In the modern world, people cooperate with other people including strangers all the time. Researchers reporting in Current Biology who’ve studied Hadza hunter-gatherer people in Tanzania over a six-year period have new and surprising insight into why people work together. The findings show that it isn’t that people who like to share choose to live with others who also like to share. Rather, people adapt their own sharing tendencies so as to match that of the group they currently live in. In other words, sharing is driven by local group norms and behaviour. (1)

Typical modern scientific conclusion.

Typical modern scientific research.

Ignoring the real problem.

And just pushing back the solution.

Let’s agree with the result of the researchers and say that our behavior towards sharing is defined by the behavior of the group. Does this answer the true question which is why do we share in the first place? Surely not. It just pushes back the problem, since now we must try to find out why the group we are in is favorable to sharing. And this group is made out of people. So again, we are where we started from: To try to understand why people share.

Typical modern scientific conclusion.

Typical modern scientific research.

Ignoring the real solution: Our own free will is the source of all we do. We are the masters of the cosmos, not its slaves. Look at the problem. There is no solution. It is just that there is no problem in the first place…

There is no river.

There is no water.

There is no life.

In the beginning there was just everything. And still is.