[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[John 6IX Breezy]

Your genes by definition is of the same style as your genes.   So the survival of your genes necessary means the survival of your style of genes.    But the survival of your style of genes doesn’t require the survival of your genes, so long as there are others to carry your style of genes. 

So If you contain a style of gene that causes you to become inclined to help others at your own expense who phenotypically appears to you to resemble you in some important way, and you also have a gene which causes you to be more inclined to notice and be influenced by such phenotypical resemblances as correlating to a higher than normal genetic resemblance to you, then your inclination to help others is selected for not because it makes you more likely to survive, but because it makes the genes similar to that which you carry, more likely to survive.

(Disclaimer: long and possibly sloppy comment cause I'm doing something else)

The "style of genes" is what I meant by the ethereal Bob gene, so I partly agree. But when talking about "styles of genes" it become important to distinguish the observer from the observation. Talking about styles of genes make sense only in our minds, because our brains are able to extract information and classify things by types, classes, etc. We can look at my Nissan Versa and your Toyota Corolla and identify that they belong to the same style of car, despite them being separate cars. We can even look at Robins and Flamingos, despite their differences, and put them under the classification of birds.

But these classes and styles take form in our minds only; we can manipulate them there as variables and objects. Talking of such things stops making sense when we remove ourselves from the equation. Thus why I said it only makes sense if "styles of genes" or Bob exists in some kind of ethereal realm. What I'm trying to communicate by ethereal realm is the platonic idea that concepts in the mind, such as a circle, are accounted for in their perfect form in some ethereal realm (McConnell, 2010). In other words that styles of genes are a real thing out there in the universe that can be selected for in its entirety, despite the individual manifestations of that style being lost.

I think the only way around it is to get rid of the idea of "kin" selection and relatedness entirely and focus exclusively on the genes that are causing altruism. In other words, altruism works only if Bob is directly responsible for the altruistic behavior, and it is benefiting other Bob genes that are likewise directly responsible for altruistic behavior, creating a loop. It has nothing to do with relatedness or styles, and everything to do with the mechanisms of replication and behavior. If Jerry is a likewise altruism-causing gene, then Bob and Jerry are going to mutually benefit each other and increase their frequency in the gene pool regardless of relatedness. Its also worth noting that only Bob and Jerry directly benefit from this interaction, not the organism or any of the other genes in the organism. All other genes are only passengers in the ship that Bob and Jerry are steering and can get kicked out at any point.

Reference:  McConnell, Daniel. (2010). Philosophical and theoretical foundations of psychology (2nd. ed.). Florida: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company