Robert Wright: The evolution of compassion

Robert Wright uses evolutionary biology and game theory to explain why we appreciate the Golden Rule ("Do unto others..."), why we sometimes ignore it and why there’s hope that, in the near future, we might all have the compassion to follow it.
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[@solitudespeaks7927]

People can get really disillusioned when evolutionary biologists reduce our motivations to evolutionary explanations. For example, the idea that compassion is supposed to help you propagate your genes and those of your kin & the idea that compassion is self-interested on a biological level would SEEM to shatter our religious hope for universal compassion. But in reality, it helps us better understand what is required for universal compassion. No Buddhist who understands human nature believes compassion is a given. Compassion - whether it's for yourself or for someone else - is something you have to DEVELOP. You LEARN to love your shadow. You STRUGGLE to love your enemy. This is WORK. There's a reason very few people achieve Buddha-hood. In order to get to a place of enlightenment where we have universal compassion for others, we have to work against the very nature Robert talks about. The type of selective empathy we see in social and political conflicts is one of the very forces people trying to develop universal compassion have to work against. Rather than feeling disillusioned by the evolutionary realities of our lives, we should realize that the ideas we have about universal compassion are not grounded in reality. They never were. We were only taught to believe this was so by people who aspired to live in a world different than the one we live in. It's a great hope that this is the world we live in, but to get there we need to begin with how the world actually is.

[@AnimeshSharma1977]

Thanks for this "not so warm and fuzzy" talk on compassion and simple presentation of ideas like kin-selection, reciprocal-altruism and exclusion to the golden-rule... culminating in a non-zero sum game, does expand the "moral imagination" :)

[@actsrv9]

Also, there's solid scientific basis to be *hopeful* of the future !

[@nomadicam]

one of the most under appreciated but best Ted talks.

[@johnnysalter7072]

The only one I ever heard worth a damn.

[@arvindkalidindi1515]

I completely agree

[@rileystewart9165]

He definitely knew that pretty girl was in his front row and really digging his ideas. Notice how he is constantly looking away from her and make a double glance at 12:39 haha Bob is killing it and trying to not be tempted.

[@ahmedmohamed-fo5jl]

From the beginning I knew that he is a good person, his book on human nature is elegant

[@chrisc990]

Great presentation. A very sobering perspective in our current climate.

[@protodhamma]

An minute 4:50 he says what is basically the teaching of the Buddha based off a Dhammapada verse that goes; "To give up what is harmful, to take up what is good, And to purify one own mind, this is the teaching of all Buddha's."

[@truthseeker3071]

the golden rule is really the universal rule for all of humanity

[@malcolmgraham8319]

I'm huge on determinism so I huge on solution based problem solving. I thing zero-sum fallacy leads to a lot of resistance that destroys functionality. I think the point identifying problems through compassion and altering causes rather than harming people. Empathy based in cognition leads to great outcomes.

[@dusky186]

Malcolm Graham Wait was this TED talk about determinism or nondeterminism? I thought it was nondeterminalistic. Edit: What I meant to say was is "Was this TED talk about compassion being described by a determinalistic mathematical systems or nondeterminalistic math system?" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterministic_system en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

[@malcolmgraham8319]

Determinist come to the same conclusion. Remove blame or non solution based punishment and replace it with rehabilitation or genuine help. I don't think the speech itself is particularly indeterminist or determinist.

[@dusky186]

Malcolm Graham Actually, I think you and I are talking about two different things. You were talking about philosophical. However, I was talking about the deterministic mathematical systems and deterministic choas. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterministic_system en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory kzbin.info/www/bejne/hGXad6yIfM6fppYm45s I am sorry for the confusion. In hindsight, after rewatching the video a second time, I can see how easy it might be to think I was referring to philosophical determinism. My argument and initial questions to +bobwrighter (Robert Wright) was about his use of game theory being more stochastic and probabilistic math vs. game theory being more of deterministic choas statistics math. I also questioned if some science research we have done about altruisum, such as work of neurologists like David Linden, points to something beyond what game theory or stochastic can mathematically describe. (It can still describe it approximately though.) Honestly, I didn't realize how much the themes of religion, sociology, history, and philosophy play a role in the TED talk, so I am debating retracting my first post to this video, so as to not create confusion. My point was not to refute Dr. Wright's idea. I was merely trying to create hope by saying hey, maybe there is more research we can do in science that would give even more hope of positive change in society.

[@djrite]

Watch Chris Milk TED talk about how he is using virtual reality to expand compassion amongst world leaders

[@matthewtenney2898]

There is no "ought" to just a feeling, whether of compassion, empathy, rage, panic, etc. Unless we believe in a Creator who gives authority to our feelings, then we would be fools to pay any attention to a feeling. Those who reject a Creator would do best to read The Prince by Machiavelli to help create a rule based upon self interest. Carl Sagan did just that and came out with the "Gold plated Brazen Rule" back in 1993.

[@dusky186]

Edit: The following is a completely mathematical argument and don't look to deeply into religious or philosophical applications of what I saying. I am not being philosophical here.I have a couple of completely rhetorical questions for Dr. Wright. They center around my uncertainty, I feel like "evolutionary biology" to describe evolution or change in a strictly non-reproductive change in organism or a change is something non-living. I get this from a lot of evolutionary biologists. 1) In his research did Dr. Wright consider the work of David Linden with altruism/kinship theory? I wonder if the neurological side of altruism would support with Dr. Wright observations even though lot of it is happening inside the brain not outside in the observable changes that we see. 2) Would Dr. Wright consider the behavior of nonliving objects or nonhuman beings examples to be included in this theory or was he strictly considering human's and compassion? Is this evolution limited to higher order thinking creatures? What about choas theory? For example, would Dr. Wright consider the matching of fireflies to be an example of this type of evolutionary biology + game theory? Some changes in creatures behavior and especially in biophysics are not strictly consider spontaneous change similar to brown motion or stochastic that you see in game theory. They have order. A good example of this is fireflies who exhibit flashing actually based on something in choas theory called synchronization. The fire flies much like two swings on a playground eventually match in frequency and phase with other fireflies. Close study shows that it the same phase and frequency of coupled metronomes or two coupled swings on a playground. Some more popular nonliving things exhibit similar chaos effect such as love relationship in Romeo and Juliet story and weather prediction software, but the most famous examples are actually behavior of quarks in Feynman Diagrams and radioactive decay. I feel like there is a broader scientific theory that combines the ideas of both game-theory stochastic, deterministic choas nonlinear dynamics, and evolution to talk about non-spontaneous change arising from spontaneous change. The textbook definition of evolution as based on spontaneous mutation is so limiting. However, maybe I am misinterpreting what evolution is? Or maybe there is a non-stochastic or deterministic version of game theory related to choas theory?

[@user-ej5gx7ph7q]

Starting with mammals every member of the species must depend upon another to survive. Thst maternal dependence becomes empathy and can be applied to other members of society. Empathy allows and is the progenitor for language and culture... When many talk about this todsy they refer to humans as a reference. Humans are in a cultural dynamic with the agenda to subvert empathy for individual dominion... It is the pressure of population density

[@noahbaker6932]

...

[@mjgarrett9885ify]

compassion is found in different animal species. the ones you see compassion in have a brain to join or not join with another .

[@ocdjirecpilot7888]

It is interesting how this Talk was made 8 years ago, and now we are facing the detrimental impact of reconstructed and one-sided compassion, mainly when talking about Israel and G@z@. Now, on Nov 8, it has been a month where more than 5,000 innocent children among 10,000 Murdered innocent individuals by Israel's b@mbardment; explain to us now where is compassion when a double standard society can justify this amount of deaths in Gaza in less than a month? Ethnically cleansing an entire nation for centuries? When learning about compassion, mainly when the knowledge is coming from Israelites who are the ones committing Geno3ides, It makes me wonder, in disbelief, that people can have so many double standards, justifying murder and going as far as to mock them and sit on top of hills enjoying the scenery of dreadful killing and murdering while sipping their coffees and laughing for centuries. How on earth can one talk about compassion when the one's teaching it is siding with Criminals and justifying the k*ll*ng of innocent children..!! Speak up for the truth!

[@johnnysalter7072]

Haven't a clue as to what zero-sum means.

[@JBulsa]

greed vs. charity

[@soonyanaidu7875]

That there is limited sources, by giving you I lose or all transactions added are zero,

[@rs5352]

Johnny Salter - He means thinking “one team has to win completely while the other team has to lose completely.” If you think that way about certain groups or certain topics, then you are thinking in terms of a zero-sum game.

[@lairdgordonmcdoodle228]

I assume Robert is using EviBiologists pconventional academic narrative

[@natejennings4107]

What is with the "Compassion" what happened to all those cool ideas you used to find and share with us!!

[@dragatus]

Chuck Norris I find there being more compassion in the world to be a cool idea.

[@ManieLaFlare]

dragatus Cool and needed!!

[@discoverednotcreated]

Chuck Norris What are you talking about? His last ted talk was about non zero sum games as well. Keeping peace in the world IS a cool idea anyways. He has a website bloggingheads.tv in case you want other issues. At bloggingheads there are a wide variety of intellectuals and topics that get attention.

[@jennetal.984]

Why would anyone waste their time with Buddhism?

[@glennsimonsen8421]

Warm, no, but I'll certainly give him Fuzzy for his thinking process. That compassion is "built-in" to our genes on the Darwinian model is nothing more than wishful speculation without evidence. Next he presumes to prescribe to religious leaders their role in non Zero Sum game theory which he calls "the good news". So steeped he is in the fuzziness of his own world view of atheistic buddhism, he totally misses Jesus of Nazareth having already given us the true Good News to "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you".

[@mpking-ey7ys]

You managed to make an interesting topic boring. Work on your talks, please. Your story line is not clear. Often I don't know where you are trying to go. Reduce the number of times you interrupt your talk to "warn" or "give a note" to the audience. If the flow of your talk is good, you don't need those things.

[@truthseeker3071]

I feel this man got compassion mixed up with empathy

[@agneseiden6873]

+truth seeker No he's just seeking the truth.

[@fasihz]

He mentions the concept of empathy at the end: to step into someone else's shoes.