DeVliegendeHollander comments on Rationality Quotes Thread March 2015 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Vaniver 02 March 2015 11:38PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 04 March 2015 09:13:40AM 6 points [-]

Eric S. Raymond: "Interesting human behavior tends to be overdetermined."

Example sources:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4213

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?m=20020525

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6599

Comment author: arundelo 04 March 2015 02:38:08PM 14 points [-]

I didn't understand this quote out of context so I followed one of the links and he explains it in this comment:

It's something I learned from animal ethology. An "overdetermined" behavior is one for which there are multiple sufficient explanations. To unpack: "For every interesting behavior of animals and humans there is more than one valid and sufficient causal theory." Evolution likes overdetermined behaviors; they serve multiple functions at once.