Introduction

“As the world of creativeness finds itself at the outset placed in the midst of opposition and bound at the same time to proceed on its own course, then it becomes clear that this new world when it becomes a whole and governs all cannot remain permanently within the realm of such stubborn opposites: it must, without giving up its independence, yet return to the world which it had left behind and must attempt to penetrate into it; it must do this most of all on account of the fact that its own development is at stake, for only by some such understanding with things outside itself only by means of a struggle with its oppositions can the life of creativeness in man find its way from the great outlines of its ideal-plan to a full and essential development.”

I argue that life is in conflict with itself and the non-living universe. Adaptation is the outcome of conflict. Importantly, we can learn lessons of conflict resolution from genetic and behavioral adaptation in humans and other animals. We can apply principles of adaptation to human-scale interpersonal conflict. While conflict resolution is typically seen as limited to social life on the human-scale, it is essential to view conflict from a cosmological perspective because humans are situated in a cosmic context. Ignoring the cosmic context of human conflict will result in misinterpretation and misinformation. It is essential to operate on a shared set of facts. In this paper, I provide terms and their relevance. I identify the conflicts between the self and the universe. I analyze the types of relationships between the self and other selves. I conclude by synthesizing surprising patterns of conflict transformation.

Conflict has several meanings. Conflict can mean battle or war, such as armed conflict. Alternatively, conflict can be as simple as a difference (see fig. 1). Similar words for conflict are opposition, antagonism, struggle, disagreement, and contradiction. I consider conflict existing on multiple dimensions, such as functional-dysfunctional, violent-peaceful, and many other possible dimensions. Interpersonal is one such dimension and can be defined as a disagreement or discord between people with respect to goals, values, or attitudes.

Figure 1. Above is an example of conflict as a simple difference. A venn diagram illustrates the symmetric difference of two sets. Cell division resembles symmetric difference as well. Biological cells interact, cooperating and opposing. The existence of two selves necessarily is conflict as defined as difference. (Photograph by Steve Gschmeissner, Science Photo Library, https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/313201/view/mitotic-cell-division-tem)

Cosmology is a field of study that brings together the natural sciences, particularly astronomy and physics, in a joint effort to understand the physical universe as a unified whole. Cosmology might seem tangential or too broad of a scope for the topic of human conflict, but I found that one explanation begged another why-question, which led to a chain of equally perplexing explanations; This is related to causality. Causality is the principle that there is a cause for everything that happens. Cosmology can provide an interdisciplinary explanation for the origin of all events. To express poetically, the cosmos is the theater in which the dramatic performance of human life is given. By integrating the insights of cosmology, this paper provides the time, place, and the character traits for the story of interpersonal conflict, for a story without these details can be incomplete and disorientating.

Electromagnetism is the study of electric charge and the electromagnetic field. Charged particles are particles with an electric charge, such as protons, electrons, and ions. Electric charge can either be positive, such as protons, or negative, such as electrons. For similar reasons to cosmology, when studying conflict between one human being and another, it is valuable to understand the context on multiple levels of analysis, such as the flows of energy from the atomic, molecular, and cellular to the individual, interpersonal, and environmental. The flow of energy might initially seem irrelevant or an exhaustive level of analysis, but electromagnetism is highly-relevant for all of human activity, such as perception, cognition, and feelings; labor and movement; and even the historical development of technology and civilization. For example, if not for the electromagnetic force, there could not be two human beings to have a conflict because they would vaporize into invisible and undifferentiable gas. This is because the matter holding a human being together is charged, and this helps repel (and attract) other charged matter, creating differentiated objects. This is known as repulsion and attraction. On a more relatable perspective, energy is important for economic growth, and economic growth is strongly correlated with peace due to people having resources to meet their needs. As a result of the discovery of electromagnetism, many electric tools and machinery transformed the world economy. While the period of relative peace that followed after 1945 has many factors, it is noteworthy that this period correlated with the electrification of the United States. This correlation is highly significant, and an interdisciplinary education of energy is necessary for understanding human relations.

The self is every organism. The self is capable of doing self-directed work: self-maintenance, self-protection, self-repairment, and self-replication. It’s important to note that the self as an organism is different, but not mutually exclusive, from the human understanding of the narrative self, also known as an I-self or an identity. The human conception of self can be thought of as awareness, and awareness can be thought of as an emergent property of brains and multicellularity. Emergent properties are collective behavior of many parts. Biologist Ursula Goodenough describes emergence as “something else from nothing but”. For example, a snowflake is “something else” from “nothing but” water molecules.

The appropriate context for conflict is state of difference: different selves occupying different locations in space, each with their own needs. Needs are related to matter (i.e., stuff, resources) or the transportation or processing of matter (i.e., energy, industry). To note, matter (i.e., resources) are a form of energy according to the energy-mass equivalence. Also important yet often understated, location is related to geography, and location is incredibly important for conflict resolution. Fleeing from a location corresponds to the “flight” in the classical “fight-or-flight” response. Furthermore, cosmology can give an understanding of the microscopic and macroscopic. A unified scientific perspective can explain conflicts related to disease (i.e., caused by microscopic pathogens), natural disasters (i.e., caused by macroscopic events), or social group behavior (a.k.a., superorganisms). Conflict Resolution must be a multidisciplinary field because people, and particularly their interactions, are complex, chaotic, and exist on multiple length scales. The next section discusses the self-conflicting nature of life's existence.

The Self in Conflict with the Universe

“Earth is a tiny, fragile exception in the cosmos. For humans and the other things living on our planet, practically the entire cosmos is a hostile and merciless environment.”

Hostile and merciless sound like descriptors of a war, yet those are accurate descriptors for the entire cosmos, according to NASA. It seems as though to be alive is to be in existential conflict with the universe. As much as earth is a safe haven for living-selves, it is also home to many extreme environments such as polar regions, deserts, mountains, upper atmosphere, deep sea trenches, and volcanos to name a few. If we could magically pick up a human and gently drop them on a random location on Earth, they have a 70% chance of landing in the ocean, which they would likely drown or be consumed by a predator. Deserts make up about one fifth (20%) of Earth’s land area, so that too increases odds of harm and death as a result of hyperthermia, starvation, and dehydration. In fact, the vast majority of natural environments would be very difficult for an unprepared human to live in for longer than a few hours. It seems that humans are in conflict between self-maintenance and unhospitable environments on earth, despite being shielded from the hostile, merciless universe.

The needs for humans are delicate and fragile. They need just the right temperature, vegetation, water availability, and freedom from predatory or competitive relationships. Earth and the universe do not readily provide the resources to meet these needs, which is terribly inconvenient for humans. To refer back to our earlier terms, an organism is to be capable of doing self-directed work; It is apparent that there is a lot of work involved in maintaining the self. In other words, energy is a fundamental constraint for humanity, and life broadly, as we do self-directed work to resolve the inherent conflict of our fragile, needy existence.

The ability to do self-directed work is a unique trait of life compared to other things in the universe, for most non-living objects are like a billiard ball, being acted upon by an external force. Life resists other forces and acts on its own whims, which seems to defy Newton’s Laws of Motion: “An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion … unless acted on by an unbalanced force.” Life seems to defy this logic, but when viewed under a microscope, biologists find that cellular metabolism creates the unbalanced force, preserving the law of inertia. This thermodynamic process of metabolism is similar to how car engines need fuel, a spark, and regular maintenance but otherwise function reasonably independently. James Gleick eloquently describes the unique thermodynamics of life in his book The Information:

“Organisms organize. … We sort the mail, build sand castles, solve jigsaw puzzles, separate wheat from chaff, rearrange chess pieces, collect stamps, alphabetize books, create symmetry, compose sonnets and sonatas, and put our rooms in order… We propagate structure (not just we humans but we who are alive). We disturb the tendency toward equilibrium. It would be absurd to attempt a thermodynamic accounting for such processes, but it is not absurd to say we are reducing entropy, piece by piece. Bit by bit. … Not only do living things lessen the disorder in their environments; they are in themselves, their skeletons and their flesh, vesicles and membranes, shells and carapaces, leaves and blossoms, circulatory systems and metabolic pathways – miracles of pattern and structure. It sometimes seems as if curbing entropy is our quixotic purpose in the universe.”

To resolve the conflict between the self and the environment, life adapts. Adaptations usually occur through self-replication when a gene mutates or changes by accident, but adaptation can also occur through changes in behavior. This navigation of conflict births a staggering degree of differences, which is known as biodiversity (See Fig. 2). From the dazzling peacock to the slippery frog, more than two million species have been identified, which is merely a fraction of the ten to thirty million yet to be discovered. All lifeforms have the same common ancestor, known as Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). Despite their relatedness, there is an incomprehensible number of differences of size, shape, and abilities among organisms. This creative process of adapting to inconvenient environments is known as biological evolution.

Figure 2. Illustration of the conflict between extreme environments on Earth and needs of life. The angular fish adapted to the extreme environment of the deep sea. Similarly, the polar bear adapted to the extreme environment of polar regions. (Kan Sukarakan, Shuttershock, https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/deep-sea-fish-anglerfish-female-2502525077)(Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/22095168@N03/2132000142/in/photostream/)

While we have explored the space that humans inhabit, such as a hostile universe and unkind environments, and the key characteristics of life, such as diversity and self-directed work, we have yet to discuss the important context of time. Nature and the universe have a history just like humans. The historical events of the cosmos can be thought of as a timeline from the initial expansion, the formation of particles, the first light, the first star, the first galaxy, and the subsequent expansion. The initial expansion of the universe is believed to begin 13.8 billion years ago. There is much mystery about what powered the initial expansion, known as cosmic inflation, but this event was so energetic that the universe expanded faster than the speed of light for a fraction of a second. This event is relevant to us today because it gives the cosmological arrow of time, the reason why everything is marching forward in time regardless of their frame of reference. The initial and continuous expansion of the universe gives rise to theories about the end of the universe as well, such as the “Big Freeze” which is a theorized state when the universe has expanded so much that particles no longer interact with each other to produce heat.

Figure 3. This is an example of the conflict between temperature for life and the fate of the universe. Heat is locally produced by the baby elephant to survive while the cosmos is expanding to a very low, inhospitable temperature. (Holger Klinck, Larissa S. M. Sugai, K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, Elephant Research, https://www.birds.cornell.edu/ccb/elephant-listening-project-research/) (NASA, https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/dark-energy-changes-the-universe/)

The origin of life is almost opposite from the story of the universe. From the big bang to the big freeze, the universe is moving from hot to cold. In contrast, living things move from cold to hot by generating heat from their metabolism. Metabolic pathways exist in all organisms, including the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA).

To synthesize, human beings – by virtue of being alive – are in conflict with the inhospitality of the universe and Earth’s environments. The biodiversity of life is another source of conflict for humans as well, with differences being beneficial, neutral, or hostile. Even in ideal conditions, self-maintenance involves work to overcome inertia. Finally, the temperature range needed for life's metabolic processes to function is contrary to the cosmic expansion toward thermodynamic equilibrium.

The Self in Conflict with Others

This section will expand upon self-centric solutions to conflict as well as the counterintuitive other-centric solutions to conflict. While it’s true that violence and aggression (i.e., predation) are essential to the history of life, it is also true that loving-kindness (i.e., prosocial behavior) has evolved multiple times in unique conditions and different species. We will explore how organisms find ways to resolve the conflict inherent to existing in a hostile universe, and why loving-kindness prevails as a creative solution to the struggle for survival.

With the emergence of the self, one might infer that self-protectiveness or selfishness would be the logical consequence for surviving inhospitable conditions on Earth. This is true for three out of the five ecological relationships: competition, predation, and parasitism. These relationships occur between species, which are known as interspecific. These three relationships share one thing in common in that each relation harms the other organism. The remaining two interspecific relationships are called mutualism and commensalism. Mutualism is a relationship where both organisms benefit, and commensalism is when only one organism benefits.

Relationships within a species are called intraspecific. Intraspecific relationships often include affiliations such as parent-child, pair-bonding, kinship, and social life. Affiliations are types of loving behavior that emerged independently multiple times in the animal kingdom. Intraspecific relationships that are benevolent and altruistic are known as prosocial behavior. Intraspecific relationships that resemble harmful or self-centric relationships (similar to competition, predation, and parasitism) are called anti-social behaviors.

Figure 4. An example of interspecific relationships: competition and mutualism. Conflict exists between the birds and a prairie dog. Prosocial bonding exists between the cat and dog. (Roger H. Goun & Feng Wu, Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/144124841@N03/, https://www.flickr.com/photos/26503237@N08/3133296278/)

Natural Solutions to Human Conflict

This section will explore conflict resolution strategies, or behavioral adaptations, in humans specifically. This section moves from abstract theory to real world applications. There are multiple responses to conflict such as aggression, competition, and cooperation. They each seem effective within the appropriate situation.

Aggression in humans can serve multiple purposes according to John Archer from the University of Central Lancashire. The functionalist perspective states that aggression is an adaptive response to resource competition. The functionalist perspective would predict that aggressive behavior would arise when resources are scarce. Sebastian Prediger and colleagues from the German Institute of Global and Area Studies were able to support this prediction when they experimented by playing a competitive game among pastoralists. They found that long-term scarcity caused more willingness to destroy the income of their partner compared to control groups.

Gordon P. D. Ingram from Bath Spa University conducted a study that seems to support a developmental perspective of aggression. The developmental perspective of aggression states that aggression may be part of the developmental process in humans as young as 1 or 2 years old. Gordon and his colleagues found that boys and girls had no significant difference in levels of reactive and proactive aggression based on their results from the Reactive-Proactive Aggression—Fast Track questionnaire (RPA). They found that both girls and boys experienced interpersonal conflict, though boys and girls differed in how they narrated their stories of conflict (e.g., sports vs friendships). Gordon notes in his study that “humans are hard-wired for cooperation” and that interpersonal conflict is often a breakdown of cooperation rather than an initiation of aggression.

Competition between humans can be used as a deadly and inaccurate justification for systemic oppression and xenophobia, says Nandan Bhattacharya from Jadavpur University. Bhattacharya argues that Social Darwinist ideology was used to artificially glorify policies like laissez-faire economics and war, and subsequently lead to eugenics, racism, and Nazism. Bhattacharya astutely points out that competitive individualism is contrary to our natural instincts toward social behavior such as generosity, helping others, familial relations, living in groups, and sharing resources. Divisions based on class, labor, and other artificial categorizations emerged from recent and unstable systems of oppression rather than from natural evolution. Cooperation is highly adaptive for solving problems and surviving in harsh environments. Chapter 17 of Natural Conflict Resolution by Melanie Killen discusses how morality, cooperation, and altruism came to be in primates and humans as well as wolves and dolphins. Bjørn Grinde, Professor of University of Osolo, echoes this sentiment in his paper on the evolution of Human Social Behavior. Ants and bees are the epitome of cooperation and are called eusocial creatures for this reason. Biologists even compared human groups as sharing similar characteristics to superorganisms.

Conclusion

Future research of conflict resolution needs to be anchored from the perspective of the inherent conflict of maintaining homeostasis within a turbulent and extreme environment with many dangerous or supporting players. Resources, especially water and energy, are quintessential for maintaining homeostasis and thereby peace and nonviolence. We need to analyze human relationships from an ecological lens, determining if individuals or groups (e.g., institutions, businesses, and corporations) are predatory or mutualistic. Finally, we need to understand the geography and environment for signs of inhospitality on multiple scales of distance.

Frans de Waal and others studied the natural perspective of Conflict Resolution and gained much insight as a result. Humans are inherently natural, physical beings, so researchers need to keep in mind the scientific or factual narrative of humanity for theories of conflict to be effective and intelligent. Life shows remarkable creativity despite the worst odds and the abundance of destructive potential. Through constant, self-directed work, life was able to birth millions of different solutions to the problem of existence in a hostile universe that no single genius could have devised. Nature proved that even the most delicate of butterflies can flourish and that the love of others can be a powerful force for unity and cooperation across the entire mammalian kingdom. Even ferocious, deadly predators like wolves, tigers, bears, and lions are nevertheless moved by love for their children and tribes.

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