Z._M._Davis 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: Z._M._Davis 09 July 2008 05:16:03PM 4 points [-]

"Organisms really do maximise their expected fitness - just like all other expected fitness maximisers. It's just that their expectations may not be a good match for reality."

Tim, I hate to be rude, but I think this is just silly. There are a nontrival number of people who deliberately refrain from having children. To the extent that your theory can explain them, it can explain anything.

If you're careful about how you define utility, you can probably "explain" any actions with expected utility theory. It's trivial; it's an abuse of the formalism; it's arguing by definition.