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hairyfigment comments on Rationality Quotes Thread February 2015 - Less Wrong
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Comments (127)
As a general statement the quote seems absurd (except in the sense that natural selection has no mind and is thus indifferent to everything). But note that our ancestors' beliefs interacted with evolution by way of predictions (conscious or unconscious) and not by truth directly. Our normative 'beliefs' may have had reproductive value in other ways, but this need have nothing to do with moral truth as defined by those same norms.
I don't understand what this means.
Is this quote talking about morality and moral "truth"? That's not how I read it -- if it does, it needs more context.
Evolution determines gene survival by (to use a hypothetical example) whether or not you can throw a spear, rather than whether or not you have an accurate picture of the the underlying physics.
Beats me, I just read the title underneath.
yes, i would like to agree with you sir :)
He's using "indifferent" metaphorically. He would completely agree that natural selection has no mind.
What he means is that natural selection operates on differential rates of reproduction of genes, not on the accuracy/truth of the beliefs that the mind of an individual holds.