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SoullessAutomaton comments on Least Signaling Activities? - Less Wrong
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I would guess because a hypothesis that explains everything explains nothing.
Viewing social interaction as primarily driven by signaling isn't a hypothesis that "explains everything", as it has implicit in it most of the inferences one would reasonably draw from evolutionary psychology.
However, it is the case that given Robin's perspective, the statement "Activity X is done for signaling purposes, possibly subconsciously so" is at best inane and at worst tautological.
I guess you are saying my perspective is innane. What does it signal to write a comment saying " this poster's perspective is inane", without offering a reason for believing this?
I think he was just saying that you identify so much behavior as signaling, that pointing out a given behavior as signaling is redundant. Specifying what the behavior might signal (among other things) would be neither inane nor tautological; it's just that in the context of the overwhelming signaling you hold to be all over the place, saying "Activity X is done for signaling purposes, perhaps subconsciously so" is like saying "that cubic foot of apparently empty space is occupied by air, and some amount of water vapor the exact amount of which varies with overall humidity". Sure, it's true, but there is no obvious reason to say it about that cubic foot of apparently empty space and not all apparently empty space near Earth as a whole.
Not in the slightest, and I apologize for the miscommunication. Alicorn is precisely correct in clarifying my intent (and probably does so better than I would have).
I actually think many of your discussions on the effects of various kinds of signaling are quite interesting, in fact.