Allan_Crossman comments on Adaptation-Executers, not Fitness-Maximizers - Less Wrong

42 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 11 November 2007 06:39AM

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Comment author: Allan_Crossman 09 July 2008 04:08:29PM 2 points [-]

An expected fitness maximiser is just an expected utility maximiser, where the utility function is God's utility function.

I searched Google for "expected utility maximiser" and the 6th hit was your own website:

An expected utility maximiser is a theoretical agent who considers its actions, computes their consequences and then rates them according to a utility function.

The typical organism just doesn't do this. I think you'd have a hard time arguing that even a higher mammal does this.

I am not clear about your claim that Deep Blue thinks, but organisms do not. Are you ignoring animals?

I didn't say organisms don't think. I said they don't think about their fitness. They think about things like surviving, eating, finding mates, and so on, all of which usually contribute to reproduction in a natural environment.

The proof of this really is the way that a great many humans have indeed rebelled against their genes, and knowingly choose not to maximise their fitness. Dawkins, for example, has only one child. As a high-status male, he could presumably have had many more.