I watched a pretty cool documentary tonight called "I Am" by Tom Shadyac who you may know as the director of Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty, Liar Liar, et al.

It was pretty much right my alley - basically, we are wrong - life is not about competition, we are really hardwired for connection and compassion. Some of what he explores I would think would be a bit fringe - such as, our heartbeat (specifically, the beats between the beats) change depending on our emotional state and this can actually be detected by others, the vagus nerve and mirror neurons. Is this fringe or fairly well accepted?

However, what I found pretty interesting was his statement that Darwin was misunderstood - that it was not competition but, it was our ability to cooperate and sympathize - evolution has hardwired us for compassion.

The documentary was pretty good - it wasn't long, about an hour 15 minutes. Nor was it new-agey or really "spiritual". Anyone seen it?

I think it is relatively well established that altruism towards members of ones in group (at a family, pack, or even species level) can provide evolutionary advantages and that many animals display examples of such altruism. For humans, social cooperation is hugely important to our success and so it isn't at all surprising that we show "real" empathy and compassion for others.

Sounds a bit of a mixed bag.

Who is 'we' and what does it mean for life to be 'about' competition?

The term 'hard-wired' always makes me wince a bit outside things like FAPs. That said, there is a demonstrable adaptive advantage to pro-social behaviour and inclinations, for certain organisms (like us), and there can be a genetic component to such behaviours.

The role of mirror neurons in empathy is not fringe (though not exactly well-established either) in neuroscience. A critical but positive meta-analysis here. Shoot me a PM if you can't get access.

Not heard about the heartbeat thing.

This paragraph doesn't make it clear to me a) what the film-maker is saying most people think Darwin said and b) what they are proposing that is different. Also, compassion can be 'competitive' in the Darwinian sense of 'increases reproductive success rates' so this sounds a lot like a false dichotomy.

Not trying to be a downer on your enthusiasm, but it's hard to work out exactly what the film is claiming from your description.

I think it's far too simplistic to say it's either about competition or compassion/ connection. If we use Uke's example above this can also include competition against others in our group, or other groups, as well as coopertation etc with others.

False dichotomy. There is nothing about being "hardwired for connection and compassion" that implies life is not about competition.

The heartbeat thing was about a organization called Heartmath. I believe the film was discussing this paper regarding the role of the heart and intuition.

Fair enough ... I don't think the film maker is saying there is no place for competition but, I do think he is commenting on the emphasis and how such ideas are filtered down through society. So, if you look at the culture of the US, there is an emphasis on competition - if I have more than someone else, I have done something right or in a broader idea, the more I have the more content I should be. As one of the people who was interviewed states "If you are out in the cold with nothing and someone opens the door lets you in gives you a blanket, some warm food ... you are happy, the problem is we think we get these little things and are happy, so we think if we get more, it will be more happiness."

So I can guess the main point is what story are we telling ourselves now about how the world exists and is there something wrong with the story. We have this mechanistic view - separate entities acting on each other - the fundamental views of how things relate and in order to survive we need to compete. And we create educational systems, business, our societies from the idea that we are separate and competition. Are we self-interest machines? Singular individuals, rather than social beings.

That is, I don't think it matters too much what the "insiders" think - the people at the high-levels of the research and the science. Its more about who these things get interpreted at the mother's knee (somewhat) and gets assimilated into society.

I hope I did something to flesh out the filmmaker's thesis - more than likely I muddied the water more. However, I thinks its worth a watch if only to watch someone ask Noam Chomsky and Desmond Tutu if they have ever seen Ace Ventura.

I expected this to be about the declaration "I am" made by Jesus. You know, religion forum and all...

Religion is as religion does I suppose ...

I think, in a nut shell, the main idea behind the documentary is that we are living against nature and not with nature - which is causing some issues. This issue of being in "competition with" (not in any term of art sense, but I think in a much more of a common sense, e.g., dominion over nature) is just a big misunderstanding.

Which is an idea that is appealing because, as most can probably guess, with my affinity for Tibetan Buddhism - the idea that all we need to do is shift how we relate to "things" is appealing. And while in sort of an introspective way, I think this is correct - when people start pointing at evidence for connection and compassion being at the center of human success, well - its pretty cool.

Maybe not the way of religion per Jesus worshipers ... but its something.

Why can't I be hardwired (whatever that entails) for both competition and co-operation (compassionate behaviour)?

That I compete for resources with some doesn't mean I compete with all. That I'm compassionate to some doesn't mean I'm compassionate to all.

There are advantages to be gained by selecting either in a given circumstance.

It certainly doesn't appear as though there's any compelling reason to believe that we aren't naturally competitive.

I could allow for a positive outlook on the future in which we might reach a point where resources are plentiful enough to allow, for the first time, all of us to be sufficiently well catered for to no longer need to compete. I can even say that this is the society we should work towards. What I can't say is that this would somehow be our true natural state. It seems like it would have taken us millions of years of intense competition for scarce resources and mating rights to get there.

Well, I don't think its a bright line choice - more like some scale. In a larger sense, its more about how efficiently resources are used. It might be conjecture - but humanity didn't survive because of our brute force.

I am not sure there is any compelling evidence that we are naturally competitive. Its not like we selectively choose when the mirror neurons or vagus nerve fires. In the end, it would seem that the reason we exist is because of compassion - our mother went through pregnancy, someone cared for us while we were young ... everyday, I am dependent on others.

"Well catered to" seems pretty open - how much to we need? When does the hoarding of resources become unnecessary?

I am not sure there needs to be a point in the future where there is some threshold passed and everyone's basic needs are provided for - nor do I think there is some golden age in the past were things were better. It could be now that we shift our focus and getting enough for "me and my own" changes.

If there is no compelling evidence that we're naturally competitive, then there certainly is no compelling evidence that we're naturally compassionate.

I have difficulties even comprehending how skewed your standard of evidence must be to argue otherwise. We would be talking about a bias close to blindness.

I don't think your first paragraph makes much sense. Why must there be no compelling evidence for compassion if no compelling evidence of competition?

If all our history of competing with each other isn't evidence of us being naturally being competitive then our history of compassion isn't evidence of us being naturally compassionate.

I still think it's fairly clear that we do both selectively, and not always consciously. If you're telling me men don't or haven't compete(d) over who gets which women, then I don't buy it.

It's true that we exist because our mothers cared for us, but it's also true that we exist because our fathers were deemed the better mating choice.

I watched this documentary a few months ago on Netflix, and I cosign that it was really good. Basically this dude was a super rich Hollywood producer, gets a brain injury, gets depressed (then subsequently battles through it), then realizes a bunch of stuff about life and gives his entire fortune away. I'm pretty sure he's still alive and just lives like a regular Joe now.

He doesn't say that "life is not about competition", rather that people only focused on that part of Darwin's book (origin of species I believe?), when there were a bunch of chapters also talking about cooperation.

I would agree that when most people think of Darwin, they immediately think only of "survival of the fittest", and this has become one of the most pervasive of themes in today's society. It is pretty catchy though so maybe Darwin should've thought of a cool catch phrase for the cooperation side.

Well, survival of the fittest really translates to "survival of the most adaptable", so in that sense cooperation and competition both work equally well.

It is also rather unlikely that biologists of Darwin's time were not aware of the behavior of many types of ants and similarly cooperative species, or for that matter that they did not see that cooperation was an an asset for humans.

However it is also equally unrealistic that behavior like that of the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis could be seen as cooperation. Insect or not; To have your nervous system hijacked and be used as a zombified means of fungi transport before you are killed via muscle atrophy is hardly what I would call a cooperative effort.

Yes exactly. Darwin's "Origin Of Species" talks about both competition AND cooperation in evolution (as per this documentary), so of course he and other biologists were aware of both. However Westerners interpreted the entire book as "lol survival of da fittest - only the strong survive" probably because this idea supported capitalism. Selective reading FTW.

Came for a discussion of Descartes.

Left disappointed.

While there is evolutionary benefit to altruism (which is also displayed in species other than humans), I find comments like the bold to be almost laughable. Hardwired for compassion? I think people either forget, or don't know, our history. We are living in the most peaceful time in human history. Before just a couple hundred years ago, the human race was pretty darn barbaric.

I would say that we're "hardwired" for both barbarism and compassion. The good news is that we seem to be moving more towards compassion as a whole when you look at our history as a timeline. So in a sense we have (generally) always lived during the most peaceful time in human history (IMO).

I've realized this and been shown it to be true from a different source. Although I haven't read his book yet, I'm sure of what I will find (is that bias?). No doubt we have done this to darwins work, as we can see, upon closer inspection of, we have done this to all great works.

We perceived these writings through our conditioned beliefs in what can essentially be called conflict. I find this to be know different when I skimmed TWON.

I think this is definitely part of it. But, maybe there is something more subtle. There is an emphasis on money, status and image as indicators of success.

I think we solve the evolutionary competition problem by connection and cooperation. Yet, this has been misunderstood and we set up institutions where "winning" is money, status and image at any cost, including our connections. The Japanese have a word Karoshi - people literally work themselves to death.

I think it's only fairly recent that happiness even became seriously studied. We can maximize dollars, perhaps we should devising methods to maximize happiness.

I think it could easily be argued that we're more co-operative than ever before.

Look at the evolution of the welfare state. While the gap between the very richest and the very poorest in the developed world is growing, the very poorest are better treated than ever before. Which goes to demonstrate the duality between co-operation and competition.

I'm a lefty, so I'm all up for reducing said gap, but I have to acknowledge that it wasn't that long ago we were sending people to the workhouse.

Eh ... Seems somewhat removed. The government is doing this so we cooperative. I think it needs to really come down to an immediate personal level.

I don't even think it's about reducing the gap - that is the kind of thinking that I think is wrong. Money, status, image != happiness. These external factors are not indicative of happiness.

Ugh ... I was a little slow on my edit, but reading my above post it seems a little removed from my others in that I was talking about "societal institutions" and then switched to personal.

However, I would say the two are interdependent - I can't really say which comes first. But an interesting place to look at is Japan. On the mainland, the culture of work, work, work is literally killing people early and Japan scores low on happiness. While if you look at Okinawa, happiness is high and more people live over 100 than most other places. What's the difference?