At 12:35 AM 8/01/01 -0500, Eliezer wrote:
< why are ants nice to each other? >
>if there was any known information about
>hedonist/capitalist algorithms in ant societies, Wilson would have been
>almost certain to include it.
But this is surely the canonical or Ur-case of sociobiological explanation.
The key is degrees of relatedness. Sister ants share 0.75 of their genes,
not 0.5. This is the basis of Hamilton's kin selection theory and altruism.
Is this not enough for your purposes? (To refresh your memory, it's
discussed in Robert Wright's THE MORAL ANIMAL, chapter 7 [since you don't
have Wilson handy].)
Damien Broderick
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