J_Thomas comments on Thou Art Godshatter - Less Wrong

68 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 13 November 2007 07:38PM

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Comment author: J_Thomas 14 November 2007 12:53:08PM 0 points [-]

Just as an aside, fitness maximizers usually have to accept a finite population size in a finite biome with a finite carrying capacity. There's the possible goal of expanding into the galaxy and neighboring galaxies, but in the short run we have a finite carrying capacity.

And a fitness maximizer that is too successful has to accept it needs to preserve a lot of diversity in its gene pool or else face problems that would essentially reduce carrying capacity.

A conscious fitness maximizer at some point must realise that it survives by maintaining its numbers in a diverse population, rather than maximizing the frequency of its genes.