Caledonian2 comments on The Wonder of Evolution - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 November 2007 08:49PM

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Comment author: Caledonian2 03 November 2007 03:19:00AM -2 points [-]

It wasn't evolution that built your computer

Which one? Because my human-built computer is inferior is virtually every way to the one evolution produced. The only real advantages the electronic model has are that it's easy to make backups for it, and people have been writing viruses for it for a shorter period of time.

We have imperfect models, but evolution doesn't have a model at all, which is why it's stupid.

Its stupidity is still smarter than the most brilliant human.

it necessarily can't plan for the future

True. But it never fails to react appropriately to the local conditions, which humans are actually quite bad at doing. Neither are we very good at planning for or anticipating the future. But perhaps you don't consider triggering the Sixth Great Extinction to reflect poorly upon humanity's ability for forethought.

it's annoying to smugly point out things that people are already perfectly aware of

It is very important to point out things that people are already perfectly aware of but choose to ignore. The annoyingness is just a bonus. And as the readers of this site are already quite aware, the methods that make thought most powerful are those that are most antithetical to natural human modes of thought: logic and mathematics. Bayes' Theorem is smarter than the humans that use it. Funny, that.