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wedrifid comments on Confused as to usefulness of 'consciousness' as a concept - LessWrong
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Just not true. There is no sense in which a creature which voluntarily gets killed and has no chance of further mating (and no other behavioural expressions indicating life-desire) can be said to "want" not to be killed. Not even in some sloppy evolutionary anthropomorphic sense.
"Wanting" not to be killed is a useful heuristic in most cases but certainly not all of them.
Also, every use of the word "every" has exceptions.
Yes, inclusive fitness is a much better approximation than "every living thing tries to avoid death". And gene's-eye-view is better than that. And non-genetic replicators have their place. And evolved things are adaptation executers. And sometimes living beings are just so bad at avoiding death that their "expressed behavioral preferences" look like something else entirely.
I still think my generalization is a highly accurate one and makes the point I wanted to make.
Including this one.
Naturally. For instance true mathematical theorems saying that every X is Y have no exceptions.