Cyan comments on If it looks like utility maximizer and quacks like utility maximizer... - Less Wrong

14 Post author: taw 11 June 2009 06:34PM

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Comment author: timtyler 11 June 2009 09:06:16PM *  0 points [-]

Re: We will not find any utility maximization related outside selection process - so we are not maximizers when it comes to happiness, global well-being, ecological responsibility, and so on.

Is exhaustive search a "selection process"? What about random search?

These are certainly optimisation strategies - and if they are "selection processes" then are there any search strategies that are not selection processes? If not, then "selection process" has become a pretty meaningless term.

It's like saying that you can't find an optimum unless you perform a search for it - which is hardly much of an insight.

Comment author: Cyan 11 June 2009 09:15:37PM 0 points [-]

It's a prediction -- an empirical claim, not a definition.

Comment author: timtyler 11 June 2009 09:21:18PM 1 point [-]

The post talks about "selection processes" without saying what that term actually means. If you think for a moment about what that term means, the claim seems likely to either be wrong, or trivially true.

Comment author: Cyan 12 June 2009 12:09:29AM 0 points [-]

I took "selection processes" to mean "natural selection".

Comment author: timtyler 12 June 2009 05:18:01AM 0 points [-]

That is probably not what it means. There are various definitions of selection - e.g. see Hull 1988 for one example:

Selection: 'a process in which the differential extinction and proliferation of interaction causes the differential perpetuation of the replicators that produced them'.