Nature’s most common solution involves sexual reproduction—and not “tiling”. It’s not necessarily a good thing to rule out the most common solution in the statement of a problem.
The reason sexual reproduction is acceptable is that Nature doesn’t care about the outcome, as long as the outcome includes ‘be fruitful and multiply’. If we have an agent with its own goals, it will need more robust strategies to avoid its descendants’ behaviors falling back to Nature’s fundamental Darwinian imperatives.
Nature only “cares” about survival. However, that’s also exactly what we should care about—assuming that our main priority is avoiding eternal obliteration.
Don’t be silly. Any human who hasn’t fallen straight into the Valley of Bad (Pseudo-)Rationality can tell you they’ve got all kinds of goals other than survival. If you think you don’t, I recommend you possibly think about how you’re choosing what to eat for breakfast each morning, since I guarantee your morning meals are not survival-optimal.
Even to the extent that natural selection can be said to be care about anything, saying that survival is that thing is kind of misleading. It’s perfectly normal for populations to hill-climb themselves into a local optimum and then get wiped out when it’s invalidated by changing environmental conditions that a more basal but less specialized species would have been able to handle, for example.
(Pandas are a good example, or would be if we didn’t think they were cute.)
It’s perfectly normal for populations to hill-climb themselves into a local optimum and then get wiped out when it’s invalidated by changing environmental conditions that a more basal but less specialized species would have been able to handle, for example.
Sure. Optimization involves going uphill—but you might be climbing a mountain that is sinking into the sea. However, that doesn’t mean that you weren’t really optimizing—or that you were optimizing something other than altitude.
Optimization involves going uphill—but you might be climbing a mountain that is sinking into the sea. However, that doesn’t mean that you weren’t really optimizing—or that you were optimizing something other than altitude.
The question’s more about what function’s generating the fitness landscape you’re looking at (using “fitness” now in the sense of “fitness function”). “Survival” isn’t a bad way to characterize that fitness function—more than adequate for eighth-grade science, for example. But it’s a short-tern and highly specialized kind of survival, and generalizing from the word’s intuitive meaning can really get you into trouble when you start thinking about, for example, death.
The question’s more about what function’s generating the fitness landscape you’re looking at (using “fitness” now in the sense of “fitness function”). “Survival” isn’t a bad way to characterize that fitness function—more than adequate for eighth-grade science, for example. But it’s a short-tern and highly specialized kind of survival [...]
Evolution is only as short-sighted as the creatures that compose its populations. If organisms can do better by predicting the future (and sometimes they can) then the whole process is a foresightful one. Evolution is often characterised as ‘blind to the future’ - but that’s just a mistake.
If you’re dealing with creatures good enough at modeling the world to predict the future and transfer skills, then you’re dealing with memetic factors as well as genetic. That’s rather beyond the scope of natural selection as typically defined.
Granted, I suppose there are theoretical situations where that argument wouldn’t apply—but I’m having trouble imagining an animal smart enough to make decisions based on projected consequences more than one selection round out, but too dumb to talk about it. We ourselves aren’t nearly that smart individually.
If you’re dealing with creatures good enough at modeling the world to predict the future and transfer skills, then you’re dealing with memetic factors as well as genetic. That’s rather beyond the scope of natural selection as typically defined.
What?!? Natural selection applies to both genes and memes.
I suppose there are theoretical situations where that argument wouldn’t apply
I don’t think you presented a supporting argument. You referenced “typical” definitions of natural selection. I don’t know of any definitions that exclude culture. Here’s a classic one from 1970 - which explicitly includes cultural variation.
Even Darwin recognised this, saying: “The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.”
If anyone tells you that natural selection doesn’t apply to cultural variation, they are simply mistaken.
I’m having trouble imagining an animal smart enough to make decisions based on projected consequences more than one selection round out, but too dumb to talk about it.
True, but nature’s goals are not our own.
The reason sexual reproduction is acceptable is that Nature doesn’t care about the outcome, as long as the outcome includes ‘be fruitful and multiply’. If we have an agent with its own goals, it will need more robust strategies to avoid its descendants’ behaviors falling back to Nature’s fundamental Darwinian imperatives.
Nature only “cares” about survival. However, that’s also exactly what we should care about—assuming that our main priority is avoiding eternal obliteration.
Don’t be silly. Any human who hasn’t fallen straight into the Valley of Bad (Pseudo-)Rationality can tell you they’ve got all kinds of goals other than survival. If you think you don’t, I recommend you possibly think about how you’re choosing what to eat for breakfast each morning, since I guarantee your morning meals are not survival-optimal.
So:
What most humans tell you about their goals should be interpreted as public relations material;
Most humans are victims of memetic hijacking;
To give an example of a survivalist, here’s an individual who proposes that we should be highly prioritizing species-level survival:
The end of humanity: Nick Bostrom at TEDxOxford
As you say, this is not a typical human being—since Nick says he is highly concerned about others.
There are many other survivalists out there, many of whom are much more concerned with personal survival.
Even to the extent that natural selection can be said to be care about anything, saying that survival is that thing is kind of misleading. It’s perfectly normal for populations to hill-climb themselves into a local optimum and then get wiped out when it’s invalidated by changing environmental conditions that a more basal but less specialized species would have been able to handle, for example.
(Pandas are a good example, or would be if we didn’t think they were cute.)
Well, I have gone into more details elsewhere.
Sure. Optimization involves going uphill—but you might be climbing a mountain that is sinking into the sea. However, that doesn’t mean that you weren’t really optimizing—or that you were optimizing something other than altitude.
The question’s more about what function’s generating the fitness landscape you’re looking at (using “fitness” now in the sense of “fitness function”). “Survival” isn’t a bad way to characterize that fitness function—more than adequate for eighth-grade science, for example. But it’s a short-tern and highly specialized kind of survival, and generalizing from the word’s intuitive meaning can really get you into trouble when you start thinking about, for example, death.
Evolution is only as short-sighted as the creatures that compose its populations. If organisms can do better by predicting the future (and sometimes they can) then the whole process is a foresightful one. Evolution is often characterised as ‘blind to the future’ - but that’s just a mistake.
If you’re dealing with creatures good enough at modeling the world to predict the future and transfer skills, then you’re dealing with memetic factors as well as genetic. That’s rather beyond the scope of natural selection as typically defined.
Granted, I suppose there are theoretical situations where that argument wouldn’t apply—but I’m having trouble imagining an animal smart enough to make decisions based on projected consequences more than one selection round out, but too dumb to talk about it. We ourselves aren’t nearly that smart individually.
What?!? Natural selection applies to both genes and memes.
I don’t think you presented a supporting argument. You referenced “typical” definitions of natural selection. I don’t know of any definitions that exclude culture. Here’s a classic one from 1970 - which explicitly includes cultural variation. Even Darwin recognised this, saying: “The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.”
If anyone tells you that natural selection doesn’t apply to cultural variation, they are simply mistaken.
I recommend not pursuing this avenue.