Is life all about competition?

It is now.

But if that’s the case, then where did this focus on maximising individual wealth, influence and recognition come from? It’s a reductionist consolidation of natural selection from a limited self-conscious perspective, giving primacy to the individual.
— Possibility

“Evolutionary biologists define exaptations as features of organisms that evolved because they served some function but are later co-opted to serve an additional or different function, which was not originally the target of natural selection. The new function may replace the older function or coexist together with it.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK210003/

I think this is interesting in regard to your post about evolution. That an exaptation can serve an additional or different function does not mean it is necessarily beneficial in the long term. — Brett

Personally, I think the claim that features of organisms evolved because they served some particular function attributes more intentionality to natural selection than can be reasonably assumed. ‘Exaptation’ seems to then be a way to explain the change in functionality from its originally attributed ‘intent’. Intentionality is a realisation of purpose - of meaning attributed by a self-conscious observer.

Yes, I do recall a previous OP about your perspective on evolution.

Though it’s my feeling that features of organisms don’t evolve because they served some particular function. That would be intentionality. It’s complete chance that the evolving feature benefits the organism in the future.

“ Competition is just a matter of quantitative perspective - it’s an arbitrary choice that we continually make ... to compete... “
— Possibility — Brett

So what is compete?[/quote]

It’s a quantitative perception of our existence as ‘the only one’, and therefore all resources, capacity and value we perceive beyond our own potential for awareness, connection and collaboration, we are motivated to either absorb/possess/consume or ignore/isolate/exclude. Experiences of pain, humiliation and loss are indicative of errors in our perception: either in attributing potential, or in our choice of quantitative existence in this interaction.

therefore all resources, capacity and value we perceive beyond our own potential for awareness, connection and collaboration, we are motivated to either absorb/possess/consume or ignore/isolate/exclude. — Possibility

Right, that’s competition is in whatever language you want to put it.

Though it’s my feeling that features of organisms don’t evolve because they served some particular function. That would be intentionality. It’s complete chance that the evolving feature benefits the organism in the future. — Brett

Agreed.

therefore all resources, capacity and value we perceive beyond our own potential for awareness, connection and collaboration, we are motivated to either absorb/possess/consume or ignore/isolate/exclude.
— Possibility

Right, that’s competition in whatever language you want to put it. — Brett

Yes. My point being that competition is only an arbitrary perspective of interaction, not ‘what life is all about’.

Two people enter a discussion: one perceives the exchange as purely competition, the other with the capacity to choose from compete, communicate or collaborate with each interaction. Regardless of the outcome, which of them do you think would suffer more from pain, humiliation and loss over the course of the discussion?

My point being that competition is only an arbitrary perspective of interaction, not ‘what life is all about’. — Possibility

Yes, I agree, but only in the context you put it.

Yes competition is not “what life is all about”, yes it’s an arbitrary perspective.
The way you put it is that there’s a lot more to life than competition, that “Human achievement is not an individual effort - everything we do is contingent upon the collaborative efforts of others, from the moment we are born. The more awareness, connection and collaboration, the greater our success.”

That’s true. It’s how we have evolved as social creatures creating communities. My position is that life is not about competition but about survival. Presumably that’s why we carry out collaborative efforts, because we’ve learned that survival depends on collaboration, awareness and connection. Because we are reasoning creatures we can create better futures.

Life might have some greater purpose, but that’s an end, and as you said a perpetual revolution, so there is no end. So then life is about being, but that’s synonymous with survival, you can’t have one without the other.

Edit: but competition is how we survived, it’s the nature of life at ground level. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily violent, but it’s about holding onto something or gaining something that another has the same desire for. That seems to be the history of life whether we like it or not. You and I are here because those that carried our genes survived the competition.

If we observe life in its many forms is there anything consistent in them? The guy on the space hopper, his actions tell us very little about him. But what if someone came and took the hopper off him by force? — Brett

I think with your allusion to consistency, what you're implicitly saying is that if all life competes, then the statement "life is competition" is validated.
However, in general when we have a set of things that share some property, we don't feel the need to expand the definition to include that property. If we found that all lemons are high in zinc, we don't need to define lemons as high in zinc. We don't have to say all lemons necessarily are high in zinc, just all the ones we've seen.

And in the case of life competing, it's not merely the case that we have no reason to include it in our definition, but actually, there are counter-examples already:

1) In the case of your question about our space hopper friend, what if he just kills himself, or spends the rest of his life trying to get his space hopper back? That would be an example of an organism not competing, no? Or is the suggestion that he (joking aside) no longer counts as life?
It's trivial to illustrate that humans break the notion of all individual organisms really being motivated by competition.

2) For most of Earth's history, the only life was single-celled and incapable of sexual reproduction.
They did not have any desire or ability to compete as such, but the environment favored certain mutations.
Now, if we count even that as competition, then we can apply this notion of competition to everything...

e.g. we can say that stars compete, since the environment favors certain stars to live longer and be more numerous than others.

Apart from this watering down the idea of competition too far, IMO, there's another more serious issue: When did we decide that it was a "Be the most numerous type of star" competition? Why not "Be the biggest" or "Be the brightest" or "Most metal rich" or "Most active" whatever?
It takes a subjective judgement to decide that, say, red dwarfs will one day have the highest population, therefore they're the bestest.

1. Cooperation: individuals sharing a resource
2. Competition: individuals fighting over a resource — TheMadFool

What happens when the individuals you are competing with are a resource themselves? Altruism.

I've spent a fair amount of time in the developing world, at one point for about half a year living out of a tent in a climate where it is rarely much above freezing and pisses down cold rain every day. I was still happy plenty of the time.

People I kept in touch with from my work in Egypt seem pretty happy. Their young. They have friends, girlfriends, despite being quite poor. My grandmother lives in the first world and talks about wanting to die all the time, and I don't blame here. Location ain't everything.

Evidence suggests that individuals' base line happiness changes very little over time or with additional wealth. It's called the hedonic treadmill. Being in the first world doesn't = rich. For one, low status matters more than raw material benefit to happiness. Secondly, American cities, Baltimore for example, have levels of violent crime on par with some of the worst Central American nations (i.e. the highest in the world), and people there can grow up in absolute squalor. Some neighborhoods I've lived near look like photos of Germany after WWII, but never get cleaner up.

"Competition," denotes intent. Can we ascribe intent to evolution? It seems more stochastic to me. Can we even describe intent to human action? Experiments show "intentional action" begins before the mind experiences making the decision to move. Occipital lobe blindness shows that our ability to navigate a room by site, or catch a ball, exists disconnected from any experience of sight. At best, intent is something that affects long term planning, which sidelines competition from a number of essential moments in the competition for survival.



Religiously, many other reasons for existence exist. To shape the soul and prepare it for knowledge of God. To seek redemption through Christ. You also have your Buddhists and Gnostics who reject the material world as accidental to meaning for the individual, which is to attain enlightenment.

Is there anything more then competition in disguise in the world? — Benj96

I always enjoy your posts. They're thought-provoking enough to spur great debates, yet relatable and concise enough to be understood by a novice in philosophy.

I'd say there's plenty more than competition. Perhaps? The love. togetherness and "comfort", feeling "home" with members of your family. Thrill seeking hobbies and other entertainment such as skydiving or going to the movies. No one is "competing" during these times, they're just enjoying.

What does it mean to refuse to compete with everyone else? Is it even truly possible while still living or is it only the act of death in which one stops the race? — Benj96

I'd imagine a balanced view of "refusing to compete" doesn't mean rejecting literally every instance of competition no matter how small, ie. a friendly game of cards. Rather someone who would hold that position probably just doesn't want to turn every single interaction with his fellow man into a virtual "fight to the death" for every little thing. He's content with what he has and doesn't mind being second place. He has nothing to prove to anyone but himself, and potentially his idea of a higher power. He doesn't need approval from a world teetering on the brink of insanity, be it in the form of fame, glory, power, or unnecessary riches. He simply is content with the knowledge that at the end of the day when he rests his head for sleep, he was the best person he could be.

To convince you to play the game? The carrot on the stick. But my question then is how long has this been going on? And competition obviously exists before it’s used as a tool to manipulate the population, as in a consumer world, — Brett

Im not saying it is not a feature of the world, but rather explaining how people spin it as good, just like many other features. We can self reflect on our situation and evaluate it. Thus, this aspect must be included in keeping species going- propaganda, enculturation, social pressure, and the rest.

Thus pillars of humanity need to propagate in any society:
1.) Some competition is necessary to keep it going. Thus, promote it as good.
2.) A lot of production is necessary to keep it going. Thus promote it as good.
3.) A lot of maintenance is necessary to keep it going. Thus promote it as good.

Non-existence hurt no one. Existence hurts everyone. However, you need to get people to go along with the agenda. People need to feel bad about not following the pillars. People naturally without any prompting get bored. Combine these two for more cultural and actual propagation.

However, in general when we have a set of things that share some property, we don't feel the need to expand the definition to include that property. — Mijin

I presume that what you mean by this is that we don’t need to define something by one of its many properties.

And in the case of life competing, it's not merely the case that we have no reason to include it in our definition, — Mijin

and that there’s no reason to exclude it as a property. So one of the properties/features, among others, of humanity is that it’s competitive.

what if he just kills himself, or spends the rest of his life trying to get his space hopper back? That would be an example of an organism not competing, no? — Mijin

If he kills himself then he has found his situation to be more than he can bear. Yes that is an example of an organism not competing. However it’s also an aberration, it’s the actions of an organism that cannot cope any longer with the way life has turned out. You might say that he has lost the will to live any longer.

If he spends the rest of his life trying to get the damned hopper back then it’s a sort of quest.

They did not have any desire or ability to compete as such, but the environment favored certain mutations.
Now, if we count even that as competition, then we can apply this notion of competition to everything... — Mijin

I’d agree with that. But life did not remain that way. We obviously cannot regard the favouring of certain mutations as a definition of competition and then apply it to everything. Somewhere, somehow, life, once born into existence, had no intention of giving up. I think, though I can’t be sure, that all life fights to the death (Which is why suicide appears so confusing or confronting).

g. we can say that stars compete, since the environment favors certain stars to live longer and be more numerous than others. — Mijin

Yes we could say that if we go by the favoured mutation theory, but we won’t.

When did we decide that it was a "Be the most numerous type of star" competition? Why not "Be the biggest" or "Be the brightest" or "Most metal rich" or "Most active" whatever?
It takes a subjective judgement to decide that, say, red dwarfs will one day have the highest population, therefore they're the bestest. — Mijin

Well it’s true that in that context it’s a subjective judgement. However “we” did not decide that we will fight to the death to survive. The measure of why we “decided” what was best was our survival, whatever it takes. We now have advanced (cautiously used, please don’t jump on me) ways of surviving. We are no longer totally dependent on the cycles of nature or controlled by the brutality of life. Even our ability to collaborate or form tribes contributes to our survival. It may be that we collaborate because we are caring creatures, but whatever the reason it has contributed to our survival.

Just to reiterate my point; life may not be about competition but it is about survival.

Competition only occurs in times of scarcity, and even then, cooperative behavior has been proven to mitigate the need to compete. Why fight for that single loaf of bread when you can all agree to slice it into smaller pieces and share it?

But, again, this pandemic is stretching the capacity for cooperation in most stressed places in the world. However, I still believe that more cooperative cultures tend to fare better than individualistic cultures when it comes to these times.

Why is it that psychopaths disproportionately hold high level CEO positions. — Benj96

Presumably you regard competition as a psychotic activity, a human aberration. That the sickest rise to the top. I don’t know if it’s a fact that they disproportionally hold high level CEO positions.

We are born into a world where we are expected to strive for success : which to most is to have the best of everything; the best wealth, the best recognition, the best popularity and influence. — Benj96

Where would you put people who compete in sport, who strive to train and push themselves to win or beat a world record?

Competition only occurs in times of scarcity, — 8livesleft

So what do you think is going on in a game of football?

Edit: And why do you think people cooperate?

Football or sports in general are activities we either engage in or watch for entertainment. That's all it is. Fun and entertainment.

We cooperate with each other because it is mutually beneficial to do so.

Sport is competition. Even a mountain climber on his own competes with the mountain. My point was that I don’t think competition only occurs in times of scarcity. It may be part of our nature to compete.

We cooperate with each other because it is mutually beneficial to do so. — 8livesleft

Isn’t it possible that the mutual benefit is to survive? Isn’t it possible being part of a collective contributes to security, quality and quantity of good, successful child birth rates, general health and well being, which is about survival.

Obviously other aspects of human behaviour develop in that environment, but only in a healthy environment. No one wants to play when they’re starving.

That’s true. It’s how we have evolved as social creatures creating communities. My position is that life is not about competition but about survival. Presumably that’s why we carry out collaborative efforts, because we’ve learned that survival depends on collaboration, awareness and connection. Because we are reasoning creatures we can create better futures.

Life might have some greater purpose, but that’s an end, and as you said a perpetual revolution, so there is no end. So then life is about being, but that’s synonymous with survival, you can’t have one without the other.

Edit: but competition is how we survived, it’s the nature of life at ground level. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily violent, but it’s about holding onto something or gaining something that another has the same desire for. That seems to be the history of life whether we like it or not. You and I are here because those that carried our genes survived the competition. — Brett

You’re basing your reasoning upon an assumption that life is all about survival. You presume it’s why we carry out our collaborative efforts. I disagree with this, but I think we’ve had this discussion before. My basic argument is that if life is all about survival, then it ultimately fails, and we have not evolved equipped for the task. Reproduction is not about the survival of genes or gene carriers, but about the information they contain with regard to life. You and I are here because the information we have mattered to others as expressed. It’s not about surviving, but about relating the information we have to other information. And the information we have is about so much more than just life. Our genetic code is such a small part of it. The communities and culture we create are an expression of the relational structures between information that matters, regardless of our survival.

Life in totality - as the only one - is about consuming/possessing/absorbing resources, capacity and value. It may seem to be only about being or surviving, but no life exists in isolation. Life in plurality - inclusive of those that fail to survive long enough to reproduce - is about communicating variable access to resources, capacity and value. Life in unity - across all of existence - is about informative temporal interaction, collaboration for efficient and effective distribution of resources, capacity and value.

If you want to attribute survival as the ultimate quality of life, and competition as its process, then that’s your choice. Just keep in mind that it isn’t your only choice, or necessarily your best one, at that.

You’re basing your reasoning upon an assumption that life is all about survival. — Possibility

Not necessarily. It’s because we have learned to survive so well that we have managed to survive the brutality of evolution. So in time that allowed other aspects of our nature to develop and our intellectual faculties to play with ideas. Only a healthy, secure being can indulge in this. Of course there are other things of value in life, otherwise we would not be chatting. But we have to be here to act.

Sport is competition. Even a mountain climber on his own competes with the mountain. My point was that I don’t think competition only occurs in times of scarcity. It may be part of our nature to compete. — Brett

Yes, there's a personal development aspect in engaging in such activities - by training for them, completing tasks, we become stronger, more skilled, while gaining a sense of achievement (and possibly rewards).

Isn’t it possible that the mutual benefit is to survive? Isn’t it possible being part of a collective contributes to security, quality and quantity of good, successful child birth rates, general health and well being, which is about survival. — Brett

Yes, I completely agree. We are a self-interested species. Cooperative behavior aids in our survival and well-being.

If you want to attribute survival as the ultimate quality of life, — Possibility

I’m not sure if I actually said that but I’ll think about it anyway.

Edit: yes it would be the ultimate quality of life. How could it not be? How can knowledge be passed on?

Sport is competition. Even a mountain climber on his own competes with the mountain. My point was that I don’t think competition only occurs in times of scarcity. It may be part of our nature to compete. — Brett

Sport need not be only about competition, though. It is competition only because we collaborate to arbitrarily limit access to a certain resource, capacity or value, creating conditions of scarcity. Those conditions are agreed upon for the purpose of the game. It is within the capacity of any football player or team to focus more on building communication or collaborative capacity and value than on competition. A mountain climber, too, collaborates with the mountain more than he competes with it.

It is within the capacity of any football player or team to focus more on building communication or collaborative capacity and value than on competition. — Possibility

That’s just silly. True, players on a team may communicate and collaborate with each other, but in an effort to win.

But, suppose a small collective live together in a small village. Circumstance destroy their usual supply of food. What do they do? Do nothing and die and with it the potential of their genes and all the knowledge they have, or do something.

So it occurs to me that I might be talking about “Will”.

Not necessarily. It’s because we have learned to survive so well that we have managed to survive the brutality of evolution. So in time that allowed other aspects of our nature to develop and our intellectual faculties to play with ideas. Only a healthy, secure being can indulge in this. Of course there are other things of value in life, otherwise we would not be chatting. But we have to be here to act. — Brett

That may be your reasoning, but it’s a matter of perspective. The criteria by which you define ‘survival’ is limited to the transmission of genetic code. It is a consequence of what we have learned about life that the information in our genetic code matters to others as expressed.

I dispute that only a healthy, secure being can develop intellectual faculties to play with ideas. There are countless examples through history of chronically ill, crippled, disabled, imprisoned and threatened human beings who have written or dictated evidence of highly developed intellectual faculties and ideas.

Survival may be a consequence of being here, but being here is not the same as surviving - the intentionality and awareness behind the act is assumed without evidence. I had a brush with death a few years ago that put this in perspective. I am not here because I chose or fought to survive. I am here by chance, blind luck, and I’m making the most of the opportunity - not for my own survival, but in pursuit of understanding reality. My ‘survival’ thus far is a bonus, too often out of my hands.

The criteria by which you define ‘survival’ is limited to the transmission of genetic code. — Possibility

I don’t think I’ve tried to define survive. The definition of survive I imagine is to continue to live. But anyway, even if that were true I haven’t restricted it to the transmission of a genetic code, but knowledge as well as collaboration and communication and all the other things we are known for.

I dispute that only a healthy, secure being can develop intellectual faculties to play with ideas. There are countless examples through history of chronically ill, crippled, disabled, imprisoned and threatened human beings who have written or dictated evidence of highly developed intellectual faculties and ideas. — Possibility

Of course, but I think you’re now playing games.

So in time that allowed other aspects of our nature to develop and our intellectual faculties to play with ideas. Only a healthy, secure being can indulge in this. — Brett

You neglected to include a “secure being”.

I’m not going to argue about luck. Yes it plays a part but if you think you can live day to day based on luck then good luck to you.

It is within the capacity of any football player or team to focus more on building communication or collaborative capacity and value than on competition.
— Possibility

That’s just silly. True, players on a team may communicate and collaborate with each other, but in an effort to win. — Brett

Are you certain of this? What if they know that their injuries and ability are such that there is little to no chance of winning? Do they give up? Do they convince themselves beyond all evidence that there is a still a chance? Or do they use the game to focus on developing their resources, capacity and value for future interactions? There is no right answer here - suffice to say, it is not all about winning.

Players on a team don’t just communicate with each other, either - they are also informed by their opponent’s behaviour, the movement of the ball and other conditions of the game. All of this information contributes to their capacity, as individuals and as a team, for future interactions. Collaboration is also not just about two people agreeing to work together, but also about making use of certain conditions to achieve something, whether or not those conditions are intended specifically to help you. Think outside the box.

But, suppose a small collective live together in a small village. Circumstance destroy their usual supply of food. What do they do? Do nothing and die and with it the potential of their genes and all the knowledge they have, or do something. — Brett

It is the extent to which that small village is in communication and collaboration beyond their collective that they have the capacity to do something in this circumstance.

That’s just silly. True, players on a team may communicate and collaborate with each other, but in an effort to win.
— Brett

Are you certain of this? — Possibility

Why do you think they’re there?