I appreciate your response and I'm going to have a long think about biophilia (I do believe that what I've argued about niceness does point to physical truths about how life and, at a deeper level, systems theory work, although I'm still working out those truths--biophilia and the pragmatic usefulness of cooperation are major issues I'm still thinking about daily now).

I have also wondered if we can go even deeper on this issue--cohesion for mutual benefit could, arguably, extend to the existence of subatomic particles (quarks are less stable alone than when attached to other quarks, for instance). I have developed a quite detailed teleological and ontological worldview from this which has deeply challenged my long-held atheism, so I don't know if this means I'm uncovering something significant or just going slightly mad.