Self/Not-Self?

Abstract

Given the “struggle for existence” an organism might hope to outshine its competitors by virtue of the excellence of its positive characters (e.g. greater speed, longer neck). But an organism that could also (i) identify, defend against, and attack its foes, and (ii) identify and support its friends, would seem to have an even greater advantage. To identify is to allow discrimination – friend or foe? – the former classification being non–dangerous (potentially unharmful), the latter classification being dangerous (potentially harmful). For this, friend and foe must have distinguishable characters and the organism must both detect these characters, and know which characters are likely to associate with non-danger (friend) and which characters are likely to associate with danger (foe). After this discrimination, there must then be a response (either non–alarm, or alarm) that, in turn, would lead to a variety of other responses of an adaptive nature (e.g. escape from, or destroy, the foe).