Normative systemic behavior

On January 26 Clay said that "humans seem not to embrace the concept of sharing resources with others." This truism points to an important distinction between humans and other species systems on earth.

The best way to explore this is to imagine a time before humans appeared on earth. It is axiomatic that before the arrival of humans all previously existing systems had embraced this concept. They knew how to share resources with each other. It was written in their purpose as systems to nothing that would threaten their own existence. The delicate balance of the food cycle was preserved. Grazing animals did not overgraze and predatory animals did not overhunt. These living species were able to preserve this balance without the benefit of human intelligence and guidance.

As we noted in our first posts humans must have arrived with the same properties. Additionally, they could not have learned to do otherwise because they could only learn from the species that preceded them on the earth.

Where did this self-destructive behavior come from? It could only have come from whatever it is that defines human nature and that would make it natural to humans. On the other hand we appear to disapprove of this behavior, yet we prompted in that direction by any other species. How do we account for this confusion.

The explanation is very simple. Nature is not a unitary concept as we have been led to believe from our investigation of other species. There are actually two aspects to identity or nature: physiological and behavioral. In all other species the two aspects are fixed or hard-wired. This leads to the conclusion that human nature is also fixed. In truth, the behavioral or functional aspect of human nature is not fixed. This explains why humans are able to resort to self-destructive behavior and also abhor such behavior.

More on this later.