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 07:19:27PM 1 point [-]

ADDENDUM: Maybe this phrasing will help:

To say that an organism is "trying to maximize expected fitness," applies in a broad sense to all evolved creatures, and as such is compatible with anything that any evolved creature does, including obviously fitness-reducing acts. In this broad sense, the "trying to maximize expected fitness" theory does a poor job of constraining anticipations compared to the theory that makes reference to the actual explicitly-represented goals of the organism in question. If we interpret "trying to maximize expected fitness" in a narrower sense in which organisms explicitly try to gain fitness, then it is obviously false (see, e.g., teenage suicides, women who have abortions when they could put the baby up for adoption, &c., &c.).