alex_zag_al comments on Rationality Quotes September 2012 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 September 2012 05:18AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 11 September 2012 10:07:40AM *  18 points [-]

To use an analogy, if you attend a rock concert and take a box to stand on then you will get a better view. If others do the same, you will be in exactly the same position as before. Worse, even, as it may be easier to loose your balance and come crashing down in a heap (and, perhaps, bringing others with you).

-- Iain McKay et al., An Anarchist FAQ, section C.7.3

Comment author: alex_zag_al 11 September 2012 01:13:28PM 31 points [-]

Tropical rain forests, bizarrely, are the products of prisoner's dilemmas. The trees that grow in them spend the great majority of their energy growing upwards towards the sky, rather than reproducing. If they could come to a pact with their competitors to outlaw all tree trunks and respect a maximum tree height of ten feet, every tree would be better off. But they cannot.

Matt Ridley, in The Origins of Virtue

Comment author: [deleted] 12 September 2012 08:16:54AM 0 points [-]

"Better off" according to whose utility function?

Comment author: alex_zag_al 12 September 2012 08:21:44PM 5 points [-]

yeah, it's not obvious from this quote, but having read the book, I know what he means. The utility function of the tree is the sum, over all individuals, of the fraction of genes that each other individual has in common with it. He constantly talks as if plants, chromosomes, insects etc. desire to maximize this number.

I think it works, because when an organism is in its environment of evolutionary adaptation, finding that a behavior makes this number bigger than alternative behaviors would explains why the organism carries out that behavior. And if the organism does not carry out the behavior, then you need some explanation for why not. Right?

Comment author: thomblake 12 September 2012 08:27:23PM 2 points [-]

when an organism is in its environment of evolutionary adaptation

That's a really important caveat. Adaptation-Executers, not Fitness-Maximizers.

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