Why Do We All Behave In The Way We Do ? By SS O'Connor

 Why Do We All Behave In The Way We Do ? 

 By SS O'Connor

Why Do We All Behave In The Way We Do ? by SS O' Connor was published in May 2023 by Otium Press. My thanks to the Author and Publisher for sending me a copy to review and to Literally PR for inviting me to review the book. 

Synopsis

The Secrets of Life series is written for everyone who, frankly, needs a spot of cheering up, and will provide conversation starters for years after reading! O’Connor’s easy-going, conversational style brings an outsider’s questioning eye to the great forces behind life. 

The third in the four-part series explains how game theory developed, and why it came to show us not only how humans arrive at their decisions, but why so much of the apparently bizarre behaviour of the natural world has the same mathematical logic to it.

Instead of the confusion and chaos one might expect in life, O’Connor shows that there are profound reasons behind the choices organisms make when they interact, and how we humans refined this process through the addition of our intelligence and language skills.

Starting with the mind-blowing new ways of thinking that Adam Smith opened the world’s eyes to, the book progresses to the 20th century—and shows how there’s a coherent rationale behind our thought processes—and how this was gradually revealed by scientists at a time when the very future of the world was at stake. 

As O’Connor unfolds the story in Why Do We All Behave In The Way We Do?, it becomes ever clearer how cooperation has evolved to be the critical force at every level of life. It was what built our world, and it would settle so deeply into the hardwiring of living things that it would eventually become instinctive and innate in us. Perhaps most pleasingly, game theory explains how the benefits of collaboration are bound to ratchet upwards—and how this will inevitably lead to ever-increasing levels of moral behaviour in our societies.

It is so often an accepted fact that bad people will win. And yet, as Book Three so clearly explains, collaborative societies are bound to grow, that it’s rational to forgive to overcome vendettas and feuds, and that nice folks will always win in life by coming second.

My Review

This is the third book in a series of four books spanning The Secrets of Life from the Big Bang to Trump by SS O' Connor and is told in a very witty, tongue in cheek narrative starting with Adam Smith and his philosophical ideas on Game Theory and how all aspects of humanity and other forms in nature  show concepts of this theory in our everyday lives. The book follows through, in Fifteen chapters,fomr Adam Smith to Karl Sigmund in 1983 who takes the principles of Game Theory and turns it around. There are many memorable quotes in the book but one that particularly stands out for me is "Can it ever pay to be nice in a world of selfish individuals

The book is written in such a way that everyone can take an understanding away from it , whether or not they have an interest in Mathematics or Economics or not which is where you will often find the principles of Game Theory being applied. I personally read the book one chapter at a time and then had a break whilst I thought about what I had just read and how I could apply the theories to different aspects of life and nature. Consequently this had me thinking about a wide variety of life from different perspectives and questioning what I thought I knew and looking at issues from a different dimension which is actually a very healthy thing to do .

For me this was a very thought provoking book and it will be interesting to see how the fourth, and final, book in the series follows on.

About the author

SS O’Connor spent 20+ years as an advertising executive before becoming a serial entrepreneur, assembler of private equity projects, investor and corporate strategist. He has been chairman / director of numerous public and private companies. His acclaimed novel, The Prisoner’s Dilemma, published in 2013. He lives in London and Somerset.