If your map significantly doesn’t match the territory, natural selection is likely to be brutal to you.
Another way to think about his idea:
Natural selection is equally brutal to all life. Moss and ants have horrible maps, but they are still successful in terms of natural selection.
If, magically, you get a choice between getting a more accurate map or a less accurate map, you should always choose the more accurate map.
I think that point he’s trying to make is that natural selection doesn’t magically get a choice between maps. In general, a more accurate map will only become available to the mind of some creature if it happens to be adaptive for genes in a particular population in a particular environment.
Think of all the creatures with really bad maps. In terms of reproduction, they are doing just fine. For some species, their relative reproductive success can be improved with more accurate maps, but that’s a means to the end of reproductive success,
There are many ways to “make a living” in evolutionary terms, and having a mind with accurate maps is only one of them.
Think of all the creatures who don’t have “maps” as humans do. They are still being acted upon by natural selection.
He’s using “indifferent” metaphorically. He would completely agree that natural selection has no mind.
What he means is that natural selection operates on differential rates of reproduction of genes, not on the accuracy/truth of the beliefs that the mind of an individual holds.
Maybe I should have included the whole paragraph:
“And even when “truth” can be clearly defined, it is a concept to which natural selection is indifferent. To be sure, if an accurate portrayal of reality, to oneself or to others can help spread one’s genes, then accuracy of perception or communication may evolve. And often this will be the case (when, say, you remember where food is stored, and share the data with offspring or siblings). But when accurate reporting and genetic interest do thus intersect, that’s just a happy coincidence. Truth and honesty are never favored by natural selection in and of themselves. Natural selection neither “prefers” honesty nor “prefers” dishonesty. It just doesn’t care.”
He’s talking about the “maps” that humans/animals may carry in their brains. These maps don’t need to match the territory to be adaptive (I think your criticism of the quote hinges on how you would define “significantly”). But there’s quite a bit of space where a “bad map” does not prevent adaptive behavior.
For example, some non-venomous snakes “copied” the color patterns of venomous snakes. It’s still adaptive for animals to avoid all snakes with this coloring (just to be safe) without needing to know the truth about which snake is dangerous and which isn’t. And natural selection is “rewarding” the non-venomous snake for lying about how dangerous it is.
Your discussion of failure modes at the bottom of this comment is excellent.
Do you have any recommend books or articles on the topic?
Has there already been a post about these failure modes on the main page? If not, please expand this into a main post.
Too all other readers, please feel free to share books or articles on the topic.
I think she means urgency from the perspective of the general population; many people are at risk if a growing number of people stop getting vaccines.
I think members of the organic food movement feel that their cause is urgent, but members of the general population are not put in danger by their decision to eat organic food and therefore don’t have urgent feelings about it.
[Charles] Darwin wrote in his autobiography of a habit he called a “golden rule”: to immediately write down any observation that seemed inconsistent with his theories—”for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favorable ones.”
-Robert Wright, The Moral Animal, p.280
And even when “truth” can be clearly defined, it is a concept to which natural selection is indifferent.
-Robert Wright, The Moral Animal, p. 272
There are drugs for alcoholics that make you sick if you drink, so it makes you feel miserable short-run but may help you to be stable/functional/productive long run.
Keep lot of slips of paper on a clipboard next to the bed. Give each idea its own slip (so they can easily be sorted later). Lay down on the bed 25 minutes early, which will give you time for the thoughts to arise, then you’ll get your full sleep time.
Not to derail the post, but I saw on your blog you had IQ testing done. I just had it done, about to get the results.
Do you have any recommendations for resources that will help me make sense of the results? My motivation in taking the test was to see what types of problems/domains I might be good at (relative to my own performance in other domains).
The links were broken for me.
I picking up my kit from the post office tomorrow. I’m also gifting all four grandparents with kits for Christmas. I would be very interested to hear what you plan to do with your data.
Look at this site:
http://www.23andyou.com/3rdparty
I haven’t looked at it closely yet, but it may prove valuable. I would love to hear suggestions from other people on the site about what I should do with my data, especially given that all my grandparents will do it, which is probably very rare at this point in history.
I agree that small physical differences can be very consequential—wouldn’t small mental differences be similarly consequential?
http://www.radiolab.org/story/91618-lying-to-ourselves/
This radiolab episode discusses how swimmers who engage in more self-deception win more frequently, controlling for other factors (i.e., self-deceivers on a division 3, 2, and 1 teams are more likely to beat their opponents, so at different levels of physical skill their mentality is predictive).
We are talking about very small margins of victory in many (or most) cases.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at here—that the victory of a particular person is attributable to noise because the margin of error is small?
Thanks for your reply.
Can you point me to any articles/sites about biofeedback devices? Have you done biofeedback yourself?
Perhaps you’re right about the bomb squad heart rate, maybe a moderately raised rate would be a proxy for optimal/peak arousal levels. However, I’d guess that a little too much calm is better than overwhelming panic, which would probably be a more typical reaction to approaching a bomb that’s about to explode.
I agree that a coach would be better, but a book is a more practical option at the moment.
(this may sound snarky, but isn’t) Did you learn meditation from a teacher, or from a step-by-step book? The steps you give seem are simple (not easy), and a good starting point. I think a meditation coach would help you flesh these out, but those kinds of precise instruction are what I’m looking for.
This is not exactly a reply to your question, but I think your question is fits this dynamic:
Miller’s Iron Law of Iniquity
In principle, there is an evolutionary trade-off between any two positive traits. But in practice, every good trait correlates positively with every other good trait.
TLDR: Requesting articles/papers/books that feature detailed/explicit “how-to” sections for bio-feedback/visualization/mental training for improving performance (mostly mental, but perhaps cognitive as well)
Years ago I saw an interview with Michael Phelps’ (Olympic swimmer) coach in which he claims that most Olympic-finalist caliber swimmers have nearly indistinguishable physical capabilities, Phelps’ ability to focus and visualize success is what set him apart.
I also saw a program about free divers (staying underwater for minutes) who slow their heart-rates through meditation.
I also read that elite military units visualize to remain calm and carry out complex tasks despite incredible stress (for instance, bomb squad members with heart rates lower in the presence of a bomb than on an average afternoon at the base). Unfortunately I didn’t record the sources of these various pieces, so I can’t link to them
Has anyone read any specific how-to books on the topic, i.e., here are step-by-step instructions for visualizations, lowering heart rate, mental clarity, etc?
Rich people treat the space stations as cabins.
Alternately, artist colony for the next generation of super-wealthy artists like Damien Hearst (spelling?) need to go for “artistic inspiration” (scare quotes due to Hansonian signling).
I read GTD about four months ago and have started using it at work. It’s made an incredible difference by 1) reducing the instances I feel overwhelmed or confused about what to do 2) helping me to better track my primary projects 3) helping me not to forget about small projects or put off the steps to getting them started 4) the system reminds me of what I’m waiting for other people to do, which I never tracked efficiently before.
I second Checklist Manifesto due to content.
I second Gang Leader not only for interesting content, but because I found the voice acting to add to the content (I sometimes give up on interesting content because I can’t stand the voice acting)
All natural selection “cares about” is genes copied. Claws, peacock tail feathers, and “maps” can all “make a difference,” but natural selection only acts on the results (genes copied); natural selection itself doesn’t favor any particular kind of adaptation, that’s why I think the original quote is not an overstatement.