First of all I’m not “imagining a better eye”; by “fantastic eye” I mean the eye that natural selection spent 10,000 bits of optimization to create. Natural selection spent 10,000 bits for 10 units of eye goodness, then left 1⁄3 of us with a 5 bit optimization shortage that reduces our eye goodness by 3 units.
So I’m saying, if natural selection thought a unit of eye goodness is worth 1,000 bits, up to 10 units, why in modern humans doesn’t it purchase 3 whole units for only 5 bits—the same 3 units it previously purchased for 3333 bits?
I am aware of your general point that natural selection doesn’t always evolve things toward cool engineering accomplishments, but your just-so story about potential advantages of nearsightedness doesn’t reduce my surprise.
Your strength as a rationalist is to be more confused by fiction than by reality. Making up a story to explain the facts in retrospect is not a reliable algorithm for guessing the causal structure of eye-goodness and its consequences. So don’t increase the posterior probability of observing the data as if your story is evidence for it—stay confused.
So I’m saying, if natural selection thought a unit of eye goodness is worth 1,000 bits, up to 10 units, why in modern humans doesn’t it purchase 3 whole units for only 5 bits—the same 3 units it previously purchased for 3333 bits?
Perhaps, in the current environment, those 3 units aren’t worth 5 bits, even though at one point they were worth 3,333 bits. (Evolution thoroughly ignores the sunk cost fallacy.)
This suggestion doesn’t preclude other hypotheses; in fact, I’m not even intending to suggest that it’s a particularly likely scenario—hence my use of the word plausible rather than anything more enthusiastic. But it is a plausible one, which you appeared to be vigorously denying was even possible earlier. Disregarding hypotheses for no good reason isn’t particularly good rationality, either.
First of all I’m not “imagining a better eye”; by “fantastic eye” I mean the eye that natural selection spent 10,000 bits of optimization to create. Natural selection spent 10,000 bits for 10 units of eye goodness, then left 1⁄3 of us with a 5 bit optimization shortage that reduces our eye goodness by 3 units.
So I’m saying, if natural selection thought a unit of eye goodness is worth 1,000 bits, up to 10 units, why in modern humans doesn’t it purchase 3 whole units for only 5 bits—the same 3 units it previously purchased for 3333 bits?
I am aware of your general point that natural selection doesn’t always evolve things toward cool engineering accomplishments, but your just-so story about potential advantages of nearsightedness doesn’t reduce my surprise.
Your strength as a rationalist is to be more confused by fiction than by reality. Making up a story to explain the facts in retrospect is not a reliable algorithm for guessing the causal structure of eye-goodness and its consequences. So don’t increase the posterior probability of observing the data as if your story is evidence for it—stay confused.
Perhaps, in the current environment, those 3 units aren’t worth 5 bits, even though at one point they were worth 3,333 bits. (Evolution thoroughly ignores the sunk cost fallacy.)
This suggestion doesn’t preclude other hypotheses; in fact, I’m not even intending to suggest that it’s a particularly likely scenario—hence my use of the word plausible rather than anything more enthusiastic. But it is a plausible one, which you appeared to be vigorously denying was even possible earlier. Disregarding hypotheses for no good reason isn’t particularly good rationality, either.