that there are two aspects to any individual’s pursuit: one is the time of surviving, the other is to reproduce more offspring. There is a game between the two. The more you reproduce, the shorter an individual’s life is likely to be, and vice versa. Individual fitness is to pursue the maximization of the sum of interests from the two aspects. Biological fitness is a more effective concept than economic benefits. Some species or individuals can give birth to or protect their offspring at the expense of some current interests or even life lost behaviors. In the same way, an individual organism can prolong its own life by reducing reproduction, and the increase of their total fitness can improve their individual fitness. The concept of fitness at first sounds like a perfect one, but if we think about it carefully, it still has some phenomena which are difficult to explain. In a highly social ant/bee system, the life of the queens can be more than ten years or even decades, and they almost monopolize the right to reproduce, while workers have a relatively short life, usually a few months or a year. The obvious paradox is that the fitness of the queens is significantly greater than the workers. The same is true in an ecosystem. Generally, the reproduction rate of the superior species is high if they occupy a favorable position in the whole ecosystem. Compared with most species, if the population distribution density is very low, the reproduction rate of them is relatively low. Those species with extremely low distribution frequencies, which are called redundant species by ecologists, are still unclear about their ecological functions. This is hard to explain in terms of the balance between reproduction and longevity. Altruism in nature and human society can better illustrate the defects of the concept of fitness. In the social system of our human beings, the act of sacrificing oneself to save others exists in any nation. A good example of this is that in war, death squads are also volunteers whose act of treating death unflinchingly at a critical moment. In biological system, the workers of ants and bees do not reproduce at all and they help the queens reproduce: obviously, the fitness of sacrificing oneself or helping others to reproduce without reproducing oneself is zero. The concept of fitness also fails to explain such altruistic behavior. The concept of generalized fitness holds that the unit of selection can be at the genetic level, not just at the individual level. Worker ants and bees do not reproduce or sacrifice their lives to help queens who are highly related with them. Their genes are passed on through the reproduction of queens, because worker ants and bees share a high degree of genetic similarity with their sibling queens. By helping the queens to reproduce, genes of worker ants and bees are more likely to be passed on to the next generation. The concept of generalized fitness explains why worker ants and bees voluntarily give up the opportunities of reproduction and altruistically help the queens. The driving force of selection is no longer the survival and reproduction of individuals, but the enhancement of the frequency of genetic inheritance. This is the core idea of Neo-Darwinism. Generalized fitness answers why some biological individuals are willing to sacrifice themselves to help others, but their genes are still selfish. This altruistic act of helping others actually increases the frequency with which their genes are passed on to the next generation. However, the discovery of modern research has also brought

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some fatal impacts to generalized fitness, the basic concept of modern evolutionary biology. As mentioned in the previous chapter, modern research has found that in almost all social cooperation systems, there are speculators and uncooperative individuals, and even cooperative ones transform into uncooperative ones or speculators. In the highly social system such as ants, bees and termites, those workers who are considered to be hardworking do not actually reproduce, but rather, some individuals do so secretly. After the queen is aging, almost all workers reproduce. Normally, once discovered, these speculative workers are killed by other workers, or their offspring are killed by the queen or other workers. These findings have a fatal impact on generalized fitness (the core idea of Pro-selection theory). If workers helping the queen to reproduce will increase their own genetic frequency, why do these individuals take the risk of secretly reproducing? What’s more, which is more contradictory, there will be fierce competition between mother-son and father-son relationship with the highest kinship, and even human behavior of killing father and mother, which is a theoretical paradox that can not be explained by the concepts of Pro-selection and generalized fitness. When classical economics and biology discuss the dynamics of human or individual evolution, their focus is on how individuals improve their efficiency of survival or reproduction. Obviously, the higher the efficiency is, the greater the competitiveness will be. The evolution of social division of labor will promote the efficiency. If we want to make something very complex, sometimes it is impossible to rely on a single individual. For example, it may not be possible to make a car or an airplane simply relying on one person. If possible, it will be extremely inefficient. But if everyone is responsible for only one or a few of these processes, a car or an airplane can be quickly made. This social division of labor can clearly improve individual efficiency. However, the cost is the ignorance of comprehensive skills and technologies, as well as the high degree of interdependence among individuals, which reduces their independent survival ability. In biology, the division of individual functions tends to be simplified. In social insects, for example, reproduction, defense, cleaning and other work are gradually divided and refined, and their respective efficiency is improved. But these highly social animals can hardly live and survive independently. Under a complex and changeable environment, the loss of diversity of individual behaviors and functions may also lead to the systematic collapse of species. In a specific and stable environment, the division of labor improves the efficiency and population growth efficiency, and division of labor and cooperation also improves the ability of population to cope with environmental changes. However, in a changeable environment, the improvement of division and efficiency will also increase the risk of individual or even species extinction. As a Chinese saying goes, either success or failure boils down to the same person—Xiao He (one person in three kingdoms period). Evidently, in the process of biological evolution, efficiency is always the driving force of its evolution, but the diversity of function and behavior is also the key driving force of evolution and it will improve the ability of individual to resist the risk of environmental change. Efficiency can be measured by fitness, and the genetic information carried by organisms can measure the functional and behavioral diversity

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of individuals. The amount of information can be measured by a more strict physical index called “entropy flow”. Entropy flow can not only measure the amount of information contained in a biological system, but also measure how the external environment affects its internal entropy increase or decrease. In this way, the dynamics of biological evolution can be measured by the sum of fitness and entropy flow, which we call survival value. There is a balance between fitness and information in the evolutionary selection drive of individual survival. When the living environment of species or individual is relatively stable and does not need to face more uncertain environmental changes at any time, it is clear that improving the survival efficiency while reducing the behavioral or genetic diversity of the species or individuals, that is to say, improving their fitness, will have the advantage of selection in evolution. However, if the species or individual lives in a complex and changeable environment, it is clear that a single behavioral or genetic diversity will make it difficult to adapt to the environment, resulting in reduced adaptability, which may lead to its extinction. Therefore, in the complex and changeable environment, reducing its fitness and increasing its information can increase its total survival value. The amount of information mentioned here should include not only genetic and phenotypic/behavioral diversity, but also the amount of acquired knowledge, genetic or phenotypic/behavioral plasticity. However, in a more stable environment, the competition among different groups of the populations increases, and the allocation of resources for individuals to cope with changes in the external environment is reduced, and more resources are used in the competition among groups. Social cooperation and division of labor within groups will improve the competitiveness among groups. Division of labor can improve the relative efficiency of individuals at all levels. For instance, those with strong reproductive ability will have higher reproductive efficiency, those with high feeding ability will have higher feeding efficiency, and those with strong defense ability will have stronger defense ability while other abilities are diminished. The improvement of the efficiency of each single function will reduce the energy consumption of the whole system, increase the entropy reduction, and enhance the stability of the system within the populations. Living in a turbulent environment, individuals need pay more extra energy consumption to cope with the changes. Only by improving the genetic and behavioral diversity of biological populations can they adapt to such a changeable environment. Conversely, environmental fluctuations will also affect the gene of individuals or their population diversity in spatial state, increasing their genetic and behavioral diversity. In such a turbulent environment, both the energy input from the outside and the energy dissipated by the system itself are larger than that of a stable environment. That is to say, the internal entropy flow of the system will increase in the turbulent environment while in a stable environment, energy input and output are relatively small. Due to the acceleration of population growth, the environmental capacity will be more easily saturated, so in the system the entropy will increase significantly, leading to the system closer to the equilibrium state. A stable environment is beneficial to the improvement of its fitness, but the amount of information/entropy flow

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may be reduced, and the total survival value of the species is relatively small. In tropical rainforest system, for example, many species are specialized only to adapt to the unique environment, improving their survival or reproductive rates, but thus losing many of their environmental fitness features. However, the species living in a highly changeable environment have strong adaptability, high behavioral and genetic diversity, but their resource utilization efficiency or reproductive ability may be reduced as a result. The equilibrium of the two determines the total survival value. For biological populations, there are differences among individuals in various aspects, including reproductive ability, resource utilization efficiency, physical strength and so on. Some species or individuals have strong survival rate or reproductive ability, while some species or individuals may have strong ability to cope with environmental change and contain a large amount of information or entropy flow. These features will be selected and continuously reinforced in the process of evolution, and even in a specific condition, rapidly reinforced through its phenotype or behavior in a short time scale. For instance, some species with strong reproductive ability can rapidly expand their populations in a certain specific evolutionary processes, so as to gain competitive advantages in an ecosystem. The enhancement of this ability may impair other features, such as longevity or immunity and so on. Mosquitoes, which are closely related to our lives, are extremely successful at this strategy, whose reproductive ability is very high but whose life is very short. Another successful example is elephants whose survival ability is very strong, but the reproductive ability is very low. There are also some species with low survival and reproductive ability in the ecosystem. Their population distribution is extremely low and they are almost not competitive at all. However, they retain a lot of genetic information and play an vital role in the ecosystem. This is the redundant species in the ecosystem. The ecological or evolutionary significance of such redundant species is that they may be able to preserve some bloodline for the ecosystem when it is disturbed or destroyed. The significance of its evolution has been seriously ignored. A similar situation exists for species or for human societies. In a relatively stable environment, the need of individual to cope with environmental risks is reduced, so the individual behavior and genetic features can be specialized in order to improve its efficiency. However, the efficiency of such specialization has a certain inertia that is the path-dependent evolution, which may lead to excessive specialization and abnormal behavior. For example, the body becomes stronger and more aggressive, so it is more likely to outdo other individuals in competition. Such behavior can improve its survival ability to a certain extent, but if it is over developed, it may damage its reproductive ability and finally may be specialized. Like soldier ants, they even lose their reproductive capacity. The improvement of the efficiency is closely related to the risks and returns it takes. Only in a stable environment can the efficiency be continuously improved, but its ability to cope with risks is also declined. Other behavioral or genetic features will be lost or degraded. In the social system of ants, the queen is highly specialized. In some extreme species, the queen has almost no other function except reproduction, and completely loses the ability of independent survival. The same is true for soldiers and workers, which improve

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their attack ability, feeding ability and service ability respectively, but other functions such as reproductive ability are also seriously degraded or even lost. The situation of human beings can better illustrate such evolutionary dynamics. As we eat each loaf of bread, we may not remember exactly how it was made. A large number of workers in different industries work together to turn wheat seeds into a loaf of bread. From breeding, land cultivation, fertilizer production, fertilization, wheat harvest, flour processing to bread baking, the whole process involves the division of labor and the direction of the industry collaboration. we are more efficient in the production of bread, but few of us in modern society can complete the whole process from wheat planting to bread baking alone, like a farmer in ancient farming society. Now the division of labor makes us lose all the skills that a farmer mastered in the ancient farming society. Although the farmers in the farming society have such comprehensive ability, their work efficiency is indeed very low. One person’s labor may only be able to support his family without much surplus. If a modern industrial worker is exiled to a desert island and give him wheat seeds, it is almost impossible to produce bread by himself. The probability of survival may be far lower than that of a farmer in farming society. The acquisition or loss of such skills information has great plasticity, which will affect its genetic and evolutionary features in a long term. The evolution of human food processing culture and living habits can also help us understand the path-dependent principle in the process of biological evolution. At first, people living in the north and south may not have much difference in the processing of their main foods—wheat and rice, but as time goes by, a series of rice processing methods have been developed in places with rice as the staple food, and other cultures with rice as the staple food have also developed along with it, such as rice wine brewing culture, poems and songs, even the characteristics of intestinal microbes and their individual behaviors in the human body may be affected. As a result, they will go to different evolutionary directions. Many food processing methods and ways of people who live on wheat in the north will evolve in different directions, thus forming a culture different from those who live on rice. This difference is even greater among nomadic and agricultural peoples, which leads to completely different form and degrees of social division of labor. A similar effect also exists in the evolution of biological species. The original identical populations evolved along different paths due to their distribution in different geographical regions, and eventually formed completely different species or evolutionary systems. It’s like a freeway, where vehicles may end up in completely different destinations at different high-speed exits, which is similar to the evolutionary process of irreversibility. The essential driving force of this path-dependent evolution process is the difference in information and entropy. In the evolution process of biological system, different information states or entropy values will also lead to different evolutionary outcomes.

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Entropy Probability Selection—A Bridge Unifying the Natural Selection and Neutral Selection In the real biological system, fitness, which is widely regarded as the interest (social and economic use of the term of benefit) in the process of biological evolution, has many biological phenomena that are difficult to explain, especially the altruism phenomenon widely existing in the life system. According to the theoretical logic analysis, it is difficult to avoid the paradox that the dynamics of biological evolution is attributed to the improvement of fitness. Fitness is a concept developed from static and balanced thoughts. The fitness of a species or an individual is like a static mountain. As long as you climb to the top of the mountain, your fitness can be achieved. For human economic or social behavior, fitness means that there is a causal relationship between motivation or drive and interests, while for biological species or individuals, there is a causal relationship between genetic genes and phenotype/fitness, and there is an approximate linear relationship between the two. But such a huge logical paradox is hidden in a deep-rooted thought.

First of all, let’s look at whether there is such a causal relationship in our own social and economic activities. Let’s take high school students to fill in the college entrance examination as an example. We know that in the college entrance examination, students need to determine their future learning field or direction according to the future employment, income or their own development. We assume that the examinees only consider the future income in this field to determine their professional direction, and they can only refer to the present average income in this field to determine their major. For example, in the year of college entrance examination, the average income of the computer field is the highest, so the examinee chooses the computer major. But we all know that once the examinees major in computer, the income of this group may change. The computer company may think that the talent pool in the future is large enough, so it may reduce the expectation of competition for computer talent. Meanwhile, the company may also think that the addition of a large number of computer talents will bring more innovation and market prospects and increase the introduction of talents. Similarly, this group of examinees entering the computer major may also affect the existing computer students and their expectations

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for the future industry. It may lead to higher, lower or remain unchanged expected future earnings. Obviously, the assumption that the future earnings of the computer industry are static and stable does not exist in the real world. For a life system, especially an ecosystem, the concept of fitness also faces the paradox which is similar to what human interests are facing. For a species, if a feature is more competitive, and when it spreads in the population, obviously, the diffusion of this feature in the population will directly affect the fitness of other species, which in turn will affect the fitness of individuals group itself, because other species in the ecosystem will interact with the existing population at the same time, such as competition, predation or reciprocal cooperation. At the same time, the diffusion of a feature will also produce a density dependent effect, which may be either a density promoting effect or a density restricting effect. Such effects also exist in population genetics, but they occur in the process of complex interactions between genes, while the density dependent effect of population may be between different species in the ecosystem.

The original fitness landscape will be changed as the phenotype evolves

Interest or fitness is just an instantaneous concept, which may exist and be reasonable in a short static environment, but in a long time perspective, a static target expected return may not exist. So, in the process of evolution, where will the evolution go or what is the goal of species evolution? As analyzed in the previous chapter, Darwin’s theory of natural selection actually assumes that during the progress of evolution, the pressure of evolution is infinite or the entropy flow in the system is very small, and under such circumstances, choosing the optimal path can maximize its benefits or fitness. When the entropy flow in the system is very high and the selection pressure of species is not very high, it is possible for organisms to choose multiple paths in the process of evolution, rather than just the path with the greatest benefit or fitness. In the case of multiple paths, natural selection is actually the choice of path frequency. In other words, each path has the possibility of existence in the process of biological evolution, and the difference lies in the frequency of choosing each path.

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It is like a huge lawn in front of an office building, and there is a bus station across from the lawn. Walking from the office building to the bus station, you have to cross the lawn. Over time, the lawn formed a number of paths leading to the bus station. But it is obvious that the footprints of each path are not the same. Some paths were frequented by more people, while others were not. The path that takes the most of one of them is probably the one that takes the shortest, that is the best. Therefore, natural selection may not be the one with the highest profit or fitness, but a process of selecting the path frequency. Some paths may be selected more frequently, while others may be selected at a lower frequency. However, all these paths have the possibility of being selected. With the increase of evolutionary pressure, the frequency of optimal path selection will increase, but the result of selection is not only one optimal path, but also may be multiple paths.

Entropy Change in Non-equilibrium State—The Invisible Hand in the Process of Natural Selection Entropy is a concept of statistical physics, which represents a variable for the degree of chaos in a system. Once entropy is introduced, when we discuss the properties of the system, we mean that the system is in non-equilibrium state. For an open system, the change of entropy value is composed of entropy flow and entropy generation. The process of entropy generation is the process of the spontaneous increase of system disorder. With the evolution of the system, the entropy value of the system will increase spontaneously. The process is irreversible along the time arrow. And the entropy flow is the entropy that flows into the system from the outside, which of course can be positive or negative. For example, if wolf preys on sheep, entropy flows from the wolf to the sheep, so for the sheep, it is entropy increase, and sheep will be more disordered; but for the wolf, it is entropy reduction (negative entropy) caused by net inflow of energy. The higher the negative entropy, the more orderly the

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system. For the whole life system, we accept sunlight, so entropy is constantly negative. For an ecosystem, when one or multiple species form a superior population in the ecosystem, the superior population will have a strong attraction to other species. Its attractiveness depends on the magnitude of correlation coefficient between the two species. The higher the correlation coefficient, the greater the attraction, and the greater the possibility of forming an ecosystem or community with unique functions. A higher level selection unit with a unique function will also be formed—an ecological community or ecosystem. The size of entropy flow in the system will be the key to determine whether the species in the system can form a close relationship and evolve into a higher level selection unit. The higher the internal entropy flow, the more mutual communication, and the higher the possibility of the system evolving into a super organism. Since entropy is always increasing spontaneously on the time arrow, the key to understand the non-equilibrium state in the evolution of life system is to find out which factors will influence the entropy flow. Obviously, the entropy flow is closely related to the input and output of energy. The more input and output, the greater entropy flow. Entropy flow is similar to the flow of water in a river. The larger the water flows, the closer the water molecules in the river are to the random flow, rather than directional movement under strong selective pressure in a stream. In the evolution process of natural life system, the greater the entropy flow, the higher the amount of information in the system, and the more genetic, behavioral or species evolution paths, so the higher the diversity. If the entropy flow in a system is infinite, the internal information in the system is also infinite, and the internal diversity is also the highest. The genotype of individuals in the system, the individual behavior in the population or the species distribution in the ecosystem will be similar to random distribution, which is neutral selection. However, if the entropy flow is relatively small, the genotype of individuals in the system, the behavior of individuals in the population or the species in the ecosystem will be under strong selection pressure, and natural selection will ultimately determine its distribution. The superior genes, individuals or species will have higher fitness and form their own ecological niches. We can use the flow of river water to illustrate the distribution condition of nonequilibrium state system of natural selection and neutral selection. In a river, the water molecules in the flow are similar to the genes, individuals or species of the life system. Only the flow near the two banks is subject to strong bank selection pressure, while the flow in the middle of the river is not. In the ecosystem, in fact, only when the environmental pressure is infinite will species are subject to selection pressure from the environment. In most cases, like water flow in the middle of a river, the environment in which species live in is not subject to such strong environmental selection pressure. Therefore, its diversity will only appear under high selection pressure. Each species predicted by natural selection has its own competitive advantage and ecological niche. The pressure of the flow is closely related to the drop and the width of the river. Obviously, the larger the drop, the narrower the channel, the greater the selection pressure. Life systems can also be compared to this. At the same latitude and different altitudes, the solar energy input at different altitudes is not very different, but due to

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the difference of temperature, the energy loss in high altitudes is significantly higher than that in low altitudes. The difference between the input and output of energy is equivalent to the drop of the river. When the width of the river is the same, the greater the drop, the higher the flow speed, the greater the selection pressure on the river, and the more predictable the direction of the water flow. Rainfall and soil nutrition are equivalent to the width of the riverbed, and they also affect the entropy flow of the region just as the flow speed and discharge are affected by the width. In tropical areas, many places have different altitudes. Because the energy consumption of high altitude areas is much higher than that of low altitude areas, that is to say, even the rainfall and nutrients are the same, the entropy flow of high altitude areas is lower than that of low altitude areas, and the biodiversity of high altitude areas is therefore lower than that of low altitude areas. In Yunnan of China, as the altitude rises, at almost the same latitude, you can see a complex system of thousands of species in the tropical rainforest to the polar monobryophytic system. Similarly, from different latitudinal gradients, from tropical rainforest to polar regions, there is a similar phenomenon in biodiversity. In the tropical rainforest area, we think that the entropy flow inside is nearly infinite, and the distribution and production of species will be completely random, so the species distribution is closer to the neutral selection theory. However, in the polar regions or in cold and temperate zones, the entropy flow is relatively small and the pressure of selection is relatively strong, so the power of natural selection can be more reflected. The essential difference between neutral selection and natural selection lies in the difference of entropy flow. According to the definition of entropy, entropy value is related to both energy flow and material flow. Therefore, the size of entropy flow is not only affected by energy input, but also related to the material environment such as rainfall and nutrient abundance. And this is illustrated in the following Figure.

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Asymmetry and Coexistence of Species—The Disappearance of Darwinian Demons In a non-equilibrium system, the individual fitness is different, and the abundance of species in the ecosystem varies greatly. In the process of evolution, the driving force of the evolution is not the fitness of each individual or the so-called equilibrium state reached by the species population being the same at the end. In fact, the order of life system belongs to a kind of non-equilibrium steady state. In order to maintain the entropy of the system in a steady state at a non-maximum point, the entropy change of the whole system should be zero. As long as the two ways (entropy flow and entropy generation) that determine the entropy change of the system are balanced, the order of the life system can not collapse because of reaching the extreme point of entropy. Therefore, in the life system, individual fitness or species abundance may spontaneously evolve to the direction of differentiation expansion, or to the direction of homogenization equilibrium. The direction of its evolution will greatly depend on the size of the entropy flow into the system.

In a system with relatively large entropy flow, the internal individuals are more active due to the acceleration of metabolism. If the individual or species in the system randomly choose their own evolutionary path or strategy, the competition among individuals or species will decrease or disappear, and the corresponding internal entropy generation will also be faster. On the other hand, in a system with relatively small entropy flow, the competition between individuals and species will be relatively strong, and only a few species exist, and the entropy generation within the corresponding system will be relatively slower. In a system with relatively smaller entropy flow, the competition among individuals or species will increase, and the system will be easier to evolve in a specific direction. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, in a small river or a small water pipe, the water molecules inside will be subjected to greater selective pressure from the river bank and the pipe, and their moving direction will tend to flow directional as the selection pressure from the river bank or water pipe increases. In the life system, the entropy flow, just like the river flow, will greatly affect the evolution of species or individual organisms. In

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a life system with small entropy flow, its internal individuals or species will face greater competition pressure, and there may be competitive or comparative advantages between the evolution paths or strategies of individuals or species. In such a system, the individuals or species with strong competitiveness or comparative advantages will be advantageous in the competition, and eventually exclude the similar niche or other homogenous. If without the power to stop such an evolutionary trend from moving forward, eventually an ecosystem will end up with only one species, and a population will end up with only the strongest individual. Such species or individuals with high competitiveness and high fitness are the super creatures, called Darwinian demons. Theoretically, this only happens when the entropy flow of the system is minimal or reduces to zero. For a system, if the entropy flow is close to infinitesimal and its information is close to zero, then the system is almost a completely closed system. However, we know that in such a completely closed system, its internal entropy will rise spontaneously, eventually reaching an equilibrium state, which will lead to the system entering the dead state. In theory, if Darwinian demons appear, the entropy flow of the system would be close to zero, and its entropy would quickly reach its maximum value, and the order of the whole system would collapse. In fact, Darwinian demons do not really exist, but in the system with smaller entropy flow, it is easier for creatures like Darwin demons to survive.

Reference 1. Boland LA (2008) The Fundations of economic method: a popperian perspective, translated by Zhang Q-H, Xiao Q-J. Changchun Press

Part III

Maintaining the Order of Social Cooperation

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Chapter 7

Union for a Long Time to Divide and Division for a Long Time to Unite in the Cooperative System

Strong societies are universal; the weak society is narrow. —Samuel Huntington It is said that the world is divided after a long time union, and is united after a long time division. At the end of the Zhou Dynasty (BC1046-BC256), the seven countries divided and merged into Qin Dynasty (BC221-BC227). After the destruction of Qin Dynasty, The Warring States of Chu country and Han country merged into Han Dynasty (BC202-AD220). The Han Dynasty was divided into The Three Kingdoms period (AD220-AD280) during the reign of Han Xian emperor Liu Xie, after Han Gaozu (the first emperor of Han Dynasty) Liu Bang killed the white snake for uprising and ruled the whole country. —Guan-Zhong Luo

For a social cooperation system, there is a game of cooperation and competition between the individuals or the constituent units in the system. Meanwhile, there is also a game of cooperation and competition between the systems. The relationship between various interest groups within a country and the relationship between countries can better illustrate such a complex relationship. Within a country, there are cooperative relations and competitive relations among various interest groups or individuals; as a whole, there are cooperations, competitions and even wars between countries. The relationship between countries will undoubtedly affect the relationship between individual interest groups or individuals within a country. Conversely, the relationship structure of various interest groups or individuals within a country will also affect the relationship between countries, that is, the diplomatic trend. Whether it is the social system of human beings or the social cooperation system of ants, bees and other insects in nature, the entropy flow between systems, or the more easily understood term1 information flow, will directly affect the evolution of the relationship within the system, and also affect the mutual relationship between systems cooperation or competition. In the system of social cooperation, the high-level or dominant individuals restrict the diffusion of members within the system or the communication with other systems, 1

Huntington [1].

© Science Press 2023 R. Wang, The End of Rationality and Selfishness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9752-5_7

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which is able to maintain the internal cooperative relationship. In the social cooperation system of human beings, for example, the countries (the dictatorship machine controlled by the dominant group) restrict free migration. There are more or less restrictions in any country, especially in the period of fierce competition or war. In companies or social organizations, they usually set up some special policies or institutions, such as restricting the transfer of share rights or linking wages, benefits and pensions with the length of service, etc., to restrict the free transfer of employees through these mechanisms. However, in nature, there are diffusion limiting mechanisms in biological cooperative systems. In social cooperative systems such as ants and bees, the queen ant and queen bee release a pheromone to distinguish worker ants/worker bees from other groups. Once worker ants/worker bees join other groups, they may be killed directly. Meanwhile, for large social mammals such as wild horses and antelopes, the leaders manage the members by strictly restricting them to stay away from their own group. Once they find that some individuals are too far away from their own group, the leader will drive them back to group. In human culture, the purity of blood lineage and nationality is the embodiment of the animal gene in order to prevent the group communication by the powerful people who dominate the culture utterance right. In fact, there is no scientific evidence to show that there is a genetic predominance in the purity of blood lineage or nationality. It is a common behavior that the dominant individuals in a group restrict the diffusion of other individuals within the group to other groups. The cooperation behavior of the weak party is also enslaved behavior to some extent, which is obviously more beneficial to the dominant party or leader in the group. Therefore, the dominant party or leader in the group is more willing to pay the price to maintain the stability of the social cooperation relationship within the group. For the members of social cooperation, diffusion and communication are spontaneous behaviors. Diffusion can promote gene swapping between different groups and find new business or career opportunities. The communication and integration between different groups will increase the information flow between systems, and thus will promote the order and stability of the relationship between systems, and will reduce the probability of competition or war between groups. When the communication and integration between groups reach the level of communication among individuals within a group, different groups will be completely integrated, and different social cooperation groups will evolve into a unified social cooperation group. For each member of the social cooperation system, there is a game between the superior and the weak in the communication and integration between groups. For the dominant party, reducing the communication between groups is helpful to maintain the stability of its internal social cooperation. Increasing the barriers of communication and maintaining the tension relations between groups can help to maintain the rule of the dominant party and guarantee their interests. We can see that when the monkeys meet with each other, the monkey king is more nervous than others. Usually, he stars the war signal first, and the individuals with superior level are also braver to fight. While the individuals with lower status usually bluff and do not actively participate in the war between the monkey groups. Similar situations often occur in human social cooperation organizations such as countries. For example, in

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order to maintain the cohesion of the people of the country, countries deliberately stir up international disputes over some unimportant islands, reefs and even the reputation of some great people and saints. For the vulnerable individuals within the social cooperation group, they communicate actively with other groups not only bring new genetic genes, avoiding genetic inbreeding depression, but also find new resources and interest exchange channels for themselves. However, at the same time, it also increases the risk of losing the protection of the original group, and may not be accepted by the new group. In the monkey group, those who leave the original group are easy to be captured by the leopard and other predators. Although there are still some risks in diffusion, communication and integration, the spontaneous diffusion and increase information flow within the system also have greater spontaneous power for the weak parties in the system. We can see that in the social biological systems of nature, such as monkeys and lions, there always be some female individuals who take risks to have a love affair stealthily with the male individuals of other groups, or even directly join other groups. Generally speaking, the higher the social level of the group, the stricter the control of the group by the dominant party of the group, the smaller probability that the individuals in the group can spread to other groups. For a social biological system, the inflow of information can promote the internal entropy flow within the system and the global stability of the system. For the human social system, this information flow may be the gene exchange brought by population inflow, or the cultural aspects exchange and integration of culture, art, science and political governance mode. In the process of every great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, we can clearly feel the power of foreign information or civilization. At the beginning of Tang Dynasty, it was because of foreign civilization or gene that laid the foundation for its development: during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Chinese civilization was not only manifested in the lack of vitality in the institutionalization of the gentry, but also in the weakness of the people’s physique, which lead to the whole country lacking vitality and competitiveness. But in the northern and Southern Dynasties, the invasion of the northern foreign nationalities, especially the Xianbei nationality, brought new information flow to the Chinese nation in terms of biological genes and cultural genes, thus laying the foundation for the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Similarly, before and after the May 4th movement, the introduction to lots of Western science and technology and cultural ideas laid the foundation for the great unification and rejuvenation of modern China. In natural biology, the introduction of foreign information is also the basis for the prosperity and development of a population. We know that for any biological system, if completely closed, it will easily cause population decline due to interbreeding. Of course, the information flow of biological system is no longer just the communication of gene information through mating, which is absolutely a narrow concept of information flow in biological systems. As far as gene exchange is concerned, plasmid transfer between different species has been proved to exist widely in almost all biological systems except mating. Another information flow that may be seriously ignored is the “soft” information flow similar to human culture, such as signal communication, behavior imitation and exclusion between biological individuals or

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species. In fact, imitation and learning behaviors are common among biological individuals, especially among individuals of the same species, and such behaviors can be fixed in the genetic code (phenotypic plasticity) by genetic means. In the ecosystem, there are also processes of inter-species learning among various species, and even changes in the external environment will cause complex biological behavior reactions, and these processes will be fixed in the genetic code by genetic means. These processes are the information flow of life system, and ultimately affect the internal structure and system stability of the system. If the barriers of information flow between groups disappear, then the interaction between individuals in different groups is similar to that among individuals in the system. Different groups will achieve complete integration, and different groups will naturally merge into a group due to the increase of information flow. If the information flow barriers between different groups are relatively large or there are huge obstacles, different groups or systems are more likely to try to integrate each other through games or wars, and the integration between different groups will be more likely to be achieved through merger.

Fists, Shadows, and Dices When the information communication between different groups or systems is no longer smooth, it is difficult to achieve the integration of different systems through the spontaneous flow of information flow. In the case of low information exchange between groups or systems, it is more likely to achieve the integration of different groups or systems by means of game including war. In this situation, the mutual information between groups is in a state of great isolation, so the game between them belongs to the game of incomplete information. In the state of complete information, that is, there are no barriers in the information communication, and the information reaches the maximum state of idealization, then the behavior of individuals or groups will be deterministic and predictable. However, when there are obstacles in the information flow between individuals or groups, and there is only part or no information communication between the two parties, the predictability of the behaviors of both parties is relatively low, and the behavior or performance characteristics of individuals will fluctuate. We can use the historical stories of the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China to illustrate how each group played games with each other under the condition of low information flow. In the evolution process of the political pattern among the vassal states or groups, their pattern and relationship will be affected by the fluctuations and their superposition effects caused by the time and space. At the same time, the random fluctuation, the power of vassal states or groups in time and space, and the fluctuation of influence will produce a common superposition effect, which will be reflected in the characteristics of a vassal states or groups as follows: (1) the fluctuation of historical culture and institutional form under the influence of time scale; (2) on the spatial scale, it represents the fluctuation of power of each vassal state or group; (3) internal

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random fluctuations or environmental fluctuations, such as natural disasters, plagues, diseases and other random factors, these random factors will directly affect the population, social public opinion and other aspects of the vassal states or groups, and will directly affect the mutual relationships among vassal states or groups. Just as mentioned in the previous chapter, the existing biodiversity pattern of ecosystems is affected by three scale factors, namely, the competitiveness of species space, the inertial force of evolutionary path dependence on time scale and the fluctuation of random factors. The political ecosystem composed of States is also subject to the triple fluctuation of these three forces in the state of incomplete information, and these three fluctuations will have a superposition effect on each other. Under the influence of time scale, the fluctuation of history, culture and system as well as the fluctuation of the power of countries or groups on spatial scale will affect the change of relationship structure within countries or groups, which in turn will affect the fluctuation of relationship among countries or groups. The internal or external random fluctuations will also have a superimposed effect with the fluctuations of history, culture, civilization and system, as well as the fluctuations of economic and military power on the spatial scale. The superimposed effects of these three fluctuations will lead to the uncertainty of relations between countries. On the time scale of culture, civilization and system, when its wave crest overlaps with the wave crest of economic, military and other comprehensive strength on the spatial scale, the competitiveness of its country or group will increase non-linearly; if its wave crest is staggered, the mutual influence will be offset each other, and the fluctuation will be relatively stable; if the wave crest just happens to be the peak and trough that cancel each other out, its competitiveness may be lacklustre; and if the trough of cultural civilization overlaps with that of practical competitiveness, the competitiveness of the country and the group will decline in a nonlinear way. For a country or ruling group, the fluctuation of the ruling class of the state power and the ruling class of the society are both dislocated and superpositional. If these two forces are staggered, the two forces will be competitive, with one side trying to annex the other. If there is a superposition effect between the two forces, the two forces will be cooperative and merge into one. One of these two forces is dominant, while the other is invisible. The dominant one is the state power or the power of violence, which is a bit like the dominant gene of our biological inheritance, while the invisible one is the social ruling class within the country. This kind of power is invisible, a bit like the invisible gene in our biological inheritance. The joint action of the two constitutes the behavior of the country or group that we see in reality. Just as the behavior expression or phenotypic characteristics of individuals are simultaneously affected by random factors such as genetic drift, in the process of human social evolution, the behavior characteristics of countries or groups are also affected by external or internal random factors. Similar to biological evolution, there are transitions or discontinuities in the fluctuations of national characteristics on the time scale. The process of biological evolution evolves from one species to another, or evolves different characteristics. Its genetic characteristics are obviously discontinuous, but it is continuous in the process of species formation, which is very similar to the transition phenomenon of physical

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electrons. The fluctuation of the state ruling class in human society from different classes to other classes is also discontinuous, but there is also continuity in the process of transition from one ruling class to another. The factors representing the “hard” competitiveness of the state are also continuous in the process of the formation of the new regime, but they are discontinuous among the regimes. When the direction of evolution of the ruling class of state power and the social ruling class is in dislocation, or when they are not the same class, the two sides will inevitably in conflict and lead to chaos. After the integration of the two forces, the new order will be reestablished. The long periods of turbulence in Chinese history are basically caused by the violent conflicts between the two sides in the transition period of the ruling class. When the two forces merge, the time of regime change is relatively short, and the social fluctuation is relatively small. However, when the two forces fluctuate at different peaks, random factors may have a superposition effect with the above two kinds of fluctuations and play a role of adding impetus. When the two forces merge, the relatively stable fluctuation of random factors will not have a great impact on the evolution direction.

From the perspective of social class transformation, social division of labor and information exchange, in the ecosystem, the inertia force of the evolution on the time scale of a large population is greater than that of a small population. The larger the population is, the less the population is affected by genetic drift, and the smaller the population is, the more the population is affected by genetic drift. This is similar to a ball rolling at a constant speed. The larger the mass of the ball, the more difficult it is for the external force to change the direction of the ball. On the contrary, if the mass of the ball is very small, it is easy for the external to change its direction. The evolution of human social behavior follows almost the same rules. For a large nation or country, its evolution is mainly driven by the internal evolution laws. For example, in China, with the intensification of social division of labor and the increase of information exchange, the distance between the core groups of state governance has increased, and the social ruling class of the country has evolved from noble nationality to bourgeoisie step by step. This is the inherent trend of social development. If the nation is relatively small or the country is relatively weak, its social ruling class is

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likely to deviate from its internal evolution law due to the interference of external factors. However, the ruling class of state power often disturbs between nobles, warlords and social ruling class.

The Game Between Wei, Shu and Wu—Centralization and Alliance Lu Xun was punished because he was a noble, Yu fan was punished because he was a celebrity, and Zhang Wen was punished because he was both a noble and a celebrity. In fact, the contradiction between Sun Quan and Lu Xun, Zhang Wen, Yu fan is actually the contradiction between Sun Quan and gentries and celebrities. This is actually a common problem encountered by Cao Cao (in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, he was a statesman and strategist), Liu Bei (during The Three Kingdoms period, he was the first emperor and statesman in Shu state) and Zhuge Liang (a person of great wisdom and resourcefulness in three kingdoms period). In other words, the three political regimes of Wei, Shu and Wu all had conflicts with the gentry. The main leaders of the three countries also have to fight against with celebrities. In fact, between the unified Han and Tang dynasties, there was a tripartite era of the Three Kingdoms, followed by the semi unified Western Jin (AD265-AD316) and Eastern Jin (AD317-AD420) Dynasties and the split northern and Southern Dynasties (AD420-AD589), all of which were related to this contradiction. Because the gentry and celebrities represented a political force that inherited the Eastern Han Dynasty and then the Western Jin and Eastern Jin Dynasties. When the political forces were in conflict with Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Quan, they did not control the political power, so they “went against the current”. However, because they represent the inevitable trend of historical development, Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Quan also “go against the current”. It is these two meanings of “going against the current” that determined that Wei, Shu and Wu had different road of founding a state, and finally they all belonged Jin Dynasty. —Zhong-Tian Yi

When the two forces, the ruling class of the state power and the ruling class of the society, are fluctuated, the characteristics of these two forces can be more clearly reflected, and the random fluctuation factor is also more obvious in the staggered fluctuation. Here I use the relationship between Wei, Shu and Wu in the Three Kingdoms period to analyze the characteristics of the fluctuation process of these three forces. During the period of the Three Kingdoms, there were only the central Plains and its surrounding areas in terms of transportation, military projection and political influence. However, with the progress of science and technology, the world now covers the whole earth. In terms of the convenience and frequency of communication between countries or regions, the communication between countries in the Three Kingdoms period or in ancient China cannot be compared2 with modern times. On the whole, if countries maintain relatively stable and cooperative, the world will tend to be balanced and stable. If the great powers tend to compete or even war, the international political and economic system will tend to be in disorder and collapse.

2

The Three Kingdoms by Zhong-Tian Yi. Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House.

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The Three Kingdoms period is a historical period from chaos to unification, which started from the Yellow turban army uprising led by Zhang Jiao in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. After 20 years of chaos in the Yellow turban army uprising, the whole territory of the former Eastern Han Dynasty was gradually divided into three major military groups, namely, Wei, Shu and Wu. Apparently, it is the game between the three military groups of Wei, Shu and Wu, but behind it is the struggle between the soft power of culture and civilization represented by the gentry class and the hard power of the military power represented by the warlords. In the struggle of these two forces, random factors lead to the difference or diversity of their strategies or the path of building a nation. As most historians, including Zhong-Tian Yi, believed that the state of tripartite confrontation in the Three Kingdoms period was caused by the disorder that the order of aristocracy was destroyed and the new order of aristocratic rule was not established. In the Three Kingdoms period, because the military forces representing the hard power of the state or group were controlled by non-aristocratic forces, while the gentry who controlled the soft power of the state or group, the civilization and cultural power did not really control their political power, the contradiction between the two forces was obvious, and the fluctuation of the two forces was not synchronous, but in staggered distribution. In the process of these two kinds of fluctuation, three leaders of military groups with different personality charm were selected due to random factors, which led to different routes of founding the country. Cao Cao was not a celebrity. He was born in a family of eunuchs whom the gentry most hated and despised. But at the same time, he belongs to the official family. The initial regime built by Cao Cao was a warlord group established on the basis of Han Dynasty, and the contradiction between them was deeply rooted. Cao Cao’s killing of Kong Rong and Yang Xiu was the result of the contest between the warlord power and the cultural evolution power represented by the gentry. The leader of the warlord group of Sun Wu, who was born in a humble family, was also the hostile force of the gentry. Moreover, the death of Lu Xun, the representative of the aristocracy, was also the result of the struggle between the warlord power represented by Sun Quan and the natural evolution of the culture and civilization power represented by the aristocracy. In the Shuhan period, Zhuge Liang was also forced to attack the strength of the gentry. Liao Li and Lai Min, the celebrities of the aristocracy, were abolished as commoners, while Peng Yang, a celebrity in Yizhou, was killed. It was also due to the intensification of the contradiction between the warlords and the gentry in Shuhan period. In the process of fighting with the gentry class, these warlords evolved different strategies for the founding of the country. Cao Wei regime in the north was the strongest, and its military and economic strength was also the strongest. Moreover, through its military and political influence, it has a relatively advantage in alliance with several northern military groups. At the same time, worshiping the emperor to order the princes has the advantage of morality in the right of discourse, so it has the advantage of time. At that time, the state of Wu was geographically separated from the state of Wei in the north by the natural barrier of the Yangtze River. At the same time, the state of Wu had a relatively large strategic extension zone, that is, to the south to the barren or barbarian areas,

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and even extended to Taiwan, Japan and other island areas. Its economic strength is stronger than that of Shu, but weaker than that of Wei. Its military strength may be much weaker than that of Wei and slightly weaker than that of Shu. However, as it occupies a natural barrier of Yangtze River and has a long strategic buffer zone, its overall strength may be weaker than that of Wei but stronger than that of Shu. The strategic depth of Shu was relatively small. At that time, Shu could theoretically extend to Yunnan and even Southeast Asian countries. However, under the technical conditions at that time, it was difficult for human beings to overcome the dangers of Sichuan and southwest mountains and the poisonous insects and beasts of tropical rainforest. At that time, the population in Southwest China was not very dense, and the tropical rain forest was almost like a desert where the population was sparsely distributed. Since the Yellow turban uprising formed the warlord separatist era, the competition among individual princes intensified, and the communication and integration degree between the individual princes was relatively low. Through a series of power seizing and wars, Cao Cao unified the north in the name of the emperor, while the various interest groups in the north were more balanced than those in Wu and Shu. In fact, the Northern Cao Wei regime implemented the policy of relative to Wu and Shu, which is more democratic and is closer to the interest alliance of various groups. There are not only aristocratic interest groups, but also political faction of reviving Han Dynasty represented by Kong Rong and even his important counsellor Xun Yu. Therefore, when Cao Cao had gone on several expeditions and the war had not yet been won or lost, he withdrew his troops and went back, which meant that his internal contradictions had not been resolved, and he was afraid of internal divisions. However, due to the greater relative strength of Cao Wei regime and the greater expectation of future unification or the possibility of winning the war. It was able to maintain the unity of its overall regime under the temptation of greater returns in the future despite the great conflicts among various internal interest groups. In the Cao Wei regime, the power of the gentry was relatively stronger, and its relatively loose and free cultural gene laid the foundation of talents, resources and culture for the final unification of the Central Plains, as well as the gene for the achievement of the culture and civilization of the Cao Wei regime. But it is also the reason why his regime was stolen by Sima group later. In the south of the Yangtze River, Sun Wu regime occupied the natural barrier of the Yangtze River, forming a pragmatic group with economic and political interests as the main cohesion. Sun Ce fled back to the south of the Yangtze River in exchange for 3000 troops of Yuan Shu with the imperial seal of the emperor of the Han Dynasty, and then Sun Quan submitted himself to Cao Wei regime in order to recover Jingzhou, and formed the Sun Wu group with the pursuit of practical interests as the purpose of political stability and maintenance. This kind of profit-driven group has great flexibility in politics or system, but is not so rigid. It is easy to absorb the culture or civilization system of other princes or countries. However, the group or country lacking strong culture or civilization gene is easy to lose its cohesion and split or be replaced by other groups. In the history of Sun Wu regime, there were

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many revengeful murder between the gentry and the military factions, which is the embodiment of such cultural gene in the real politics. Shu, located in the southwest, was a political group under the shibboleth of “supporting and reviving Han Dynasty”. Liu Bei developed a very weak military force into a three-part group in just a few years. The biggest force behind it was to maintain the orthodoxy of the Han Dynasty and vilify the Cao Wei regime as a traitor of state. Shu Han regime agglomerated a group with moral or cultural appeal. The inner part of the regime was also composed of different interest groups. However, under the dual effects of shibboleth “supporting and reviving Han Dynasty” and the aggravation of external threats, the different factions or forces within the regime were finally gradually integrated to realize the rule of Jingzhou group led by Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang. In Shu Han regime, we can clearly see the influence of the moral and cultural fluctuations formed by historical evolution on the political pattern on the time scale of the regime maintenance. From the evolution of the internal relations of Shu Han regime in history, we can clearly see that under the external pressure, the weakest Shu Han regime was more centralized within the state. The degree of asymmetry characterized by centralization is strengthened, which in turn leads to the decline of innovation/mutation ability within the system, and finally leads to the decline of various indicators representing national strength such as economy, social wealth and culture. In the early days of the establishment of the Shu Han regime, its internal structure was very simple, which was basically a single group or faction of Liu Bei. However, after the annexation of Yizhou, three major groups were formed, namely, the Dongzhou group represented by Li Yan, the former Liu Zhang faction, the Yizhou group represented by local forces, and the Jingzhou group represented by Liu Bei’s trusted follower. However, with the successive active wars against Cao Wei regime, Yizhou group and Dongzhou group were gradually weakened and basically lost the ability to play games. Within the Shu Han regime, with the intensification of its centralization, the stability of its regime was more stable than that of Cao Wei regime and Sun Wu regime. From Liu Bei to Zhuge Liang and then to Jiang Wei, the leaders of the Shu Han regime took the initiative to stimulate the external pressure through various ways to make it more intense, which in turn promoted the unity and integration of internal political resources. There was a game similar to an arms race between the external pressure and internal centralization. This kind of mutual reinforcement, even at the expense of war to strengthen the external pressure, led to the internal shift to totalitarianism with the state. However, with the strengthening of centralization, its economic, military and cultural innovation, which represents the level of national strength, began to decline after reaching a threshold. “There were no generals in the state of Shu, and Liao Hua was the pioneer” was a reflection of the lack of talents. In literature and art, it was difficult to compare with the northern Cao Wei regime, even with the Sun Wu regime. Cao Wei regime was prosperous in art; Sun Wu was relatively weak in literature and art, but his navigation technology was very advanced at that time. Historical records show that the ships of the state of Wu were able to reach Taiwan and Japan at that time. The high centralism increased the power for the stable and efficient foreign war

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of Shu Han regime, but the cost was the decline of talent growth, economic vitality and innovation ability in culture, art, science and technology. Centralization leads to the decline of the overall innovation ability of the society, which in turn leads to the decline of its economy and national competitiveness, and finally leads to the collapse or replacement of its social and economic system. Among the Three Kingdoms, Shu Han regime was the first to perish. In contrast to Shu Han regime, the Cao Wei regime was established on the basis of the original Han regime, so the integration of the Han regime is the choice of Cao Wei regime. In this way, the regime on this basis naturally requires its inclusiveness, and the competitive strength of the Cao Wei regime provides a strong impetus to unite these forces. The potential benefits of forming an alliance with one of the most powerful groups are also obvious. In the relatively more powerful Cao Wei regime, the degree of alliance or democracy was higher, and its internal tolerance was also higher. The culture, art, economy and other aspects represented by the aristocratic class of Cao Wei were much more prosperous than those of Sun Wu regime and Shu Han regime, and the competitive power of the whole country was also much stronger, which laid the social, economic and military foundation for the unification of the whole Central Plains later. However, this relatively more symmetrical, democratic and allied internal relations of the regime also lead to the weakening of its centralization power, which is more likely to lead to the transfer of regime between different interest groups. The Sima family later replaced the Cao family, and the relatively peaceful power transfer among different families within the Cao family was the continuation of such a political structure. The Sun Wu regime is a kind of political power that sways between centralization and democracy/alliance, and vacillates in alliance or struggle with Cao Wei regime and Shu Han regime. Its culture or national establishment route is a highly realistic strategy. This is doomed to the vacillation of its line and policy. Compared with Cao Wei regime and Shu Han regime, its political line, policy, culture and ideological orientation have relatively high flexibility. The inertia force of its culture, ideology and political system is relatively small, and it can adjust its own line in time. In the history of Sun Wu regime, there were many political deviations and court coups, but the country still returned to the line, and there was no regime change or large-scale civil war in which one interest group replaced another. No matter internal random or external random disturbance, Sun Wu regime was relatively stable and evolved along its own established direction. Its realistic and flexible strategy has won the foundation of winning for one-third of the world. Whether it is Wei, Shu, Wu states or our modern state system, the structure of internal relations is closely related to external pressure or environmental disturbance. The fluctuation of the internal or external environment of a country may have a superimposed effect on the time scale of culture and civilization and the spatial fluctuation of national strength. It can accelerate or delay the fluctuation of time scale culture/civilization, and accelerate or delay the fluctuation of national competitiveness in space. For a country, the stronger it is, the more inclusive it will be, and the more symmetrical relationship will be evolved. In the case of little or no external pressure, the democratic alliance with more symmetrical relationship may tend to

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split; while under the strong external pressure, the weak country is more likely to move towards totalitarianism. During the Three Kingdoms period, there was not only competition among warlords, but also games between warlords and their common “enemy” aristocratic class. In the early stage of the game, the spatial fluctuation reflected by warlord strength and the time scale fluctuation in the direction of culture and civilization evolution had the phenomenon of staggering peaks. Random factors were the key parameters in the game that determined the strength of Wei, Shu and Wu. A careful analysis of the process of the founding process of the state of Wei, Shu and Wu reveals that many random factors may lead to totally different political patterns in the future. The Cao Wei regime adopted Chen Qun’s system of “the ninth-class official system” (a system of choosing talented persons in political aspect), which made the fluctuation of culture and civilization represented by the aristocratic class synchronized with the fluctuation of warlord power. That is to say, when the gentry completely took over the warlord power and managed the state power, the Wei Jin regime unified China. Under the huge driving force brought by the overlapping of the two fluctuations, the random factors play a relatively small role, and the national unification is realized relatively rapidly.

Efficiency is the Product of Centralization; Innovation is the Product of Democracy In the previous analysis of the competitive pattern of Wei, Shu and Wu, we only make hypothetical inferences based on the relationship between symmetry, efficiency and innovation. Social efficiency is a key index of whether countries win in competition. However, when we discuss the concept of efficiency, we often ignore that there are actually two contradictory aspects to the efficiency of a social cooperative system, that is, individual efficiency and overall efficiency of the society. In fact, the concept of fitness and survival price we discussed above only covers the efficiency of individuals. While for the social cooperation system, there is a contradiction between the overall social efficiency and the individual efficiency, which is the paradox of social cooperative behavior. According to the theory of Darwin and Adam Smith, if each individual’s selfish behavior maximizes its individual benefit or efficiency, the benefit of the whole society will be maximized. As we mentioned in the story of prisoner’s dilemma, if the two arsonists adopt the cooperative denial strategy, they can achieve the maximum overall benefits, but for individuals, confession strategy will bring the greatest benefits. It is just like we deal with global pollution or climate change. It is the best for the whole human society to reduce emissions and achieve sustainable development, which can maximize the social benefits. For each country or individual, reducing emissions and slowing the speed of development is unfavorable, because it makes them lose the advantage in the jungle law of world competition. All the theories we mentioned above are trying to solve the paradox between them.

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The paradox between individual and social efficiency can be solved by symmetry breaking. In other words, if we use the idea of asymmetry to understand, the paradox may be solved. As mentioned in the previous chapter, asymmetric interrelationship will promote the evolution of cooperative behavior, and improve individual efficiency through division of labor. The higher the degree of asymmetry, the finer the division of labor, and the higher the individual’s work efficiency. In the system or evolution stage with low degree of asymmetry, the improvement of the degree of asymmetry will improve the overall social benefits. But asymmetry is a double-edged sword. In an asymmetric system, the dominant party is likely to filter out the weak side, which will favour its retention and disfavour its exclusion. Although such screening is not always effective due to the asymmetry of information, the efficiency of screening will be improved with the increase of the degree of asymmetry. The higher the degree of system asymmetry, the lower the diversity of the system. For human society, the higher the system asymmetry, the less the innovation ability, which is a significant feature. From the former Soviet Union under Stalin to Russia under Putin, we can clearly feel this pattern. A decline in diversity or innovation, in turn, reduces the productivity of a society as a whole. Such cases can be found everywhere in social economics. The most striking example is Russia now. From a personal point of view, Putin is very successful that he has fulfilled his dream of becoming an idol of all Russians, and even an idol of President Donald Trump of the United States. No one in Russia can challenge his power and influence. However, if you look at the state of the Russian economy, which has fallen to a level lower than the GDP of Guangdong Province in China, you will understand why the degree of asymmetry is too high, which will reduce the overall benefits of society. During the period of Qing Dynasty, Emperor Kangxi and Qianlong reached the top in imperial power, but the comprehensive national strength of Qing Dynasty has been declining. Now Russia is almost the mirror of Qing Dynasty that we once had.

In the social biological system, efficiency is the product of centralization, while innovation and mutation are the products of democracy. There is a long-term game

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process between asymmetry and diversity/innovation ability of social system, which will affect the overall benefit increase or decrease of the society. Since there is a balance between individual efficiency and social diversity (innovation), the total social benefits will increase first and then decrease with the increase of the degree of asymmetry. Presenting a parabola (see above figure). As far as the overall social benefits are concerned, the existence of asymmetry is not enough. In fact, human society is always fluctuating and choosing between asymmetry (centralization system) and symmetry (liberalism). There is always inertia in society, and the institutions of each country always fluctuate and hover between them. No country adopts absolute totalitarianism, nor does any country adopt a completely liberal system.

Two Tigers Are not Allowed in One Mountain, Except One Male and One Female Based on the balance between asymmetry—high efficiency and symmetry —high innovation, we can simply infer the competitiveness of a country or social group. The competition or cooperation between countries or social groups also depends on the influence of environment or the selection pressure faced by a larger selection unit. For example, whether it is competition or cooperation between parties within a country, and whether it is governed by a single party or a multi-party, will probably be affected by the selection pressure exerted by the higher choice unit of the country, and there is a strong path dependence (historical factors) on its choice strategy. This is analogous to the relationship of cooperation or competition among the species that co-exist in an ecosystem, and the environmental selection pressures faced by the ecosystem in which they live will greatly influence the relationships among species within the system. There is a Chinese saying: Two tigers are not allowed in one mountain, except one male and one female. In a complex and open society and in an international relations system, the overall trend is still very similar. There may be two tigers coexisting in one mountain in the political pattern of the world. In the case that both sides have relatively large plasticity in their spheres of influence or strategic living space, the relationship between them will be the coexistence of volatility. However, the stability of coexistence is relatively fragile and easily converted to only one pole. In the case of one pole, the system is relatively stable. This is a similar phenomenon in social animals and insects. Highly social insect systems, such as ants and bees, are characterized by the presence of only one king or one queen. In the ape social system of primates that are our close relatives, we also see only one king, and rarely find the presence of several kings or queens. However, some social insects, such as a few termite species, are exceptional. Termites are also highly social insects, and most species have only one king or queen. But some species naturally have more than one king or queen. This confused us at first. Later observations found that in a colony with multiple queens, the internal

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space was divided into many small kingdoms by various tunnels and rotten wood. Each small colony is in fact an independent kingdom. As long as a soldier ant blocks the tunnel entrance, the individuals from other small colonies cannot enter their colony. Because of the military and technical constraints in ancient times, it is difficult for people to overcome the geographical and physical obstacles such as mountains and rivers. Therefore, it is difficult for an individual of a tribe to invade other tribes, which easily forms the coexistence of several independent kingdoms. When we break down the spatial barrier of the termites and let these queens live in the same space as different colonies of termites, these queens begin to fight, but soon they coexist harmoniously. What interesting is that when these individuals have not yet developed into queens, if we put them in the same environment without spatial barriers when they are still crown princes, these princes fight very hard. In the end, only one crown prince can survive, and the rest may be defeated and died. In homogeneous spatial conditions, whether it is social insects or humans, the only king or overlord would be the most likely result of choice. We may notice that some lions are dominated by only one male lion, but there are often two males or even occasionally three males. Even five males are reported to dominate a group rather than one male dominating. But the cooperative system of lions remains stable. This may happen because the dominant male lion’s public resource—the female lion, is completely shared. Female lions usually mate with more than one male during estrus, without exclusivity. Therefore, there is no fierce competition among male lions for the most important public resource. In addition, the competition among groups is very fierce in the lions. In such special situation, the competition for public resources is not fierce. For male lions, it is mainly the amount of prey captured by females and the competition among groups that may be the most important competitive resources. In this way, how many male lions can co-exist in a lion group will depend on the number of female lions or their ability to catch prey. If the more food the group can catch and the easier it is, the more male lions will dominate the group accordingly. Similarly, the greater the threat between groups, the greater the likelihood that multiple male lions will dominate a group. However, it is worth noting that the status of these male lions in the same group is different, but not as much as the queen/king and the worker ants. This is also happening in human society. In democratically elected countries, we will find some interesting phenomena: in many countries, the ruling party of the state is in power by two parties instead of just one party. Why can such a political pattern be formed? Instead of evolving into one party dominated pattern? For a competitive political party, the most critical public resource of its main competition is public support, and most of the political inclination are not absolutely loyal—similar to the mating right of female lions, the political inclination of the public is completely shared. That anyone can win the hearts and minds of the people and seek for the welfare of the people becomes the key resource in the competition between the parties., In a one-party -ruling or relatively authoritarian ruling country, relatively speaking, if the ruling party is not to consider how to realize the political proposition of outward expansion or the continuation of civilization, but to consider how to integrate internal resources in the face of strong external pressure so as to response

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external pressure efficiently, the support of the internal public is more exclusive among various political parties. The greater the external pressure, the greater the exclusiveness of the struggle between the political parties within the country, the easier the weak parties to yield, and finally more likely to form a hegemonic pattern, and evolve into a highly centralized pattern. In the world political structure, it is difficult to really share the political influence or the control of public resources among countries. In such exclusive competition, when the physical isolation of space is broken and evolved into a global village, there will be only one village head in the final pattern, and there will not be two village heads. The only exception is a highly reciprocal relationship, that is, the two village heads are similar to the reciprocal relationship between a man and a woman. The maintenance of this reciprocal relationship usually requires strong external pressure or institutional punishment. Otherwise, it is very easy for one party to break the contract or the rules of the game and knock down the other party and return to the tradition of one party ruling.

The Game of Unity and Division is also the Game of Efficiency and Innovation At the beginning of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the evolution trend of international relations is summarized that the world is divided after a long time union, and is united after a long time division. The power of state power has relatively large inertia effect and discontinuity with the civilization/system of the state or group, which is also the reason for its fluctuation. In a relatively more symmetrical system, civilization and culture (whose main characteristics are social structures or social relationships), the probability of internal innovation (mutation in biological system) will increase. It should be emphasized that biological mutation is a neutral word, and mutation may be “good” or “bad”. The “good” or “bad” here is relative to the biological individual or biological system. What is good for population growth is considered a “good” mutation, and what is not good for population growth is considered “bad”. However, the word “innovation” is a typical word with value preference. Usually, our concept of innovation is a mutation beneficial to the whole society. As a matter of fact, there are as many “negative” mutations in a society as there are positive ones for it. In the relatively more symmetrical social structure, the tolerance for “negative” mutation innovation actually encourages positive and beneficial innovation. In the history of human science and technology, there are many “negative” innovations, which finally have a huge positive effect on human beings. The development of nuclear technology was originally designed to make killing devices, but when it is applied to the field of power generation, it will bring huge benefits to human beings. However, the parachute is a direct invention of prisoners trying to escape from prison.

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In a group or state with a high degree of asymmetry, that is, in a totalitarian society of political science, its internal resources or social relations focus on the most urgent problems or threats faced by the group or state. Such internal social structure will help to improve the competitiveness of the whole group, and the homogenization of its goals, like the division of social labor, can improve the efficiency of the whole group. However, such a social structure is difficult to accommodate mutation or innovation in different directions. This kind of mutation or innovation that does not conform to the group goal will not get resources or corresponding social relations, especially “its mistakes” are difficult to be contained, so the innovation ability of the whole society will be reduced. In the case of great pressure of external competition, centralization is advantageous to concentrate resources or social relations to obtain its own living space; while when the external pressure is reduced, centralization will spontaneously turn to more symmetrical democracy. However, due to the inertia force of system, civilization/culture may evolve in extreme directions, and extreme centralization or liberalism may occur if the fluctuation of random factors happens to be synchronous. The Shu Han regime of the Three Kingdoms once formulated and implemented the prohibition of alcohol, and there were cases of convictions for having wine making tools at home. But without the stimulation of “debauched of the heart” like wine, there would be no poets like Cao Cao and Li Bai, just as the fanciful Mi Heng (a celebrity with no official post in the Eastern Han Dynasty) would not have been born. Since its birth, Shu Han regime was the weakest power and a high degree of centralization is conducive to the survival space of Shu Han regime. As the external pressure has not been eliminated, the inertia of his totalitarianism continued from Liu Bei to Zhuge Liang, until Jiang Wei (a shogun in Shu Han) at the time of the fall of Shu Han. The political banner (that is cultural cohesion) of “reviving Han Dynasty”, which is the cohesion of its internal strength, is more rigid but lacks the corresponding flexibility, which further strengthens its totalitarianism. This kind of power lasted for a long time, which eventually led to the substantial decline of its social, economic, cultural as well as military strength, Finally, Shu Han regime became the first country to be destroyed. The initial weakness and narrowness of Shu Han regime had largely determined the outcome of its first annexation, while the alliance with Sun Wu regime slowed down the process of its annexation by Cao Wei regime. Since Liu Bei, the founder of Shu Han regime, the regime took reviving the Han Dynasty as its political goal. Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are the core members of Shu Han regime. However, Zhao Yun, the founder of great achievements, did not enter their core member circle. In fact, other groups joining in the later period did not really enter the core of its interest group. As for Zhuge Liang was accepted into the core group because he did not have his own power. The whole Shu Han regime did not really form a more symmetrical internal alliance, so it was relatively weak with the allies or its own strength. The strengthening of centralization further weakened the inclusiveness of the group, which directly led to the shrinkage of the strength or sphere of influence of the Shu Han regime. If Shu Han regime did not continue to strengthen its totalitarianism after establishing its own regime, and did not take the initiative war against Cao Wei regime in

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order to further unite people and consolidate its regime, and adopt a more inclusive and balanced internal social relationship structure, Shu Han regime could build a more inclusive environment in terms of talent, economy, culture and other social development. The ending of evolution of The Three Kingdoms could be just another story. Shu Han regime could take the similar strategy to Cao Wei regime, and actively develop to southwest and even Southeast Asia, exploiting and developing these uncultivated areas and expanding its strategic buffer zone. At the same time, it should improve its internal growth environment and create a more inclusive social environment, so that military, cultural, economic and artistic talents can grow up for future development. As Zhuge Liang said in Longzhong Dui: “A general is a member of the imperial family. You are loyal to all over the world, and eager for heroes and talents. If you can occupy the Jingzhou and Yizhou, make peace with all the nations in the west and south, unite with Sun Quan and reform polities. Once the world change, you can order a general to lead the army of Jingzhou. If this is the case, then hegemony can be achieved, and the Han Dynasty can flourish.” Unfortunately, after Liu Bei entered Sichuan, he forgot this strategy, and Zhuge Liang also forgot his original strategic blueprint, which eventually led to the rapid collapse of the Shu Han regime. Two relatively weak groups led by Sun Quan and Liu Bei, formed an alliance under the strong pressure of Cao Cao in the early stage. However, the alliance between Sun Wu and Shu Han regime led to the stagnation of Cao Cao’s annexation. Facing the strong external pressure, the relatively weak must unite to deal with such pressure, which is the inevitable result of natural selection. Once a scientist used a kind of small fish to do such an experiment: two small fish were kept alone in the fish tank, they would play separately and even often fight for food, but when a predator fish was put into the other side of the glass, the two small fish immediately united, always swimming together, and little conflict3 between each other. An experienced farmer tells another version of the story: if two donkeys fight together all the time, let a dog or wolf enter stock barn, and the two donkeys will unite. Human beings or social groups are similar to the biological characteristics of nature, and strong external pressure leads to the rapid unity of vulnerable parties to form an alliance. If Cao Cao didn’t press the Sun Quan and Liu Bei step by step, he continued to use Guo Jia’s strategy to deal with Yuan Shang and Yuan Tan, the sons of Yuan Shao: stop putting pressure to them, and finally the brothers turned against each other and fought fiercely. Assuming that Cao Cao didn’t put pressure on him, would Sun Quan and Liu Bei continue Yuan Tan’s strategy of competing with northern tribes for territory? If Sun Quan and Liu Bei did not form an alliance, Cao Cao might have adopted the more flexible diplomatic strategy adopted by the United States in the 1970s of Uniting China to restrain the Soviet Union, which led to the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union. The system, culture and strategy of founding a country of Sun Wu regime are more flexible, which is a typical realistic strategy. Under the strong pressure from Cao Cao, 3

Shou [2]. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Bei visited Zhuge Liang in Longzhong, Deng County, making three visits to his hut, and established the strategic conception of the tripartite confrontation.

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Sun Quan allied with Liu Bei, and finally defeated Cao Cao in Chibi, thus gaining his own living space. However, it was this kind of realistic inertia that made Sun Wu regime fight against Shu Han regime in order to capture Jingzhou, which led to the disintegration of Sun and Liu’s alliance, and then Sun Wu regime submitted to the Cao Wei regime in order to relieve the pressure of Shu Han regime. This realistic and speculative strategy won the living space for Sun Wu regime, but it also paid the price for this short-sighted behavior. If Sun Wu regime temporarily put aside the contend against Jingzhou with Shu Han regime, supported the continuous war between Shu Han and Cao Wei, at the same time actively integrated the economy, culture and population with Cao Wei and Shu Han regime, and encouraged the population of Shu Han and Cao Wei to migrate to the south to develop the wild land in the South, these benefits would be far greater than that of a Jingzhou. When Cao Wei and Shu Han regime fought and their strength was greatly lost, they adopted the flexible strategy and system of alliance with Shu Han and being able to submit to Cao Wei at the same time. As long as the time was ripe, Sun Wu regime could not fail to unify the Three Kingdoms. Cao Wei regime in the north is the most powerful group among the Three Kingdoms, and it is also the most dynamic group in terms of civilization/culture and system. The diversity of its personnel is an important feature of its ideological and cultural development. Cao Wei regime was far superior to Sun Wu and Shu Han regime in military talent, literature talent and national think tank talent. Comparatively speaking, the social, economic, civilization and cultural development of the Cao Wei regime was more stable, and the social fluctuation was relatively small. It was precisely because of its more mature talents and think tanks, the more mature decision-making mechanism, and the probability of making mistakes smaller than that of the Sun Wu and Shu Han regimes. We can see clearly from the strategic mistakes within the three groups during the Three Kingdoms period. After Guan Yu lost Jingzhou and was killed, Shu Han regime rashly and impulsively used the national force to revenge, which is enough to show that Shu Han regime did not have enough power and mechanism to correct errors and avoid such strategic and directional mistakes. As for Cao Wei regime, for several times Cao Cao attempted to eradicate opposing forces, such as Kong Rong and Mi Heng. Such relatively small mistakes can be stopped in time, which can not only be attributed to the enlightened and wisdom of the monarch, but also to the checks and balances among various interest groups within the Cao Wei regime. At the same time, there are more talents to help him give timely and reasonable suggestions. It was the continuation of Guo Jia’s thought that Cao Wei regime adopted the strategy of developing northward and unifying the north at the same time, focusing on development instead of actively launching war against Sun Wu and Shu Han regimes. Other northern tribes or military groups, compared with the strength of Cao Wei regime, were more easily unified and integrated, and more importantly, they stabilized their rear areas. After the establishment of the Cao Wei regime, there was no active war against Sun Wu and Shu Han, but Shu Han and Sun Wu could only maintain their alliance under the pressure of Cao Wei regime. Without the pressure of Cao Wei regime, the internal contradiction between Shu Han and Sun Wu would rise

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to be their main contradiction. The important characteristic of the talent maturity of the think tanks in the Cao Wei regime was to actively show favor to Sun Wu, which led to the wrong war against Shu Han. The democracy/alliance system of Cao Wei contributed to the talent, innovation and economic rejuvenation of the whole group of Cao Wei, and thus formed a strong error correction mechanism and strength, then establishing and perfecting its relatively stable and reliable regime decision-making mechanism, which provided an effective guarantee for its efficient diplomacy and healthy development of the country. However, the relatively democratic and alliance nature of the Cao Wei regime sowed the seeds for its subsequent regime to be usurped by Sima family. The relatively loose central power structure of the Cao Wei regime led to its low efficiency in implementing its own strategic aspirations. Cao Cao’s several campaigns to attack Zhang Lu in Hanzhong were interrupted by the instability of the regime. If Cao Cao solved the internal mechanism of relative decentralization, and completely eliminated the checks and balances of the royal family of Han Dynasty, Kong Rong and other aristocratic groups, maybe Cao Cao would seize Sichuan areas before Liu Bei, and unification of China might be greatly advanced. Similarly, the strong inertia of the democracy and alliance system of the Cao Wei regime led to the forced abandonment of the basic national policy of meritocracy after Cao Pi came to power. Instead, the hereditary system of the aristocratic group was the main reason for the final loss of control of the Cao Wei regime. For Cao Wei, the internal strong democracy, the alliance system and the huge inertia of civilization/culture foundation are the fundamental reasons for the final decline and division of Cao Wei regime and Wei Jin regime. After stabilizing the regime, Cao Cao tried to integrate his internal forces from democracy and alliance to totalitarianism. He tried to eliminate Kong Rong, who represented the interests of the aristocrats, and even Xun Yu, his most important ally with different political ideals in his early days. However, due to the strong inertia of culture/system, Cao Cao failed to achieve the relative concentration aim by integrating the forces of various interest factions. It is an important way to take the initiative to launch wars with the help of external pressure to realize the integration of internal forces. In this way, Shu Han realized the attack on the internal Yizhou group. However, the main reason for the failure of internal power integration is the inertia of its system or culture, and the lack of external pressure to promote the internal centralization of power is one of the reasons. The premature death of the most powerful Cao Cao further hindered the realization of internal centralization. This kind of inertia or inertia of democracy and alliance system led to the replacement of the regime of the later Cao Wei regime after unified the central plain, which led to the separation of the same Wei Jin regime. As a Chinese saying goes: things will develop in the opposite direction when they become extreme. This is true for individual growth, as well as for countries or groups. The same is true for the reproduction and survival of natural biological species. In the Three Kingdoms period, whether it was the centralization of Shu Han, the democracy/alliance of Cao Wei, or the realism of Sun Wu, the system, culture and military advantages of Wei, Shu and Wu were achieved respectively. Under its strong inertia, coupled with the acceleration of random factors, they became the

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inducement of their decline after the situation changed. Wei, Shu and Wu were finally unified in Wei Jin, which had the effect of inertia of strength and cultural/institutional fluctuations. However, random factors or external disturbances accelerated or slowed down the evolution process. Some random events or factors may also induce the reorganization of the whole world pattern. In a fiercely competitive and nervous environment, these small events or factors may cause a chain reaction, that is, through the so-called butterfly effect, which leads to the chaos in the world, and finally realizes the re-combination of world political and economic order, re-establishes the rules of the game, and restores the world to an orderly state again. A real progress must be the result of the evolution against inertia behavior, which can only occur with the help of powerful external forces. This is true for individual organisms, and the same is true for human social behavior. For individual organisms, the evolution along with inertia will inevitably lead to the equilibrium state of the system, which will lead to the collapse of the system. However, for human society, following the inertia will inevitably lead to the inertia of the system and lose the ability of competition and innovation, and the society will decline accordingly. It takes extraordinary self-denial courage to overcome this powerful inertia. In more cases, it is impossible to overcome this inertia by relying on the internal forces itself, and it often requires a strong external force to push the system in the opposite direction.

References 1. Huntington S (2007) The clash of civilizations and the reconstruction of world order. Xinhua Press, Beijing, Guan-Zhong Luo, Romance of The Three Kingdoms, China Drama Press 2. Shou C (2006) Biography of Zhuge Liang, Annals of the three Kingdoms, Annals of Shu, Zhonghua Book Company

Chapter 8

The Game of New Three Kingdoms—Cooperation and Competition in a Globally Changing World

Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?1 —Friedrich Hayek

The Bourgeoisie—The Common Enemy and Friend of Different Civilizations As an invisible parameter, civilization and culture are influential factors in the development of countries or groups, changing the way they behave militarily, politically and economically. Similar to a complex ecological system, the distribution pattern of each species in the ecosystem depends not only on the spatial competitiveness of the species itself, but also on the evolutionary path and genetic characteristics of the species in the time scale (i.e., history), which is affected by random environmental fluctuations. Like the seeds of a species, whether they fall in cow dung or in a barren stone crevice is affected by random factors, which may cause the distribution pattern of species to take on completely different patterns. Under the influence of the above three forces, the political ecological pattern of the world will be as random and uncertain as the species distribution pattern of any ecosystem. But randomness and uncertainty do not mean that the political landscape is lawless. In the process of human evolution, there has been a trend towards social stratification, known as double stratified society in biology and class or stratum in human society. With the refinement of the social division of labor and the facilitation of information exchange, the social structure has gradually evolved from the familystyle procedure system from primitive tribes to the rule of national aristocracy, then to the rule of gentry and landlord, and lastly to the rule of the bourgeoisie. With the increasing number of countries or groups, the ruling class needs to unify the 1

von Hayek [1].

© Science Press 2023 R. Wang, The End of Rationality and Selfishness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9752-5_8

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whole population by taking advantage of imaginary concepts. In this way, the socalled concepts of civilization, culture and country emerge. The social ruling class strengthens and unites the national population, and thus competes with the national ruling institutions by having a voice of civilization or culture. When the ruling class of the state and the ruling class of the society are fully integrated, the two classes of the state belong to a cooperative relationship. The superimposed effect of the power fluctuations of the two parties promotes the stability and unity of the state or the group. If there is a mismatch between the two classes, the possibility of confrontation increases. The Three Kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu analyzed in the previous chapter are three different strategies or paths of nation-building developed by the rulers of The Three Kingdoms in the process of playing games with the common opponent of the gentry class. In today’s world political structure, the ruling class is the bourgeoisie, which controls the civilization or culture of the society, the right to speak out morally, and economic and social activities. However, as we said in the analysis of the game between The Three Kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu in ancient China, the controllers of state power in many cases did not have the same demands or evolutionary path as the ruling class in the society. In today’s world, only part of the western countries such as the ruling class of America’s national power largely fuse with the bourgeoisie. In other countries or civilized community, there is a mismatch between its controllers of the state power and the ruling classes of the society. In other words, in non-western countries, there is a conflict between the ruling class and the bourgeoisie in their civilizations and cultural genes. Samuel Huntington explains in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order that the conflicts between violent institutions of states will evolve into the conflict of groups cemented by culture and civilization. He realized the underlying culture and civilization hidden behind national conflicts, but ignored the fierce conflicts within a group of cultures to achieve unification, which is no less fiercer than the former, as we can see in many cases of domestic wars between various warlords or factions within the country. Today, all the countries in the Middle East belong to the same civilization, but in constant conflict, which can be used to demonstrate that countries within the same civilization group may launch more fierce struggles for hegemony. Within a same group of civilization, he also ignored the cooperation and competition between the ruling class of civilization and the ruler of state power, which will directly influence the relationship between various groups of civilization and is the underlying reason that why so many conflicts wouldn’t be discussed at the level of civilization. Not all individuals or classes have a say in civilization and culture, which is often the unique right of a certain class. With the expansion of technological progress and the refinement of the division of labor, the ruling class within human society has gradually evolved from the aristocracy and landlord class to the bourgeoisie at the national level. It is also in the process of evolution, the ruling class of human group structure has gradually shifted from the top to the bottom of the pyramid. It was this expansion of social cooperation

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that accumulated more wealth, and the ruling class was able to support more redundant personnel, which was perhaps the most important grounds for accelerating the development of science and technology. It is deemed that it is the soil of Christian civilization giving birth to the advancement of technology, but actually Christianity existed for almost a thousand years without so-called scientific technology prior to the Industrial Revolution. Maybe a question has arisen about why modern scientific technology was born and developed in West. In fact, this may be a misconception. Science and technology had their roots in ancient China, such as Pythagorean Theorem, Jiuzhang Suanshu, etc., and Qi Min Yao Shu in the Ming Dynasty showed that ancient Chinese science and technology had reached a certain level of development. Science and technology itself are only a feature of the maintenance or progress of our human society, but not the whole picture. However, the development of science and technology in China was delayed only because of the highly centralized system of the Chinese feudal dynasties, which inhibited the development of this path. However, the Christian civilized countries advocated equality and criticism, which was just the soil needed for the progress of science and technology. The seed of science and technology just fell on the equality and criticism of this pile of cow dung, with the nutrition it needed, so it flourished. With the help of this pile of cow dung, science and technology had germinated and developed. The progress of science and technology to strengthen the exchange of information between human groups also enhanced the entire human society, the interdependence among individuals within the “big community”, and reduced the interdependencies among individuals within the families, communities, families, and even national “small groups”. Thereby, the credibility of advantageous class was reduced for their rewards and punishment to vulnerable individuals, then leading to smaller internal group cohesion. It was in this evolutionary trend that the centralized feudal aristocracy and landlord class gradually turned to the rule of the bourgeoisie at the bottom. In the Western world, the bourgeois Revolution period gradually completed the transition from the rule of landlords and aristocrats to the rule of capital. Therefore, within the Western bloc, there is relatively little conflict between the state’s political rulers and the social rulers of the bourgeoisie, and the social fluctuation caused by this level is therefore relatively small. During the period of the bourgeois Revolution, the western bourgeoisie completed the integration of the bourgeoisie and the ruling class of the state regime in that period of violent turbulence. In other countries with civilized systems in the world, there is a mismatch between the ruling class of state power and the bourgeoisie, which is the ruling class of today’s society. Japan belongs to the group of western political civilization as well as East Asian Confucianism civilization. The country’s regime rulers are not wholly the bourgeois class, but rather aristocratic or political family, but the social culture, public opinion, society and economy are controlled by the bourgeoisie. Cooperation and competition coexist between the two classes in the country. Under more intense external pressure, such as the control of the US over its military and political aspects and the military and political threats from other countries due to the lack of its own conventional military force, the contradictions

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between the rulers of the state power and the social ruling class in Japan have been weakened but not significantly manifested. In several other major civilizations, there is a significant dislocation between the ruler of state power and the ruling class of society. In Africa and the Middle East, the political power of some countries is completely controlled by religious leaders or warlords, while the bourgeoisie which develops the actual control power can only rely on these religious leaders and warlords. A similar situation exists in other countries with civilized systems. In some countries, due to the contradictions between the two classes, the state power controllers suppress the bourgeoisie, the controlling class of the social and economic system, by cracking down on economic and financial oligarchs or by compulsory economic nationalization. This is very similar to the period of The Three Kingdoms in ancient China. At that time, there was a conflict between the warlord who controlled the political power and the gentry class who controlled the social economy in The Three Kingdoms. In order to maintain the internal stability of the gentry class, the warlords who controlled the political power in the three states of Wei, Shu and Wu suppressed the gentry class by means of violence, such as killing and demotion. In the Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Huntington identifies eight major civilizations: Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Western, Hindu, African, and Latin American and Orthodox and argues that competition between civilizations will be the main characteristics in the process of the world’s political proceedings. It goes without doubt that the disappearance of physical spatial barriers globally and the deepening of liberal ideals, global competition have risen sharply in this context, and that larger coalitions of different civilizations or countries will enhance their competitiveness. Under the banner of common civilization, taking advantage of more ethnic groups or countries will help countries with common civilizations to unite together and thus gain greater competitiveness. In a civilization, the inner competition of struggling for leadership is much fiercer than it is among civilizations. Similarly to wars at home, the wars between factions are severer than fighting against foreign invasion. In today’s major civilizations, the reason why many civilizations haven’t shown strong competition or right of speech is that these civilizations haven’t realized reunification within the country, which weakens the competitiveness of the whole civilization by internal power struggle. In other words, it is easier for a relatively unified civilization or group (usually a military alliance with certain constraints) to obtain its dominant power in the jungle of world civilization. In the reunification process, there are games between different classes. Just as the above mentioned, the ruling class of society is transferring from the top of pyramid to the bottom and nobility and aristocracy to the bourgeoisie or the intellectual class. However, the ruling class of state power or violent institutions is sometimes unified and coevolved, while sometimes it is misaligned. The two sides will show a confrontational relationship, which even lead to the division of the country or the civilization.

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The US, China, Russia—Different Pathway Depended Strategies In the early stage of human evolution, a country or civilization is often constrained to a certain geographic religion due to the geographic and physical isolation. In today’s globalized world, the formation of different factions and interest groups or economic and military groups within a country has often gone beyond geographical constraints and the flow of information, or entropy, has unprecedentedly grown. The formation of countries or civilizations will evolve into a more virtual unit in the global network structure. Undoubtedly, these more virtual units also require a specific materialized organizational structure, NATO under the framework of Western civilization and the World Bank, for example. These materialized organizational structures often go beyond the ideology of civilization and tend to form alliances based on more realistic economic, military and political interests. In reality, the driving force behind the formation of a country or group is often multi-dimensional rather than a single element, just like that a person has multiple personality traits rather than a single one trait. On the contrary, sometimes factor A is playing the leading role, and sometimes factor B is playing. Under the promotion of ruling class of the bourgeoisie and the intellectual class, globalization has become a tendency of human civilization. However, religious aristocrats, gentry warlords and other social elites who hold the voice of state power and moral civilization are to the rejection of liberalism and globalization. Complete freedom of movement is not conducive to stable social management, and it is easy to be assimilated by other more competitive civilizations and thus lose its sovereign. Only a strong society is open and proclaimed a simple Grand Unification, while a weak society is narrow and closed, which is same to a social class. The bourgeoisie advocates liberalism, which is not only necessary to acquire material wealth, but also the moral basis for the ruling class at the bottom of the society to evolve into a society. From the middle 17th or eighteenth century, the western world had gradually begun the transition of the ruling class from the aristocracy to the lower bourgeoisie and brought about dramatic social change. Firstly the Bourgeois revolution broke out in Britain, as a pioneer for the bourgeoisie to hold the political power. Then the great Revolution broke out in France, which destroyed the feudal autocracy and opened the way for the bourgeoisie to take power. In the British Colonies of North America, a new bourgeoisie was established, which objectively promoted the development of capitalism. After WWI and WWII, the major developed capitalist countries had virtually completed the integration of the ruling class of state power and the social ruling class, promoting the value recognition among various countries within Western interest groups. When coping with common external pressure, especially the pressure of former Soviet Union, the process of internal competition has gradually formed Western civilization, led by the US government. Becoming the sole superpower of the world weakened external pressure and the relationship between countries or civilizations became more symmetrically democratic and the classes also tended to

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solidify. Just as mentioned in the previous chapter, symmetry and democracy decrease the social efficiency. A relatively stable external environment decreases the internal entropy–-leading to the solidification of the inner social classes and the combined effect of the two led to the rapid decline of the empire. After WWII, liberalism also compelled US to become the superpower of the world. Similarly, it is the same democratic liberalism that has made the United States the dominant power in the world that has led to the decline of the United States. Since strategic contraction was implemented in the United States, the United States’ comparative advantage in the competitive landscape has begun to decline. In this circumstance, civilizations or countries evolve into a more symmetric relationship and the competition becomes more intense. In a more balanced system, the gameplaying in countries is fiercer and new patterns will emerge in the game. With the change in the national strength between countries, the whole political pattern of the globalized world has formed a pattern similar to that of The Three Kingdoms in ancient China. In the Three Kingdoms period, the ruling class of the whole society was actually the gentry class, and Wei, Shu and Wu were actually three different ways in the evolution of the game between the warlord group and the gentry in the social ruling class. When geographical barriers between countries no longer become obstacles due to scientific and technological progress in communication, the long-term game process of war, trade, economy and politics among modern countries almost evolves into a global game, rather than a local game, just like the game between the major domestic factions in the past. Along the different paths, the major countries or civilizations have formed three different regime system models and determined the main competition and cooperation. Similar to The Three Kingdoms period in ancient China, today, in the global scope, the typical alliance and the centralized state eventually form the two poles, while the pragmatism wavering between the centralization and the alliance forms the third pole. The general pattern of the world will be determined by the countries or groups representing three different nation-building strategies. Similar to the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China, in today’s globalized world, the representative country of alliance and centralization has formed the poles and the third pole is pragmatism between centralism and coalition. The general pattern of the world has been decided by the three different kinds of strategies made by the country or civilization, which will gradually evolve into the three main streams of the river. Other countries who adopt other strategies or paths, like tributaries, will converge on the three main streams, which eventually flow into the sea. There are many similarities between today’s political landscape and three Kingdoms Period of ancient China. In ancient China, due to geographic isolation and the limitation of communication, the concept of world refers to the central plains and its surrounding areas. While with the advancement in technology and social development, the concept of world has turned into the whole globe and in terms of convenience and frequency of communication between countries and regions throughout the globe, it becomes faster and a lot more convenient. The world has become a global village. We can compare the relationship in Three Kingdoms with that of today, which will give us some situations intuitively to give a glimpse into

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the intricacies of our politics today. During the reign of The Three Kingdoms in ancient China, due to the limitations of technology and geography, the convenience of information exchange and political influence was much lower than that in today’s world, and the degree of mutual communication and integration among countries in The Three Kingdoms period was lower than that of information flow among countries in today. When there is a huge flow of information between different countries, the information flow (called physics entropy flow) could lead to each part of the total integration as a whole, and thusly the risk of war may also reduce. However, man-made information isolation has still persisted though geographic isolation has weakened. If the flow of information is reduced by artificial barriers between countries, countries in the world will probably shift to a more incomplete information state, and the game between countries will strengthen the whole world, so it may evolve from a state of fusion to a state of more competition. In this section, I will analyze the evolution and pattern of the interrelations among the major countries in the world to explain the interactions between symmetry and innovation ability, asymmetry and efficiency, as well as the system and civilization path dependence in the evolution process and the possible superposition effects of the three in the incomplete information state. Similar to the previous chapter’s analysis of the evolution pattern of The Three Kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu, this chapter analyzes the characteristic fluctuation and its superimposed effect of the major political groups in the world again, and the specific manifestation of the fluctuation is as follows: (1) The historical fluctuation of civilization and institutional form under the influence of time scale; (2) Fluctuations in the strength of the economic and military representatives of each country or group on the spatial scale; (3) Random fluctuations, which either refers to the intrinsic random fluctuations of their own country or groups, or the periodic random factors caused by environmental volatility such as earthquake, natural disaster, the plague etc., which will directly affect the country’s population, social public opinion, etc., thus accelerate or restrain the fluctuation amplitude and period of a country or group of civilizations or power. In The Three Kingdoms period, Cao Wei in the north had the strongest military and economic strength and gained larger advantages by allying with several military groups in the north. Meanwhile, he ordered the dukes in the name of emperor and thus had a moral advantage in the discourse power of the “world.” Let’s compare it with US nowadays. the western bloc led by the United States was similar to the Northern Wei at that time. The United States has no rival in economic and military strength in the world and it has allied with the EU, most of the countries in America and Japan in Asia, and the Western bloc. The ruling class of the American regime integrated the ruling class of the society—the bourgeoisie, which was very similar to that of the Cao Wei. The ruling group of the Cao Wei dynasty finally realized the Nine Rank system of selecting officials, and the ruling group of the warlord and the ruling group of the society realized the unification of the gentry group. The fluctuation between the ruling class and the social ruling class is unified, and there is a superimposed effect. At the same time, morally, the bourgeoisie makes every effort to promote the freedom and democracy of the enlightenment movement, and

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promotes its moral concept of universalism around the world. Holding all the aces, the United States has achieved economic, military, and cultural and moral hegemony in the world. The Confucian group or the East Asian Group, with China at its core, was somewhat similar to the Kingdom of Wu at that time. In China or other East Asia countries, the ruling class of the state power and the ruling class of the society—the bourgeoisie, have not fully integrated and unified. State power has historically in fact held in noble or hereditary power hand, and the bourgeoisie hasn’t effectively participated in the operation of the state power and existed a degree of mutual confrontation between each other. It is basically the social structure characterized by bourgeois obeying the ruling class, which is similar to Sun Wu in the Three Kingdoms period. Its internal of Sun Wu regime is warlordism group against the gentry class, but the three national political powers of the ruling class (the warlords) were strongly depended on Jiangnan gentry group, who participated in the violence agencies. For example, several minsters are originally from Jiangnan gentry group. Geographically, Sun Wu was separated from Wei in the north by the Yangtze River and also had a relatively large strategic extension zone, that is, to the south to the barren areas, and even to Taiwan, Japan and other island areas. Economically it is stronger than that of Shu Han, but weaker than Cao Wei. Its military strength may be much weaker than that of Cao Wei and slightly weaker than that of Shu Han. However, it occupies the natural danger of the Yangtze River and has a long strategic buffer zone, so its overall strength is weaker than that of Cao Wei and stronger than Shu Han. Today China is separated from the most powerful country-US by the natural barrier of the Pacific Ocean, with no direct territorial borders and relatively little chance of direct conflict or war. Behind China is wild south, southeast Asia and Africa, similar to a relatively strong strategic depth, so the price of starting a war between the two groups is relatively large, and for the United States, it is not easy to win the struggle with China. Therefore, the U.S. will not directly select the hard stuff as its pilot to return to the status of world leader. For China, a close partnership with Russia would help both sides cope with pressure from the US western bloc. The Russia-led Orthodox Bloc, with its long tradition of national character and institutional inertia, was aggressive and uncompromising in national character and stronger in military strength than that of China Confucius bloc, but the ruling class of state power and the ruling class of society conflict more severely than that of both China and US. Under the transformation from planned economy to market economy, Russia formed an Oligopolistic class which is originally the bourgeois in opposition to the ruling class. As a result, Russia government realized that its ruling and suppression of the domestic bourgeoisie in a more centralized way, and the confrontation caused by the fluctuation of the two different classes seriously weakened the competitiveness of Russia. Compared to other two countries, the overall strength of Russia is the weakest. Owing to the strong competitive inertia of the USSoviet rivalry, Russia became the preferred “soft target” for the US to once again realize its dream of world leadership. At the same time, Russia’s strategic depth is relatively small, much like Shu Han in the Three Kingdoms period. Theoretically, Shu Han could extend to the southwest province of Yunnan and even southeast Asian

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countries. However, restricted by the technical conditions at that time, it was difficult for humans to overcome the dangerous mountains in Sichuan and southwest China and the wild pests in the tropical rain forest. The situation of The Russian Group was not better than that of Shu at that time, and its military strength was indeed very strong. However, except for its vast territory, the Russian group had almost no strategic depth with economic strength to rely on, which provided enough economic support for its strategic retreat. Its north is the Arctic, east—most of the major central Asian states have become Allies of the Western bloc, and west is directly facing the Western bloc. In today’s world political situation of tripartite confrontation, cooperation and competition among the major groups in the world’s political and economic system are very similar to the Three Kingdoms period. For countries and groups with relatively weaker power, they are subject to greater external pressure, which will lead to higher internal centralization to cope with external pressure. Under the watchful eye of powerful enemies, the Russian group chose a more centralized political system, while the leaders of the Russian group used the threat of foreign enemies to constantly centralize power. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian group actually entered a relatively democratic era for a period, but it was more fiercely pursued by the Western group. With the help of the United States and other western countries, Vladimir Putin realized the dream of Peter the Great, and Russia once again chose totalitarianism. Under strong external pressure, Russia needs to strengthen its internal unity and coordinate resource allocation to improve internal military, political and economic regulation efficiency. It is by choosing a highly totalitarian political system that Russia has won its space. If the Russian bloc countries adopt a relatively democratic system, with interest groups and allied republics relatively independent of the political union system, Russia may be further divided or completely abandon its military power and become a vassal of the Western bloc. But perhaps it was precisely the high degree of authoritarianism that earned Russia the respect of the world that is likely to end the Russian bloc in the future, much like the Shu-Han regime. Although Russia weakened its internal alien power and made the country more unified, totalitarianism is inversely proportional to innovation capacity. Under the highly centralized socialist system, its science and technology, economy, thought and innovation is also corresponding curbed. In the long run, a decline in its economic and social ideological activity may eventually lead to a decline in the overall strength of its society. From ancient Chinese history to the early stage of the second world war era of Hitler, now with the Russian group, we can clearly see that with the increase of external pressure countries become more centralized and unified, and indicators such as economic and social wealth, technology level will begin to decline. When many factors, such as economy and social innovation, that represent the comprehensive strength of a country, are declining, it is easier to split within a country. National leaders can increase the pressure by stimulating external pressure, which in turn promotes the unity and integration of internal political resources. There is a game of arms race between external pressure and internal centralization. They even use

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this constant mutual reinforcement, even through war to intensify external pressure, leading to a shift to totalitarianism within the state. Centralism leads to its overall decrease of innovation capacity of any society, which in turn will lead to the fall of its economy and national competitiveness and eventually result in the collapse of the society and economic system. Historically, Shu was the first to collapse in three Kingdoms due to the high intensity of foreign war. Internal centralization has led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the highly centralized group has been granted the continuation in Russia. The country’s social and economic system may continue to perform the story of the disintegration of former Soviet union, only not knowing when it will happen. Indeed, authoritarianism is not in the DNA of Russia or other countries with a totalitarian tradition. After WWII, the basic political pattern of the world and the status and territory of each country was determined, the external competitive pressure reduced, the internal relative democratization process accelerated. In the former Soviet Union and later Russia, there was actually a period of democratization, even a period of complete marketization under Gorbachev and Yeltsin that was more liberal than in the United States or Europe. In China, Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening up and the abolition of the system of leading for life were recognized against such a background in a country where the ideology of feudal emperors was deeply rooted. This process of democratization, like the openness and self-confidence of the heyday of the Han and Tang dynasties in history, may have little to do with human rights and the culture and morality of democracy in the Western world. As an old Chinese saying goes, “Going beyond the limit is as bad as falling short.” For totalitarian Russia, too much totalitarianism will have adverse effects on the long-term development of the Russian bloc countries. The seed of inefficiency has been built into the fabric of American society as western countries enjoy the freedom of individuality and cultural self-confidence that come with democracy and freedom. While California spent ten years debating whether to build a high-speed rail between the north and south of the state, China, long denounced as undemocratic by the West, had completed its own high-speed rail network across the country. Similarly, each state in the United States can make its own laws, and even these laws are contrary to the policies of the federal central government. Especially in a time of fierce competition, it is easy for different local states and interest groups to betray and dispute due to inconsistent interests, or even split due to internal conflicts. In The Three Kingdoms period, the instability of the internal alliance mechanism led to the collapse of the Cao family, and finally led to the disintegration of the Wei and Jin states. The freedom and democracy culture of western countries has brought innovation and prosperity to western countries and contributed to the hegemony of the Western world. However, it is this overconfident freedom and democracy that ended the hegemony of the United States in the world. Freedom and democracy have led to inefficiency and looseness of state systems in western countries, thus losing their competitive advantage in international jungle warfare. In today’s world competition, the Confucian civilization group countries in East Asia, dominated by China, have chosen the system form of relative realism. As the core country of Confucian civilization, since the unification of Qin and Han

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Dynasties, due to the strong external pressure from the grassland nationalities in the north, the Chinese have always chosen centralized systems. Before the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States Period, China actually chose the form of democratic alliance system. Later, in the spring and Autumn period and the Warring States due to the fierce fighting among the vassal states, finally the legal system was chosen. The state of Qin, with a high degree of centralism, won the battle among the vassals and finally unified the whole country. With the advent of the Han Dynasty, due to the constant threat of the Xiongnu in the north, China steadily chose the form of centralized civilization system since then. However, there is no strict line between centralization and democratic union, and most countries’ systems fluctuate between these two systems and for Confucius civilizations, they are more prone to the centralization due to its high efficiency compared to democratic countries. In countries with the tradition of democratic centralism or centralism, centralism not only brings about efficiency, but also is more conducive to the relative political stability. In the actual experiment of national system reform, the experiment of some countries seems to confirm that in the countries with the tradition of totalitarianism, the relatively more centralized political system is beneficial to the development of the country. Under the centralized government, the economic and social development is faster, while in the democratic system, the national economic development is reduced, and even political instability occurs. In Africa, it was also evident in Egypt, where the military leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi violently overthrew an elected government, directly sentenced opposition leaders to death, harshly suppressed the democracy movement, but led to rapid economic development of the entire country. On a tour of Egypt, under the protection of armed soldiers, ordinary Egyptians showed a rare sense of pride as they presented many of the big projects that had just started. The contrast is even more striking in Taiwan, which was hardly a democracy in the Chiang kai-shek era, but which won the development miracle of one of the four Asian tigers. Then, in the era of truly free elections, Taiwan’s economic power declined and it is now in a state of near chaos, down to the level of Shenzhen, a southern city of the mainland. On the other side of the border, the economic success has been so great that it has aroused the American elite to worry about the China threat. Confucian civilization group such as China and other countries in East Asia are generally inclined to the system of centralism, which is maybe more appropriate to use the term of civilization or system form of realism or pragmatism. In China, history has been highly centralized, such as the Qin, Ming and Qing dynasties; There were also highly democratic alliances, such as the entire Zhou dynasty of the East zhou and the West Zhou, and even though Li Shimin won power in the Tang Dynasty, it was also the result of an alliance with his brother’s political faction. In the process of the modern struggle for hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union, under the temporary relief of China’s external pressure, China rapidly evolved into a free and open country with cultural and civilized characteristics, and its economic operation mode also changed from the planned economy with highly centralized characteristics to the market economy with the characteristics of liberal democratic alliance. This highly malleable civilization, cultural system and institution have provided powerful

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genes for the continuation of Chinese civilization system up to now. However, just as with totalitarian and democratic coalitions, the overuse of pragmatism can also have negative effects, leading to fluctuations in countries or civilizations. The cultural characteristics of pragmatism in China and other East Asian countries are the same as the democratic Alliance of the United States and the Totalitarianism of Russia, which have powerful inertial forces. On the one hand, this inertial force will usher in development opportunities for China, but On the other hand it also may bring about risks. Civilizations or culture will form its own distinctive characteristics at the national level, and at the same time infiltrate into the blood of each individual. The pragmatism of a country is necessarily the pragmatism of the people, and the excessive development of culture or civilization leads to the blindness or loss of the group. In the process of the continuation of civilization, the inherent inertia of its conservative genes is lacking, and the country and the group lack their strong cohesion. The features of its civilization are therefore no longer dazzling and conspicuous. Over-application of pragmatism may lead to a decline in cohesion within a country or group due to a lack of more rigid beliefs. Similarly, without strong beliefs, it is difficult to quickly unite other countries or groups under the banner of civilization or belief, and there is no more appealing banner to lead the world. Too much pragmatism is equally prone to short-sightedness and external strife. In The Three Kingdoms period, if the regime of Sun Wu did not initiate the war of seizing the regime of Shu Han in Jingzhou, but maintained the cooperative relationship with Shu Han, there might be other versions of the story about who unified The Three Kingdoms in the future. In a relatively popular civilization system dominated by pragmatism, East Asian countries, under external pressure, choose a relatively centralized system and achieve success in economic and social governance. Such a model will affect countries in Asia, Africa and other countries with a tradition of centralized governance. Although it is difficult to judge how our thinkers argue for the universality of centralization, the economic and social success of China and the more centralized countries will gradually make it morally universal. The economic and social success of the Confucian culture group will influence other countries, first and foremost by directly or indirectly boosting China’s cultural and institutional confidence in the Greater China circle. Chinese will also gain political and economic confidence and a sense of belonging in neighboring countries, thus extending China’s strategic depth. When such influence gradually extends to the non-Chinese speaking circle, and the universality of Chinese culture and system is gradually recognized in Asian and African countries, the rejuvenation of East Asia will be truly realized.

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Game Strategy Analysis of the United States, China and Russia The strategic paths chosen by the US, China and Russia in the game process are very similar to those of the three countries in ancient China: in the game process of simultaneous existence of competition and cooperation, completely different paths and strategies evolve. For US civilization that has an edge, when any other civilization grows to a point where it may threaten its hegemony in the world, it inevitably adopts the strategy of repression. Around the 1980s, the Soviet Union fell and its comprehensive strength decline. China is on the rise, and the US-led western group is quite clear the potential threat from China as the core of Confucian culture group, then putting forward the strategic shift, trying to stifle the rise of China. The outbreak of the war in the Middle East, essentially belongs to the inertia that US group and Russia group’s long-term competition and it the Middle East war. The two core republican Presidents of the United States failed to get out of the Middle East or shift its strategic focus to east Asia. Russia group in Iraq and Iran’s direct and indirect support by the United States, delayed the group’s strategic move east. When Democrat Clinton and Obama took office, they were also preparing for strategic shift and tried to suppress the rise of East Asia, but the war between The Russian bloc and the Western bloc caused by the division of Yugoslavia and Ukraine delayed the U.S. strategy once again. China’s recuperation and economic and social success will come into more direct competition with us-led western blocs. After Trump took office, he realized that it was unrealistic for the Western group to try to eliminate the Russian group before dealing with the rise of China and then tried to unite the Russian group to suppress the Chinese group first. In fact, this strategy is exactly the same as Nixon’s sudden alliance with China to suppress the former Soviet Union, only now the target changes. While Nixon was under great pressure from traditional forces, the politically skillful President succeeded in forging an alliance with China, this time Trump does not appear to have made it. For Russia’s part, it understands the benefits of alliances with the United States, and its authoritarian leadership is as capable of turning the country’s foreign policy around like the Chinese leader Mao Zedong. If the United States made it in allying with Russia to suppress China’s rise, China could become the Soviet Union in the 1990s, with economic recession and even political turmoil. For China, if it were to follow Stalin and his successors in sending the present Russia into the arms of the United States, it would surely follow the Soviet Union in the 1990s and enter an era of repression by the United States’ alliance with Russia. The respective culture and institutional inertia of Russia and US have decided their antagonism though theoretically the two countries have the possibility of alliance. As both countries have strong political system features and their public perception and national interest groups have formed a strong inertial force of antagonism, the inertial power of public will greatly delay the adjustment of its strategy even though the nation and the elite within the interest group strongly pushes for the change of strategy. If the steersman change the direction too quickly, it is easy for the country

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to overturn. For instance, the fall of Republics of the former Soviet Union under its leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, has numerous reasons, among which the overfast sharp turn might be the underlying reason that caused the boat to capsize. American leaders also have difficulty in changing the forward direction and alliance system, but internal interest groups have a strong error correction ability. Under the push of these groups or classes, the government’s decision-making is easy to move ahead with the inertia. Indeed, the former presidents of US were attempted to shift its strategic focus from Europe to Asia but failed due to huge challenges. The strong inertia of the alliance system of democracy have difficulty in uniting the interest groups to form one direction for action. In the later period of Cao Wei’s regime in the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao actually realized the limitations of his system and tried to strengthen its centralization by strong means (killing Kong Rong and Xun Yu2 ). However, Cao Pi finally restored and compromised with the hereditary system of the clan group. Without strong external forces, it is hard for America to realize the efficient decision-making and operational systems by strengthening its centralization. Without strong external forces, if national leadership chose to change the domestic and foreign policies too quickly, it is very likely to lead to the shipwreck similar to that of the Soviet Union. Whereas the Soviet Union fell because of the inertia of centralisation, America might be as well because of the inertia of its powerful democratic alliance. US has the most power while China and Russia remain relatively weak. Against this backdrop, it is obviously advantageous for China and Russia to cooperate to counterbalance the United States. For US, it goes without doubt that it’s not the best strategy to suppress the two relatively weak countries at the same time and provide an opportunity for them to cooperate to fight against itself. On the contrary, the best solution is the Cao Wei’s strategy that Guo jia recommended: not taking the initiative to attack Sun Wu and Shu Han and they were more likely to compete with each other without external pressure, eventually Cao Wei benefited. America’s second-best strategy is to work with China or Russia against the other. During the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, Nixon adopted the strategy of cooperating with China and restricting the Soviet Union, which eventually led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The mistake of strategy made by the Soviet Union resulted in the successful cooperation between the two countries. Due to the strong inertia, the centralized Stalin was trying to integrate the whole socialist camp but the lag of think tank caused it to push China into the embrace of US. The biggest mistake of the think tank of the Soviet Union was to overlook a prerequisite for the realization of totalitarianism within the socialist bloc: either a high expectation of returns would prompt other members to choose to cooperate voluntarily, or there would be sufficient power to punish other members for non-cooperation. Under that circumstance, neither of these preconditions existed. China, wrongly prodded by the Soviet Union at the time, chose to work with the more powerful United States, and clearly the benefits were greater than with the less powerful Soviet Union. For China, cooperating with the United States was the best strategy at that time. 2

A great strategist under the command of Cao Cao in Three Kingdoms in ancient China.

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It’s a relatively second-best strategy for America to choose to work with Russia and strike China. The implementation of this strategy also lacks preconditions at the moment, unless the time is bidded. The tremendous inertia of the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union made it difficult for the two sides to make a u-turn from hostile struggle to friendly cooperation. The United States could choose to work with China to remain a counterweight to Russia, which is the most technically feasible and credible, but great changes have taken place in the international situation. First of all, China’s comprehensive strength now exceeds Russia’s, and China’s system is more flexible and inclusive than Russia’s. Without major strategic mistakes, China cannot follow Stalin’s footsteps and actively push away a Russia that embraces China. In addition, from the perspective of the west’s own interests, China is more likely to challenge the status of its leadership in the future, so its dominant strategy should be to unite Russia and suppress China, similar to Nixon’s great reversal of diplomatic strategy. Though the strategy of cooperating with Russia and suppressing China sounds reasonable and relatively in line with the country’s long-term interests, it is hard to realize technically. First of all, both the United States and Russia have extremely rigid national systems, which make it difficult to make a rapid turn in their national strategies. On the contrary, forced rapid turns may lead to the collapse and loss of the leading position of the interest groups that used to be in power. In the process of long-term confrontation, the information flow between the United States and Russia is relatively low, so their economic, cultural and political integration is relatively low. Instead, confrontation is mutually based on agreed values. It is hard for the interest groups with two countries to form consistent interest and ideal identity so as to cooperate. China, on the contrary, has a highly cooperative relationship with US and the two countries have high flow of information integration in the economic, cultural and political exchanges, which makes it hard for US to cut ties with China and completely turn hostile. The two countries have various internal interests so that it would be impossible to form a consistent behavior and confrontation with China. If China doesn’t take the initiate to attack the United States, interest groups in the United States will not promote confrontation, or instead even strengthen the integration and communication between China and western countries in the opposite way, so as to form a more integrated cooperative relationship instead of confrontation. Among the three main game countries, Russia is the weakest in the comprehensive strength. From the point of view of the game alone, it is the best strategy for Russia to watch the relationship between China and the United States turn into hostility, but it is difficult to do so in the context of international integration. Realistically speaking, choosing to work with the most powerful US while suppressing China is a second-best strategy. Its international security will be more effectively secured by working with the United States, and it will likely to have more resources and social relations to deal with domestic social development than working with China. However, such a U-turn adjustment of its national strategy requires a radical understanding and strategic shift of interest groups and people within Russia. This adjustment of national strategy, despite their totalitarian tradition, could easily lead to Russia’s government’s fall. Likewise, unless faced with huge external pressure

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or China taking the initiative to attack Russia, Russia will continue to antagonize the United States along its powerful development momentum, while maintaining a relatively stable cooperative relationship with China. For China, realistically speaking, the best strategy is to strengthen the rivalry between the United States and Russia for the benefit of both countries. But the rest of the world also knows that America is reluctant to let China become big and pose a challenge to its hegemony. In the face of the increasing awareness of the United States and its constant suppression, its realism or traditional Tai Chi thought may help to resolve its contradictions. On one hand, the once high degree of economic, cultural and political integration between the United States and China has too much inertia to interrupt the flow of information on either side. With strong inertia of democratic confederate, it is impossible for an interest group to truncate the interests of other interest groups such as China if China doesn’t take the initiative to cut. And if China expands the the economic, cultural and political exchanges with western groups led by the US, it gets much more difficult for the US to cut ties with China. In terms of the relationship with Russia, it is similar to the relationship with the West. If China and Russia maintain a high degree of mutual communication and integration, maintaining close cooperation, coping with the pressure of the United States, avoiding direct conflict with the United States or even compromise and accepting the rules of the United States, it is relatively the best policy. Likewise, Wu in Three Kingdoms in ancient China chose the similar strategy not to challenge the Cao Wei regime but to cooperate or even compromise so as to win the development space for itself. At present, there is no optimal or suboptimal strategy for the relatively symmetric relationship among the US, China and Russia, and the three countries may find it difficult to find a stable equilibrium point among them. Only when the comprehensive competitiveness of any one country of the United States, China and Russia is far greater than that of the other two, the whole world will realize a relatively stable relationship or world order due to such a highly asymmetrical mutual relationship. How the relationship goes towards depends largely on some random events like natural disasters or diseases caused by an external environment or such internal random events created by countries as factional fighting, public dispute. Those random events might bring about great changes or utter reorganization of the whole political landscape. In the fierce process of the game, we usually adopt the wait-and-see strategy to wait for the random events and then adopt an active strategy to gain an edge in the future game.

Reason Versus Dice The expected benefits are higher in weak countries due to their relatively small external pressures. The groups within the strong countries and cooperative institutions that help maintain the relationship are much more stable than in weak ones. They are more confident, open and inclusive and more prone to be Democracy

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Alliance—Just as mentioned in the previous chapter that an open and inclusive system contributes to the growth of technology, talent and think tanks, with more checks and balances of internal interest groups to form error correcting capabilities. As for democratically allied countries, they will not change the forward direction or national strategic policies according to the random events such as errors in decision made by a leader. For a strong democratic nation, other forces will push the president or prime minister to turn back to the correct path despite serious mistakes. This powerful “error-correcting capability” will push countries along the law of inertia. This is analogous to inertial forces in physics. No matter how many obstacles or potholes lie in front of a huge rock as it rolls down the hillside, the boulder may still roll along its inertial forces to the foot of the mountain. And if it is just a small rock, due to its smaller mass, its inertia force is also small, its downward rolling process is easily caught by the hillside trees, potholes and other obstacles and it will stop rolling or deviate from the original rolling direction. The inertia of big and strong countries is like a boulder, while small and weak countries are like small rocks. When a country needs to adjust its forward direction or its national system, strong countries have great inertia, and their national leaders also face greater obstacles when they try to adjust their country’s direction of development. Weaker countries tend to be more likely to build a totalitarian country in this competition, which also has tremendous inertia. However, compared with the leadership of the great power, its inertial force is much smaller and it is relatively easy to adjust its internal or foreign policy and direction. However, totalitarian countries that are relatively weak are more likely to be affected by random factors and change their established course or policy, and are thusly prone to making mistakes. In the case of the former Soviet Union, its dominant strategy was to ally with China to cope with the pressure from America, which was also the established policy of the country. But the authoritarian Stalin pushed China away in his later years, which made it choose to cooperate with the United States. This is precisely the random factor of leaders’ mistakes under the Soviet Union’s totalitarian system. In the absence of a strong capability to correct mistakes, such an outcome of Sino-American cooperation, resulted in the disintegration of the former Soviet Union. In order to overcome inertial force, it often needs a strong external force. Without strong external pressure or thrust, it is difficult for a strong United States to overcome the liberal inertia of its strong democratic alliance, to strengthen its centralization and realize its efficient decision-making and system operation. In the absence of a strong external force, if American leaders adjust their domestic and foreign policies too quickly, random chance may lead to a ship capsizing similar to that of the Soviet Union. The former Soviet Union collapsed because of the inertia of centralisation, while the Western countries went down more likely because of the inertia of their powerful democratic alliances. For weak countries with centralized power, external forces are needed to enhance their internal democracy, alliance and innovation, but it also needs the reduction of external pressure.

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The Maintenance of the World Order—The Great Negative Entropy In the process of spontaneous evolution of a stable or orderly structure, the political ecosystem on a global scale composed of countries will inevitably lead to the increase of entropy and chaos, leading to the collapse of the original order. In the chaotic order, if a new order is to be rebuilt, negative entropy must be generated. From a physical point of view, a negative change in entropy refers to increasing order. Similar mechanisms are most likely needed for human social ecosystems. As our previous analysis shows, if groups within a country are in a chaotic state, external forces will be needed to push them to evolve into a more stable or orderly state. Indeed microscopically speaking, an orderly state is formed at the expense of individual freedom, and the spontaneous evolution process that restricts individuals to the equilibrium direction is the essence of order. In the process of the evolution of a country or group of countries, the inertial force of its civilization, system and power is its spontaneous motive force. In the fluctuation of civilization, system or power, the crest of the wave often exceeds the optimal value of the system, leading to a huge negative effect. Going too far is as bad as not going far enough. The success or failure of the affair is all due to the very same person. Whether for a nation, a group, or an individual, real progress is often made against inertia. Only by overcoming the powerful inertial force can we achieve long-term stable development. However, in the real world, to overcome this powerful inertia force and develop against the trend often requires a strong external force. By using this external force, some forces inside the system overcome the equilibrium and disorderly state of the system due to spontaneous force and return to an ordered state, which is the formation process of negative entropy and that force is often a random factor. The one who can grasp the opportunity given by random factors may thus get a strong momentum of development again. The idea of wait-and-see is to emphasize the important role of random factors in the process of war or games. If the time is ripe, it is also possible to create opportunities to achieve their strategic intentions, but if not, it will be counterproductive. In the future, whether the United States, China and Russia become the hegemon of the earth, or some unknown dark horse within their respective groups becomes the hegemon of the world, it is highly likely that a small probability event will induce the reorganization of the entire world pattern. Such small probability events may be random and, under a highly nervous background, cause a chain reaction, leading to chaos in the world, and finally realize the recombination of world political and economic order and re-establish the rules of the game. Once again, the world returned to an orderly state. In the human social cooperative system, the internal chaos and disorder will weaken the power of the system itself, thus increasing the pressure effect of the external environment. The longer the chaos lasts, the less the force of the system itself will be relative to the pressure of the external environment, the greater the external pressure that pushes the system to develop in an orderly direction, the stronger the negative entropy motive force will be, and the higher the possibility of order

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will be. The strong inertia of liberalism will lead to extreme anarchism and the loss of cohesion of the group towards the individual for the national or bloc of the democratic alliance. The loss of group cohesion will inevitably lead to the loss of the necessity of the existence of the state or group. For a centralized state or group, the powerful inertial force of the centralized power will lead to the totalitarianism of each constituent unit of the state or group. In the end, everyone is the centralized power, while everyone has no rights. The group loses the vitality of innovation and eventually leads to the collapse or disintegration of the country or group. If the national or international political system is allowed to develop by its own spontaneous force, the orderly national or international system will inevitably move towards equilibrium, and eventually lead to the disorder or chaos of the system. To maintain the long-term orderliness of the system, it is necessary to overcome the strong spontaneous force caused by inertia, and reverse the transformation within the system. In the absence of a strong external force, the reverse promotion of internal innovation is bound to be more and more difficult. No matter in history or in reality, most of the changes will end in tragedy because the inertial force is too strong and external pressure is not enough. The national or international political system is constantly playing the game and fluctuating between order and chaos. Whether order or chaos prevails depends on environmental pressures and the randomness that results. In the ordered international political system which is composed of states, there exists strong path dependence in the behavior evolution of states or groups composed of states, which is the essential reason for the evolution inertia force. A country’s civilization and culture, its comprehensive strength, habits and other factors are all the evolutionary forces of its path dependence. In the evolution process of path dependence, the characteristics of individual behavior, national system, culture and other selection units will therefore present a frequency-dependent distribution. National institutions, civilizations, cultures, and individual behaviors are like species within an ecosystem. In an ecosystem, each species is an important part of the ecosystem, but the relative distribution frequency and function of each species in the ecosystem are different. In different ecosystems, this difference is manifested as great differences. In the tropical rain forest system, the distribution of each species is relatively more symmetrical, balanced and close to random distribution. However, in boreal and temperate forest systems, species distribution is significantly asymmetric, and some species occupy absolute dominance and dominate the resource distribution of the whole ecosystem. Among the many characteristics of human society, similar to the symmetric and asymmetric distribution of species in different ecosystems, the global distribution of symmetry (democratic liberalism) and asymmetry (democratic centralism or centralism) in national systems also has high path dependence. When we look at the global landscape of national institutions in broad strokes, other institutional forms are often overlooked, like redundancy in ecology. In the study of natural ecosystems, only some systems are constructed in a way that is more suitable for their unique environment, and there is no value judgment on the good or bad traits of the system. The same should be true for human social ecosystems.

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The path depends on the evolution process of state or group behavior, and the behavior of an orderly state or group itself contains the uncertainty of its behavior, which sows the seeds of chaos for the system. This is not only because of the diversity of paths themselves, but also because of the phenomenon of crossing and interference between paths, which aggravates the diversity and uncertainty of their behaviors. However, in such an uncertain system, the overall volatility is not completely unpredictable, and its general fluctuation characteristics are predictable. As we discussed in the previous chapter, the higher the internal asymmetry of the system, the less predictable the behavior of the country or group. However, after reaching a threshold, its predictability starts to rise again. After the dominant party absorbs all of the weak party, its behavior is almost completely determined. Correspondingly, the more symmetrical, the more balanced, the more predictable the behavior of states. When their mutual relations are completely symmetrical, their behavior is almost completely certain except for random factors. The relationship between symmetry and certainty, asymmetry and uncertainty is similar to Tai Chi in China. In the current global political landscape, with the decline of the relative strength of the United States, its civilization and cultural influence are also declining, and the power of major countries or groups are becoming more balanced. Such a pattern can better reflect the idea of game and contract, and its relative predictability is higher.

Reference 1. von Hayek F (1997) The Road to Serfdom (Chinese version), translated by Wang M-Y, Feng X-Y, China Soical Science Press

Chapter 9

The Great Unity Between Nations and Human Society

We uphold the conviction, as Dwight Eisenhower did. Eisenhower fund is set up in order to inspire the world within the scope of the talents to challenge themselves and inspire them to think about how to achieve positive change, together with others to break through the existing social networks and cooperate with like-minded leaders in various countries and regions, so as to make the world a better place in which we live. —Dwight D. Eisenhower Foundation Guide1

The Disappearance of War and Chaos In systems with low entropy flow or information flow, countries are more likely to compete or oppose each other. However, if the entropy flow or information flow of the system is high, there will be little competition among the various selection units such as species, as well as among countries, and thus widespread coexistence may be achieved. Here the entropy flow is similar to the flow of water in a river. The greater the flow of water in a river, the more freely the water droplets choose the path of the river, and the closer to the random distribution. The greater the external input and output energy, the greater the entropy flow within the system, the lower the degree of path dependence within the system, and the more symmetrical the evolution of each internal component, the higher the internal diversity of the system and the more stable the system. However, when the external input and output energy are relatively small, the internal entropy flow is correspondingly smaller, the internal path dependence of the system increases, the internal evolution of each component is more asymmetrical, the diversity of the system decreases, and the system will evolve to a more ordered direction. 1

Eisenhower Fellowships was founded in 1953, based in Philadelphia, USA. The Eisenhower Fellowships foundation commemorates Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, and aims to “promote the exchange of information and ideas among emerging leaders of the world”.

© Science Press 2023 R. Wang, The End of Rationality and Selfishness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9752-5_9

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In areas with abundant tropical rainfall, the energy input and output are both high, so the entropy flow of the system is large, the evolution path of organisms is more, and correspondingly, the tropical rain forest system has higher biodiversity. In the tropical rain forest system with high diversity, there are higher uncertainties in the behavior, evolutionary strategy and evolutionary path of species, but the high heredity and behavioral information exchange reduces the competition among species, which contributes to the stability of the whole system. In temperate and cold temperate regions, the energy input and output are relatively small, and the entropy flow is relatively small. Due to the smaller entropy flow and more intense path-dependent evolution in cold and temperate zones, there is more intense competition among species in these ecosystems, thus reducing biodiversity. The higher intensity path dependence of temperate and cold zone and the asymmetric relation between higher species make the ecosystem more orderly. In tropical rain forest systems, even species with identical niches can coexist in the same area and are more well-distributed among themselves, without significant dominance. In temperate or cold climate zones, there are species that have significant advantage or even dominance, and competition between species is significantly higher than that in tropical rainforest systems. Information is almost the same thing as negative entropy or order. The more information there is, the less uncertainty there is in the system. Claude Elwood Shannon, an expert in information theory, gives the definition of information and insists that information is used to eliminate uncertainty. For the giant system of human, the competition and cooperation between countries or groups will also greatly depend on the entropy flow or information flow of the system. The problem of information may have multiple aspects or dimensions to the human ecosystem. The first is the exchange of genetic information. Throughout the history of nations, there have been ways for rulers or nobles to intermarry in order to make friends with other nations or avoid wars between them. Marriage not only realizes the exchange and integration of genetic information among the top officials of a country, but also strengthens the political, economic and cultural exchanges between countries. This kind of communication between countries or groups will also affect the integration and communication between the middle and lower levels of society. Similarly, in times of war, information access is equally important. In Sun Zi Bing Fa, a book about Chinese ancient art of war written by a famous strategist called Sun Wu, it is said that “if you know yourself and your enemy, you can win a hundred battles without danger”, which is also the reason that the acquisition of information can eliminate the uncertainty of your own understanding of the enemy forces, so as to win the victory. For humans, a relatively unique species, the exchange of values and beliefs is an integral part of the flow of information in the human ecosystem, and plays a key role in the interrelationships between countries or groups. Human or biological individuals have a natural tendency to identify themselves with a group. When resources are scarce or space is limited, the tendency of individuals to gather into groups depends more on the distribution of resources or the competitiveness of groups. When resource and space constraints are weak, values or beliefs may be the key driving force for human individuals to coalesce into groups.

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The tendency of individuals to aggregate into groups may be a natural attribute of social biology, or even a physical law. Professor Quan-Xing Liu, who studies self-organization, once demonstrated a video of a mussel from a Marine mollusk. He placed the mussels evenly in the pool, and soon the young mussels were evenly clustered into small colonies. Within small populations, individual mussels are closely bound together. The same is true for metal particles, which are clustered in small and uniformly distributed. A similar result was seen in the taller ants. When the ants were placed through a small hole into a round plate, they eventually gathered in small groups and were distributed evenly along the edge of the plate. In fact, early humans were similarly distributed in villages. In primitive society, these villages were relatively evenly distributed according to the distribution of rivers or food. These villages were not too large, but they were not too small to have only one family. In ancient times, due to the restrictions of means of transportation or information transmission, communication between villages was relatively rare. Villages are relatively prone to conflict. Villages that connect frequently through marriages or trades had relatively few conflicts. As the integration between villages and tribes deepens, the conflicts between villages and tribes gradually decrease. Due to external pressure, human beings were forced to live in groups at early times, or they gather together due to uneven distribution of resources. In this way, stronger groups can be formed and thus higher returns can be obtained. When things are plentiful or the pressure to survive is low, the human instinct to gather remains, but its power may be transformed into a commitment to beliefs or values. In The History of Mankind, Harari tells the story that mankind kills other human species or population in the process of a species or population in its expansion, while these murderers, without any sense of fear and compassion, do not have the feeling that those who are slaughtered are also human beings, but take them as a beast of animals.2 There were at least six different kinds of humans on earth hundreds of thousands of years ago, and homo sapiens is now the only species left. Every time homo sapiens arrived in a new place, it caused the extinction of native human groups. The closest surviving Thoreau remains are about 50,000 years ago, and the Denisovans died out soon after. Neanderthals disappeared from the world stage about 30,000 years ago. Twelve thousand years ago, the Flores disappeared from the earth forever. In this process of diffusion, whether between one species and another, or between one group and another, the perceptions of each other are very similar to our perceptions of each other between villages. People in different villages will also think how different the people in the other village are, so different that they can’t bear it. They will even maliciously stigmatize the other side through rumors, thus generating feelings of dislike and even disgust. In the event of a fight or even a war, the slaughter of the other side is even filled with a sense of justice without any psychological unease. In the jungles of Paraguay, there was a hunter-gatherer tribe called the Ache people, who survived until the 1960s. There was little interaction between local Paraguayan

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Harari [1].

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farmers and the Ache people, but the Paraguayans demonized and hunted them mercilessly. But after living with them for many years, anthropologists have concluded that violence between adult Ache people is rare, and that they are always happy and generous. Our modern society also has the phenomenon of estrangement caused by the lack of information. When we talk to each other, we find that the Japanese are not mean, but courteous. In the same way, the blue-eyed, big-nosed foreigner was likely to be a gentleman rather than a blood-sucking primitive. After communication and integration, mutual understanding will be strengthened, which will also lead to an understanding of beliefs and values between each other, deepening each other’s identification, and even eventually assimilating each other’s values and beliefs. One of the most direct evidences of the integration of values and beliefs is the Chinese people’s cognition of human nature itself. In the Chinese cultural gene, there has indeed been a debate about the good and evil of human nature, but there has never been a discussion in Chinese culture that human nature is merely selfish. But why do most people now think of selfish motives when they consider the motives of others’ actions? This may be the result of the integration of western values into our culture with the popularization of modern scientific knowledge. When we fully realize the integration of one in the other, that is, the entropy flow or information flow is high between countries, between races, and between groups, disputes and wars between the two sides will decrease or even disappear. In the current international situation, the relations between the United States and Russia, Iran and the DPRK are very tense, and the possibility of conflicts between the two sides is relatively high. However, if we carefully analyze the economic, cultural or personnel exchanges between the two sides, we find that there are quite few exchanges, so the mutual understanding or recognition between the two sides is very low. However, due to the huge economic, cultural and personnel exchanges between China and the United States, despite the great structural differences between the two sides, the possibility of direct conflict or war is relatively low. If the exchanges between the two sides continue to expand, the possibility of direct conflict between the two sides will continue to decrease. The major powers in the world, the United States, China and Russia, are in a relative balance of their respective strength, so each major country or group intensifies the game and tries to reconstruct the world political structure with one stronger and others weaker. However, in the context of globalization, economic and cultural exchanges and population flows among countries have been continuously strengthened. In particular, the strengthening of division of labor and cooperation in globalization and the booming development of transnational corporations have significantly increased the entropy flow or information flow among countries. Such continuous communication and integration will reduce competition or war between nations or races. If the competition or war between countries or race reduced or disappeared, its requirement for seeking absolute advantage will disappear. Therefore, nation and race will enjoy coexistence and co-prosperity, absolute advantage will disappear, and each other will coexist in balance in a family without values, culture or blood isolation.

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High Degree of Socialization and Great Unity—Integration of Freedom and Slavery In the process of the gradual increase of entropy flow or information flow, smaller selection units such as villages and tribes gradually evolve into larger aggregation units such as cities, countries or national alliances and international organizations, forming a larger social cooperation system. In such a system, with the improvement of overall efficiency and competitiveness, the pressure on the members within the cooperative system will be reduced, and they will enjoy greater freedom instead of struggling for survival every day. They will devote more in non-survival work. As the size of the social cooperative group increases, the proportion of individuals who actually work for the survival of the whole group will therefore decrease. Individuals in the system will have more opportunities to choose other social functions. As the social cooperative group grows, more individuals will be able to live freely without any kind of work at all. They will enjoy greater freedom in more highly social groups. Any social system, however, to achieve the purpose that the internal individual or unit can work efficiently or cooperate effectively, it is necessary to homogenize the internal system. It is not entirely functional differentiation, but also may integrate information or the function, so as to form functional modules, which are almost homogeneous individuals or units. Such homogenization and modularization of functions will greatly improve the operating efficiency of the system. Just like a factory, each workshop has their own division of labor, and each of them is a functional module. However, employees in the workshop are almost engaged in the same work. Through this mode, the efficiency of the whole company is greatly improved. Modern enterprises adopt such production mode, which makes the standardized production efficiency of modern enterprises improve rapidly. Social insect systems, such as termites, ants and bees, adopted this efficient mode of production hundreds of millions of years ago. In termites’ social system, the queen is responsible for reproduction, the king for mating, the soldier ants for defense, and the worker ants for collecting food and taking care of the queen. The whole termite kingdom is divided into several functional groups, each with a relatively fixed and single job. The function of individuals within a functional group is almost identical. In the colony of ants and bees, some species have a more detailed and specific division of labor. As for the young worker bees, they mainly take care of the larvae and the queen in the nest, and in their behavior, some worker bees will only open the cover of the nest where the larvae are raised, while others will not open the cover and only feed the larvae. Older worker bees are responsible for collecting food and are also divided into functional groups. Some collect water, others collect nectar, and still others collect pollen. The division of labor is very detailed, almost like a modern assembly line production plant. On the one hand, this social division of labor does improve the respective labor efficiency, thus increasing the wealth of the whole society and enhancing the competitiveness of the group. But it also leads to the dependence of individuals on the group, which in turn enhances the credibility of the punishment or threat of the advantaged

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individuals on the disadvantaged individuals. The distribution of wealth in society as a whole is more unequal. In a highly social group, if an individual leaves his group and cannot live independently, the weaker individual will be completely enslaved by the stronger ones. In the process of rapid improvement of modern science and technology and intensification of globalization, the competition among groups, that is, companies or countries will be more intense, which will lead to the intensified division of labor within companies to improve their labor efficiency and group competitiveness. Such globalization and division of labor will lead to the intensification and solidification of the control of resources or social individuals by the dominant party within the system, and the distribution of social resources will be more unequal. If we seriously reflect on the globalization process and the increasing division of labor of modernization in recent decades, we can easily find that our society is actually becoming more unequal. Technological progress and globalization have not brought us more freedom and democracy. The great irony is that technological progress and globalization will lead us into an even more enslaved society. If we compare the social systems of ants and termites, you have no doubt about what kind of slavery society that human society might have evolved into. In a society with a highly refined social division of labor, individuals will almost completely lose their independent survival ability, and the information carried by each individual will decline sharply, which is almost irreversible. With the increase of the degree of asymmetry, the relatively weak individuals almost live and develop according to the needs or designs of the dominant individuals, and hardly need to decide their own development. With the high degree of resource monopoly and the improvement of social efficiency, the system with high sociality will accept more idle people. The only people who really have the best services and resources are the high ranking individuals or the queens and Kings. In highly social insect systems such as ants and termites, less than 30% of individuals are actually active workers. Most of the 70 percent or so are less actively engaged individuals, living almost parasitic lives. In fact, most individuals are already under the control of invisible or tangible chains, and the accelerated progress of technology and the increasing imbalance of resource allocation will accelerate the process of our enslavement. Whether you admit it or not, not having the right to allocate resources means you will be enslaved. This kind of slavery is actually enjoyed by many people. But these socially redundant idlers are not really useless or completely parasitic. When the environment fluctuates violently or in the face of interference from natural enemies, these redundant idle individuals may be activated to supplement the urgently needed sectors. An experiment on ants, termites and other highly social insects showed that in the constant threat and harassment of natural enemies, these previously inactive worker ants became active, and the number of soldiers defending against natural enemies soon increased to cope with the invasion of natural enemies together. A large number of redundant and idle individuals in this social system actually enhance the resilience of the whole system, thus providing the overall environmental strain capacity of the social system. In human society, the situation is quite similar. In any given country or workplace, the number of individuals who work very hard is always in the minority due to the increase in work efficiency. If

Reference

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all individuals work very hard, the result is that there is nothing for everyone to do. In fact, most people don’t have to work hard to make ends meet. But in times of difficulty or even disaster, the passion of those who are not working very hard may be aroused to increase the emergency capacity of the country or the workplace. A state or a workplace increases flexibility and decreases rigidity, thus maintaining the organism’s survival in extreme circumstances. The strengthening of socialized division of labor improves the work efficiency of the company or the country, and also directly improves the competitiveness of them. A company or country improves its competitiveness by means of social division of labor, which will stimulate rival companies or countries to strengthen their internal division of labor and cooperation so as to improve their competitiveness. In fact, that is the process of industrialization. Arms race among countries are similar, with the aim of improving their own competitiveness. And those companies or countries with stronger competition may gradually monopolize the market or the international political structure by means of merge or even direct annexation. As geographic or technological barriers to its expansion disappear, the international market and political landscape will most likely be completely monopolized, resulting in a unified world. At this moment, the whole economic and social resources will be controlled by a small number of elite, and most people’s lives will be decided by these social elite design and they lose the freedom of personality completely. Everyone really became a unique screws of the society, a screw that almost impossible to become a nut, for the reason that, just like worker ants among termites and ants, you have been designed by other worker ants or queens immediately after birth. Free from distractions, you may well enjoy such a completely stable life. All of us are dreaming of such stable, even unearned life, but this so-called happy life is a trap—you will lose individual freedom and survival information, and in the event of a dramatic change in the environment, it may even lead to mass or species extinction.

Reference 1. Harari (2011) The human history: from animal to god, translated by Lin J-H. Citic Publishing House

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Chapter 10

Path-Dependent Speciation and Stratified Co-existence and Co-prosperity

Confucius, an ancient Chinese sage once said, “What does the people in the world think and worry about? The world will return to the same destination, but different paths will lead to the same goal. Why should the people in the world think and worry?” —Yi Da Zhuan Shi Ci1 Nature does have something to do with producing new things that cannot be predicted, and possibility does have more than reality. Our universe follows a path that involves successive bifurcations, and other universes may follow other paths. Fortunately, the path we followed led to life, culture and art. —Prigozin2

Path-Dependent Speciation When you take a plane, you can see the mountains from the high altitude, with their peaks distributed high and low, strewn at random, but the whole mountain range has its own unique characteristics. The distribution of species in the ecosystem, the social status of individuals in human society, and the relationship between the powerful and backward countries in the international political system are very similar to the distribution of peaks in a mountain range, among which some are strong while some are weak, but on the whole, these overlapping peaks have their own unique characteristics and personalities. A mountain range usually has a main peak, but in addition to the main peak there are several peaks of similar height. A similar situation exists in ecosystem or population biology. In some ecosystems, only one species dominates the whole system. As for temperate larch forests, only one species of pine dominates, while other non-dominant species are more evenly distributed and even have similar niches. However, in tropical forest ecosystems, the dominant species have a smaller comparative advantage, and each species is more evenly distributed than in temperate forest ecosystems. In a forest ecosystem, the distribution of species 1 2

Zhu [1]. Prigozin [2].

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is similar to that of a mountain peak in a mountain range, and a mountain peak is a species. A large mountain is often accompanied by many smaller peaks. This is called a subspecies or colony. In a mountain range, there are many peaks, similar peaks in the same mountain range co-exist and co-flourish, which is similar with ecosystems Dominant species do exist, but no matter how large or small the dominant species’ comparative advantages are, a large number of ecological niches or species with similar functions coexist in the whole ecosystem. The height difference between dominant species and other non-dominant species is closely related to the entropy flow within the system. The higher the entropy flow, the smaller the difference between species peaks, while the smaller the entropy flow, the larger the difference between species peaks. The entropy flow in an ecosystem also determines the abundance of species in the system. The greater the entropy flow, the more species there are in the ecosystem. In the case of evolution, we usually expect a single factor to be the driving force behind it, or at least the main factor to be a single one. The promise of this Newtonian system of thought is tempting, but the reality may not be like this. An experienced ecologist or taxonomist might give you a long list of possible drivers of speciation. It may be genetic or phenotypic features, or environmental moisture, light, or the abundance of any type of calcium, iron, or nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in a mineral element. We can put the formation of a species with a child’s growth to be an analogy: a child’s personality characteristics cannot be attributed to the formation of a single factor, which may be related to the parents’ education, family wealth, community environment, nutrient elements, system and culture and so on. Besides, the composition of a child’s personality traits is not just a single factor, others can be children’s genetic endowment, temperament characteristics, appetite, confidence and ability to learn, etc. What’s more, these characteristics are not static but fluctuating as children grow up. It is the sum of all these undulations that characterizes John as a child. The formation of a species is also very similar to the evolution of a child trait. A species that has evolved into present with characteristics we see today also has multiple selection dynamics. Its existing features are also a collection of many features. Each driving factor presents periodic fluctuation to a certain feature of the species, and each of them may drive the fluctuation of various features of the species, forming a superposition effect. A species is an aggregation of waves of multiple features. The formation of these fluctuations has strong path-dependent characteristics. Like a car on a highway, where it gets off the freeway has a huge impact on where it reaches its destination. Among the peaks of an ecosystem made up of all species, some characteristic peaks have deep valleys between them and others, so that peaks representing one species may be significantly distinguished from others. And if the valleys between species peaks are not very deep, and the peaks are almost only shallow depressions, which is similar to the densely distributed hills of the plains region, such species-to-species distinctions may not be significant, instead, simply subspecies or populations of a species.

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Conceptual diagram of species distribution

The path-dependent speciation mechanism can also be illustrated by analogy with the characteristics of mountain peaks. A large mountain range or chain of mountains is not formed simultaneously, but has the characteristic of time-lapse evolution. The average height of the early uplifted part of the mountain range will be higher than the average height of the late uplifted part. The formation of the mountain peak is undoubtedly influenced by the early uplifted part, so it plays an important role in the evolution of the characteristics of the mountain range. In terms of speciation, the differentiation time and branching sequence also play an important role in the process. Obviously, even if the species on the plant branch and the species on the animal branch are under exactly the same selection pressure, the plant part can only derive the new plant species, and the animal part can only evolve the animal species. It is impossible for the plant branch species to evolve the animal species characteristics. That’s what path dependence is all about. There are many paths in the evolution of species, and there are transformations among them. It is somewhat similar to an estuary where rivers and water systems form an interwoven network of water. Rivers and streams communicate with each other, and we may not be able to track exactly where a drop of water enters the ocean from. When one river is intercepted and cut off, other water systems may quickly fill its role. This is very different from Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Darwin’s theory of natural selection holds that any species or gene has its unique function and ecological niche in evolution, which cannot be replaced. Path-dependent selection suggests that species or genes often exchange places with other species or genes in the course of evolution. If one species or gene is blocked, others will quickly take their place, and the effect on the whole network is not as great as we think. Due to the path dependence of a species or gene during its evolution, its population size, function or role in the system will be greatly different and uncertain.

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Just like a tree, where the branches of the tree bifurcate in different places, its future development and effect on the tree as a whole will also be different. The fitness or ecological function of each species in the ecosystem will vary as much as the mountain, but its function is highly uncertain. If the main peak of a mountain collapses, other peaks may set off a chain reaction, and one mountain will quickly evolve into the main peak. Likewise, there may be no reaction, with the collapse of the main peak simply creating a crater and the other peaks remaining unchanged. This pathdependent selection leads to differences in the fitness of each species or gene in its system, and it is difficult to accurately predict its evolutionary trajectory.

Stratified Co-existence and Co-prosperity In the course of path-dependent evolution, species in the same function and niche will probably coexist in the same system. Species that are in the same spatial position but on different paths do not exclude other species that are in parallel with them. This is different from the principle of competitive exclusion advocated by Darwin’s natural selection theory. In any ecosystem, we can easily observe that many species within the system have almost the same function and niche, or even in the almost the same environment, sister species with the same function also exist, which we call sympatric species. In the banyan tree system that I have studied before, there is a species called Banyan tree, in which there are two kinds of pollinating small bees in the figs, and their feeding habits and other functional characteristics are almost identical. But how such sister species have diverged through reproductive isolation historically has been a scientific mystery. In bayan tree, it is now found that many species have hidden species. There is no difference in the morphological characteristics of these species, but the genetic evidence shows that species differentiation does exist. Path-dependent species evolution does not require the reproductive isolation mechanism advocated by Darwin’s theory of natural selection. If some characteristics or the gene expression that determines its characteristics are path-dependent, under the same environment, it is quite possible to form their own unique characteristics or species. The evolution of path dependence is closely related to the entropy flow in the system. Entropy flow is a concept first proposed by Prigozin in his study of thermodynamic open systems. He insists that entropy flow refers to the flow of matter and energy exchanged between the system and the outside world. Here the entropy flow is like the flow of a river to some extent. The flow of a river will depend on how fast the water flows and how wide the river is. The entropy flow of an ecosystem will depend on the rate of energy exchange in the environment in which the ecosystem is located, and will also depend on the rate of energy conversion, that is, the potential of the energy that the environment can provide to convert into a material base of biomass. In a river, the flow rate of the river, which refers to the amount of water flowing through a certain section of the river per unit time, is affected by two variables, namely the flow rate and the size of the section of the river. The river’s cross-sectional area

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and flow rate together determine the selective pressure of any drop of water on the riverbank. When the river velocity is constant, if the width of a river is assumed to be infinite, the selective pressure on any water drop can be approximately ignored, and its motion is approximately random. The narrower a river is, the greater the selective pressure will be on its internal flow. In a capillary tube, the pressure of selection is so strong that the flow in the tube will travel only in a specific direction along the wall. Similarly, when the river section size is fixed, if the flow velocity is faster, the selection pressure of a drop of water will also be great, while when the flow velocity is small, the selection pressure of each drop will also be small. Entropy flow, which is similar to the flow of water, depends on the effect of two variables: material flow and energy flow. In natural ecosystems, the relationship between the selective pressure of species and entropy flow is similar to the relationship between the selective pressure of water molecules and river flow. The material flow in the entropy flow is the efficiency with which the matter in the environment can be converted into biomass (the rate of exchange of matter between the ecosystem and the external environment), which depends on the maximum potential of the environment to be converted into biomass. The greater the energy flow of the system entropy flow, the greater the selection force on the species or genes in the system, and the faster the evolution speed of the species or genes in their respective evolutionary paths. Biodiversity is just like the branches of a river or the path of a stream. At the mouth of a river or when a river enters a flat area, we see rivers forming many branches. The greater the river flow, the more branches are formed. The river branches here more or less reflect the selective pressure and diffusion path of the water molecules in the river, while the river branches or path lengths are strongly dependent on the flow of the river. For an ecosystem, the diversity of species is the number of evolutionary paths of organisms in the process of evolution. The greater the entropy flow in an ecosystem, the more paths that can be formed by species or genes in the ecosystem, and the closer the ecosystem is to random selection or neutral selection. In the middle of a large river, if you drop a leaf, the direction of movement of the leaf is almost random. The evolutionary path of species in systems with high entropy flows is similar to the direction of leaf movement in rivers with high entropy flows. In systems with high entropy flow, such as tropical rain forest systems, the flow of matter and energy is large, the distribution of species is close to random distribution, and the selection pressure is high. In such a situation, the more paths a species takes, the faster it evolves, and the force of Darwinian natural selection will be reduced or even weak. In contrast, in temperate or polar regions, entropy flows are smaller. As the temperature is quite low, the rate of material exchange between the ecosystem and the environment decreases, and as the solar radiation angle is smaller, the solar energy input rate also decreases. In systems with low entropy flow, the dynamics of species diversity decrease. Like a river, if its discharge is small, that is, in a flat area where it enters the sea, it forms few tributaries, and even if it forms many capillary tributaries, they will not go far and soon disappear because of the small discharge. In systems with low entropy flow, the evolutionary path of species will be reduced. Even if the

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variation is formed, in small tributaries like rivers, due to low entropy flow, these variations may be lost due to genetic drift, instead of forming stable inheritance. If the entropy flow of an ecosystem does not vary much, there will be a certain process of game between the energy flow and the material flow that constitute the entropy flow, which is similar to the relationship between the flow velocity in a river and the cross section of the river. For a river, if its flow is constant, the wider the river is, the smaller its flow rate will be. On the contrary, if the river is narrower, the larger its flow rate will be. The faster the water moves in a river, the greater the selective pressure on the direction of a drop of water. In capillaries, the selective pressure of the water flow is greatest, moving almost in a particular direction. In ecosystems, the selective pressure on species is similar to that on river flows. With the entropy flow of the ecosystem unchanged, if the material flow of the system is small, the energy flow will be larger, and the species will therefore experience greater natural selection pressure. In dry and arid areas in the tropics, the material flow in the system will be reduced due to water or mineral limitations, while the energy flow will be high. Therefore, the selection pressure on species will be increased and the path dependence will be strengthened. The strengthening of Darwin’s natural selection force is more obvious. Similarly, in temperate or cold zones, the entropy flow is relatively small, but in the absence of constraints such as environmental water and minerals, the evolutionary path of species will therefore rise, as will the diversity of species. This is similar to a river with a relatively small flow. If its bed is very wide, but its tributaries are still numerous, the length of its tributaries is relatively short due to a small flow, and its tributaries are easily blocked by obstacles and cannot move forward. In an ecosystem with a relatively small entropy flow, the inertia of a species on its evolutionary path decreases, and the influence of genetic drift is great. Many genetic characteristics of a species are relatively easy to be lost, so the genetic diversity is relatively low.

References 1. Zhu G-Z (2015) Yi Zhuan Tong Jie, East China Normal University Press 2. Prigozin I (2009) The end of certainty, translated by Zhan M. Shanghai Science, Technology and Education Press

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Chapter 11

The Unity of Life and Physics

Induction is not correct. Creativity requires broad knowledge. Analogy is an important source of new ideas. Moreover, great thinkers can not get rid of their own social background.1 —Stephen Jay Gould

The Consistence Between Biological Sociality and Atomic Physical Structure A core and unavoidable problem in the whole life science research, including sociobiology, is how different genes, biological individuals, species and ecosystems form a new organism at a higher level, which is also the issue physicists have been struggling with: the relationship between the part and the whole. Physicists have been probing into how to form a functional molecule among different atoms, and how an atom with complete physical properties is composed of nuclei and electrons with its unique functions. These electrons can also escape, for the atom is not an inseparable entity. In this sense, the question that how different genes, individuals or species cooperate to form a higher-level organism in biology is the same as how different particles, atoms and molecules form a higher-level physical unit in physics. If comparing the social cooperative organism with atomic physics, we will also find that there are great similarities in the dynamics and mechanisms of evolution. In atomic physics, the position of the nucleus at the centre has a strong attraction for the electrons that surround it. It is similar to the dominant individuals in the social biological system where the dominant individuals occupy the central position of the society, and the other weak individuals actually work with the dominant king and queen as the center. Without electrons, the nucleus will fissure or decay (similar to biological death), while the dominant king and queen in the social biological system can not live independently and die quickly without the worker bees serving them. In 1

Gould [1].

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atomic physics, atoms bind electrons by gravitation and prevent them from escaping. In social biology, the dominant king and queen bind the vulnerable individuals by using a “carrot and stick” strategy; At the same time, the size of exit cost or diffusion ability of vulnerable individuals will affect the credibility of punishment. In atomic physics, electrons exist in different forms. Those different forms or states of being lead to different interactions with nuclei. The well-known controversy between particle θ and particle τ is that different space states lead to different interactions between electrons and nuclei. These two particles have the same amount of charge, according to which, they may belong to the same kind of particles. The decay rates of the two are different, which may be due to their different properties. However, Zhen-Ning Yang and Zheng-Dao Li found that they are particles with the same properties, and their different decay rates are actually due to their different rotation directions. The essence is the different action mode or property of the electron in atomic nucleus, which leads to the different death rates (or decay rates) (spin). There is a similar situation in our social biological system: different temporal and spatial states of individuals will lead to totally different relationships between the dominant and the weak. The relationship between children and parents is actually a kind of social cooperation. In infancy, children completely depend on the parents’ upbringing. The younger the children are, the higher the degree of dependence is, the more obedient the children will be and the degree of cooperation between children and their parents will be mcuh higher. On the contrary, when the children grow up, the degree of dependence on the parents decreases, correspondingly, they will be more independent and it is more likely to conflict with their parents until they are completely independent. Sometimes there are very violent conflicts and some of them even kill their parents. The relationship between parents and children is completely different just because of the different time and space, but the biological characteristics of both sides have not changed. In the fig wasp inter-species cooperation system, the different spatial states of fig wasps lead to completely different relationships with figs. When the fig wasps enter the fig fruit at the same time, there is a fight and competition between the fig wasps due to the limited space, which leads to the decline of the utilization rate of public resources. Therefore, the public resources between fig wasps and figs remain relatively rich, and the cooperation relationship between figs and fig wasps is maintained; when the fig wasps enter the fig fruit not together, but intermittently, the probability of meeting other fig wasps is decreased. Therefore, the fig wasps may compete with figs for public resources, and the possible competition between them will be transformed into real competition. In this case, the figs will punish these honest and cooperative bees and treat them as enemies. In such an asymmetric system, different spatial and temporal states of the partners will lead to totally different correlations. The relationship between the two sides of the cooperation is uncertain and in an unbalanced state. Examples of our human beings can better illustrate that different spatial states lead to different correlations, and ultimately affect our behavioral strategies. I often take the relationship between the boss and the employees to illustrate it. We assume that there is such a relationship: at the beginning, the company is short of staff and the

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boss has sufficient funds, the first employee who enters the company may be put in an important position and get high remuneration. Obviously, the relationship between the boss and his employee is a cooperative relationship. However, with the entry of more employees, we assume that all the employees are honest and hardworking. At this time, the possibility of the boss to recruit employees will be reduced. If the company’s earnings drop, even if the new employees work harder and bring more benefits to the company, the boss may pay lower wages to them because of the decrease of the company’s earnings or the marginal profit brought by human capital. The new employees may slack off or resign because they feel unfair. In this way, there will be a relatively antagonistic relationship between employees and the boss. From the perspective of the third party, the low salary paid by the boss to the new employees is a kind of punishment, although the boss may not have the subjective intention of this punishment. Obviously, the different time or space order of employees entering the company leads to different benefits, so they may choose different strategies, which is actually a common phenomenon in human society. It is easier to form a close cooperative relationship between the co-founder of the company. And it will bring greater profits when the company grows successfully. However, your income is not completely related to your actual contribution to the company. Different spatial and temporal states will lead to different correlations among individuals in the social cooperation system. This uncertainty will result in having no way to judge the individual’s behavior motivation or strategy, that is to say, it is difficult to find out the causal relationship with Newtonian mechanics. There is an ant that can secrete substances similar to opium to make aphids addicted. In this way, they can continuously provide honeydew for ants and even control the number of aphids. Aphids seem to be the slaves of ants and continuously provide high-quality food for ants. However, ants also provide protection for aphids. If there are natural enemies to prey on aphids, ants will drive them away to protect aphids. Even if ants don’t secrete drugs like opium, aphids still provide honeydew to ants. Obviously, from the perspective of an onlooker, ants and aphids are mutually beneficial and cooperative. However, from the perspective of aphids’ motivation, it may be the forced behavior or the active reciprocal cooperation behavior. However, if we only look at the behavior of ants and aphids, we can not definitely know whether they are forcedly enslaved or actively cooperative because their phenotype is exactly the same. In the painting Barge Haulers on the Volga, the individual behavior motivation of the shipowner and the boat trackers is well defined. From the perspective of the third party, the behavior of cooperators (such as the boat trackers on the Volga River) may be forced and enslaved, or may be active and positive (in order to improve treatment or social status). From the perspective of behaviors, we can not distinguish their motives, which is similar to the famous Erwin Schrödinger’s Cat in quantum mechanics. Those forced and enslaved behaviors may also be the superposition of active and cooperative behaviors. We can’t distinguish them, just as we can’t tell whether Erwin Schrödinger’s Cat is dead or alive.

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In physics, it is the asymmetric relationship among particles that leads to the uncertainty of their behavior and the non-equilibrium state of their relationship. As mentioned in the previous chapter, in the life system, the asymmetric relationship among the components of the cooperative system leads to the uncertainty of individual strategies within the system, and thus leads to the unbalanced relationship between the two sides. There are striking similarities between life science and physics in that asymmetry leads to disequilibrium. The motive force of its evolution may be interlinked in essence.

Wave Particle Duality of Cooperative Systems In 1905, Einstein put forward the light quantum explanation of photoelectric effect. People began to realize that light wave has the dual properties of wave and particle at the same time. In 1924, Louis Victor · Duc de Broglie put forward the hypothesis of “matter wave”, which holds that all matter, like light, has wave particle duality. Wave particle duality is one of the basic properties of micro particles. For the life system, it seems that no one has ever seriously discussed whether biological individuals also have wave particle duality. An obvious stupidity is that how can we find the volatility of organisms? Indeed, when discussing whether organisms have wave particle duality like microscopic particles, few of us have found that an elephant can diffract like light waves or fluctuate like water waves. However, if we consider the interaction between biological individuals, the interaction mode does exist the wave particle duality of microscopic particles, at least in the system I have studied. In the reciprocal cooperation system of figs and fig wasps, most of the fig wasps are honest cooperative individuals, but there are also a few speculative ones. If there is no pollen in the pollen basket or the pollen basket disappears, these individuals will not pollinate the fig. For the fig, it is completely speculative parasitic individuals, and these bayan bees don’t get profit from the bayan tree. These opportunistic parasitoids are actually the offspring of honest cooperative pollinators, but they are not genetically stable. For figs, honest pollinators and opportunistic fig wasps are friends and enemies, but they are the offspring of the same fig wasps. In different generations, honest pollinators and opportunistic parasitoids can be transformed from each other in the genetic process. This characteristic can be compared with the particles of matter in physics. In genetics, fig wasps follow Mendel’s law of inheritance, and their phenotypic characteristics are discontinuous. However, for fig wasps, whether the function of figs is to increase the cooperative effect of fig profit or to reduce the competitive effect of fig profit does have significant randomness and volatility. Honest pollinators, carrying pollen and pollinating for the fig, increase the number of seeds of the fig. Both sides may show a cooperative relationship. But in fact, they can also harm the fig like parasitoids, reduce the number of seeds, and cause the fig to punish them as enemies. The cooperation between figs and fig wasps may also result in competition of public resources. The inflorescence of figs is composed of many small flowers. The wasps pollinate, but if the small flowers

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are not parasitized, they will develop into the seeds of figs, which is the profits of figs. If the fig wasps lay eggs and parasitize, they will develop into fig wasps, which is the profit of figs. However, the total number of florets in each fig is limited. When the utilization of floret, the public resource, reaches saturation, more fig wasps will lay eggs, which will lead to a decrease in the number of seeds of figs, and the two sides may turn into a competitive relationship. Our experiment shows that the relationship between figs and fig wasps may change from cooperation to competition and fluctuate. Obviously, such a fluctuation means that pollinators may be beneficial to figs because it will increase its profit, or be harmful to it because it can reduce the profit of figs, and thus may lead to the punishment of honest pollinators. Honest pollinators do not always get rewards from figs. Instead, they may face punishment and reduce their profit. The fig wasps may also evolve into parasitic and speculative bees. The volatility of its profit may lead to the uncertainty of its genetic evolution strategy, that is to say, it is possible for honest pollinators to become parasitic and speculative fig wasps. On the contrary, parasitic fig wasps may evolve into honest pollinators because of the punishment from the figs. In human social cooperative behaviors, the wave particle duality is more obvious. For a monarch, the children or subordinates of his political opponents have already decided to be his opponents when they were born. However, such opponents are not unchangeable and won’t be their enemies all their lives. Instead, there is the possibility of being transformed into friends or allies. Their political allies, children and subordinates are also born as their partners, but there is also the possibility of betrayal. Such adversaries and collaborators are similar to the particle characteristics of physics. However, we all know that the most loyal subordinates are not always loyal to the king, and their loyalty is not always consistent. Even the most loyal subordinates may betray their own king. Similarly, those who are hostile or sycophant do not always want to murder the king. They may sometimes help the king, or even completely change their political attitude to devoutly assist their own monarch. Obviously, the relationship between the monarch and his subordinates fluctuates significantly. For a cooperative system, the particle and volatility of the relationship between the dominant party and the weak party in the system are not completely separated from each other, but interact, influence and superimpose each other. The volatility of their correlation leads to the uncertainty of the benefits of their strategies, and then changes the chromosome structure, gene arrangement or expression order. Therefore, the evolutionary genetic characteristics are programmed and constitute the particle characteristics of their correlation. The mutual transformation of genetic characteristics in the process of evolution is the embodiment of volatility characteristics in the genetic level.

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The Gravity of Social Biological System While on board, I caught a very beautiful Caribbean woman, and the Admiral gave her to me. I took her to my cabin and stripped her clothes as they did, and I immediately felt the desire to enjoy it. I was just going to have a good time, but she didn’t want to. She scratched me hard with her nails, which made me very angry. In a hurry, I took a rope and beat her fiercely. Then she gave out a shrill cry, which almost pierced the ears. At last we reached an agreement. In this process of bargaining, I dare say, she acted like a prostitute who grew up in a brothel.2 —Raj Patel and Johnson W. Moore

In sociology, it is difficult to give a strictly defined concept of gravitation similar to that in physics. But the “force” similar to gravity actually exists in almost all biological systems. When the queen migrates, the worker bees move with the queen and form a globular body centered on the queen. And the human society is also similar. When the leader appears in a certain place, it is also the place where the crowd gathers. In the asymmetric social structure, leaders undoubtedly control more resources and allocation rights. The increase of the opportunity to get close to or cooperate with leaders means that the chances of getting rewards from leaders increase. Enslavement is not only a passive behavior, but also an active one. This kind of active enslavement behavior is judged as active cooperative behavior from the motive. In the ancient feudal dynasties of China, eunuchs, a special professional group, were not forced to be eunuchs in the palace. Many of them took the initiative to become eunuchs. Obviously, they gave up their reproductive rights completely and took the initiative to become eunuchs in the palace because they could gain the important position in which even the senior officials in the court did not dare to offend them. In the harsh environment of ancient China, people who didn’t enter the palace to be eunuchs may die prematurely because of poverty, or have no chance to get married and have children at all; otherwise, it would be a better strategy to be a eunuch. Although those maids who had not been castrated were not directly deprived of their reproductive rights, how many of them actually had the chance to be favored by the emperor and have children? Most of them, like eunuchs, have no chance of reproduction at all. The maids only retained their reproductive organs, so there was hope of reproduction; while eunuchs directly cut off their genitals, so they were deprived of the possibility of reproduction, but the hormones in the male body were still producing. Who can know whether these eunuchs were dreaming of restoring their male function and having children again? At least we know that every eunuch was very careful to preserve their dried genitals. Just as the Egyptian pharaoh mummified his body and saved it in the hope that one day his body could be resurrected, eunuchs seemed to be imagining that their genitals would be resurrected one day. In the asymmetric social cooperation system, the higher the hierarchic difference between the superior and the weak is, the more credible the punishment of the superior individual to the uncooperative one will be. The more centralized the society is, the 2

Patel and Moore [2].

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more credible and severe the punishment given by the leaders for non-cooperation is. Through perceptual intuition, you can make a clear judgment. In Russia and North Korea, the opposition may be arrested at any time in the name of corruption and crime, or even be executed directly without any reason. Let’s look at the democratic countries. Trump has been threatening to punish the fake media. However, a year or a few years later, these media are still exposing his shortcomings and accusing him of Russia. In asymmetric social systems, whether in other social cooperation systems of nature or in human society, the closer the relationship between the weak individual and the dominant leader is, the lower the intensity or probability of being punished will be once his “mistake” or speculation is found; the more distant the relationship is, the higher the intensity or probability of punishment will be. In the feudal dynasty, even if the eunuchs close to the emperor committed the death penalty of interfering in military affairs, such as Huang Jing, the eunuch beside Liu Chan of the Shu Han Dynasty, was reprimanded by Zhuge Liang for being close to the emperor, they were not severely punished. On the contrary, those eunuchs who were a little distant from the emperor might be given the most severe punishment, even death penalty for saying a taboo. Trying to be the dominant leader or center of the social system is the fundamental driving force for individuals to choose altruistic cooperation strategy. As discussed in the previous chapter, the most essential motive force of this kind of behavior is derived from sexual motivation (I will not repeat it here). The manifestation is that each individual expects to be respected and become the center. The degree of altruistic cooperation is closely related to the degree of asymmetry in the system. The higher the degree of asymmetry is, the more likely the superior individuals will pay a higher price to help the weak individuals. Correspondingly, the weak individuals are more obedient and cooperative. Taking the evolution of the correlation between our parents and children as an example, it is easier to understand the transformation of the relationship. In infancy, children have almost no independent living ability, and they must completely rely on their parents. During this period, we will observe that infants and young children know how to please their mothers even though they can hardly speak, such as coquetry, smiling, showing weakness, crying, etc., while mothers are willing to give almost everything to their children in their infancy. When a child makes mistakes, we will see that he will soon return to his mother’s arms or home even if his mother severely punishes or even violently beats him. However, as the children grow up, they are more independent and less dependent on their parents. At this time, the children may disobey their orders, quarrel with their mothers, or even run away from home. When the child fully grows up, it is easy to choose a completely independent life due to some trivial things. In this process, we can easily see that the degree of mutual cooperation between parents and children is gradually decreasing. In the process of children’s growth, the kinship and reciprocity have not changed actually, but their mutual cooperation has been reduced, and even transformed into competition and conflict. The extreme competition relationship is killing father and mother. The altruistic help behavior of parents to their children actually depends on the degree of children’s dependence on the parents and regarding them as the center. The more

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obedient the children are, the more parents will help. On the contrary, the more rebellious and independent the children are, the less altruistic parental help will be. Parents’ altruistic giving or helping to their children depends on the degree of asymmetry between them. This strong sense of dependence stimulates the parents’ sense of honor or achievement. In fact, even if a child who has no kinship with himself sends out a call for help, the adult will also stimulate a strong impulse to care for the child. The weaker the child is, the more likely it is to stimulate such potential. There is such a dynamic even among different species. Animal world 3 once played such a video that a lioness captured a pregnant female gazelle, killed her, took out her baby and raised it, even breast-fed it. Finally, the poor baby gazelle was killed by other lions. It is very common in human society to offer selfless help to different species for their weakness and flattery. In the streets and alleys of China, old women, old men and even many young women often say, “Come on, come on, baby”, “Where have you been? You worried me to death”. As a result, a dog or a kitten comes over. By showing weakness, pretending to be pitiful or ingratiating, these puppies or kittens have been greatly favored by their owners, and even get billions of property of their owners. I believe that children from developing countries or poor families are not as much pampered by their parents as the pets are pampered by noble ladies. This kind of sympathy for the weak leads to the existence of altruistic help for the weak in adult groups. Do you have the heroism to help the helpless victims when we see them begging for help? When you are faced with countless desperate people asking you to help them fight against bandits and tyrants, but if you agree, it may bring you the risk of losing your life, will you be inspired by the tragic feeling of “If I don’t go to hell, who else will”? The evolution power of altruistic behavior is that the weak seek help and may submit, and the success of the strong becomes the longing of thousands of people to admire heroes. Parents’ selfless devotion to their children may not due to the children carrying their own blood, but due to the weak children relying on their parents. The higher the asymmetry is, the higher the potential of parents devoting to their children will be, and the more credible parents’ punishment for their children’s uncooperative behavior will be. As children grow up, this asymmetry gradually weakens, and competition and conflict between the two sides increase. However, due to the high degree of reciprocity—whether emotional or material, the motivation to maintain the cooperative relationship still exists, but the probability of conflict and even the disintegration of the cooperative relationship will increase. Robert Trivers, a famous evolutionary biologist, in his book The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life also realized that the relationship between parents and children may not be genetic, but also between controlling and being controlled, self-deception and deception. He wrote, “Parents may pretend that what they do to their offspring is strictly based on genetic correlation (parental investment), while in fact, their behavior is often based on unrelated parts (parental exploitation), which they may not be aware of. In turn, offspring can pretend that 3

Animal World was launched on CCTV-1 on December 31, 1981. Its main purpose is to introduce various animals and plants in nature to TV viewers.

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they need more investment from their parents than their parents can afford, and they can often win more care from their parents. Therefore, in fact, genetic correlation leads to a variety of complex self-deception and deception, and further leads to false statements, manipulation of others, internal differences and other phenomena.

Egocentrism and Gravitation “Force” defined in physics is the interaction between objects. In the social biological system, there are also large and small interactions among individuals, such as attraction between the sexes, kinship similarity and reciprocity between individuals, and the intensity of competition or cooperation among species. This kind of definition has been made in the theory of Pro-selection and the theory of reciprocal choice. Robert Aumann, the Nobel Laureate, summed it up as the coefficient of relationship, which is genetic similarity in the theory of Pro-selection, and defined as the degree of reciprocity in the theory of reciprocal selection, but it can be any other form of action.4 However, such a definition or understanding has not been widely understood and applied by biologists, mainly because this definition of relationship coefficient is not materialized into a specific biological feature. In fact, there are similar problems in the definition of force in physics, but most of us no longer question such basic “theorems” or concepts. Newton elaborated the dialectical relationship between mechanics and geometry in the preface of the book Mathematical Principles of Nature Philosophy. He thought that for the same natural phenomena, we must seek the same reasons as more as possible. At the same time, we also expect that other natural phenomena can also be deduced from the principle of force, which makes science gradually separate from religion and philosophy, and urges people to understand philosophy in a mathematical way.5 Although biology or social science are not as unified as physics in the form and size of interactions, biology, especially ecology and sociology, has confirmed that there is a correlation between the fitness of any two interacting organisms, which is called correlation coefficient. The biological correlation coefficient which we correspond to the “force” in Newtonian mechanics is an important description of biological interaction. In Newtonian mechanics, an object with a large mass has a large inertia and it is more difficult to change the state of motion. Finally we can see that small planets are easily attracted by larger ones, and smaller ones revolve around them. For the social biological system, the fitness of queen ant and queen bee with high status is much higher than that of worker ants and worker bees with low status. The same is true of humans and other social creatures. The evolutionary pressure of queens with high status is less, so they tend to be more conservative. Their evolutionary rate or the probability of mutation and innovation are lower than those of vulnerable 4 5

Aumann [3]. Newton [4].

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individuals, so the “inertia” of maintaining the original strategy is greater. Similarly, physical quality is positively correlated with inertia. In social biological system, the fitness of an individual will determine its “inertia”. In Newton’s third law, “The force and reaction force between two objects are equal.” The interaction between individuals in the cooperative system is also mutual. The relationship coefficient between the dominant queens and workers is equal to that of workers and queens, or in more specific and popular words, the kinship coefficient between queens and workers is equivalent to the relationship coefficient between workers and queens. However, in the real social biological system, the biological effects of the same correlation on both partners are not consistent. In order to improve the adaptability, the rate of evolution is faster than that of the strong side. Therefore, the plasticity is greater, and it is easier to be changed. Moreover, it is attracted by the strong side and evolves towards the strong side. With the improvement of fitness, the evolution rate will gradually decrease, and the “inertia” will gradually increase. Finally, it will not change and form a center in the system. Individuals with higher grades or more resources are more likely to become the center of the group. For individual organisms, each individual tends to improve their fitness, and evolve inertia so as to improve it. In this way, individuals with improved fitness will be more likely to attract more individuals with low fitness to unite around themselves and become the center. This is the driving force of the evolution of individual “egocentrism”. In the social biological system, due to the difference of fitness between individuals, those with low fitness always evolve in the direction of high fitness. Therefore, both individuals with high or low levels have “egocentrism”. Obviously, the greater the difference of fitness between queens and worker, the stronger the evolutionary power to improve their fitness, and the stronger the motivation of weak worker ants and worker bees to evolve into the dominant queens. Qing-Hou Zong said: everyone in China wants to be an emperor, which is the outlook on life formed under the influence of China’s highly hierarchical tradition. Compared with physical phenomena, it is perhaps easier to understand how the intensity of cooperation itself (correlation coefficient) affects “egocentrism”. Newton’s system is based on the motion of planets. There are a lot of stellar systems in the universe. A stellar system consists of stars and planets around it. The earth we live on is in the solar system which is also a stellar system. Centripetal force plays an important role in celestial system. There is universal gravitation around the star, through the centripetal force to attract the planet around it to do circular motion. For a flat space, gravitation is inversely proportional to the square of distance. In biological systems, we try to define centripetal forces. For each cooperative individual, if its fitness is higher than other individuals, it will produce a so-called “centripetal force” on the individuals around it. According to the size of the profit (payment matrix) it brings to the surrounding individuals, the degree of cooperation is bound to be different, and the strength of “centripetal force” also differs. Obviously, the degree of cooperation between the two sides in the social cooperation system mainly depends on the individual’s diffusion ability or exit cost in the system, corresponding to the square of the distance in the universal gravitation in physics. At this time, we will get the following conclusion: the higher the degree of reciprocity (the greater the

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correlation coefficient), the greater the “centripetal force” of the strong side to the surrounding weak side, and the easier to attract (control) the surrounding individuals. The more stable the cooperation system is, the more solid the “center” established by the strong side. In the process of exploring the natural law, the research and exploration of symmetry plays an important role. In 1956, Zheng-Dao Li and Zhen-Ning Yang proposed the breaking of symmetry (that is also called asymmetry), and soon won the Nobel Prize for it. This asymmetry is common in nature, and may be more common in biology (including the asymmetry of information, power and evolutionary path). In the asymmetric cooperative system, this kind of “egocentrism” will become stronger. Trying to be the dominant leader or center of the social system is the fundamental driving force for individual to choose altruistic cooperation. The most essential motive force of this kind of behavior is derived from sex and “egocentrism”. The manifestation of egocentrism is that each individual expects to be respected and expected to become the center. Let’s look at a very interesting thing. The uncertainty of asymmetric social cooperation system is also very similar to the uncertainty in quantum mechanics. In an atom, the interaction between the electron and the nucleus satisfies the uncertainty relation. The orbit of an electron is not fixed like a macroscopic system, but an electron cloud is formed around the nucleus. The spin may be up or downrandomly in one of the states (or an orbit) with a certain probability. This is the so-called superposition state. Schrodinger’s “half dead” cat describes such a relationship, that is, the cat is both dead and alive, which is the superposition of two states. In highly asymmetric cooperative systems, cooperative or competitive relationships may exist at the same time. For example, in the highly reciprocal cooperation system between figs and fig wasps, the relationship may be either cooperative or competitive. The fig wasps carry pollen to promote the development of fig seeds, but at the same time, they will lay eggs in the seeds and compete with the seeds. This process is completely random. We can think that the fig and the fig wasps are also in the superposition state of cooperation and competition. In fact, this superposition state is universal in social biological system. It can be seen that the “gravity” in the social biological system has a great similarity with the interaction between the micro and macro matter. We can understand that “egocentrism” plays an important role in the formation of social biological system by using the asymmetry and uncertainty in physics. In the asymmetric cooperative system, the purpose of “becoming the center” drives the individuals participating in the game to cooperate more with the dominant “center”, which may be the fundamental driving force of altruistic cooperation. The evolutionary power of altruistic cooperative behavior, which improves one’s social status and achieves self-centeredness, is almost the same in the form of universal gravitation in physics, and its internal evolutionary motivation may be the same. We will have to face up to the cold fact that social cooperation systems, including us, may share the same evolutionary laws with inorganic physical worlds, such as a stone.

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Planck’s Constant—Can’t I Touch It? In my attempts to use quantum physics principles to explain our biological evolution and social cooperation behavior, my biggest criticism or challenge is that the principles of quantum physics only apply to the micro world. This is a common sense problem that biologists and physicists stick to. In the world of quantum physics, there is uncertainty in micro particles, and Planck’s constant is used to describe the quantum size, which plays an important role in quantum mechanics. When Max Planck studied the law of thermal radiation of objects in 1900, he found that only assuming that the emission and absorption of electromagnetic waves are not continuous, but are carried out one by one, the calculation results can be consistent with the experimental results. Such a part of energy is called an Energon. Each Energon is equal to hν, where ν is the frequency of radiated electromagnetic wave, and h is a constant called Planck’ constant. In the uncertainty principle, Planck constant plays an indispensable role. The uncertainty of particle position × particle velocity × particle mass ≥ Planck’s constant. The Planck constant h = 6.62607015 × 10–34 J·s. Planck’s constant is considered as one of the basic constants in the universe by physicists. It is regarded as the scale of the boundary between the classical physical world and the quantum world. Based on the concept of Planck’s constant, a complete and beautiful discipline system of quantum physics has been developed. It is easy to think of a very important proposition: can the mathematical system of quantum mechanics be used to explain other objects other than microscopic particles, such as the evolution of life? However, if we only look at the Planck’s constant, h = 6.62607015 × 10–34 J·s, we will find that this value is much lower than the basic unit of living organism—biological cells. The cell mass is about 2~3 ng, which is 2 × 10 −9 g, 24 orders of magnitude larger than Planck’s constant, about 10−24 . The molecular weight of one base of DNA is about 330, so its mass is about 5.5 × 10−22 g, which is about 12 orders of magnitude larger than Planck’s constant (about 10−12 ). When I discuss with physicists whether quantum physics theory can explain the uncertainty or volatility of biological systems, almost most physicists think it is completely impossible. But so far, the value of Planck’s constant has not been given any constraints except by experimental measurement. This means that theoretically, Planck’s constant can be given arbitrarily as an input parameter. In this case, we can discuss it with different values. Some physicists have indeed studied what the world looks like when Planck’s constant moves up or down on existing microscopic particles. If the value of Planck’s constant is no longer a forbidden zone and can be used in other systems, we will ask, is the Planck’s constant the same value in different research objects? Physicists have made the Planck’s constant tend to zero and return to classical physics. We will also face such a basic logic paradox, which is also the question raised by Ah Q.—can’t I touch it? Why can’t Planck’s system take values for a certain mathematical constant? When it is possible to answer the above questions, we will face a more important and profound thinking: can quantum theory be included in a broader sense of theory? What we are talking about here is not just the unification with Einstein’s theory of relativity. Of course, in a great sense, these two propositions are the same problem.

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Relativity of Observer Scale and Plasticity of Planck Constant My second objection is that the idea that all observations depend on the subject and the object at the same time, and that they are inextricably intertwined, is hardly new (the idea of quantum mechanics), and it is almost as old as science itself… It is said that there is also an unavoidable and uncontrollable influence of the subject on the object. This view is new and more appropriate.6 —Erwin Schrodinger

Planck’s constant, a physical understanding is that it is the smallest time or space observation scale. From this point of view, Planck’s constant depends on the technical means the observer can achieve or the scale used by the observer. Similar problems exist in the macro world in which there is also a physical characteristic, which is not only related to the physical characteristics of the observed object, but also affected by the observer’s own characteristics. A well-known example is the mathematical logic paradox of British coastline length. In 1967, the French mathematician B. B. Mandelbrot put forward “how long is the coastline of England?” This seems to be extremely simple, because the length depends on the unit of measurement. If the coastline is measured in 1 km, the twists and turns shorter than 1 km will be ignored. If the unit is measured in 1 m, the ignored twists and turns will be detected, and the length will become larger. The smaller the measurement unit is, the larger the measured length will be. When the unit of measurement changes, the length obtained is infinitely increased. He thinks that the length of the coastline is uncertain, or in a certain sense, the coastline is infinite. Why? The answer may lie in the extremely irregular and unsmooth coastline. We know that classical geometry studies regular graphics, plane analytic geometry studies primary and secondary curves, and differential geometry studies smooth curves and surfaces. Technically only by regularizing and reprocessing the irregular shapes that exist in nature, can we get a meaningful length through linearizing the coastline. In 1967, an epoch-making paper How Long is the Coastline of Britain? was published in Science, an internationally authoritative magazine, which was written by Beonit Mandelbrot, a contemporary French mathematician and computer expert who was working at IBM’s Hutson research center in New York. His answer would surprise you: no matter how carefully you do it, you can’t get an accurate answer because there won’t be one. The length of the British coastline is uncertain! It depends on the scale used in the measurement. For Planck’s constant, if we think it is the smallest time or space scale, then obviously its numerical value will depend on our existing observation scale and our own scale. Now we think of electrons as the smallest, indivisible particle, and this concept is almost the same as the early concept of atoms that cannot be subdivided. And it turns out that atoms can be subdivided. If electrons can be subdivided into smaller units, the Planck’a constant must be modified accordingly. In the same way, 6

Schrodinger [5].

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if the observer thinks that a gene or cell in the life sciences is the smallest unit that cannot be subdivided, then Planck’s constant will be modified to apply to systems such as genes or cells.

The Essence of Planck’s Constant and the Discontinuity of Life Evolution If you look at the development of physics in the last half century, you will have the impression that discontinuities in nature are largely imposed on us against our will. The continuum seems to make us feel comfortable. The concept of discontinuous exchange of energy, which Max Planck introduced in 1900 to explain the distribution of energy in blackbody radiation, greatly alarmed him. He made a lot of efforts to weaken the hypothesis and try to get rid of it, but failed. Twenty-five years later, the inventors of wave dynamics once hoped that they would have paved the way for a return to the classical continuous description, but this hope proved unreliable again. Nature itself seems to reject continuous description, which seems to have nothing to do with mathematicians’ confusion in dealing with continuum. —Erwin Schrodinger

When Planck studied blackbody, he occasionally found a universal formula, which was later called Planck equation. In this equation, it must be assumed that the energy is not continuously emitted and absorbed, but divided into parts. The presupposition of Planck equation and its derived meaning have completely changed people’s understanding of the world since ancient times. In the modern scientific system starting from Galileo and Newton, all natural processes are regarded as continuous. If your middle school physics teacher tells you that a car runs along a straight line from point A to point B, but does not pass through point C between the two points, you might find it inconceivable that the teacher is ignorant. The continuity of nature is so indisputable that few would doubt it. When the geography teacher tells you that the altitude of the Himalayan peak is 8848 m, you will think that the height of one place may be 8847 m, and that of another point is 8847.5 m, 8847.25 m… As long as you don’t reach the peak, you can take it for granted that you can imagine infinity approaching 8848 m. According to Tian-Yuan Cao’s description in the book Does God Roll the Dice: History of Quantum Qhysics, energy is also discontinuous. “When we say that the total energy released by this chemical reaction is 100 J, each of us will subconsciously infer that at one time during the reaction, the total energy released by the system was equal to 50 J, 32.233 J and 3.14159…J. In short, the release of energy is continuous, and it can always reach any possible value at a certain time. This idea is so directly embedded in our heart and everything is taken for granted.” “This assumption of continuity and smoothness is the basic premise of calculus. Newton, Maxwell’s huge system, which was built on this foundation, turned into a perfect physics building after a hundred years of development. Now, Planck’s hypothesis triggered a big earthquake, and the fundamental foundation of physics began to shake. According to Planck equation, energy must have a finite number of

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possible states, and it cannot be infinitely continuous. At the time of launch, it must be divided into a limited number of parts, and there must be a smallest unit. It’s like a miser paying the bill with great heartache. Although he tries to pay as little as possible at one time, he must pay at least one cent each time, because there is no smaller unit in terms of cash. The process of paying is a discontinuous process. We cannot find any time to make the payment happen to be in the state of ‘paid 1.005’, because the smallest unit is 0.01 yuan, and the payment can only be sent out in this way. We can find when he paid 1 yuan or 1.01 yuan, but there is no other state between the two states, although theoretically, there are infinite numbers between 1 yuan and 1.01 yuan.”7 The most important methodological contribution of Planck equation, the fundamental equation of quantum physics, is the continuity formed by breaking through the indivisibility of the smallest unit of matter. Energy, perhaps any matter, is also discontinuous. We all seem to forget this when we oppose the use of quantum physics methodology to analyze other physical worlds. Let’s take a look at whether the life system is continuous or discontinuous. For a species population, the biological individuals that constitute the smallest unit are obviously discontinuous. Biological individuals cannot be further divided into groups, such as monkeys. Each monkey cannot be further divided into 0.5 or 0.25 monkey. In the same way, the gene of DNA, which is the basis of biological genetic material, is also the smallest taxonomic unit. Similarly, we can’t further divide the concept of 1/2 and 1/4 genes. Once a functional gene is subdivided, its basic biological function will be lost. If we analyze this carefully, life is obviously a discontinuous evolution. It’s exactly the same problem as the Planck equation. After a hard struggle, physicists, including Planck himself, finally accepted the conclusion of the discontinuous evolution of the material world. Unfortunately, the whole life science continues to think about the evolution of biology under the Newtonian continuous thought system, but ignores the discontinuity in our own genetic evolution process—there is a significant discontinuity between grandparents, parents and children. Biologists’ methodology blinds us to find facts, so we biologists have been thinking back and forth in Newton’s era and in the pre-era. However, the era of leaping out of Newton’s mode of thinking has gone through more than 100 years in physics, but in the field of biology, has the dawn already appeared?

Spatiotemporal Similarity and System Volatility In ecological research, one of the questions that often puzzles me is why it is easy to observe the population fluctuation of micro organisms such as plankton and bacteria, but it is difficult to observe the population fluctuation of larger organisms such as elephants, whales or tall tree species. If we zoom in a little bit, it’s almost impossible to believe that the mountains we inhabit, the earth we live on, and even the Galaxy we 7

Capo [6].

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live in also have fluctuations. However, if you think about it carefully, the difference in understanding may be due to the difference in spatial distance and iteration time between the observer and the observed. For bacteria and other microorganisms, their life cycle is only a few days or even hours, so we can observe lots of individual bacterial life and death caused by population fluctuations in a few days or months. For a long-lived creature such as an elephant or a pine and cypress, it takes decades or even thousands of years to see an elephant or a pine and cypress plant from birth to death, and our observers have no chance to observe such a life cycle at all. If we change the object of observation to the earth or the Galaxy, it is almost impossible to imagine that the earth or the Galaxy will have the same wave phenomenon as bacteria or tiny matter such as electrons and atoms. But if we expand the time scale and put it in a few years or even tens of thousands of years, the population of long-lived organisms such as elephants, pines and cypresses may also fluctuate like bacteria or plankton. Moreover, for a living individual, the difference between the biomass and volume of an individual may also affect the nature observed by the observer. If we look at a micrograph of the surface of an organism, you will be surprised by what you observe: our body surface is like the prairie of Africa, and the surface parasites are like elephants, zebras and antelopes living on the African prairie. For these surface microbes, our decent stomata is a Cenote, the uplift of blood vessels is the mountain range, and the hair is the tall trees on the grassland, and all these even become a huge obstacle that they cannot surmount for life. For some microbes, walking from the elephant’s head to its tail may be as far away as we humans from the earth to the moon. For these surface microbes, if they know the science, how can they observe the fluctuation of the elephant population they parasitize? For particles such as electrons in the physical world, they may be farther away from our human observers than the relative distance between our earth and the Galaxy. Some people have used this analogy: we see a grain of wheat is actually made up of countless atoms, and the volume of an atom is similar to that of a wheat grain in a building. Suppose the atom is a huge stadium, and the nucleus is only an ant in the middle of the stadium. However, our human observers are too far away from the electrons and nuclei in quantum physics, and the relative mass of the observers is also too large. The uncertainty of such particles is likely because particles such as the electrons we observe are too far away from us. In fact, as far as the earth we live on is concerned, if we observe the earth we live on in the Galaxy, the earth is the size of a grain of dust. And the uncertainty or volatility of the dust may never be felt by us. Obviously, the farther the observed is from our observer, the smaller its quality is, the more significant its volatility or uncertainty is; and the closer the observed is to the observer, the higher the similarity will be, or the higher the symmetry is, the greater the certainty will be. The greater the mass of the observed relative to the observer is, the higher the certainty is, the more difficult it will be to measure the uncertainty and observe the volatility.

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Observation Angle and Scale Determine the Observation Results and Conclusions In scientific research, we often encounter debates between schools. The evidence of both sides is very solid, but the conclusion is completely opposite. In the reciprocal cooperation system between figs and fig wasps, there is also a debate between the two schools. According to the observation of macroscopic behavior characteristics, the pollinators develop unique pollen sacs to collect pollen, but the fig wasps do not feed on the pollens themselves. After entering the fig fruit, they first pollinate the florets and then lay eggs. This is a typical altruism. The fig provides a part of female flowers for fig wasps to lay eggs. The larvae of the fig wasps feed on the ovary of the female flowers of figs to complete its development process. After the larvae develops into an adult fig wasp, it collects the pollen of the fig fruit it inhabits and distributes the pollen for it. The two sides formed a typical mutually beneficial cooperative relationship. In many observations, the more fig wasps pollinate, the more seeds the fig produces, and the more post-generation fig wasps there will be. No matter from the perspective of interest exchange or macroscopic behavior observation, the fig and pollinators belong to the nature of reciprocal cooperation. When the research goes further into the individual characteristics and behavior of fig wasps, it is not what we observed. Some pollen sacs of pollinators disappear while others are empty and have no pollen. Obviously, these individuals are not honest cooperators. However, not all the fig wasps that carried pollen contributed to the pollination of figs. Some fig wasps may enter the fig and fight with each other violently because of the large number of fig wasps entering. As a result, these fig wasps seriously lower pollination, resulting in insufficient pollination and damage to figs. Due to the limited resources of female flowers of the fig, the late fig wasps may lay excessive eggs, resulting in the decrease of female flowers that developed into fig seeds, which also reduces the fitness (benefit) of figs. In such cases, honest fig wasps can also get punishment from the fig. The fig and pollinators may be competitive or hostile rather than friendly and cooperative in this situation. Our evaluation of ourselves shows that different observation scales and angles will lead to totally different results or conclusions. Newton, one of the greatest scientists in human history, made great contributions to the progress of human science. Newton never married and devoted his whole life to science. However, when we walk into Newton’s life, we may find that Newton is not what we see. He is not so brilliant, instead, even “selfish” and “despicable”. When he competed with Hooke for the inverse square law, he claimed many times that it was proved by him in 1679, but we can almost be sure that it’s not true. It is impossible to get the solution of the planet’s elliptical orbit by using Newton’s method. Even his famous story—Fall of an Apple was later discovered being made up in order to mythologize himself. Later, the same behavior of deliberately elevating himself in the dispute about the priority of the invention of calculus between him and Leibniz. From different angles and different time scales, the evaluation of Newton may reach completely different conclusions. Similarly, Qin Shihuang unified China for the first time in history,

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and he unified the characters, the weights and measures. His contribution to China’s history is undoubted. However, for the intellectuals or scholars, he brought disastrous destruction to the development of culture and thought at that time, and he was simply a devil. Such extremely contradictory views on political figures in history can be found everywhere. To a large extent, the results of scientific research are the same as our own culture. The observation results in scientific research are influenced in terms of angle and scale, which is analogous to our cultural phenomena. We are completely brainwashed by Newton’s thought and always think the objective physical world is independent of our observation, which is not affected by our behavior. However, the fact may be opposite to what we expect: natural science research, like our culture, has a problem of observation angle and scale. Different observation angles and scales will lead to different conclusions and results.

References 1. Gould SJ (2016) The Panda’s Thumb, translated by Tian M. Hainan Press 2. Patel R, Moore JW (2018) A history of the world in seven cheap things, translated by Wu W-Z. CITIC Press Group 3. Aumann RJ (1987) Correlated equilibrium as an expression of Bayesian rationality. Econometrica 55:1–18 4. Newton (2006) Mathematical priciples of nature philosophy, translated by Kedi W. Peking University 5. Schrodinger E (2015) Nature and the greeks and science and humanism, translated by Zhang B-T. Commercial Press 6. Capo (2003) Does god Roll the dice: history of quantum qhysics. Beijing, United Press

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Chapter 12

Discontinuity-Equilibrium Evolution and Evolution Path Dependence

For my conclusion has been greatly misunderstood–some people think that I completely contributed the change of species to natural selection–I should point out that in the first edition of this book and after several version, I wrote: “I am convinced that natural selection is the main, but not the only way of modification” in one of the most obvious places, namely the end of the introduction.1 –Charles Darwin Anti-Darwinism. As for the famous race for existence, it seems to me that at present it is more an assertion than a proof. It does exist, but only as an exception: the whole aspect of life is not a state of deficient and hunger, but abundance and exuberance and even absurd profligacy–and where there is competition, there is competition for power… One should not confuse Malthus with nature.2 –Nietzsche

Diversity of Species Origin and Evolution Path Dependence Many cultural behaviors or species originate independently of each other in different places. There is already some evidence that humans themselves evolved independently on several continents, and biologists have found that many species actually originated in different regions for a long time, and that today’s globally distributed populations don’t stem from the same geographic ancestors. It is easier to understand such multipoint origins if we take the origin of a culture as an example, such as the culture in which humans used fire. I don’t think anyone would insist that people all over the world learned how to use drill wood to make fire from The Flintstones of China.

1 2

Written by Darwin [1]. Written by Nietzsche [2].

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Adam Smith’s concept of Rational Man and Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection is based on the assumption that there is competition between evolution unit or individual, and more competitive individual or unit win the competition under the driving force of selfish, while those less competitive or low income individuals or species will be eliminated eventually, until they disappear. Genes, individuals and species reach the equilibrium state of the system by means of competition. Adam Smith and Darwin didn’t use mathematical logic strictly in their time. They used analogy and descriptive language to explain their understanding of human nature and biological attributes. The followers of Adam Smith and Darwin, however, rigorously demonstrated the logic of rationality and natural selection. Yet their followers, especially those who fervently believe in reason and natural selection, may have overlooked the confusion and hesitations that Adam Smith and Darwin had about their theories, just as I did myself. As I mentioned in the introduction to this book, Adam Smith, in his two great books, the Wealth of Nations and the Theory of Moral Sentiments, made the assumption (known in scientific history as the Smith riddle) that human beings are “selfish” and that they are morally superior or “altruistic”. And Darwin freely admitted that natural selection could not solve this paradox: in nature, worker ants or the worker bees do not reproduce at all and help the queen ant or queen bee to reproduce, and these individuals have absolutely no direct fitness of their own. So his introduction to the last edition of On the Origin of Species made a point of saying: “I am convinced that natural selection is the main, but not the only modifier.” In classical economics and the classic Darwinian theory of natural selection, there has always been an implicit assumption that in evolutionary processes, organisms will eventually choose the only relatively efficient strategy or path because of competition. This is the typical understanding of monistic philosophy. And I now believe that the world should be binary or plural. Pluralist theory does not believe that an individual, a species, an ecosystem, a mechanism or a system has the optimal existence, but there may be multiple possibilities, and the result of evolution has the characteristics of path dependence. An intuitive analogy is the evolution of language and writing. Although many scholars believe that human beings are beyond natural selection, many scholars, including Darwin himself, believe that natural selection is not a universal theory if it cannot explain human beings themselves. Different tribes and peoples often use different languages and scripts, and which script or language a nation use depends heavily on the predisposition of an early sage or individual leader. In the late Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States Period, if it had not been Ying Zheng of Qin dynasty who united China, but a certain prince or nobleman of some other vassal state, then the Chinese script that continued to exist later on might not have been official script, and the language might have been the language of some vanished ethnic group in the north. Similarly, if it was not Ying Zheng, the king of the Qin dynasty, who united China, but his father or his son, perhaps the emperor was not so strong, but rather respected the language habits of the vassal states that had been subjugated, then it’s hard to argue that the Chinese language would have evolved into the language we use today. Likewise, it is not entirely impossible that had emperor Wu of the Han dynasty not followed Dong Zhongshu’s advice to banish

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all schools of thought and uphold Confucianism alone, China might have evolved into a state combining politics with Taoism or Buddhism. Evolution is strongly pathdependent clearly, as are the culture and language of families, tribes, nations, and possibly the behavioral strategies of a species. The path dependence of evolution is like a flume formed by running water on a huge slab of stone. Because of gravity, water always flows down, but in many cases, the sink is not always the only trace of erosion by running water. If you look closely at a stone slab that has been honed by the history of water flow, you’ll see that the erosion of water creates a lot of water tanks, and the path is even zigzag. Behind a sink are several thinner sinks. Obviously the flume formed by the flow of water has a strong path dependence. This is actually very similar to how our language and culture evolved. Some contingencies in the early stage of evolution determined the early path, and subsequent evolution retained the early trace. In the theory of Adam Smith and Darwin, the relatively strict premise that the competition is infinite is made virtually, and the problem of optimal path in evolution is derived. Obviously, in the process of fierce competition, the direction and path will affect the growth and size of individual income. Individuals or activities with slow or small gains will be eliminated quickly. In theory, in a highly competitive system, individuals or species can be selected only if they choose the best path to maximize their benefits. Different paths (including strategies) of individuals or species in behavior or evolution will lead to different returns, so individuals or species that choose low-return paths will be eliminated in the evolution process. Only those individuals or species that choose the optimal path will survive. In the evolutionary theory of competitive thinking, there is only one optimal evolutionary path and strategy. But such presuppositions are questionable, at least for strictly optimal evolutionary paths that may not exist. In Australia, many animals are marsupials, such as kangaroos, Thylacinus, wombats and so on. Marsupials are not found anywhere else in the world. According to Wegener’s theory of Continental Drift, about 230 million years ago, the earth had only two continents, the Laurasia in the northern hemisphere and the Gondwana in the southern. Due to the rotation of the earth and the movement of the earth’s crust, the two continents began to fall apart. The Australian continent, which lies on Gondwana, joined to what is now the Antarctic continent. Nearly 65 million years ago, Australia had completely broken away from the old continent and was moving towards the equator, and it is still doing so today. The animals of Australia and the animals of other continents have since evolved independently of each other. At the beginning of the continent’s separation, it may have been the initial small differences between its ancestors that eventually influenced the later evolutionary paths, thus forming two different branches of evolution. There may not be an optimal evolutionary path. If we look at the phylogenetic map of species, it’s clear that the evolution of species has gone through several phylogenetic divergences in history and then evolved along different paths. Organisms bifurcate many times during evolution, just as plants branch off during growth. Obviously, the evolutionary characteristics of late species are strongly dependent on the evolutionary characteristics of their ancestors and can

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only evolve on their basis. However, during the evolution of a species, some features or genes of its ancestors may be lost due to environmental changes, resulting in atavism. Different evolutionary paths or branches may have different sites for species evolution or mutation, and the mutation rate will also be different. Different nodes or evolutionary history will lead to different diversity.

In Darwin’s theory of natural selection, a basic premise is that there are always competitions between species or between individuals within species. However, in the real world, public goods such as space, resources and even mating rights are not always in fierce competition. The use of public resources depends on population growth, which is not always positive in the real world. Natural enemies, diseases, natural disasters and other factors often make it difficult for the population to reach the saturation state of natural resources utilization. Moreover, the spatial heterogeneity of the environment itself (physical space, heterogeneity of environmental components, etc.) also prevents its utilization from being maximized. One might immediately ask: over the course of a long period of evolution, species gradually break through these environmental constraints, and eventually those that grow faster, have higher utilization efficiency, and are more competitive are selected for. Natural enemies and diseases, etc. also become the main pressure for the evolution of species or individuals. In the process of species selection against natural enemies and diseases, these are the pressure that is similar to the environment selection. Species or individuals must eventually evolve into an era of intense competition. Of course, this might be true in a static, closed system. But if we look at it in an open system, it’s a different story. For instance, no matter it comes to resources, space utilization or the fight against disease and natural process, if the population has not yet reached to maximize or saturated state, it has experienced earthquake, fire, or foreign predators, which quickly decreases the status of population down

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to a very low level, and there is no difference of these external factors of selection pressures−that is, both competitive or weak ones were killed at an almost equal probability instead of selectively. As natural disasters do, so do biological factors. In the process of predators’ predation, many cases are random processes. For example, a particularly alert and strong gazelle may accidentally meet an ambush cheetah and be killed. In the case of infectious diseases, sometimes almost no one in an area can escape and all of them will be infected. Such a mechanism for indiscriminately reducing the population would obviously result in the failure of selection among individuals within the population. What’s more, natural selection pressures are often discontinuous. Baboons on the African Savannah not only face with hunting by lions, cheetahs but also perhaps their closest primate relative like monkeys. But is the selection of such predators putting constant pressure on the baboon population? Exactly it is difficult for us to recover what selection pressures primates experienced historically. But considering their current behavior, it’s entirely conceivable that these predators wouldn’t have been able to continue to put selective pressure on these primates. For instance, only when the number of monkeys reach the level that lion can randomly encounter, lion will conveniently have a rare sumptuous meal of the monkeys, and won’t go to prey on baboons. While the reason that primate individuals became lion’s predation was probably that they were accidentally hit by a lion, rather than decided by the special characteristics of individuals. And the pride may have moved on with the buffalo’s migration. It’s possible that for a period of time, or within a certain area, certain primates may experience little predation stress, such as monkeys living on the Ethiopian highlands, which have little predation stress due to their precipice habitat. Abiotic environment changes, such as periodic volcanic eruption, drought, fire, periodic changes of nutrient elements, or abiotic environmental factors such as seasonal change, also have no difference in screening biological species or individuals, reducing the competition of population between individuals or different species in ecosystems. It might even be that at certain times in history, there may have been little competition between species. This may be similar to the relationship between individuals within a species. In many cases, there may be little or no competition between individuals within a population of the same species. Throughout the development of human society, resources are abundant in most cases, and there is no competition, at least not fierce competition.3 The same is true of other groups of organisms. In lion groups, there are often some of the disabled individuals, and the weak, even the lion with most teeth broken can live alone for many years. While in highly social group of ants, bees, as well as the human society, there are a lot of individuals who get little engaged in the work, so inactive individuals in some groups even around 50%,4 far higher than the proportion of people who do not work in our human society. These masses of “laziness” (or inactivity in the more neutral term) coexist peacefully in social groups, where the idea of mere competition is apparently hard to explain. 3 4

Written by Yuval Hera [3]. Hasegawa et al. [4].

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In the evolutionary process of organisms, individuals can randomly mutate diverse characteristics, such as adaptation to temperature, humidity, changes in light, poor nutrition or oversupply, etc. The natural selection pressures of these adaptive selections exist, yet are not always so intense. For example, in the adaptive selection of low temperature or high temperature, occasionally there will be local high temperature or low temperature. Those who are more suitable for high temperature or low temperature are more likely to be selected. However, high temperature and low temperature do not always exist, but only appear occasionally, and not all individuals will experience the same high temperature or low temperature pressure. Therefore, on the whole, the selection pressure of high temperature or low temperature is not always so large, so the characteristic distribution suitable for high temperature or low temperature is a Gaussian distribution with a certain width. With the reduction of the selection pressure, the width of the Gaussian distribution becomes wider. There are two limits: in the case of over reproduction, the selection pressure is infinite, which corresponds to the classical theory of natural selection; When natural resources are abundant enough, the selection pressure is zero, which corresponds to the neutral selection theory. The natural selection pressure is between zero and infinity. What is more important is biological individual selection pressure of survival environment. It may not be one factor, but infinite factors, including temperature, humidity, any element of the numerous nutrients, or the natural enemy and the competitors of the entire ecosystem, any of which could be a factor of the selective pressure. The adaptive characteristics of a population of organisms will probably form their adaptive characteristics distribution peak due to some selection pressure. In the whole ecosystem, each species is a peak in the whole mountain range. These adaptive features are already large in terms of our current knowledge, and more may be discovered as research progresses. The overall richness of the feature is like when we fly over the peak of a mountain and overlook from an airplane, with each peak, high or low, representing a species. As mountain peaks are different in altitude, its distribution is continuous, but there is significant characteristics of each peak. Though the differences between species are not distinguished as classic species concept, every species has its own features and it is significant that the various species of fitness or their population size are clearly distinguished. Under the selection pressure of the external environment, each species shows its adaptive evolution. By adjusting their behavior in ways of “learning” and “remembering”, organisms will accelerate or decelerate mutations in certain traits through mechanisms of acquired inheritance to better adapt to such selection pressures. The specific acceleration or deceleration mutation behavior in turn affects the genetic diversity and is fixed in the genetic information code. This is phenotypic plasticity and learned inheritance in our modern biology. Lamarck had argued in Darwin’s age that individual organisms learn to change their genetic structure, but this was later drowned out by Darwin’s theory of natural selection. For a long time, the zebra chameleon, a species of Puperita snail, was thought to be entirely different between the white with black stripes and the black with white spots. Later experiments found that whether the white with black stripes or the black with white spots are determined by the salt content of the growing environment. When the two species adjusted to

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each other’s environment, something magical happened−the new shells of the black snails with white spots were white with black stripes, while the new shells of the white snails with black stripes were black with white spots. Through adaptive learning to the environment, this zebra chamomile adjusts its adaptive characteristics and finally influences its genetic structure. Phenotypic plasticity in turn affects genetic diversity and even speciation and diversity. The intensity of its influence is closely related to its entropy flow or information flow. Under the classical thinking paradigm of Newtonian mechanics, which is also the thinking paradigm of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, the process of evolution from its genetic genes to its phenotype or behavior is reversible. This is the Newtonian idea of time invertibility. Under such a paradigm, species diversity changes from one specific environment to another, and the change of species diversity will occur at a specific probability. The genetic diversity, species diversity and behavioral diversity also occur in accordance with the corresponding probability. However, if evolution is irreversible−similar to the irreversibility of time in physics−then species diversity or its genetic diversity could occur in completely different paradigms that would produce quantum effects similar to those in physics. So, let’s look at the trends of ecosystems going from north to south or biodiversity going from low to high altitudes. In cold temperate zone and high-altitude area, there are few species, with often only a few species or even a single species existing, but when they gradually transit to the hot and humid south or low altitude area, the number of species increases sharply, and some areas even have no smooth transition zone. In tropical rain forests, where species are more evenly distributed, it is much harder to find different individuals of the same species than different species. The physical environment of these different ecosystems is far less diverse than biodiversity would suggest. The rapid or explosive growth of this species is clearly closely related to the geography of the ecosystem. In polar regions or low temperate zones, under the conditions necessary for biological energy transformation (such as water and nutrient matrix), the energy input, that is, the rate of light energy accumulation by biological transformation is much lower than that of tropical rainforest system, and the rate of energy output, such as metabolism and death, is much lower than that of tropical rainforest area. Here the entropy flow is like water flow, which depends not only on the input and output speed of water, but also on the width of the channel or the thickness of the pipe. For an ecosystem, the thickness of the pipe depends on the environmental capacity of the ecosystem. In the tropical rain forest, the rainfall and the active substances that can be used in the environment are higher than the polar regions or cold temperate zones. These factors together constitute the influence factors of entropy flow, whose influence factors are not one-dimensional or two-dimensional, but multi-dimensional. In polar regions and low temperate zones, the energy input and output in the ecosystem are much smaller than those in tropical rain forest areas. In such a non-equilibrium dissipative system, the greater the energy input and output, the greater the negative entropy flow inside the system. In an unbalanced system, the greater the entropy flow of the system, the higher the diversity of the system. The

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entropy flow of the tropical rain forest system is much higher than that of the polar or cold temperate systems, so its species diversity and stability are much higher than that of the polar and low-temperate ecosystems.

The Art Buried Deep Underground−Path-Dependent Speciation Mechanism After finishing the first draft of the book, I watched a documentary about the huge artistic sculptures in Poland’s underground salt mines. In hundreds of meters deep underground, there revealed a huge sculpture group, including “the last supper”, which reflects the art of religious subjects.5 According to the narrator, it was a masterpiece of art by three salt miners who had spent 67 years to complete. I immediately thought of the underground sculpture group not far from Leshan Giant Buddha on Mount Emei in Sichuan province. When I walked into that huge sculpture, I was deeply shocked to see that a variety of lifelike Buddhist art sculptures in the underground palace which extended hundreds of meters. According to the guide, the art sculpture was buried in a landfill immediately after the artisans completed it. One of the puzzling questions is: Since these artists create works of art, why not show them to the world instead of burying them in the ground? It’s like someone has cooked a nice meal and then ate it alone or threw it away. It’s very confusing. What is the motivation behind such behavior? There seems to have been a human origin in embroidering underpants or getting intimate tattoos. Obviously, hiding precious “art” is not an individual madness, but a kind of human characteristic or evolutionary dynamic that is hidden away. In the evolution of biological species, biological features such as art hidden in the underground may also exist. Let’s review the classical theory or definition of speciation. It is generally believed that due to spatial isolation, isolated populations eventually form reproductive isolation and new species are thus formed. If two similar species can coexist, the two species must have their own ecological niche in space, and the characteristic frequency distribution of countless species is a continuous wave chart. Intuitively, we can see that most species do have a wave chart like this. There may also be characteristic differentiation or ecological differentiation on the time scale during the evolution of species. The evolution of these features has strong path dependence. If we look at phylogenetic trees, we see that the evolution of a species is strongly dependent on the differentiation characteristics of its previous nodes (similar to the positions of branches). Obviously, if we take the characteristics of the evolutionary history of species as parameters, we can also get a wave map of the distribution of species characteristics. The undulations of the evolutionary history of species are like the art of the underground. They are parameters that are

5

The last supper originates from the New Testament. Created by the Italian artist Leonardo Da Vinci, it is famous with the content of twelve disciples and Jesus are depicting the last supper.

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often overlooked when we consider the distribution of species or characteristics of ecosystems. If we consider both the frequency wave forms of the spatial characteristics of species distribution and that of the temporal evolution characteristics, species or ecological characteristics may differ greatly from our classical understanding. The path integral principle, which is widely used in quantum mechanics, is a set of mathematical analysis methods to investigate the properties of time and space. Obviously, if we treat the temporal and spatial characteristics of species as two completely independent variables, things are easier, and we get back to the classical concept of species. However, if the time and space characteristics of species have quantum superposition effect or mutual interference effect, the situation may be very different. Considering the superposition effect, the formation of species may no longer depend only on the main characteristics of space, but time or evolutionary process characteristic waves and the spatial characteristic waves will determine the formation of species’ characteristics and their spatial positions simultaneously. If the characteristic frequency of a species is a mountain, the characteristics determined by two waves are quite different from those determined by one wave. The superposition effect and the staggered peak effect exist in two wave crests. It results in mountain-like peaks, some with lower frequencies, but still featuring in peaks or evolving into species. (As we can see from the chart below). And the distribution of species’ numbers depends greatly on the path of their evolution. If this understanding is correct, we can better understand why sympatric species exist and why hidden species are common. The hidden dynamics of niche differentiation in the evolutionary history of species can also be used to explain the existence of a large number of redundant species in the ecosystem. That is, without taking into account the superposition effect of time, there will be a similar superposition or diffraction effect in space. If the environment is not under great selection pressure, the origin of species may come from multiple pathways. That’s the multi-point origin. In the case of multiple point origins, due to the exchange or interaction of genes or genetic information between individuals of various paths and even between individuals of different species, the evolution of species is similar to the diffraction phenomenon of light in quantum physics. If speciation is liken to all roads leading to Rome, individuals may choose to go to Rome either by plane, by train or by donkey. There is no single optimal way to get to Rome if without a lot of selective pressures. If each species chooses only one of these paths, it ends up with a pattern in which each species has its own unique niche in the ecosystem. If species have more than one evolution paths, or gene exchange between different species or close relationships in the process of evolution, which is similar to either take the plane, or take the train, even transfer to transport anytime and anywhere to Rome, then species eventually form the pattern that is similar to the water which is formed by the rivers to the sea. The formation of the river in this case may not be under the selective pressure of the river bed. The species in an ecosystem might resemble a river, and each river might be a species. In this case, the formation of some species is not the result of natural selection pressure, but the result of random factors.

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Multiple Levels of Selection and Evolution In classical social economics and evolutionary biology, a fundamental and incontrovertible concept is that the unit of selection can only be an individual. In evolutionary biology, it was not until pro-selection was suggested that selection units might also be at the gene level. In social economics, however, it is still generally accepted that the individual is the only unit of choice. In the field of evolutionary biology, Edwards once proposed the theory of population level selection, later known as group selection. But this theory was almost abandoned due to its fundamental conceptual conflict with Darwin’s theory of individual selection.6 Recently, in their natural observations, my close friends Professor Shu-Chun Sun of Nanjing University and Professor NianPeng He of the Institute of Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that there are likely to be higher levels of selection in ecosystems than populations, i.e., there may be selection at the community and ecosystem levels. Group selection has been drawing great criticism ever since it was proposed in the 1960s, but it has been supported by only a few scholars. Selection at a higher community and ecosystem level than the population will obviously experience criticism, at least not less than that of group selection. One of the ironies of evolutionary biology is that biologists are brave and determined to accept genetic selection below the level of individuals, while they are firm and determined to reject selection above the level of groups, communities, and ecosystems. An interesting story is the attitude transformation of Professor Edward Wilson, known as the father of sociobiology and one of Harvard’s greatest thinkers, towards selection at the genetic level. Novak, one of the colleagues and partners of Professor Edward Wilson tells the story that Hamilton, who has proposed pro-selection, sent a paper to professor Edward Wilson in his book Super Partners.7 Hamilton’s paper suggests that, if frequency-dependent selection exists, helping siblings reproduce while reducing one’s own reproductive chances could also improve the chances of getting one’s genes passed on to the next generation, thereby allowing altruism to evolve. The paper was not accepted by peers at the time, and the journal of Theoretical Biology is said to have published it without peer review. Hamilton sent the paper to Professor Edward Wilson, who received it, read it briefly and threw it in his office. But when he got home at night, he suddenly realized that the idea might be right. He went back to his office overnight and reread the paper. Then he wrote some comments to recommend the thought. Pro-selection theory has been gradually recognized by peers due to the recommendation of Professor Edward Wilson. Yet pro-selection theory has been universal, and as a standard choice theory of evolutionary biology, Professor Edward Wilson, at the joint of Novak, the famous game theory expert of Harvard University, published a paper that the concept of proselection theory is unnecessary in Nature in 2011, and all social biology problems 6 7

Wynne-Edwards [5]. Written by Martin Nowak [6].

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in fact can be completely explained by mutual choice. In other words, the concept of selection based on gene frequency is redundant, while reciprocal selection based on individual level selection is sufficient to explain our sociobiological problems. However, after the paper was published, 103 of the world’s top evolutionary biologists questioned and opposed it, and it went on for many rounds of debate. But neither side compromised.8 ,9 As I had mentioned in the previous chapter, the symmetry and equilibrium of pro-selection theory claims do not exist. Therefore, I agree with Professor Edward Wilson’s opposition to pro-selection, but I do not agree with the reasons for his opposition. Natural selection may also have multiple levels of selection. If we make a comparison with physics, maybe it’s easier for us to make a similar comparison. An atom in the structure of matter, belongs to the basic building blocks of the material world, resembling a cell or gene in a living organism. Different atoms form larger molecules by chemical bonds or gravity, while higher molecules form higher molecular groups or clusters by intermolecular forces. In the physical world, it’s hard to say that chemistry or physics only work at the atomic level. Similarly, in the life sciences, different sequences of bases form a gene with a specific function, and different genes are chemically bonded together to form chromosomes, which form cells with a specific function. And the cells come together in clusters and gradually evolve into higher organisms, forming the basic unit of evolution in our classical evolutionary biology–-the individual. Like cells, some individuals prefer to live independently, while others prefer to cluster together, and those clusters evolve into social organisms, superorganisms, and higher-level selection units called populations. There are also huge differences in how closely related different species are to each other. Some species are so closely related that they can hardly be separated from each other. Many orchids and endophytes, for example, are embedded in mutually beneficial cooperation, and either can hardly survive independently without the other. Some species are relatively independent and less dependent on others. Species that are closely related to each other form unique communities and even have specific ecological functions. Such communities, in contrast, resemble individuals and form higher-level selection units. When the community and the environment are integrated, it is possible to form an ecological system, a selection unit with specific environmental functions. From genes to individual, then from species to the community or ecological system, the system composition unit has strong characteristics of path dependence in expression or in the evolution process and it’s difficult to predict the exact behavior, and probably we can only predict their statistical distribution characteristics. The path-dependent characteristics of gene expression are more obvious. Chromosomes, the genetic material of cells, are made up of countless genes with specific functions. The expression of these genes is characterized by strong temporal and spatial sequence. The Hox gene is one of this type. One of the characteristics of Hox gene is that its sequence is related to its action sequence and action location. For example, 8 9

Nowak et al. [7]. Abbot et al. [8].

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the difference between the balance pole of drosophila and the hind wing of butterfly is caused by the different regulation of Ubx gene. In the process of evolution, the regulatory hierarchy of Ubx downstream genes in dragonflies is more similar to that of primitive ancestors, while lepidoptera (such as butterflies) and diptera (such as drosophila) have changed some regulation modes of downstream genes. Different regulation of the same gene leads to the formation of organs with different functions. Also for a highly social species population, there is a strong path dependence on individual behavior expression. In an ant colony, for example, young worker ants feed larvae, clean and take care of queens in the colony. After a certain stage of development, they go out to gather food. The oldest ants are more responsible for patrol and protection of the colony. The evolution of ecosystems is similarly path-dependent. The founding species early in an ecosystem’s evolution and the subsequent pioneer species are critical to the diversity and distribution and abundance of the entire ecosystem. In the Qinling Giant Panda Reserve in Shaanxi Province, an area called Daguping, where the forest floor is almost entirely covered with dense bamboo. Even pandas can hardly get into the forest to feed, while over the mountain, there is almost no bamboo in the forest floor a few kilometers away. Such a same area, completely different forest ecosystem is caused by different foundation species. In a path-dependent system, the basic selection unit or characteristic distribution frequency of the system has great randomness, and the distribution frequency of different features or units is also greatly different, some with high and some with low distribution, which is similar to the landscape presented by mountains. A peak is the frequency of distribution of a gene, a species, or an ecosystem type. A peak attracts many lower peaks around it, forming a cluster of peaks that form a unique functional cell, species, or ecosystem. The distributed frequencies of these disparate features constitute the selection units or feature asymmetry in the system. And the main peaks of the mountain range represent characteristics that we normally see as salient, such as selfishness, reproduction, or growth. And the features that are hidden in the underground are those small peaks, such as hidden genes, homosexual behavior, redundant species and so on.

References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Darwin (2001) On the Origin of Species (Shu D-G Trans). Shanxi people’s publishing house Nietzsche (2013) Twilight of idols (Li C-J Trans). Business Press Hera Y (2011). A Brief History of Man: from Animal to God (Lin J-H, Trans). Citic Press Hasegawa E et al. (2016) Lazy workers are necessary for long−term sustainability in insect societies. Sci Rep 6:20846. 10.1038/ sREP20846 Wynne-Edwards VC (1989) Evolution through group selection. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Neural Darwinism Nowak M, Highfield R (2013) The Super Partners (Long Z, Wei W, Trans). Zhejiang People’s Publishing House Nowak AM, Tarnita CE, Wilson EO (2010) The evolution of eusociality. Nature 466:1059–1062 Abbot et al (2011) Inclusive fitness theory and eusociality. Nature 471:E1–E2

Part IV

The Future of Human Beings and Reflection on Humanity

Chapter 13

The End and Hope of Mankind

The most worried people are asking today, “How can people be preserved?” But Zarathustra was the first and the only person to ask, “How can man be overcome?” –Nietzsche1 Every process, event, contingency—whatever it is called, in short, what is happening in nature means an increase in the entropy of the part of the world in which it occurs. As a result, living organisms are increasing their entropy—or producing entropy—and tend to the dangerous maximum entropy state, which is death. If you want to get rid of death or live, you have to constantly absorb negative entropy from the environment—we will soon understand that negative entropy is very positive. It is the negative entropy that organisms live on. Or, less paradoxically, the essence of metabolism is to enable an organism to successfully eliminate all the entropy it has to produce when it is alive. –Erwin Schrodinger2

The Tragedy of the Evolution of Human Cooperative Behavior The initial formation of early human social cooperation behavior is mainly in small groups such as families and clans. With the increasingly closer cooperation within human society, the division of labor among them is gradually strengthened. At first, it may be the division of labor in the family. For example, women are responsible for gathering and family rearing, while men are responsible for hunting and fighting among tribes or groups. The initial division of labor in the family gradually expanded to the division of labor among different families or individuals within the tribe or clan. For example, some members began to engage in the management and production of tools, while some women specialized in infant care, and others for collection. The division of labor within the tribe further improves the production efficiency of 1 2

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche [1]. Erwin Schrodinger [2].

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individuals, thus enhancing the group competitiveness of the tribe. Once humans learned to trade, division of labor between different tribes became possible. The trade between different tribes improves the cooperation among different tribes, thus improving their respective production efficiency. During the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period in ancient China, the vassal states in today’s Hebei (A northern province of China) area were good at smelting iron and forging weapons, producing salt in Shandong (an Eastern province of China) and grain in the Central Plains. In this way, the social division of labor between different vassal states was naturally formed due to the natural distribution of their resources. As a result, the interdependent relationship between the various vassal states became closer. However, it was the closer and more interdependent social system that impelled those princes to strongly attempt to unify other vassals in order to remove the trade barriers among them, which led to more intense struggles and even wars. The more detailed the division of labor, the stronger the desire for unity. With the social division of labor and technological progress, the problem of physical space separation, such as the barrier between mountains, rivers and even oceans, has been gradually solved, and grand unification has become more possible in technology advancement. The two world wars were technically credible and feasible, and proved that many politicians and people had a strong desire for great unity. Under the influence of the antagonistic forces of national collectivism and strong egocentrism in the individual heart, the two world wars resulted in that the states became much more. The power of division has been counterbalancing the power of great unity. However, the power of great unification has not stopped because of the mounting number of countries. With the efforts of large companies which have absolute pursuit of division of labor and efficiency, the wave of globalization has been set off enthusiastically, which in fact promotes the great unification of the world in a disguised way. The dynamics of global unification is being stimulated, with the development of technology and multinational corporations, the violence of controlling state power has been strengthened. The integration of politics and business will gradually replace the integration of politics and religion in history, and it might be the multinational companies that will really control the government. In fact, national politics will be controlled by some international business giants, rather than the representatives of the general public. This is also true in the traditional national political system. It was only in the slave society that they were big slave owners, while in feudal society they were big landlords or clans. In capitalist society, it’s a large capital group or a military or family group taking control of the state. In the early days of the founding of the People’s Republic and at the peak of the trend of world democracy, the voice or representative of the people would be paid more attention to, and would always be the absolute banner in politics and national propaganda. However, the voice or representative of the people will never be the dominant force in the evolution of the country or society, just the banner! When the actual rulers of globalization– large-scaled multinational corporations, try to unify countries or economies into a business empire, the form of sovereignty of each country is respected, similar to respect for the dignity of individuals. However, in the process of making the rules of

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the international game, countries or weak countries are basically an audience. Even if they have different understandings, they will be educated and brainwashed by the international capital giants and become absolutely firm supporters. Those who really stick to their understandings can be directly attacked and wiped out by the military forces of the state under their control with absolute moral authority. The United States arrested Panamanian President Sukarno in the name of drug-related and drug trafficking, and directly eliminated Saddam Hussein and Omar by means of anti-terrorism. It’s capital that unifies the earth by means of force through the governments. This kind of bloody unification, as Sun Tzu said in the Art of War, is the worst strategy, and capitalists of course are clear.3 The realization of global unity by means of force is only the highest form of conflict resolution. This kind of extreme form is not the main choice in human society or nature. Human beings have evolved from a small cooperative team to a larger cooperative one, eventually realizing the great unity of human society and forming a super cooperative team. In the process of expanding the cooperation team, our efficiency is also constantly getting improved. When the global unity is achieved, the efficiency will also reach the highest level, and this will probably be the time when human beings will plunge from the highest place to the bottom of the valley - and human beings may suddenly disappear from the earth like dinosaurs. As I said in my postscript the death of Nash, as a member of life, it’s certain that Nash must die, which is told by rational knowledge; however, through which way to leave us is uncertain, and no one can predict that for sure. As a whole, there is a natural driving force to improve the production efficiency of individuals, groups and the whole society. In reality, we always hope that our personal income and social GDP can be continuously improved. However, a common sense of physics would tell us: if any system with only positive feedback (that is, the production efficiency continues to improve) is bound to collapse. Before the world achieves great unification, each country will dissipate the internal energy accumulated by the growth through regime change, war and social turbulence, and the trade and cultural exchanges among countries will also dissipate the power of entropy reduction within and among countries. Trade and cultural exchanges between and within countries, as well as the power to promote the great unity among countries, provide the power of positive growth within the countries and promote increase of entropy. However, when human beings realize the great unity, the whole human being is a close-off system, which is difficult to dissipate the accumulated positive energy and entropy increase through the communication between systems. The more closed-off the system, the quicker the period of collapse. Just as it’s for us to predict how Nash will leave the world, it is almost impossible to predict the way in which humans will collapse. But just as we can guess that a person will die in many ways, we can still guess the main form. Human beings, similar to the dinosaurs that once ruled the earth, may be the most essential reason for their demise, which is the driving force of their sole overlord on the earth: the increased efficiency of cooperation. 3

Sun Wu [3].

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Due to the global cooperation of human beings, our productivity has been improved unprecedentedly. The whole society can support a large number of nonproductive “redundant” people. The most important representatives of these “redundant” groups are culture, art, and my own group of scientists. In fact, this huge group in modern society can not directly produce the products necessary for our society, but their scientific and technological activities may bring huge benefits in the future. Of course, most of the culture, art and science still cannot directly create wealth for the society, but simply play their own games with their own interests. However, once a science and technology is successfully applied, it will impose huge impact on human beings which is also immeasurable. For the growth of human population, some unique discoveries, such as penicillin, immune vaccine, etc., almost leap forward to improve the natural survival rate of human beings. And now the delivery, child-rearing technology will reduce the infant mortality rate to the limit. These have brought technical support to the explosive growth of human population. The progress of technology also stimulates the consumption of natural resources by individuals. The superposition of the two effects leads to the exponential growth of human demand for natural resources, which eventually leads to the sharp decline or even extinction of other species on the earth. At the same time, it also changes the earth’s topography and environment dramatically. This change is often irreversible, and eventually leads to the deterioration of the overall living environment of human beings. This is the “public tragedy” of human development. Dinosaurs, once a thriving species, suddenly became extinct. Some important evidence shows that dinosaurs have changed the earth into an environment that cannot survive by its own. We have already polluted the continent, the ocean and even the atmospheric space to an unprecedented degree, and the situation is getting worse. The competition among countries hopes to increase their wealth or competitiveness, but they are not willing to pay the price to maintain the stability of the earth’s biosphere. The aggravation of this trend will most likely lead to the whole earth no longer suitable for human habitation and eventually lead to the extinction of human beings. Another possibility is that human intelligence will put humans to death. The development of science and technology has greatly improved and stabilized the living environment of human beings. In a stable environment (as we mentioned in the previous chapter), individuals tend to live longer and reduce reproduction until they give up reproduction completely. They can even knock out the genes of reproduction completely by means of modern molecular technology, so that their own individuals can continue to grow (like reptiles or some plants can prolong their life by unlimited growth). At first, the artificial genetic modification of some individuals will eventually spread the whole region to the whole human population. This kind of technology, whether through the evolution of living things or the development of human beings themselves, can make themselves immortal and lose the ability of reproduction completely, which will be irreversible. In such a stable living environment, the whole human being will be specialized into different functional groups due to the division of labor in society. The whole human life will be more comfortable and efficient, but it will also lose the individual’s ability to survive or reproduce alone, and lose the plasticity of the individual. When external forces, such as the universe

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and the earth’s environment undergo drastic changes, human beings may not be able to adapt to such drastic changes and become extinct as a whole. The loss of control of robot creatures or lethal biological weapons created by human beings through wisdom may also lead to the extinction of humans like dinosaurs. We have robots that already possess part of human intelligence, and in the future, if robots can read the human brain and copy themselves, they will be able to declare war on human beings and control the earth. At that time, the streets will be filled with robots. While human beings may be put into zoos, just as we see monkeys in zoos today, just for the amusement of robots. Similarly, humans are infinitely creating new biological species, some of which are trying to destroy other species. If these man-made biological weapons can also self-replicate and evolve, once they escape, it may be a disaster for mankind. Although new methods have been found to control or stop the spread of these organisms, there is often a lag. After globalization, such as viruses, the speed of their spread may be much faster than the speed at which human beings invent new drugs. Perhaps, the virus has infected every individual before a new drug is found. Transgenic technology has been developed in the commercial planting and breeding of human beings. Although the existing genetically modified foods are strictly controlled and proved to be safe and harmless, competition between enterprises and countries is likely to abuse this technology. The abuse of this technology can be intentional or unintentional. Some foreign gene implantation will undoubtedly affect the gene expression of the species, and some small molecules or nutrients will change. Modern biological research has found that the composition of food itself will affect the expression of some genes in species. Changes in small molecules or nutrients may chronically affect the composition of gut microbes, the immune system, and the expression of certain unique genes. The long-term accumulation of these small changes may eventually affect human’s ability to adapt to natural changes. In the case of drastic changes in the environment, these highly specialized features of human beings may evolve into lethal killers. The history of the development of carbonated drinks such as Coca Cola is a good example of this dangerous trend. At first, no one believed that such drinks would have health risks, but now it has been found that long-term drinking may bring fatal health risks to children. This breakthrough in modern biotechnology bring us a completely unexpected risk.

Cultivate an Opponent Who Can Kill You There is a famous military saying in China: confront a person with the danger of death and he will fight to live. It will take a similar courage to avoid the risk of extinction. The scale of human social cooperation system is constantly expanding, its efficiency is constantly improving, and the accumulated entropy in the system is also constantly increasing. If the entropy increase of the system cannot be effectively dissipated, the system will explode. The whole growth of human beings is like filling a pool with water. When the pool is nearly full, some water must be released. Otherwise, when the

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whole pool is full, the pool will collapse because of the internal pressure. In history, the social efficiency and total wealth of a social system in any country or region have been continuously improved in the process of development, and the improvement of social efficiency in a country or region will eventually lead to social turbulence or regime change. Similar to regional or national economic development, sustained economic growth will lead to economic crisis and great depression, which is actually the dissipation process of entropy increase within the system. In the period when the human power to conquer nature is relatively weak, large-scale epidemics, wars and natural disasters also play a similar dissipative function. These forces are the process of draining the pool. After discharging water, the space of the pool will be vacated, providing space for the next water injection. As for whether we can continue to fill the pool, in addition to discharging water, there is also a way to expand the volume of the reservoir. In the process of technological progress, the improvement of human cognitive ability and cultural integration, the human social system expands from a small system to a large one, just like expanding the volume of a pool, the pool of energy stored in the whole system is growing. In this way, due to the increase of the pool, the whole country or human society in the process of the rise and fall in prosperity and depression will take on a spiral rise. In fact, exporting internal energy to other countries or regions through war and dissipating its energy is another effective way for human energy to continue to grow. When the whole human being is completely unified, the pool will reach the limit of its growth or accumulation capacity. It is no longer possible to provide impetus for the growth through the communication or output between different systems. The ultimate equilibrium state of the whole human system is the real driving force for human extinction. If human beings want to realize immortality, we should try to dissipate the entropy accumulated by the group growth, meanwhile we must dissipate a part of it after every interval, so as to realize the periodic dissipation of the entropy accumulated by human beings. In history, wars, diseases, periodic outbreaks of natural disasters are in fact dissipating the entropy accumulation of human growth. However, with the explosive growth of science and technology and the great unity of human beings, the dissipative function of external forces is weakened or even no longer exists. This will lead to the ultimate equilibrium of human growth, where the risk of system collapse is hidden. If human cognition is rational enough to effectively decide the future of human beings, human beings must use their intelligence to actively dissipate the accumulated entropy of human beings and provide power for future growth. Human efforts can also be tried from two aspects: releasing part of the water in the pool or expanding the pool continuously; usually, the two aspects should be carried out at the same time to be effective. Human beings have practiced many effective ways to dissipate water. Wars between different countries or groups are actually one of the most effective ways. However, with the aggravation of globalization, mutual interests are highly related. Wars, especially the high-tech military war, impose more harm to various interest groups. What’s more, collective decision-making or wisdom evolution makes the probability of dissipating social accumulated energy by such

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extreme means as war is decreasing, and the frequency is also dropping sharply. So the effect of dissipating the accumulated energy of society is declining. After the great unification of the world, the social elites or resource monopolists consciously plan to reduce life expectancy or create disasters, which may be used to dissipate the accumulated power of society as a much hidden way. For individuals, everyone wants to live a long life or even be immortal, but this is not the case for the super organism of society, which needs new life and growth. Otherwise, it is difficult to maintain the vitality of this super organism. If the great unified world is ruled by powerful and centralized leaders, through tacit cooperation with social elites, the super government or monopoly company allows some people to choose the super lazy strategy by providing cheap, even free food, medical or social care. Such groups live happily, perhaps without gene exchange, without cultural exchange, without entropy flow, and may be able to happily reduce their life expectancy. Although this gentle way of dissipating social entropy is slow, it is easy to realize spontaneously. Creating disasters consciously may also be the way social elites will choose in the future. After 9/11, there is a view that bin Laden was trained by the CIA and released by the US government as a spy like pawn. Through such extremism as bin Laden, the United States establishes a super enemy, and then unifies domestic forces to serve its globalization strategy. Leaving aside the question of whether there was collusion between bin Laden and the CIA, such strategic alliance does exist in human history and could well be used to dissipate the rapidly growing internal energy of human society. Human beings have produced super killing weapons such as nuclear weapons, and also have the ability or have produced biological weapons that are more specifically terrifying. Super viruses such as Ebola and AIDS can be designed to specifically invade certain groups of people, or even make some people die suddenly or die happily by adding them into food. Through such violent social turbulence, the population will drop sharply and the social internal energy will be dissipated. Finally, the blame will be put on those terrorists. It would be an acceptable way for the whole society, but it would also a cruel way to hide the truth. With the acceleration of the process of world unification, the possibility of mortal war among human beings is declining, and the threat of other creatures to human beings is also greatly reduced. The biggest threat to a super and invincible human group is that there is no strong enemy. Human elites who are sufficiently aware of this may take the initiative to create an enemy strong enough to dissipate the entropy of their own growth. And artificial intelligence is probably the best option. We can make mistakes artificially, which can lead to a situation out of control. These artificial intelligence robots, machine bacteria, ants and man-made enemies will cause absolute disaster for human beings, and it will absolutely dissipate the accumulation of internal energy brought by human growth. There is no doubt that the enemy created consciously by human beings must be strong enough to make mankind extinct, otherwise it will be difficult to really dissipate the huge entropy accumulated by human beings. But the risk is huge, and it could lead to the extinction of the human species from the earth. The above mechanism is that under the condition that the total volume of the reservoir of a specific social system is fixed, the sustainable survival of human beings

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needs to dissipate the internal energy accumulated by its continuous growth. Another solution is to expand the volume of the reservoir. After the great unification of human beings, the earth—the reservoir of human beings, can no longer be expanded. Interstellar migration may be an effective way for human beings to solve its sustainable development. However, the way of Reservoir Expansion often lags far behind the entropy increase of human accumulation in the system. In essence, this is the speed at which the human social system or country or tribe obtains living space through external expansion or technological extension which is far lower than the entropy growth rate generated by population growth or energy accumulation of social system (state, tribe, etc.). As Nietzsche once wrote in Zarathustra: “the most worried people are asking today: how can man be preserved? But Zarathustra was the first and only one to ask: how can man be overcome?” For today’s human beings, we must do the same philosophical thinking if we are to really survive. All the above hypothetical dilemmas or risks that human beings are faced with in their continued existence arise from our desires, our selfishness and the infinite satisfaction of our “rationality”. However, if we, as a collective human being, can intelligently recognize the danger of unlimited gratification of this desire, and thus boldly and bravely cut off the infinite expansion of our desire, all the above problems will be solved without the need to make the cruel and merciless assumptions. In fact, we are fully capable of reducing our efficiency and returning to the field. Of course, it’s not like the English gentleman who lives in the country and arranges his garden, but we need more social services. We can partly return to the countryside and lead a self-sufficient life like Tao Yuanming (poet of the Eastern Jin Dynasty). We can also continue to produce watches and sabers with relatively low efficiency, just like the Swiss handicraft workshops, and even enjoy the life of forging iron like Ji Kang (a famous scholar in the Wei and Jin Dynasties.) We have the romantic gene to for herding sheep and playing the flute. If we can have enough courage to give up our large houses made of steel and cement and convenient fast food, returning to the fields and the countryside, and cook coarse food by ourselves, our efficiency will be reduced. Without expecting a high negative growth, as long as we maintain zero growth, there will be negative feedback in our system, thus there will be entropy reduction, and we will have hope to survive, and there’s a continued drive to survive. Bestiality keeps us growing, but only by providing a stronger impetus to our divinity—a complete and independent individual personality, can we maintain our human nature—a human being who is constantly coexisting with all things and integrating gods and beasts. The answer, a poem by North Island, may answer the fate of human beings. (North Island: A collection of North Island poems, Nanhai Publishing Company, 2003). Despicable is the pass of the sneaker, Nobility is the epitaph of the noble, Look, in the gilded sky, It’s full of curved reflections of the dead. The glacial period is over,

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Why are there ice everywhere? The Cape of Good Hope has been discovered, Why are thousands of sails competing in the Dead Sea? I came into this world, With only paper, rope and figure, So before the trial, Read out the voices of the condemned. Tell you, the world. I—don’t—believe! Even if you have a thousand challengers under your feet, Then count me as 1001st. I don’t believe the sky is blue, I don’t believe in the echo of thunder, I don’t believe dreams are fake, I don’t believe in death without retribution. If the ocean is doomed to burst, Let all the bitterness pour into my heart, If the land is doomed to rise, Let human beings choose the summit of survival again. New opportunities and sparkling stars, Is full of the sky without cover. It’s five-thousand-year-old hieroglyphs, It’s the gaze of the future.

Humans Will Evolve into Super Organisms, not Global Villages Due to higher scope and greater degree of division of labor and cooperation, the efficiency of human society has been improved unprecedentedly. It has incomparable competitive advantages with other species, and has evolved into a species without competitors. With the progress of science and technology, human beings have lost their competitors and almost controlled the natural system. Human beings have created a comfortable and stable environment like a palace for themselves. However, in such a more stable environment, social division of labor, which is the motive force of inertia, will lead to a single and simple behavior habit in the functional unit of society. The individual may gradually lose its independent personality as a complete biological body, but just like an organ of the body, and cannot live independently without the collective group. This will be a great challenge to our ideals, perceptions and values as an independent and free person. Human beings have achieved infinite success in the process of population expansion, competition with other species, and struggle with nature, but we have lost our individual selves

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as a result. The human individual, perhaps like a cell in the human body now, may not ask such a problem at all, “Who am I?”. The group division of human social functions, rather than the individual behavior division of ordinary creatures, has increased human innovation in improving efficiency to a greater extent, though this improvement is non-linear, rather than linear and slow. As I can see now in the process of globalization, the global division system is advocated by our politicians and social elites. In the past, in primitive collecting society, our human division of labor was basically based on the division of labor at the individual level. For example, men were responsible for hunting, women were responsible for collecting, and the elderly were responsible for taking care of young children. It’s very similar to ants, bees, or primates, where some individuals collect food, some individuals guard, and some individuals nurture larvae. The division of labor among individuals enhances the social competitiveness of a clan or an individual community, and improves the survival probability of each individual. After entering the agricultural society, human beings entered the settlement society from the free migration society, which further consolidated the ability of division of labor and cooperation within the community, and promoted the cooperation and division of labor among the communities. Due to the relatively fixed living environment, the agricultural clans can’t live independently without relying on other groups like the primitive gathering groups. They need the exchange of goods. The clans living along the Yellow River can produce more millet, but they can’t produce salt or animal skins by themselves. So these agricultural clans exchange their surplus food for salt from the coastal tribes. Such exchange evolved from the initial necessities of life, such as salt and animal skins, to a broader exchange of goods, such as iron and art works. This kind of good exchange gradually gave birth to the social division of labor among clans and tribes, and the tribes with goods exchange formed a closer social system. In this connection, the cooperation between different groups significantly provides the production efficiency of each individual, which makes it possible for more population growth. After entering the industrialized society, the progress of science and technology makes a country, even the whole world, realize the networking social cooperation. In the early stage of industrialization, small workshops company, through more free market circulation and exchange, the indirect relationship between the workers in the small workshop company and other companies surpassed over the connections between clans or tribes of individuals during the agrarian era. But this kind of direct or indirect connection to the improvement of production efficiency is slow, and the indirect connection effect is relatively weak, which does not fundamentally change the basic social relationship and structure between people. In essence, industrialization is to extend the human arm, improve muscle strength and expand the ability to obtain resources by means of science and technology. The social structure of human beings still follows the social structure of close contact of about six people, which is not very different from the primitive clan tribes. In fact, the social network structure and boundary formed by individuals maintain a state similar to that of primitive tribes.

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Six Degrees of Separation: Although the world is wide, the connection among people is close. Every person is connected with any other person by no more than five people. That is, you can be connected with a stranger by five other people. In the late stage of industrialization or globalization, social division of labor and cooperation will take place in the global network. This division of labor has greatly improved the efficiency of human utilization of nature. From the perspective of population growth, this improvement can be reflected. More people will no longer engage in labor directly related to production, and even “physical labor”, including part of “mental work”, will be replaced by robots. A large number of people will become redundant individuals, while some real labor individuals will become the masters of the world. Due to the progress of communication, transportation, communication and other technologies, the network boundary between human individuals will expand rapidly, and the network connection points of close contact will no longer be the traditional 4, 5 and 6, but may be far greater than six or even infinite. The relationship degree of closely connected individuals will decline, and there will be direct and immediate contact between the two individuals in the whole society. This will completely change our social structure and individual function. The change of the connection structure may lead to the evolution of an individual into a cell similar to an organism. As with the cells of the body today, any cell has totipotency and can develop into an independent organic individual. But an independent cell can’t live on its own at all. It depends on its organism. There are a large number of direct connection nodes between single cell and other cells in human body, and most cells connect directly with each other through rapid nerve transmission. The change of the connection structure not only makes our individual lose the independence completely, but also makes the whole human society or local

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society evolve into a super organism, and even the specific whole group and country lose the independent characteristics just like the individual. The whole earth is not evolved into a global village, but evolved into an earthman. In a super organism, our individuals become cells. Just as the cell still has its totipotency, after the evolution of human society into a super organism, the genes for our individual pursuit of independence and free development still exist. Sometimes our thoughts turn into impulses that go straight into the brain. We struggle to break free like a nightmare and ask who I am. We may hear an ethereal voice: all saints and philosophers are decadent! Who can pull you out of the demon abyss? And who can raise his arms and cry: Gods, ghosts, come out! Who can fight against God?

References 1. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (2016) On the Genealogy of morality. China Commerce and Trade Press, Translated by Qian-Fan Zhao 2. Schrodinger E (2016) translated by Pu-Tian Zhang. China Commerce and Trade Press, What’s Life 3. Wu S (2006) The Art of war, Shanghai ancient books. Publishing House

Chapter 14

Come Back Gods and Ghosts. Who Will Fight Against God?

Moreover, if anyone wants to be a creator between good and evil, he must first become a destroyer and must first shatter value. Therefore, the highest evil belongs to the highest good, while this kind of good is the creative good. −Nietzsche1

Pluralism and Monism of Human Nature Whether human nature is inherently selfish or selfless has always been an eternal topic since ancient times. In the era of a hundred schools of thought in China, there has been a very in-depth discussion. Confucianism holds that human nature is inherently good. “At the beginning of human beings, human nature is inherently good, and human nature is similar to each other, but habits are far from each other”, which is the selfless promotion of human nature. On the other hand, Xunzi advocated that human nature is inherently evil, and “the likes and dislikes of human nature, joy and anger of human beings, are called emotions” and “human beings are born to fix villains”, which is the earliest assertion of human selfishness. Whether it is to advocate that human nature is inherently good or evil, its ontology thinks that human nature is unitary, and the origin of the world can be summed up to one of the most basic elements. However, in almost the same period of the Warring States period, Shi Shuo (a person in Warring States period) advocated that human nature is good and evil. In the Han Dynasty, Yang Xiong (a famous scholar in Han Dynasty) promoted it as “human nature is mixed with good and evil, and cultivating good is good and cultivating evil is evil”. This is to advocate the dualism of human nature and attribute human nature to two elements of good and evil. At the same time, there was a school which was not very famous believed that human nature was nothing to do with good or evil. Mencius believes that human nature is inseparable from good and evil, just as 1

Friedrich Nietzsche [1].

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water is inseparable from the east and the west.2 According to Gaozi, human nature has nothing to do with good and evil, just like the flow of water does not separate east and the west. Water itself has no flow direction, and it depends on the terrain to determine the flow direction. His view of human nature belongs to pluralism, which is different from the pluralism that the world is attributed to gold, wood, water, fire and earth in the book of Changes. The pluralism of Gaozi is close to the intangibility of Taoism. After the unification of the six states, Qin began to unify measurement and balance and culture. To some extent, burning books and burying Confucian scholars was the prelude to the unity of culture and thought. In the period of Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty, the strong integration of ideology and culture was carried out from the level of national political needs to depose 100 schools of thought and respect Confucianism only. Such a unitary thought and cultural integration is conducive to the unity of the country and the improvement of social efficiency. The philosophical thought of monism is exactly consistent with such national political needs and ideas, which is gradually integrated and unified with politics, and thoroughly embedded into the minds of the majority of the people, forming the mainstream philosophy. In China, there is no strong religion to influence and restrict the evolution of people’s philosophy, and the change of political power constantly interrupts the process of the unity of philosophy. In fact, the philosophy of monism does not really dominate our minds. Lao Zi, the Chinese ancient philosopher, advocated that the state should adopt the stategy of internal cultivation of Taoism and external application of Confucianism, which is the reality embodiment of this contradiction. In the west, there is a similar situation that pluralism is gradually replaced by monism. In ancient Greece, it was believed that the world was ruled by gods. There were twelve gods in Olympus of ancient Greece: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Ares, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Hermes and Hestia. This is the embodiment of typical pluralism in people’s belief. When Christianity gradually occupied the dominant position, Europe was gradually dominated by Jewish Christian monotheism under the strong impetus of the unity of politics and religion, and the monism in philosophy occupied an absolute dominant position. Christianity believes that since Adam and Eve, the ancestors of human beings, stole the fruits of the tree of good and evil in the garden of Eden, stealing the ability of distinguishing good and evil that only God had, human beings committed “original sin” and began to degenerate. From then on, “people have evil thoughts in their hearts from childhood”, and all kinds of evil in the world, such as evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual intercourse, theft, false testimony, slander and so forth, also were produced. The monism of the selfishness of human nature is generally accepted. Under the strong impetus of national unification and globalization, our thoughts and beliefs are gradually evolving towards monism. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the three major religions in the world, all have a strong monism philosophy, which is closely embedded with politics. In China, although there is no so strong religious belief, Confucianism closely embedded with politics has always occupied the leading 2

Mencius: Mencius [2].

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position of social thought. However, in the pursuit of unity, efficiency and conquest of nature, as individuals, we are also losing ourselves. The individual’s inner self affirmation and the pursuit of freedom are hitting our still existing mind from time to time. As Nietzsche said, “If a tree wants to grow higher and accept more light, its root must go deeper into the darkness.” The more powerful the unity of society and thought is, the more frequent the impact on self-consciousness and affirmation of mind. The most radical criticism of monism was born at the time when the unified power of monism was at its strongest. Only the most devout believers can cultivate the most thorough critics of their religion. At the height of industrialization, Nietzsche was born in a Christian family. When God attempted to rule the world with ambition following the Western powers, Nietzsche declared that God was dead. Monism is coming to an end with the death of the most representative God in Western world civilization, while the return of Zarathustra means the resurrection of dualism or pluralism. Nietzsche howled from the philosophical level. At last, he went mad and completed his most powerful philosophical work, thus said Zarathustra, in his unconsciousness. Nietzsche, with his poetic rather than rational language, completed the resurrection of human pluralism, just as the resurrection of Zarathustra, the founder of Persian Zoroastrianism. Einstein, Heisenberg, Planck and Schrodinger, who were born in Judaism and Christianity, took over the torch from Nietzsche’s hand. When the three religions were about to occupy almost every corner of the world, he criticized monism thoroughly from the perspective of rationality, and also criticized Christianity, which represents monism. The school of quantum physics holds that there is no definite initial state or substance in the world, but these substances or states can be transformed into each other. The most famous is Einstein’s theory of relativity. In relativity, matter and energy can be transformed into each other, and space and time can be transformed into each other. Therefore, the origin of the world cannot give a definite “source”, especially the quantum physicists represented by Heisenberg and Prigogine believing that the physical events cannot have completely certain events, and uncertainty is the “source” of the world. An interesting story is the religious difference between Newton and Einstein. In his later years, Newton believed that the ultimate first driving force of the universe came from God. He is a faithful follower of God, and the world follows the law of cause and effect, which will eventually be attributed to a single factor. On the other hand, Einstein believed in any God, but most likely he did not believe in any God. In response to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of the Jewish synagogue in New York, he said: “I believe in the God of Spinoza, a God who embodies himself through the harmony and order of things that exist, rather than a God who cares about the fate and behavior of mankind”. He believes that God exists in every natural thing. If everyone has his own God, man has no God of his own. Einstein’s philosophy is similar to that of ancient China Gao zi, and there is no good or evil in human nature. The pluralistic philosophy is reflected in human nature, which is the multifaceted nature of human nature. In the fixed mode of thinking of monism, we tend to think that a person is either good or bad, kind or evil, black or white. But is human nature really that simple? There is no doubt that a ferocious man may have the compassion of

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the Virgin Mary. And the villains, who are regarded as uneducated person by us, will also issue such heroic poems as “the wind blows, the clouds fly, the brave men guard the country”. Good and evil, joy and sorrow, bravery and cowardice, perseverance and migration, softness and firmness, shrewdness and dullness, growth and death are all necessary elements of our existence. People are complex. We don’t even know how many needs and characteristics constitute our personality and traits. A species in a natural system is similar. Whether a species can survive or not, its needs are diversified, not just by competitiveness. The survival of species needs sunlight, water, and information exchange; they need to accumulate energy and information, but also need to dissipate energy and information, just like growth and death; they need calcium, iron, silicon and other elements to supply their growth, they also need to have fun and fight to vent their emotions; they need wind, space and environmental turbulence to enhance their environmental adaptability, and they need to reproduce and live to continue their population. Under the pressure of unlimited and changing environment selection, a species has unlimited survival needs, so it is difficult to simply conclude that all the survival goals of a species are survival or reproduction. Perhaps, just like the needs of our individual human beings, they are diverse and uncertain. If the world is completely random, uncertain, and the needs are infinitely diverse, then it is easy to lead to agnosticism. Human beings may not be able to recognize the world at all, and the world is completely out of order. However, true pluralism or uncertainty thought is not such a total agnosticism. The characteristics of the multiple elements constituting human nature or forming biological species are multiple, but the distribution of its constituent elements or elements is not completely random. Under some conditions, the distribution characteristics of a certain element or element with greater demand will be more significant. It’s like the mountains we see on airplanes, the peaks are stacked one on top of another, but the peaks are not all the same height. Under some conditions, the influence of interest is greater in the process of individual survival, and the individual may be more selfish, while in some conditions, the social status is more important, and the individual may be more altruistic. When the distribution of a factor or feature is more prominent, the predictability of its behavior is enhanced under the condition of demand for this feature or factor. For example, in the years of poverty and turbulence, if there is free food in the square, we can definitely predict that those who wander the street will go to the square to receive food in spite of the wind and rain. However, if we live in a peaceful and prosperous society, we can’t imagine what kind of situation it will encounter if we distribute free food in the square, and even the possibility of being protested as a show or a troublemaker cannot be completely ruled out. The charm of quantum physics is that it argues the world is uncertain, but its statistical distribution is not completely random. It has specific laws, and these distributions are path dependent.

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Conceptual diagram of personality

The Gods Will Die, and the Mother Will Live Forever Now I’m going to tell the story of Zarathustra. The basic idea of this book, the idea of eternal reincarnation, which is the highest positive formula we can obtain, was formed in August 1881. I jotted it down on a piece of paper with the words: “6000 feet above man and time”.3 −Nietzsche

Once upon a time, I lived in an isolated village Where there is no God, But everyone has faith, his own totem, his own god! Everybody They all have their own unique mothers I was confused To paint a tree red and green Will it cure all your ills? I peed on his head countless times Shame you stupid old man, shame your God! But the old man with his toothless mouth, muttered: Thank you! Little boy, you nourish my God! Once upon a time, I roared at my mother Why can’t I cut off the head of the viper? It once bit your fingers, but you regard it as a respectable creature?! It’s a reptile, without thought and soul, Do you expect the Viper to come back one day to repay your kindness of not killing? My mother touched my head and said, Every living creature has its own star, Has its own soul! 3

Nietzsche [3].

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I walked out of my mountain village, Full of disdain for the village gods To find my faith—a world without God, without gods In the steel jungle, in the concrete, in the busy crowd In the library, I found my new world: Follow the crowd and think without killing brain cells—what a pleasant life it is Under the bright clothes, there is no soul Who’s talking like that—neighbor bangs my bald head: Listen, what a beautiful hymn in the classroom!4 And “Amen” in the church! I asked in surprise: Students in classrooms, believers in churches Why do they all wear the same clothes—do they have the same soul? Is this a new discovery?—God asked me Go and ask my disciples The God of Science—eminent theological monk Your Newton, your Darwin! Oh…What a shock! The builders of our library and our building Not Newton, not Darwin, It is, The neat “Amen” in the church!5 The library, the building, the air is a little muddy, My head feels a little dizzy! Who’s imprisoning my brain? It’s the concrete in the library, it’s the steel bar in the building! What’s more, there’s the neat “Amen”! I feel bad and depressed! My heart is going to explode! Why does the paper of God have the same soul as concrete? The thunder of the mind infuriates the bookworm, And wake up the sleeping spirit in the rust, They echoed in a low, ethereal voice: Sage is decadent! The books are moldy!

4

Science popularization is the same as the spread of religion in a sense, that is, the homogenization of cognition. Quantum physicist Schrodinger and evolutionary biologist Gould believe that science belongs to a part of human culture, which is essentially the same as religion, art and other human cultural activities. 5 The progress of technology does not come from science, but from the division of labor. Ancient Egypt did not have a modern scientific system, but built a grand pyramid; similarly, ants and bees have superb construction technology, but they have no science, but division of labor. Science, like human religion and belief, is a part of human culture.

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How can the steel and concrete burned by the fire have a soul of sober! Wake up, stray Flowers and birds and all things happy to have the air fresh! I remember it. I miss my little mountain village! At night, my mother called my name in heaven Son, In the gentle arms, the wolf will become a dog, The bells in the church, Will turn the wolf into a god! Son, You are a wolf, You haven’t heard church bells since you were a child! I’m back! My little mountain village! But what about my ancient tree of divinity? Well-dressed villagers said, Sit down, sir, We’ve made it into a beautiful bench! My god tree, my God, The villagers became materialistic gentlemen, But God, you, How can you turn the living tree into a dead bench?! The beautiful angel on the back of the chair, though I kiss her a thousand times, I didn’t blink once! God, you, You don’t know that everything has tears You can’t see the fairies flying kites! I kneel at my mother’s grave, I howl like a wolf, Mother! I don’t want to be a dog or a God, But, Mother, you know how much I want to be a dog,6 And how much I want to turn around for God!7 But only you know who I am Mother! 6

It is very common in science to ignore and abandon unfavorable evidence in order to cater to authority. 7 And those who follow the heart regardless of moral and social/group identity.

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The grass on the grave is green, The surrounding trees have become forests! I can’t wake up my mother by crying, I can only pray for her peace in heaven, Only say “Amen” to God! A snake swimming out of the grass, The grasshopper that jumps out, My dear!— Mother told me more than once that you are the reincarnation of the soul. You are my mother, My soul! I prefer to finish this book with the poem “everything” by Beidao.8 Everything is fate Everything is smoke and cloud Everything is the beginning of no ending Everything is a fleeting pursuit All joy without a smile All sufferings have no trace of tears All languages are repetition All intercourse is the first meeting All love is in the heart All the past is in the dream All hope is annotated All faith is with a groan There is a moment of peace in all eruptions All death has a long echo

References 1. Nietzsche F (2016) Look, this man (Trans Sun Z-X). Commercial Press 2. Mencius (2015) Mencius. China textile publishing house 3. Nietzsche FW (2016) Ecce homo: How one becomes what one is (Trans Sun Z-X). China Commerce and Trade Press 4. Beidao (2013) Poetry collection of Beidao. Nanhai publishing company

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Beidao [4].

Postscript

Death of Nash—He Is His Own Firmest Critic If a person never contradicts himself, then he must have done nothing [1]. —Miguel de Unamuno Only when he abandons himself can he jump out of his own shadow-indeed! He can jump into his sunlight [2]. —Nietzsche

In July 2015, when I was thinking about my book and starting to write it, I received an email from a roommate far away in Tennessee who I had not contacted for many years. In the email he said that the John Nash couple died of a car accident on the way home after receiving the award from Norway on May 23. He asked me if I should write something in memory of the legendary master of Game Theory, whom I admired so much. It is true that I have the reason to write an article in memory of him, and I also have this impulse, but for such a pure person that almost lost himself to be the only one in the universe, I replied to my friend that I am not qualified to write about it. Actually, I just saw the news about Nash’s death at the Capital Airport. I clearly remember my incredible mood to receive the news. I couldn’t believe that Nash would leave us in this way. Nash, the son of absolute rationality in mankind conquest of nature, sincerely obeyed God, but was played by God repeatedly. In this greedy and selfish world, as a great scholar of madness, he was taken care of selflessly and tenderly. He believed in absolute selfishness and rationality, and thought that human beings could finally get best interests through games. However, he often talked to the air and thought that newspaper articles contained a digital message from another planet, and only he could read so that his family and friends sent him to a psychiatric hospital. In Nash’s rational world, our actions and results are predictable, but he himself made a joke with God, looking back on his life, from birth to his death, he himself is so uncertain!

© Science Press 2023 R. Wang, The End of Rationality and Selfishness, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9752-5

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“He (Aristotle) was born, he worked, and he died.” Heidegger1 commented on Aristotle in this way. The same is true with Nash. John Nash was born on June 13, 1928 in Bluefield, West Virginia. Some biographies say that when he was young, Nash was a solitary child, obsessed with doing various experiments. Little Nash was a capricious loner, often showing contempt for authority. But he liked to ask some weird questions which, it was said, only his father, an electronic engineer could answer. Father and son got along very well. One of his favorite gifts, Encyclopedia of Compton Illustrations was from his father. When his sister Martha recalled what happened when they were children, she said, “When my friends and I went out, we always had to take on the task of bringing my brother. But I don’t think it would make my weird brother easy to get along with.” In Nash’s youth, he was always the object of ridicule and tease because he was not interested in group activities and was unsocial. Nash later pursued an undergraduate degree at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie University). He came to Carnegie Institute of Technology to become an engineer, but ended up as a mathematician at this school. His classmates thought he was a solitary, weird, and distanced person with extremely underdeveloped social skills. But no one dared to have a head-on conflict with Nash. People were not only afraid of his bad temper, but also his strength. Similar to his extraordinary intelligence, Nash has good physical qualities. In 1948, Nash graduated from the Department of Mathematics and came to Princeton University. Princeton’s environment was very suitable for Nash, and the academic environment was very relaxed. In an environment that thinking was encouraged and whimsical thinking considered as a symbol of genius, Nash gave full play to his talent. In 1949, Nash began to study countermeasure theories that were not very popular at the time. The founder of game theory is John von Neumann, the American mathematician. The publication of “Game Theory and Economic Behavior” co-authored by Neumann and Morganston in 1944 marked the birth of game theory in modern systems. In the eyes of Neumann and Morganston, economy is a completely scientific behavior, which requires mathematical theory to regulate it. In 1950, Nash proposed the later famous “Nash Equilibrium” in his doctoral dissertation “Non-Cooperative Strategies” [4]. In his doctoral thesis, he assumed that there are N individuals participating in the game. If in a certain situation no participant can act alone to increase revenue, that is, for the maximization of self-interest, no single party is willing to change its strategy, then this combination of strategies is called Nash Equilibrium. In the Nash equilibrium, the people participating in the game must be absolutely rational and symmetric, otherwise the Nash equilibrium will not be formed, which is Robert Auman, another Nobel Prize winner’s later argument. If a Nash equilibrium is formed, participants will not have any motivation to change the existing strategy. This is the core idea of Nash equilibrium. Advocating absolute rationality, Nash lost his job at RAND in 1954. The RAND Corporation is a strategic research organization based in Santa Monica, which hires 1

Chen [3]. Martin Heidegger, German philosopher, was one of the founders and main representatives of twentieth century existentialist philosophy.

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mathematicians to implement the Cold War-era countermeasure theory, whose most famous analysis case is the successful prediction of China’s choice to enter North Korea. Nash lost his job because when the police searched for gays in the park, he was found to keep in touch with several “special friends” and was arrested. Rationality seems to betray Nash this time. But Nash is not just gay, but bisexual. At the same time, he maintained a romantic relationship with a beautiful woman named Eleanor Stirr, showing the dark and cruel side of Nash’s character. Eleanor fell in love with the charming and dazzling teacher of MIT, but Nash looked down on the girl. He called her an idiot and often made her feel inferior. After Eleanor became pregnant, she thought Nash would marry her, but the fact defeated her hope. When their son John David Steier was born, Nash was fascinated by the child for a while, but refused to give him his own surname and refused to pay the cost of childbirth. After returning home, Nash ignored the mother and son, and Eleanor had no choice but to leave. But the relationship between Nash and Eleanor was sweet and sometimes indifferent for 4 years. Ending the relationship with Eleanor, the rational Nash Equilibrium once again interpreted a beautiful story for Nash. A girl named Alicia Larder fell in love with Nash. The love between them is the mutual attraction of sex and intelligence. They got married in 1957. At this time Alicia was looking forward to having a baby, and Nash started working hard for the Nobel Prize in Economics. The rationality of natural selection embraced Nash again. The touching story of “Beautiful Mind” once again shows us that the Almighty God did not abandon Nash who was crazy for him. What is confusing is that when God embraced Nash, he also ruthlessly abandoned Nash again. Just after Nash married Alicia and allowed Nash to enjoy the true love of the world, God was also planning to abandon him. At the peak moment of the discovery of Nash’s theory, the thirty-year-old Nash suddenly claimed that communists and anti-communists were in the same group, and they were all “conspirators”. He claimed that Eisenhower2 and the Vatican Pope had no sympathy for him, and that the turmoil in the Middle East disturbed him deeply, so he called his relatives and friends anonymously, saying that the end of the world had come. During the nine months of wandering in Europe in 1959, he went to the local government several times for help, hoping to give up his American citizenship. He arrived in Geneva, because the city is known to be friendly to refugees. He told the Swiss that “the American system is fundamentally wrong” but no one believed him. Then he was sent back to the country by plane. Afterwards he claimed that he was sent aboard a ship and was chained like a slave. Nash was accused of being mad, and was forced into a coma with insulin. Nash, heading towards a perfect life, again pushed himself to the opposite side of absolute rationality, or even absolute irrationality. Nash’s equilibrium is just like the life of Nash himself. While people appreciate Nash equilibrium, the theory can’t explain the suicide phenomenon that widely exists in society and biological systems, 2

Dwight David Eisenhower (October 14, 1890–March 28, 1969) was the 34th President of the United States, a five-star general, a statesman, and a military strategist.

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such as terrorists committing suicide while hijacking planes in September 11 attacks, a dozen Foxconn employees jumping to their death from a building, and the many instances of patricide and infanticide. Moreover, rationality can’t explain the homosexuality of Nash himself, as absolute rationality is widely regarded as intolerant to homosexuals. No one could defend his madness with rationality besides madness itself. A fact that Nash might be aware of is that communism and anti-communism could belong to a same group, just as he claimed. It seems that rationality is the shadow of irrationality. Nash’s own hospitalization later in life tells us absolute rationality and stability may not have existed at all. When Nash was forced to taken to a psychiatric hospital, his tragic life had completely betrayed his equilibrium. Simple and noble as Nash was, he didn’t choose to lead a life with his theory, but instead to lead one thinking that when you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail.3 He sacrificed this theory to live in a world of his own. God waits to win back his own flowers as gifts from man’s hands [5]. —Tagore

Since 1962, Professor John Nash lived around Princeton and got to work everyday wandering the Princeton campus not dissimilar to a phantom. Given credit with Princeton for the recovery of Nash, the inclusiveness and freedom of this university refused to take the mad man into the madhouse. We may not say everyone remains respectful and forgiving, but Princeton at least didn’t abandon him. In the late 1980s, god once again embraced Nash. His name begun to appear in the title of first-class economic magazines, while Nash himself remained unknown to the public. Many young researchers had originally thought he had died, while others believed that he was neglected in a psychiatric hospital, showing deterioration and aging signs. In 1987, Nobel economics committee entrusted scholar Weibull to submit the central idea, great significance and its main contributor of game theory. He put Nash at the head of the list of six important academics. However, taking Nash’s mental state into consideration and the fact that his early papers had been published decades ago, he had no reason to believe that Nash could be selected. He got stiff opposition from another formidable committee member, Ingemar Stahl, who performed a thorough investigation and collaborated with Houmlrmander, Fields Medal Winner, who didn’t think Nash’s work on game theory was significant. Nash himself had even lost his interest in game theory after his post-graduate study. Stahl also consulted several psychiatrists he knew who told him that schizophrenia is a chronic and endlessly degenerative disease. He knew that the public would show great compassion to Nash. Stahl argued that Nash couldn’t handle the big affair due to his mental state. A member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences revealed later that Stahl was afraid that Nash might embarrass or even bring scandal upon the

3

Poor Charlie’s Almanack mentions: “Man with a Hammer” syndrome is the idea that if you only have one or two mental models in your head, you’ll approach all your problems with the same solution.

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committee, damaging the stature of the prize. It goes without saying that at the time Nash was not a powerful candidate. In the fall of 1989, Weibull visited the Princeton campus to meet Nash. The moment that turned Weibull from a casual informant to a strong supporter of Nash’s candidacy was the one shared on their way into the Princeton faculty club. “Can I go in?” asked Nash insecurely. “I’m not faculty.” The fact that Nash even didn’t think himself eligible to dine at faculty club elicited compassion in Weibull. It is such an occasional factor that impelled Weibull to make up his mind to recommend Nash as one of six Nobel candidates. Compassion turned to a key variable in this candidacy and influenced Lindbeck, chairman of the committee. He refuted the opposing views from Stahl with scientific rigor, one after another. Lindbeck maintained that Stahl’s opposing ideas that Nash was a mathematician instead of an economist, he had given up his research long ago, and that he was mentally ill, all reasons put forth were nothing to do with the selection. He also feared that Nash would behaved oddly in the award ceremony, yet he believed Nash could handle it. Overall, it’s groundless to refuse to give the awards to the most deserving candidate from the academic angle, and he ignored the opposing arguments of mathematician Freedman, Fields Medal winner in 1962. Lindbeck admitted that his push for Nash had a strong emotional component. Most Nobel winner are renowned and highly acclaimed. Nash was different. Lindbeck thought through the tragic life of Nash and believed his persistent obscurity demanded overturning in any way. Afterwards, he remarked that “Nash had gotten no recognition and was living in real misery. We helped lift him into public.” To some extent, it is emotionally satisfying to put him in the spotlight again. Irrational compassion had brought Nash, who had been believed to have passed away or hospitalized due to his mental illness, back to society. In 1994, Nash won the Nobel Prize. He was resurrected in the public eye and everyone discussed him due to his madness and his beautiful love story with his wife. It was love and compassion rather than Nash equilibrium that brought Nash back to humanity. Nash was recognized by the world once again and awarded this highly honored prize. The real soul of Nash, the Nash equilibrium, indeed was fatally criticized. In any nature or social system, if the equilibrium existed, all the current strategy had been the best. That is to say, the system would not mutate or innovate, and evolution would not occur, and the system would end up in the silence of stillness. It was not long until Rienhard Selten, who shared Nobel Prize with Nash, noted the limitations of Nash equilibrium and proposed the Trembling Hand Perfect Equilibrium. It is defined as that any intended move by a player by mistake will lead to the fluctuation around Nash equilibrium, which seems to be a refinement of Nash equilibrium, yet can’t explain the transformation among systems. We can see examples of the collapse of nature and human society or economic systems, and even examples of a system transforming from one state to another, called as system collapse or reconstruction. Nevertheless, the Nash equilibrium was widely accepted and earned the reputation for its simplicity and directness, just as the purity in Nash himself. Several scientists maintain that scientific theories aim not to tell us right and wrong, but merely enhance our understanding of nature. For instance, dividing the development of people into

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infant, childhood, and adulthood, few can demonstrate that division is scientific and reasonable. There is enough evidence to show this division of concepts as innocent and hasty, but its simplicity and directness still help us understand and communicate the process of growth among different organisms. Robert J. Aumann, winner of Nobel Prize in Economics in 2005, pointed out that theory was nothing about whether is scientifically right or not. In constructing such a theory, we were not trying to arrive at truth, or even getting closer to it. On contrary, we aim to organize our ideas and observations in a useful way. An analogy was made as the filing system in official operating system, or some sort of complicated computer programming between theories. We wouldn’t say such systems are right or not, but useful or not, all depending on the extent of their utility. With the understanding of science mentioned above, we can understand the meaning of Nash equilibrium. Nash’s physical and mental condition had been improved miraculously during the period that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize, and he was able to make normal academic reports after that. During his meetings in China, he became interested in Chinese chess, an ancient game of mental tussle, and he could even be a participator. After cracking Nash the black joke, God brought him back to the wonderful world of human rationality. Nash himself and the world who knew Nash or didn’t know Nash began to enjoy the brilliance of Nash’s rationalism. He was adored and respected. His deep, absolutely rational mathematical reasoning propelled him to glory again in 2015, when he won the Abel Prize in Mathematics, an annual award given in honour of Niels Henrik Abel, a famous Norwegian mathematician, in 2002. He shared the Abel Prize with Louis Nirenberg for their contributions to nonlinear partial differential equations. The Abel Prize,4 regarded as the mathematician’s crowning glory, was a direct response to the past criticism of Nash’s mathematical inadequacy, as well as a supreme affirmation of his absolute rationality. But it was also the Abel Prize, the highest honor for rational thought that directly repudiated Nash as a person. Nash and his wife, returning to the US after receiving the Abel Prize in Mathematics in Norway (May 23, 2015), were killed in a car crash on the way from Newark International Airport in New Jersey, US to Monroe Township. From the airport, Nash and his wife got into Gorgess’ taxi and headed home to Princeton. Gorgess chose the toll road. He lost control of the car when he tried to overtake it at Monroe Township, hitting a guardrail and throwing the couple out of the car. The unexpected car accident claimed the lives of the couple. It was said that one of the main causes of the couple’s deaths was that neither of them was wearing a safety belt. Nash’s death in a car crash is completely unpredictable, and it’s impossible to know the reason behind. Rational game theory also cannot explain it. Rationally, it would be almost impossible for Nash to have such a crash, but it did happen. Nash and his wife came to Norway to receive the Abel Prize in mathematics, the grand prize. His School in Princeton, surely should have known that, but it was unthinkable 4

The Abel Prize is a Norwegian mathematical prize once a year in honor of Nils Henrich, a famous Norwegian mathematician, in 2002.

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that his school had not arranged Nash the official airport treatment he was expected to receive, let alone he was in his eighties and had a history of severe mental illness. Even if there is no airport pickup, volunteers on the Princeton campus or fans of Nash should be greeted at the airport. As is known that in the United States, it is easy to enlist the help of volunteers, even strangers. However, Nash did not get the luck. Aside from these two factors, Nash, who was rational enough, somehow made a series of mistakes of his own. From the airport, he would have scheduled the taxi he was familiar with. On account of his fame, the taxi driver would have looked after the two old men so carefully that he might not have the idea of overtaking and the accident would not have happened. What’s more incredible is that neither Nash nor his wife wore a safety belt, which would be hard to imagine in the United States. How could such two highly educated elderly people just ignored such basic safety knowledge? Much less the United States has always been very strict about wearing safety belts. With decades of living experience, have they not been reminded of this, or just suddenly forgotten this time? Besides, there are various ways to get to Monroe Township from Newark International Airport in New Jersey, either via the New Jersey Turnpike or some other toll-free route. Turnpike has less cars, wherethe cars run faster; whereas on the free route, cars are little slower and it could be probably congested. For Nash at the time, he wasn’t in a hurry to get home, so he totally could have taken the free, slower route and enjoyed the view alongside, but they chose the Turnpike. If any of these links had been avoided, the accident would not have happened. It is almost impossible for so many random events to happen at the same time, but Nash did come across them. Another famous biological mathematician, George Poets, who was supposed to have won ten Nobel prizes but didn’t, experienced several nearly impossible things as Nash did. He was a statistician and clearly knew it was a probabilistic impossibility. He thought it must be God who were punishing him, as a result, he killed himself. When it came to Nash’s accident, with the help of rational probability to analyze, the accident was completely impossible, but it did happen. Adam Smith, the founder of economics, claimed that human beings are moral and selfless to help others in The Theory of Moral Sentiments [6]. He then wrote The Wealth of Nations [7] to explain that man must be rational and selfish. He accomplished his own contradictory thoughts through his writings. We do not know whether Nash had recognized the logical paradox between absolute reason and Nash equilibrium, but Nash’s madness, as well as his accidental death eventually, was that Nash himself, by his own actions, had utterly denied absolute reason and certainty, and his own Nash equilibrium. Nash was always a pure man, and he confirmed the inconsistencies in his theory with sheer self-denial! What accounts for Nash’s death, whether is that Nash denying himself and following God as Smith did, or it was reason and God, who had abandoned Nash? “It was my illness that brought me to reason [8]” Nietzsche says. It was the uncertainty and insane behavior in Nash’s life that completed the Nash equilibrium of absolute rationality and certainty! Who is giving up Nash completely? Is it him or is it God?

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Postscript

“Only when he turns his back on himself can he jump out of his own shadow— indeed! He can jump into his sunshine.” Nietzsche may have given the answer. After Nash died, I had a dream and yet not a dream, in which God covered himself on Nash’s coffin like a flag, helped Nash breathe like an angel, and brought Nash back to life. Suddenly he was sucking blood of Nash like a vampire again, turning Nash into a horrible skull. Soon afterwards Nash floated up to my bed, smiled mysteriously, and said, “God is the angel who is actually the devil in the mirror.” “Why do you vilify our God so ruthlessly?” I protested to my esteemed Nash. Then Zarathustra, who had declared that God was dead, came in and said, like Master Kong, who is considered the greatest of the ancient Chinese sages, “If you look closely, is the man who saved Nash and sucked his brain God? It’s Nash himself, don’t you see?! Look in the mirror yourself! Is it a man or a woman? Do you see a mild-mannered scholar or a brutal-mannered Hitler or Stalin? Is it a bug or a tiger?” I blurted out in shock: “You’re in it together! I remember you, Zarathustra!” But when I looked in the mirror, my heart was shocked and I couldn’t help crying out: for what I saw in the mirror was not myself, but the grimace and mockery of a devil. I was awakened by the thought that I might not be seeing myself in the mirror. I couldn’t help crying out. Who is Nash? Who am I? Suddenly I remembered the dog at home when I was a child, who used to howl like a wolf at the moon. The elderly in the village told us that when dogs grow old, they go mad. In retrospect, the dog might have been the wolf, who was returning to himself. Of course, it also could be a mad dog. Who knows if it lost its mind or missing who it used to be? Or no matter it’s a wolf or a dog, normal or mad, wise or foolish, it’s its own God, living in his own world like Nash, howling: “Though I am shut up in a nutshell, I still think I am the King of infinity”?5 Confusion hurts my self-esteem as a human, anxiety makes me irritable, and my heart could not help scolding: God, go to hell! Many times, my mind flashes the scene that I’m kneeling at the grave of Darwin, Adam Smith, or Nash, burning paper and incense to mourn the loss of my soul and faith. Looking back through my tears, I see a coffin being carried toward me by someone else, more like myself! Or myself alone in the desert with a piece of dead wood, like a coffin, like an ark. If I were to write an epitaph for the man I admired, respected, and criticized, I would rather say that he was his own most determined critic. It’s also our epitaph. The Postscript Note was completed on June, 1st, Children’s Day, 2017.

5

From Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It means: Do not get trapped in the world, neither confused with shape. Do not change because of external forces, and always adhere to their own heart.

Postscript

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References 1. Unamuno MDE (2007) The tragic consciousness of life. Huacheng Press 2. Nietzsche FW (2007) Thus spoke Zarathustra (Huang M-J, Trans.). Lijiang Press 3. Chen J-Y (2014) Introduction to Heidegger’s philosophy, 2014 edn., Chapter 1. The Commercial Press 4. Nash JF (1951) Non-cooperative games. Ann Math 2(2):217–220 5. Tagore R (1959) Stray bird (Zheng Z-D, Trans.). Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House 6. Smith A (1997) Theory of moral sentiments. The Commercial Press 7. Smith A (2006) Wealth of Nations (Yang J-N, Trans.). Shaanxi People’s Publishing House 8. Nietzsche F (2016) The Man (Sun Z-X, Trans.). The Commercial Press