Yes, I agree that on this account every process is technically speaking an optimization process for some target, and I agree that optimization power can only be measured relative to particular target or class of targets.
That said, when we say that evolution, or a human-level intelligence, is an optimization process we mean something rather more than this: we mean something like that it's an optimization process with a lot of optimization power across a wide range of targets. (And, sure, I agree that if we hold the environment constant, including other evolved lifeforms, then evolution has a fixed target. If we lived in a universe where such constant environments were common, I suspect we would not be inclined to describe evolution as an optimization process.)
I don't see how that makes "optimization process" a useless notion. What do you want to use it for?
(apologies for delayed reply)
I really just want to know what Eliezer means by it. It seems to me like I have some notion of an optimisation process, that says "yep, that's definitely an optimisation process" when I think about evolution and human minds and Clippy, and says "nope, that's not really an optimisation process - at least, not one worth the name" about water rolling down a hill and thermodynamics. And I think this notion is sufficiently similar to the one that Eliezer is using. But my attempts to formalise this definition, to reduce it, have failed - I can't find any combination of words that seems to capture the boundary that my intuition is drawing between Clippy and gravity.
Today's post, Aiming at the Target was originally published on 26 October 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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