diegocaleiro comments on Your intuitions are not magic - Less Wrong

65 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 10 June 2010 12:11AM

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Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 10 June 2010 09:02:25PM *  8 points [-]

I do know why I trust my intuitions as much as I do. My intuitions are partly the result of natural selection and so I can expect that they can be trusted for the purposes of surviving and reproducing. In domains that closely resemble the environment where this selection process took place I trust my intuition more, in domains that do not resemble that environment I trust my intuition less.

Black box or not, the fact that we are here is good evidence that they (our intuitions) work (on net).

Comment author: diegocaleiro 12 June 2010 08:18:54AM 3 points [-]

How sexy is that?

If you are evaluating intuitions, there are two variables you should account for. The similarity with evolutionary environment, indeed. AND your current posterior belief of the importance of this kind of act in the variance of offspring production.

We definitely evolved in an environment full of ants. Does that mean my understanding of ant-colony intelligence is intuitive?