The parasitic/symbiotic balance

It appears that all things in the world are both parasite and symobit. They walk the fine line between getting kicked out of an interaction for being too parasitic, and being worn out from becoming too "giving" in the symbiotic relationship. The parallels between this interaction and the Prisoner's Dilemma game as Jeff Wilkinson is attempting to build it are large.

As human creatures then it appears that one of the goals we should have for in our interations between ourselves and both other humans and the rest of the world is a recognition of this. Specically on an intrahuman level, the recoginition that interactions create a third creature, however complex. If the creature and its components explicitly understand these relationships, then the creature can spend it's time building outward instead of maintaining inward.

Jeff W's world has creatures playing a trading game of the "behaviors/strategies" of "lower" creatures. In a trading game such as this, it's critical for the "higher" creature to be able to evaluate the "lower" creature's behavior in order to know it's was "good" or not. Hence the "higher" creature must observe the strategy of the lower creature. This is the "benefit" the lower creature provides to the higher creature. In turn the higher creature provides a "known" environment where the lower creature can task itself to a certain amount of "job specialization"