George Saunders. According to a new study, published in the journal Nature, winning is not everything and in the end the selfish will "compete each other out of existence". In the study, which used computer games to simulate scenarios calling for collaboration or double-crossing, selfish strategists won out initially. But, soon the co-operators figured out the strategists game and were victorious. "Communication is critical for co-operation – we think communication is the reason co-operation occurs," Christoph Adami, a professor at Michigan State University and the lead author of the paper told The Independent. “In an evolutionary setting, with populations of strategies, you need extra information to distinguish each other. "We found evolution will punish you if you're selfish and mean. For a short time and against a specific set of opponents, some selfish organisms may come out ahead. But selfishness isn't evolutionarily sustainable."

Not only this, but fascinatingly it seems our cells can tell the difference between selfish and selfless behaviour - even when both behaviours make us feel happy. In a study, published in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that gene activity is healthier when we act in a selfless way. After asking 80 healthy adults what made them happy, the researchers analysed the participants' white blood cells. They discovered that those driven primarily by selfish, hedonistic pursuits had increased biological markers said to promote inflammation but decreased markers that help to ward off infection. On the other hand, the participants who reported pleasure from selfless, or eudaimonic, pursuits had decreased inflammation markers but more of the markers that help to produce the antibodies which maintain our immune system.

The results reveal that even if, in our mind, we are happy as a result of hedonism, "our genes can tell the difference", the study's lead author told The New York Times. It's nice to know that our bodies know what's going on, even when our minds do not, because for all the loneliness and sense of separation people feel at different times in life, we are all connected. And this is arguably another reason why selflessness is so important. This concept of connectedness underpins yoga, Buddhism and meditation philosophy. But it is a concept that is also steeped in science. "The very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centres of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life," says astrophysicist and director of New York's Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson. "So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That's kind of cool. That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It's not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us."

With this in mind, helping others is helping ourselves. Understanding our connection to one another and to the world around us can also increase our empathy for each other and… with any luck our love for others. At least, that is George Saunders hopes. In his talk he said that despite the difficulty of kindness, we have one thing going for us. "Some of this 'becoming kinder' happens naturally, with age. It might be a simple matter of attrition: as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish – how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defence, and help us, and we learn that we're not separate, and don't want to be. "We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now). Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.

"And so, a prediction, and my heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE. "There's a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness. But there's also a cure. So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf – seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life." He suggests that the students do what they need to in life - travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers. "But as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you towards the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality – your soul, if you will – is as bright and shining as any that has ever been. Bright as Shakespeare's, bright as Gandhi's, bright as Mother Teresa's. Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly."