I disagree with “natural selection got the concept of “social status” into us” or that status-seeking behavior is tied to “having an intuitive “status” concept”.
For example, if Bob wants to be a movie star, then from the outside you and I can say that Bob is status-seeking, but it probably doesn’t feel like that to Bob; in fact Bob might not know what the word “status” means, and Bob might be totally oblivious to the existence of any connection between his desire to be a movie star and Alice’s desire to be a classical musician and Carol’s desire to eat at the cool kids table in middle school.
I think “status seeking” is a mish-mosh of a bunch of different things but I think an important one is very roughly “it’s intrinsically motivating to believe that other people like me”. (More discussion in §2.2.2 & §2.6.1 here and hopefully more in future posts.) I think it’s possible for the genome to build “it’s intrinsically motivating to believe that other people like me” into the brain whereas it would not be analogously possible for the genome to build “it’s intrinsically motivating to have a high inclusive genetic fitness” into the brain. There are many reasons that the latter is not realistic, not least of which is that inclusive genetic fitness is only observable in hindsight, after you’re dead.
For example, if Bob wants to be a movie star, then from the outside you and I can say that Bob is status-seeking, but it probably doesn’t feel like that to Bob; in fact Bob might not know what the word “status” means, and Bob might be totally oblivious to the existence of any connection between his desire to be a movie star and Alice’s desire to be a classical musician and Carol’s desire to eat at the cool kids table in middle school.
That seems true to me? I don’t me that humans become aligned with their explicit verbal concept of status. I mean that (many) humans are aligned with the intuitive concept that they somehow learn over the course of development.
I think it’s possible for the genome to build “it’s intrinsically motivating to believe that other people like me” into the brain whereas it would not be analogously possible for the genome to build “it’s intrinsically motivating to have a high inclusive genetic fitness” into the brain. There are many reasons that the latter is not realistic, not least of which is that inclusive genetic fitness is only observable in hindsight, after you’re dead.
I don’t me that humans become aligned with their explicit verbal concept of status. I mean that (many) humans are aligned with the intuitive concept that they somehow learn over the course of development.
How do you know that there is any intuitive concept there? For example, if Bob wants to sit at the cool kid’s table at lunch and Bob dreams of being a movie star at dinner, who’s to say that there is a single concept in Bob’s brain, verbalized or not, active during both those events and tying them together? Why can’t it simply be the case that Bob feels motivated to do one thing, and then later on Bob feels motivated to do the other thing?
Well, there’s convergent structure in the observed behavior. There’s a target that seems pretty robust to a bunch of different kinds of perturbations and initial conditions.
It’s possible that that’s implanted by a cluge of a bunch of different narrow adaptions. That’s the null hypothesis even.
But the fact that (many) people will steer systematically towards opportunities of high prestige, even when what that looks like is extremely varied, seems to me like evidence for an implicit concept that’s hooked up to some planning machinery, rather than (only) a collection of adaptions that tend to produces this kind of behavior?
I think you’re responding to something different than what I was saying.
Again, let’s say Bob wants to sit at the cool kid’s table at lunch, and Bob dreams of being a movie star at dinner. Bob feels motivated to do one thing, and then later on Bob feels motivated to do the other thing. Both are still clearly goal-directed behaviors: At lunchtime, Bob’s “planning machinery” is pointed towards “sitting at the cool kid’s table”, and at dinnertime, Bob’s “planning machinery” is pointed towards “being a movie star”. Neither of these things can be accomplished by unthinking habits and reactions, obviously.
I think there’s a deep-seated system in the brainstem (or hypothalamus). When Bob’s world-model (cortex) is imagining a future where he is sitting at the cool kid’s table, then this brainstem system flags that future as “desirable”. Then later on, when Bob’s world-model (cortex) is imagining a future where he is a movie star, then this brainstem system flags that future as “desirable”. But from the perspective of Bob’s world-model / cortex / conscious awareness (both verbalized and not), there does not have to be any concept that makes a connection between “sit at the cool kid’s table” and “be a movie star”. Right?
By analogy, if Caveman Oog feels motivated to eat meat sometimes, and to eat vegetables other times, then it might or might not be the case that Oog has a single concept akin to the English word “eating” that encompasses both eating-meat and eating-vegetables. Maybe in his culture, those are thought of as two totally different activities—the way we think of eating versus dancing. It’s not like there’s no overlap between eating and dancing—your heart is beating in both cases, it’s usually-but-not-always a group activity in both cases, it alleviates boredom in both cases—but there isn’t any concept in English unifying them. Likewise, if you asked Oog about eating-meat versus eating-vegetables, he would say “huh, never thought about that, but yeah sure, I guess they do have some things in common, like both involve putting stuff into one’s mouth and moving the jaw”. I’m not saying that this Oog thought experiment is likely, but it’s possible, right? And that illustrates the fact that coherently-and-systematically-planning-to-eat does not rely on having a concept of “eating”, whether verbalized or not.
I disagree with “natural selection got the concept of “social status” into us” or that status-seeking behavior is tied to “having an intuitive “status” concept”.
For example, if Bob wants to be a movie star, then from the outside you and I can say that Bob is status-seeking, but it probably doesn’t feel like that to Bob; in fact Bob might not know what the word “status” means, and Bob might be totally oblivious to the existence of any connection between his desire to be a movie star and Alice’s desire to be a classical musician and Carol’s desire to eat at the cool kids table in middle school.
I think “status seeking” is a mish-mosh of a bunch of different things but I think an important one is very roughly “it’s intrinsically motivating to believe that other people like me”. (More discussion in §2.2.2 & §2.6.1 here and hopefully more in future posts.) I think it’s possible for the genome to build “it’s intrinsically motivating to believe that other people like me” into the brain whereas it would not be analogously possible for the genome to build “it’s intrinsically motivating to have a high inclusive genetic fitness” into the brain. There are many reasons that the latter is not realistic, not least of which is that inclusive genetic fitness is only observable in hindsight, after you’re dead.
That seems true to me? I don’t me that humans become aligned with their explicit verbal concept of status. I mean that (many) humans are aligned with the intuitive concept that they somehow learn over the course of development.
Makes sense!
How do you know that there is any intuitive concept there? For example, if Bob wants to sit at the cool kid’s table at lunch and Bob dreams of being a movie star at dinner, who’s to say that there is a single concept in Bob’s brain, verbalized or not, active during both those events and tying them together? Why can’t it simply be the case that Bob feels motivated to do one thing, and then later on Bob feels motivated to do the other thing?
Well, there’s convergent structure in the observed behavior. There’s a target that seems pretty robust to a bunch of different kinds of perturbations and initial conditions.
It’s possible that that’s implanted by a cluge of a bunch of different narrow adaptions. That’s the null hypothesis even.
But the fact that (many) people will steer systematically towards opportunities of high prestige, even when what that looks like is extremely varied, seems to me like evidence for an implicit concept that’s hooked up to some planning machinery, rather than (only) a collection of adaptions that tend to produces this kind of behavior?
I think you’re responding to something different than what I was saying.
Again, let’s say Bob wants to sit at the cool kid’s table at lunch, and Bob dreams of being a movie star at dinner. Bob feels motivated to do one thing, and then later on Bob feels motivated to do the other thing. Both are still clearly goal-directed behaviors: At lunchtime, Bob’s “planning machinery” is pointed towards “sitting at the cool kid’s table”, and at dinnertime, Bob’s “planning machinery” is pointed towards “being a movie star”. Neither of these things can be accomplished by unthinking habits and reactions, obviously.
I think there’s a deep-seated system in the brainstem (or hypothalamus). When Bob’s world-model (cortex) is imagining a future where he is sitting at the cool kid’s table, then this brainstem system flags that future as “desirable”. Then later on, when Bob’s world-model (cortex) is imagining a future where he is a movie star, then this brainstem system flags that future as “desirable”. But from the perspective of Bob’s world-model / cortex / conscious awareness (both verbalized and not), there does not have to be any concept that makes a connection between “sit at the cool kid’s table” and “be a movie star”. Right?
By analogy, if Caveman Oog feels motivated to eat meat sometimes, and to eat vegetables other times, then it might or might not be the case that Oog has a single concept akin to the English word “eating” that encompasses both eating-meat and eating-vegetables. Maybe in his culture, those are thought of as two totally different activities—the way we think of eating versus dancing. It’s not like there’s no overlap between eating and dancing—your heart is beating in both cases, it’s usually-but-not-always a group activity in both cases, it alleviates boredom in both cases—but there isn’t any concept in English unifying them. Likewise, if you asked Oog about eating-meat versus eating-vegetables, he would say “huh, never thought about that, but yeah sure, I guess they do have some things in common, like both involve putting stuff into one’s mouth and moving the jaw”. I’m not saying that this Oog thought experiment is likely, but it’s possible, right? And that illustrates the fact that coherently-and-systematically-planning-to-eat does not rely on having a concept of “eating”, whether verbalized or not.