Good point. You can take the intentional stance with regards to cells pretty decently.
But mesa-optimizers have the connotation that they emerge within the optimized substrate as a consequence of outer optimization. I don’t think that narrative fits with cells and humans at all. Both humans and cells are mesaoptimizers implied by the genetic code, with evolution as the outer optimization process, but they don’t have that kind of inner/outer optimizer relationship to each other. If anything, humans are closer to being the mesaoptimizers of cells than vice versa.
Good point. You can take the intentional stance with regards to cells pretty decently.
But mesa-optimizers have the connotation that they emerge within the optimized substrate as a consequence of outer optimization. I don’t think that narrative fits with cells and humans at all. Both humans and cells are mesaoptimizers implied by the genetic code, with evolution as the outer optimization process, but they don’t have that kind of inner/outer optimizer relationship to each other. If anything, humans are closer to being the mesaoptimizers of cells than vice versa.