Altruism - The Key to Survival

     Mutual co-operation and harmony between unrelated individuals, animals or human beings has been one of the key problems of evolutionary biology. Jozsef Garay an evolutionary biologist at the Hungarian Academy of sciences, discusses about the altruistic co-operation in animals in his paper 'Cooperation in Defence against a predator'. He writes that the animals which are not the target of the predator help the member of the group which are being attacked to demostrate the altruistic behavior and even may die in the defensive action.

    

We may have seen the fierce animal chase on television. The lion leaps towards the herd of the Gazelles while the herd instead of protecting their life first, surrounds the young, wounded and the weak even when their own life is in danger. This is a great presentation of the altruistic behavior by the Gazelles. Thus the Gazelles find themselves safe in large numbers, when they live as a group.

    

In Garay's paper he talks about two animals A and B, and he assumes that a predator can only realistically attack one at a time, then the probability of A being attacked is 1/2 in a single round of predation. So, in a one-shot game, if B is attacked, A’s best strategy is to cut and run, since helping B may result in injury or death.According to him, if the same game is played over and over (that is, if they run the risk of being attacked often, as is the case in real life), then A’s best strategy is to help out B. This might seem incongruous, but it isn’t.

  

If B dies in the first attack, then A’s probability of being attacked in the next round is 100%! If he has a less than 100% chance of dying by way of helping B in the first attack than he is better off helping B since on the next round he’ll still have only a 50% chance of being attacked. 50% is certainly better than 100%!

    

The case is true even if B never helps out A. That is, if A is the only Altruistic one in the group, then it is still to his advantage to continue to be altruistic. But, if B also is altruistic then this is all the better for A. Also, B would then enjoy the same benefits as A.

    

This research shows that having co-operative feeling and the willingness to help others in the animals or humans, increases the probability of their own survival. A bundle of sticks is always diffuclt to break but when the bundle is opened the sticks can be broken easily. Similarly, altruism is the knot for the human unity. And if this knot is opened, there will be no humanity and every man shall lose his values, norms, traditions  and ultimately his identity as the broken sticks.

Garay, Jozsef. 2009. “Cooperation in Defence against a predator.” Journal of Theoretical Biology. 257 (2009) 45-51.
Link

Seven things God won't ask

 

1. God won’t ask the square footage of your house, but will ask how many people you welcomed into your home.
   
2. God won’t ask what you did to help yourself, but will ask what you did to help others.
3. God won’t ask what you did to protect your rights, but will ask what you did to protect the rights of others.
4. God won’t ask in what neighborhood you lived, but will ask how you treated your neighbors.
   
5. God won’t ask what kind of car you drove, but will ask how many people you drove who didn’t have transportation.
   
6. God won’t ask about the fancy clothes you had in your closet, but will ask how many of those clothes helped the needy. 
7. God won’t ask how many times your deeds matched your words, but will ask how many times they didn’t.  

Author Unknown 

Altruism - We are programmed from birth

     Altruism is defined as  ‘acts that intentionally benefit another organism, incur no direct personal benefit, and sometimes bear a personal cost’. This definition resonates a lot better with our intuitive sense of altruistic behavior. And unlike the more ‘biological’ or enforced type of altruism, this type  is completely voluntary, without the threat of punishment as an inducement to act.

The Limbic System in the brain is responsible for, among other things, the sensation of pleasure, reward, and the feeling of well-being. One of its important projections is to a group of neurons deep in the brain call the nucleus accumbens.

This nucleus mediates such diverse pleasurable sensations as optimism, food, sex and recreational drugs. In fact, in this nucleus resides the anatomical location of drug addiction.
After all, ask any volunteer in a soup kitchen and she will tell you that she derives enormous satisfaction from her good works.
Ask any biologist and he would likely volunteer the explanation that, just like food and sex, altruism is associated with a sense of pleasure because ‘it is good for us’-- ‘us’ meaning our species.

Source

Mozart of the Pickpockets

Richard and Philippe are a  pair of inept thieves. That is until they open their hearts and adopt a poor homeless kid.

Altruism - A Work in Progress

Reciprocal Altruism: Tit for Tat

Do you love or help others as you would do to yourself without any selfish motive?

Well, not always.

Do you find it easy to put yourself in someone else’s shoes?

When you really need a favor, the first person you turn to is someone who I did a favor for in the past.

You are only willing to help someone if doing so will benefit you as well.

You regularly do favors for others without being asked.

You believe in the motto “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.”

When you do a favor for someone, you expect it to be returned.

Just pause for a while and wonder where you are.

Altruism vs Egoism: Who's victorious?

In and Out

This Wednesday I was rushing to the college. There was an old lady walking infront of me. From behind it seemed as if she was pushing a stroller. She was walking into the Caldwell Public Library. She was so old that she could barely walk. She was trying to open the door of the library, which is indeed difficult for anyone to pull.

I was about to walk past her, but then I realized the difficulty she was facing. I approached to help her. She turned back and understood my gesture. She then passed me two DVDs and three books from her stroller. I didn't ask her what I was to do with the stuff, nor she bothered to brief me. I walked inside the library. As I went in, the Librarian smiled at me and said,
"You are returning the books for her, that's so kind. Thankyou."

I smiled back.

I went out out of the library. The old lady was waiting for me.

I didn't know what I had to do. I just nodded my head to notify her that I had returned the books.

She pulled her stroller back, raised her head and smiled back.
I felt the achievement of doing something good. My eyes were opening wider than usual.

Selflessness

Why do people have unselfish concerns for others?