A strong positive sign of a new theory’s validity is one is frequently able to simplify one’s understanding of old discoveries through use of the new theory. Here are a few examples from the past few days of old ideas that make more sense when framed in terms of shard theory:
“Individual organisms are best thought of as adaptation-executers rather than as fitness-maximizers.”
—John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, The Psychological Foundations of Culture.
This is highly speculative, so feel free to point out if I am misrepresenting the theory, but couldn’t human reward circuitry itself be viewed as “evolutionary shards” so to speak? As in, the reward circuitry itself is a collection of shards created during the pursuit of the “maximize reproductive fitness” goal?
I once attended a presentation on grief at a psychiatry conference. The presenter treated grief as a form of updating on prediction error. Your spouse dies. The next morning, you wake up and expect to find your spouse in bed with you. They aren’t. The situation is worse than you expected. Actual hedonic state is lower than predicted hedonic state, reward prediction error is negative. You now feel bad.
Of course, your conscious brain should be able to fully update on “I will not see my spouse again” the moment they die. This explanation assumes that the unconscious is slower to update. I accept this assumption. I’ve never had a partner die, but I’ve had some bad breakups. The next few months really are a series of “If only X were here…” and “This is so much worse without X”. Then eventually I mostly update and stop thinking of X being around as a natural comparison.
Shard theory seems to provide a much more natural explanation of these “subsequent pangs of grief”comapred with the “subconscious updating slower than the conscious mind” explanation.
Deeply embedded features of our lives like spouses are present in many different shards, and every shard has to update before the grief can be processed.
A strong positive sign of a new theory’s validity is one is frequently able to simplify one’s understanding of old discoveries through use of the new theory. Here are a few examples from the past few days of old ideas that make more sense when framed in terms of shard theory:
Adaptation-Executers, not Fitness-Maximizers
This is highly speculative, so feel free to point out if I am misrepresenting the theory, but couldn’t human reward circuitry itself be viewed as “evolutionary shards” so to speak? As in, the reward circuitry itself is a collection of shards created during the pursuit of the “maximize reproductive fitness” goal?
Another example from Scott Alexander’s most recent post (and congrats on the shout-out for your post on “Reward is not the optimization target”).
Shard theory seems to provide a much more natural explanation of these “subsequent pangs of grief”comapred with the “subconscious updating slower than the conscious mind” explanation.
Deeply embedded features of our lives like spouses are present in many different shards, and every shard has to update before the grief can be processed.