Tree’s to Nuts to People – ALL Connected SuperCooperators

The hypothesis that the earth is one organism with many INTERDEPENDENT parts makes sense to me. This is also called the Gaia Hypothesis. Here is information from James Lovelock who claims to be originator of Gaia Theory. Previously we may not have understood this because we sought independence with the every man/women for him/herself philosophy. This may have been because we did not have evidence of how we are all connected. The lack of available evidence was misleading. As Nassim Taleb explains in his book Black Swan,

Absence of evidence is often confused with evidence of its absence.

In the book he cites previous advice not to breast feed our babies because they did not have evidence of its benefit. It was mistakenly believed that because they could not see the benefits, the meant there were no benefits. Of course now we better understand benefits, with many still unknown, to infants who receive milk from their mother after birth.

The absence of evidence of benefits being confused with evidence of its absence is now playing a role in forestry. As Suzanne Simard describes in her TED Talk, “How Trees Talk to Each Other”, she documents how diverse trees are INTERDEPENDENT and help each other. These findings also seem to document, once again, how everything on earth his interdependent suggesting efforts to create interactions so everyone and everything benefits helps us create comprehensive improvements.

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Martin Nowak documents, just as Ms. Simard explains, we are not competitors and when we collaborate and work as cooperators with others and the environment benefits ensue.