Cyan comments on Ephemeral correspondence - Less Wrong

21 Post author: So8res 10 April 2015 03:46AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 27 April 2015 06:19:41AM 3 points [-]

I want to accuse you of drawing causal arrows from consciousness to other modules of human mind design, which as far as I know is ruled out, evolutionarily speaking.

Why would that be? Did evolution stop once man became conscious? Even if all the modules were there before consciousness arose that does not mean that evolution could not have given consciousness some sort of causal effects on some mind modules.

In fact, if consciousness did not have effects on our mind modules, what would it have an effect on?

Comment author: EphemeralNight 28 April 2015 06:47:30PM 0 points [-]

Consciousness is the most recent module, and that does mean that. I'm sorry, I thought this was one point that wasn't even in dispute. It was laid out pretty clearly in the Evolution Sequence:

Complex adaptations take a very long time to evolve. First comes allele A, which is advantageous of itself, and requires a thousand generations to fixate in the gene pool. Only then can another allele B, which depends on A, begin rising to fixation. A fur coat is not a strong advantage unless the environment has a statistically reliable tendency to throw cold weather at you. Well, genes form part of the environment of other genes, and if B depends on A, B will not have a strong advantage unless A is reliably present in the genetic environment

Evolutions Are Stupid (But Work Anyway)

Comment author: Cyan 28 April 2015 08:11:04PM 3 points [-]

Consciousness is the most recent module, and that does mean [that drawing causal arrows from consciousness to other modules of human mind design is ruled out, evolutionarily speaking.]

The causes of the fixation of a genotype in a population are distinct from the causal structures of the resulting phenotype instantiated in actual organisms.

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