Surfing the Edge of Chaos by Mark Millemann

Reciprocity is the most important discipline, the hardest to codify, and the most difficult to establish. It is essential to sustained collaborative work. Reciprocity provides the bonds that enable the distributed intelligence within a living system to cleave together for the common good. The stronger the linkages, the more capable the organism of adaptive work.

In nature, reciprocal relationships are common. Chapter 5 noted the manner in which "new destinations" arise through surprising symbiotic arrangements between species. Reciprocity is also an essential requirement within species that collaborate to live or hunt (ants, bees, termites, lions, hyenas, and so forth). The Capuchin "organ grinder" monkey of South America occasionally hunts for smaller mammals and does so in groups. Only one monkey typically captures the prey, but all in the troop share the meat together. Particularly relevant to our topic, recent studies have shown that reciprocity is situationally determined-influenced by whether the monkeys have to work together to obtain food. Nature's rule seems to be: What is gained as a group must be shared by the group. Capuchins that obtained food on their own did not share it with their comrades.1