V. Life's Corporeal Evolution Develops, Encodes and Organizes Itself: An Earthtwinian Genesis Synthesis

5. Cooperative Member/Group Societies

Levin, Simon, ed. Games, Groups, and the Global Good. Berlin: Springer, 2009. The proceedings of a Templeton Foundation conference to report, contrary to a misunderstood Darwinism, that cooperative behavior is as prevalent across an actual nested, integrative evolution than brutal competition. Authorities such as Franz de Waal, Martin Nowak, David Sloan Wilson, Rebecca Flack, and others, provide robust reasons from genomes to social networks, across three inclusive sections: The Evolution of Cooperation at the Level of Individuals, Cooperation and Group Formation, and Cooperation and Problems of the Commons.

In biology, the evolution of increasingly cooperative groups has shaped the history of life. Genes collaborate in the control cells; cells efficiently divide tasks to produce cohesive multicellular individuals; individuals members of insect colonies cooperate in integrated societies. Biological cooperation provides a foundation on which to understand human behavior. (Steven Frank “Evolutionary Foundations of Cooperation and Group Cohesion” (3)

Li, Wei, et al. How Scale-free Networks and Large-scale Collective Cooperation Emerge in Complex Homogeneous Social Systems. Physical Review E. 76/045102, 2007. Physicists at Beijing Normal University and Shenzhen University propose theoretical reasons for this persistent tendency across emergent nature to develop into cognitively active societies.

In particular, our simple model suggests that the SF (scale-free) feature, which has been shown to be so pervasive in complex systems, can arise from dynamic evolution via a self-organizing mechanism through individual learning ability. These results shed light on understanding how complex networks with global collective cooperation can emerge from social individuals with local and primary abilities and instincts. (045102-4)

Lin, Guozheng, et al.. Experimental evidence of stress-induced critical state in schooling fish. bioRxiv.. February 25, 2025. Into this new year Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale and Laboratoire de Physique Theorique, Universite de Toulouse, Beijing Normal University, Kunming University of Science and Technology, China and Indian Institute of Science, Bengalore biobehavior scientists including Guy Theraulaz can reach a new comprehensive phase of evidential veracity and theoretical maturity. In regard, their many references span this first quarter century such as Scott Camazine (2001), John Beggs (2008), William Bialek and Ian Couzin (2014) as they lead up to and converge on a mid 2020s confirmation. As the quotes allude, a constant recurrence of self-organized, critically poised member/neighbor/groups as flocks, pods, herds, tribes and so on have been found across every Metazon instance. See also Scaling in branch thickness and the fractal aesthetic of trees by Jingyi Gao and Mitchell Newberry in PNAS Nexus (4/2, 2025) for a similar view.

How do animal groups adjust their collective behavior in response to environmental changes remains to be fully explained. Here, we investigate how rummy-nose tetras are able to tune their groups as a way of testing whether these systems operate near a critical state to maximize sensitivity, responsiveness, and adaptability. Under stress, we find that the fish do in fact adjust their social interactions so to reach a critical state for these benefits. By revealing how stress and group size drive self-organization toward criticality, our study provides fundamental insights into collective biological systems and emergent properties in animal groups. (Excerpt)

Collective behaviors in biological systems have long intrigued scientists. These phenomena are observed at all scales from macromolecules and cell constituents to groups of organisms and result from an ability to self-organize and coordinate through their interactions. Recently, the concept of criticality derived from statistical mechanics has emerged as a compelling lens through which one can understand these adaptive behaviors. The criticality hypothesis suggests that biological systems should operate close to critical points akin to phase transitions in physics. A critical state offers unique properties that maximize its sensitivity to perturbations, enhance information processing and responses to environmental cues. (1)

Recent empirical evidence has begun to shed light on the relevance of criticality in various biological systems. From neural dynamics to gene regulation, aggregation in social amoeba, and collective motion in animal groups, studies have reported instances of scale invariance and critical behavior. In particular, research on spontaneous behavioral cascades and escape waves in schooling fish has provided valuable insights into how these systems do actually operate near criticality. (1)

In conclusion, this work made it possible to reveal and model the mechanisms underlying collective state transition phenomena observed in fish and the conditions under which these animal groups can reach a critical state. (10)

Lindenfors, Patrik. Neocortex Evolution in Primates: The ‘Social Brain’ is for Females. Biology Letters. 1/4, 2005. In this new journal from the Royal Society, a note about the importance of gender differences when studying how primate societies evolved and grew complex. In an extension of Robin Dunbar’s theory that increased sociality drove brain development, this process is seen to take place mostly amongst female members who took care of food resources and group survival.

Ling, Hangjian, et al. Costs and Benefits of Social Relationships in the Collective Motion of Bird Flocks. Nature Ecology & Evolution. 3/948, 2019. A six person team from Stanford University, University of Exeter and Simon Fraser University including Nicholas Ouellette contend that prior models underplay local, individual interactions between semi-autonomous group members, which in reality can be a major component of successful swarm patterns. See also Environmental Perturbations Induce Correlations in Midge Swarms in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface (March 2020) for an update and finesse.

Lord, Warren, et al. Inference of Causal Information Flow in Collective Animal Behavior. arXiv:1606.01932. By mid 2016, systems mathematicians Lord, Jie Sun, and Erik Bollt, Clarkson University, and Nicholas Ouellette, Stanford University, can achieve a sophisticated analysis of creaturely group activities in terms of basic physical principles. Since the same phenomena applies to any species from invertebrate insects to mammals and humans, a deep rooted connection is achieved with a lively, iterative cosmic genesis. See also Empirical Questions for Collective-Behavior Modelling by N. Ouellette in Pramana – Journal of Physics (84/3, 2015).

Collectively interacting groups of social animals such as herds, schools, flocks, or crowds go by many names depending on the specific animal species. But in all cases, they tend to display seemingly purposeful, coordinated group-level dynamics despite the apparent absence of leaders or directors. These coordinated group behaviors appear to emerge only from interactions between individuals, analogous to the manner in which macroscopic observables are determined by microscopic interactions in statistical physics. Thus, collective behavior has captivated a broad spectrum of researchers from many different disciplines [1]–[19]. Making the analogy to statistical physics more concrete, it is reasonable to suggest that a deep understanding of collective group motion may arise from three parallel pursuits. We can perform a macroscopic analysis, focusing on the observed group-level behavior such as the group morphology or the material-like properties; we can perform a microscopic analysis, determining the nature of the interactions between individuals; and we can study how the microscopic interactions scale up to give rise to the macroscopic properties. (1)

Lusseau, David. The Emergent Properties of a Dolphin Social Network. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biology Letters. Supplement 2/S186, 2003. In the Doubtful Sound community of bottlenose dolphins, the connectivity of individual members follows a self-organized, complex scale-free, power law distribution, similar to universal network geometries found for human societies.

Lyon, Pamela. From Quorum to Cooperation: Lessons from Bacterial Sociality for Evolutionary Theory. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. 38/4, 2007. An article in the Towards a Philosophy of Microbiology section which further highlights and documents an historic shift to admit the ubiquity of mutual interactive aid throughout all of nature’s domains. But if fully assimilated, it would bode for a novel realization of life’s inherent tendency to grow in nested vitality and sentience.

Without cooperation most of the ‘major landmarks in the diversification of life and the hierarchical organization of the living world’ would have been impossible, including the transitions form nonlife to life, networks of cooperating genes to the first functioning cell, prokaryotes to eukaryotes, unicellular to multicellular organization, asexual to sexual reproduction, and so on to the development of complex ecosystems. In short, the more nature yields her secrets, the more ubiquitous cooperation appears to be. (821)

Ma, Yin-Jie, et al.. Social norms and cooperation in higher-order networks. arXiv:2401.14905. Complexity theorists with postings in China, Korea, Italy, Slovenia and Austria including Matjaz Perc and Stefano Boccaletti provide a latest review and preview of 21st century studies which have by now quantified and proven that organisms have as much and more of a beneficial tendency to group together and get along then to engage in divisive competition. (While our own human phase is rife with violent conflict, this may be due to its total male patriarchy, with no feminine mediation.) See also Quantitative assessment can stabilize indirect reciprocity under imperfect information by Laura Schmid, et al in Nature Communications. (14/2086, 2023).

Recent research has studied how cooperation is fostered through various mechanisms in cognitive settings, mostly through pairwise interactions. However, the real-world involves multiple cliques with higher-order interactions. We introduce a model that explores collective strategies and social norms within a diverse environment. We show that prosocial norms lead to increased cooperation across an array of social situations. Our research thus offers insights into the evolution of cooperation through the lens of social norm diffusion in higher-order networks.

Cooperation, where individuals bear costs to benefit others, is a common occasion across biological and social spheres. In-depth investigations into ecological factors such as memory, repeated interaction and network structure have shown that cooperation to be more beneficial than selfish behavior. Building on the work of Martin Nowak, kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, group selection, and network reciprocity have been found as explanations. Recent research efforts have refined these mechanisms such as indirect reciprocity, along with cognitive processes and reciprocal actions within various social norms. (1)

Marcoux, Marianne and David Lusseau. Network Modularity Promotes Cooperation. Journal of Theoretical Biology. Online December, 2012. University of Aberdeen behavioral biologists contribute to the togetherness turn by explaining how prevalent and vital for survival success in evolving animal groups is reciprocal helping and sharing. A notable factor is the inherent manifestation of relational modules in community, which serve to provide an innate, constant structure.

Cooperation in animals and humans is widely observed even if evolutionary biology theories predict the evolution of selfish individuals. Previous game theory models have shown that cooperation can evolve when the game takes place in a structured population such as a social network because it limits interactions between individuals. Modularity, the natural division of a network into groups, is a key characteristic of all social networks but the influence of this crucial social feature on the evolution of cooperation has never been investigated. Here, we provide novel evidences that network modularity promotes the evolution of cooperation in 2-person prisoner's dilemma games. By simulating games on social networks of different structures, we show that modularity shapes interactions between individuals favouring the evolution of cooperation. Modularity provides a simple mechanism for the evolution of cooperation without having to invoke complicated mechanisms such as reputation or punishment, or requiring genetic similarity among individuals. Thus, cooperation can evolve over wider social contexts than previously reported. (Abstract)

Mendoza, Manuel, et al. Emergence of Community Structure in Terrestrial Mammal-Dominated Ecosystems. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 230/2, 2004. Herd animals such as small and large herbivores in Africa go about in a far from thermodynamic equilibrium state which impels them to form coherent, self-organized groupings.

In conclusion, we suggest that communities are unitary structures with coherent properties that result from the self-organizing dynamic of the whole system. (213)

Mesoudi, Alex and Alex Thornton. What is Cumulative Cultural Evolution? Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Vol.285, Iss.1880, 2018. University of Exeter bioscientists press ways to explain this fairly obvious feature of intelligent, communicative species as by many means they achieve a common beneficial knowledge. The problem seems to be how to square with vested Darwinian views that nothing actually proceeds in any forward, telelogic direction on its inherent own.

In recent years, the phenomenon of cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) has become the focus of major research interest in biology, psychology and anthropology. Some researchers argue that CCE is unique to humans and underlies our extraordinary evolutionary success as a species. Others claim to have found CCE in non-human species. Here, we review how researchers define, use and test CCE. We identify a core set of criteria for CCE which are both necessary and sufficient, and may be found in non-human species. We reinterpret previous theoretical models and observational and experimental studies of both human and non-human species in light of these more fine-grained criteria. Finally, we discuss key issues surrounding information, fitness and cognition. (Abstract)

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