Natural Being and a Coherent Society
 Mae-Wan Ho
 Bioelectrodynamics Laboratory, 
Open University Walton Hall, 
Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, U.K. 
To appear in Evolution, Order and Complexity (E.L. Khalil and K.E. Boulding eds.), London: Routledge, 1996. 
Abstract 
The Conference of the Birds The Darwinian Metaphor and the Darwinian Man Mutual aid versus mutual struggle The origins of love and hate Nature from Within The Coherence of Being The Coherent Society Acknowledgment Notes Abstract Science is a system of concepts and tools for knowing and living with nature. As such, it should be integral to any human society from the most primitive prehistoric culture to the industrialized nations of to-day. But whereas the primitive lived within nature by her knowledge which is the totality of her personal and tribal experience, the civilized man is imprisoned outside nature, of which, therefore, he can have no real knowledge. Cartesian mind-matter dualism and Newtonian mechanics began a process of the dissolution of our natural being; which Darwin completed by reducing organisms (including humans) to objects, isolated from the environment, and buffeted by blind selective forces. This deep alienation from nature and from our own natural being is the human condition of the modern man. It is his paradise lost. From then on, nature would be opaque to him, condemned as he is, to a knowing from without, to a life alone and devoid of meaning. In this paper, I wish to deconstruct the myth of the Darwinian man by re-examining the biological roots of human nature to show how it is inextricably bound up with the social. From studies on animal and plant communities to ‘primitive’ human socieities, we see that sociality is at the basis of life: it is the direct consequence and expression of the fundamental unity and interconnectedness of all nature. The unity of nature is itself a universal, intuitive insight that contemporary western science is validating in every aspect, particularly in the new biophysics of coherence in living systems. Authentic knowledge is premised on this coherence and interconnectedness. Social and moral values arise explicitly and naturally in a life coherent with authentic knowledge. From this perspective, culture is the creation of meaning and knowledge in partnership with nature, in which every social being participates. The coherent society is the society of natural beings living in harmony with nature’s creative process. 

Mutual aid versus mutual struggle
Kropotkin tells us that, under the influence of Darwin’s Origin of Species, he began to study animal life in Siberia in order to find evidence of intraspecific competition. Two general features emerged from his observations. First, that there was indeed extreme severity of struggle for existence against inclement nature (as one would expect in Siberia); and second, that even under the most abundant animal life, there was no struggle for existence against one another [13] . He went on to document at length numerous examples of mutual aid and mutual support among animals throughout the animal kingdom, from ants and termites to birds and mammals, quoting widely from published sources as well as from his own experience. Ants regularly regurgitate food to feed hungry comrades that they happen to meet. ‘If an ant which has its crop full has been selfish enough to refuse feeding a comrade, it will be treated as an enemy. . . . And if an ant has not refused to feed another ant belonging to an enemy species, it will be treated by the kinsfolk of the latter as a friend.’ [14] Pelicans always fish together, typically forming a wide half-circle facing the shore, then narrowing it by paddling towards the shore, catching all the fish that finally become enclosed in a circle. In South America, they gather in flocks of 40-50,000, part of which enjoy sleep while others keep watch and still others go fishing. Cooperation does not stop within species boundaries. Species may combine together to repell attacks, as the gulls and terns, who coooperate to drive away the sea-hen. The lapwings (Vanellus cristatus) attack the birds of prey so bravely that they merit the name ‘good mother’, given to them by the Greeks. Cranes live in excellent relationships not only with their congeners but with most aquatic birds. Their sentries keep watch around a mixed flock which is feeding or resting together. A considerable body of present-day sociobiological theory is devoted to explaining, or explaining away cooperation in terms of the selective advantage that after all, must accrue to the cooperating individuals (see Bateson [15] , for example). But this is a misreading of nature. In many cases, help is freely given to others from whom no return can ever be expected, and with whom the individual shares no genetic relatedness. Among mammals, dolphins are well-renowned for their intelligence and friendship towards humans. They will actually help fishermen drive fish into their nets if, after a long day, the fishermen have netted nothing and they call to the dolphins for help. However, if the fishermen are greedy and do it too often, the dolphins will ignore their call [16] . Goethe was once told by Eckerman that two little wren-fledgelings, who had run away from him, were found the next day in the nest of robin redbreasts who fed the littles ones together with their own. Goethe saw in this a confirmation of his pantheistic views [17] . It is surely this universal neighbourly tendency of birds to look after other’s young that enables the cuckoos to exploit their hosts [ 18 ] , and not because the latter are too stupid or mesmerized to distinguish foundlings from their own offsprings. In my experience, female and even male domestic cats, too, will readily adopt and look after kittens that are not their own. The love of young is such among the Indian langur monkeys that as soon as a newborn arrives, the troop’s females will cluster around the mother, all reaching out gently to try and touch and lick the infant. During its first day of life, it will have passed through the loving arms of up to eight females [19] . What appears much more fundamental than cooperativeness or helpfulness is that animals tend to seek out and enjoy the society of others. The crane is in continual activity from morn till night, of which only a few hours are devoted to finding food. All the remainder of the day is given over to society life. ‘It picks up small pieces of wood or small stones, throws them in the air and tries to catch them; it bends its neck, opens its wings, dances, jumps, runs about, and tries to manifest by all means its good disposition of mind, and always it remains graceful and beautiful.’ [20] Parrots, likewise, live in numerous societies or bands, the members of each of which remain faithfully together for good or bad. They also enjoy the society of other birds. In India, the jays and crows come together from many miles round to spend the night in company with the parrots in the bamboo thickets. Multispecies association of birds are so common that, ‘it would be much easier to describe the species which live isolated than to simply name those species which join the autumnal societies of young birds -- not for hunting or nesting purposes, but simply to enjoy life in society and to spend their time in plays and sports, after having given a few hours every day to find their daily food.’ ‘And finally, we have that immense display of mutual aid among birds -- their migrations . . . birds which have lived for months in small bands scattered over a wide territory gather in thousands; they come together at a given place, for several days in succession, before they start, . . . Some species will indulge every afternoon in flights preparatory to the long passage. All wait for their tardy congeners, and finally they start in a well-chosen direction . . . the strongest flying at the head of the band, and relieving one another in that difficult task. They cross the seas in large bands consisting of both big and small birds. And when they return next spring, they repair to the same spot, and, in most cases, each of them take possession of the very same nest which it had built or repaired the previous year.’ [21] Similarly, social mammals are highly successful and associate in large numbers (until decimated by man). The numbers of solitary carnivores are trifling in comparison with the social herds of wild horses, donkeys, camels, and sheep that used to roam in central Asia; and elephants, rhinoceroses, monkeys, reindeer, muskoxen and polar foxes in northern Asia and Southern Africa. ‘And how false, therefore, is the view of those who speak of the animal world as if nothing were to be seen in it but lions and hyenas plunging their bleeding teeth into the flesh of their victims! One might as well imagine that the whole of human life is nothing but a succession of war massacres.’ [22] Most of all, animals derive pleasure and satisfaction from life in society. Society was not created by ‘man’ as our anthropocentric view would lead us to believe, but is antecedent to our own species. Sociability -- the love of society for society’s sake -- is at the very basis of animal life. Not only do numerous species of birds assemble together habitually to indulge in antics and dancing performances, but according to Hudson, nearly all mammals and birds (probably there are really no exceptions) indulge frequently in more or less regular or set performances with or without sound, or composed of sound exclusively. One has only to listen to the chorus of birdsongs mornings and evenings that happen regularly as clockwork during the warm seasons. The habit of singing in concert is most strikingly developed with the chakar (Chauna chavarria). Hudson described how he experienced this: ‘Presently, one flock near me began singing and continued their powerful chant for three to four minutes, when they ceased the next flock took up the strains, and after it the next, and so on, until once more the notes of the flocks on the opposite shore came floating strong and clear across the water -- then passed away, growing fainter and fainter, until once more the sound approached me travelling round to my side again.’ [23] Many years later, Allee [ 24 ] was stimulated to re-examine Kropotkin’s thesis when, by chance, he discovered that even such lowly animals as isopods aggreagate most eagerly to form social clusters. From this, he was led to review abundant evidence of swarm formation in the living world, starting with the single-celled photosynthetic organism Euglena, through to insects, birds and mammals. He concluded that sociality is indeed universal: ‘The growing weight of evidence indicates that animals are rarely solitary; that they are almost necessarily members of loosely integrated racial and inter-racial communities, in part woven together by environmental factors, and in part by mutual attraction between the individual membrers of different communities, no one of which can be affected without changing all the rest, at least to some slight extent.’ [25] As an example, he referred to the grassland bison community of the Great Plains in North America. The bison herds kept the grasslands closely cropped, preventing the invasion of herbs and shrubs. This provided a rich habitat for grasshoppers, crickets, mice and prarie dogs, all of whom converted the grass into meat, on which the plain Indians, buffalo wolves, hawks, owls and prarie chickens fed. The plants of the community,therefore, cannot be considered in isolation from the animals. This is but the age-old wisdom of ecological connectedness and interdependence of all living things that is universal to indigenous cultures all over the world [26] . The dominant modernist culture of the industrialized west is unique in its persistent denial of the unity of nature. Allee and his colleagues also carried out numerous experiments demonstrating that society per se has important effects on the behaviour and physiology of individuals in it, not all of which can be interpreted as contributing to an increase in survival value. The ill-effects of crowding are well-known and clearly documented for animals such as fruitflies and laboratory mice. What is not so well-known is that under-crowding is also deleterious for the survival of individuals. Goldfish and planarians, when isolated, succumbs to poisoning more readily than when grouped [ 27 ] . Embryonic development in sea urchins is significantly accelerated when the eggs are massed together [28] . And ciliate protozoa reproduce faster in groups than when isolated, the reproductive rate being also dependent on the density of bacteria on which they feed [29] . Of especial interest is Allee’s demonstration that goldfish learn faster in groups than as individuals, through a combination of imitation and group cohesion [30] . From this arises the concept of ‘social facilitation’ of behaviour which may have important implications for our own species that are as yet unexplored. Having demonstrated that cooperativeness and sociality is for animals the most natural state of being, Kropotkin went on to cite abundant evidence of mutual aid, compassion and moral feelings among so-called primitive human societies. The relative lack of competition and strife in most traditional cultures have long impressed anthropologists. The point is not that competition or rivalry never occurs. Competition, like cooperation, is a social phenomenon; it does not follow that corresponding preformed human qualities of competitiveness and cooperativeness actually exist. There is, at bottom, a feeling of connectedness with other beings, a desire for society -- sociality, or love. According to Kropotkin, sociality not only offers the greatest advantage in the struggle for life under any circumstances (as opposed to competition, which is only advantageous under some circumstances), but it also favours the growth of intelligence, language, social feelings and a ‘certain sense of collective justice’ akin to morality. Sociality, the desire, or propensity for society, is the regulating and cohesive principle in both animal and human society. It exists prior to any consideration of selective advantage. In a sense, Kropotkin, and also Bateson [ 31 ] (a strong advocate of cooperation among contemporary neo-Darwinists), invert cause and effect in trying to explain why cooperation or mutual aid could have evolved by natural selection. Qualities such as compassion or empathy, based on the same experience of connectedness with other beings, are also antecedent to life in organized society. Life in society may of course, reinforce and enhance those qualities, but they would never have arisen through any externally imposed social order were they not already heartfelt and integral to the natural state of being.