And the Winner for Most Probable God is... Azathoth?

[Formless]

Hell with it, Yudkowsky basically summs up my position here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/l3/thou_art_godshatter/ and here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/l0/adaptationex ... aximizers/

[Channel72]

Because it inevitably leads back to the mistake of assuming that evolution designs with a purpose, and that the purpose is "increase fitness." Or "survive". or "Pass on genes."

But evolution has no mind. You could only know that humans are altruistic and are biased towards the ingroup from observing humans in the oresent. We didn't have to evolve that way. Similarly, that we were to become bipeds could only have been known after the fact, but you could not have predicted that before hand.

I'm not really sure what you're arguing, or how this response necessarily refutes anything I've said. I'm not sure we even disagree about anything. I'm well aware that evolution is not a teleological process; it is simply a purposeless algorithm that passes on genes. However, behavior we observe in organisms today can be explained by the evolutionary process. For example, we can answer the question "why does organism X exhibit behavior Y?" by saying "organism X exhibits behavior Y because the gene that expressed behavior Y was selected as advantageous."

[Formless]

No, they are explained by chemical processes, and the brain/mind is explained by its own set of processes analogous to computation. Do you see the difference?

Edit: okay, here look. In terms of science, explanations must propose a mechanism. Saying "organism X exhibits behavior Y because the gene that expressed behavior Y was selected as advantageous" does not do this, all it does is propose a causual chain. Causual chains are useful to know, but say nothing about human nature on their own.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Except that people who define the ingroup along national or religious borders are aligning themselves with people they are not likely to even meet, let alone have consistent interactions with. The only explanation is that they are aligning themselves with a steriotype in their minds. And indeed, when we look at such groups we can see that this is the case. The Nazis had an idealized Aryan race, communists identified as the Proliteriat, Americans identify as True Patriots, homophobes and mysogenists identify as Real Men, Christians are quick to commit No true Scotsman fallacies whenever you bring up the Crusades or the Inquisition, and so on and so forth. To say that all this can be accounted for by our inability to smell our blood relatives is nothing but an ad hock justification for something you've yet to sufficiently show as true.

Look at it this way. Without kin recognition how are we to determine who is In and who is Out? Social relationships. In the beginning, we formed these same stereotypes, these simple cognitive shortcuts, for relatively small groups of people. Now the groups are large and have become more abstract. The same basic rules still apply to the behavior however. Our brains use an existing mode of behavior in order to cope for a new situation for which it is not optimized.

What about those of us who are more attracted to people of different races or genotypes? For example, I think that asian chicks are hot in part because they are so different from the norm around here.

There is also a competing need for genetic diversification. People do not like the smell of someone with the same MHC, they like the smell of someone with a slightly different MHC, but not too different, that may lead to incompatibilities and immune deficiencies. Your attraction is atypical, but probably also evolutionarily stable. There have always been individuals who are attracted to those who are significantly different from them while the majority is not.

This strategy probably exists, like many other forms of polyphenism as an Evolutionary Stable Strategy. The cost/benefit ratio of the different strategies determines its frequency. Genetically speaking, you take a higher risk, but the potential benefit in terms of genetic diversification of your offspring makes it a successful bet-hedging strategy that is stable through time. These ESS's are very common.

In fact, this makes sense from an evolutionary point of view as well-- genetic diversity ensures that our children will have advantages that we did not, such as resistances to certain diseases.

There is also a risk. You may have resistance to new diseases, but you may also have reduced resistance to old ones. Again, risk/benefit tradeoff. The frequency of the genotype that leads to this phenotype (or rather, the genotype that makes you prone to the way of thinking which makes you prone to this particular mate-choice strategy) is determined by that ratio.

And yet you still see people say that animals behave the way they do in order to "maximize fitness"... even though evolution does not plan that far ahead. As Yudkowsky notes, our taste buds do not magically start finding lettuce and other greens to be tasty when we've become obese. In fact, we actually can get addicted to fatty foods, thus making us even more obese than before.

Now we are just getting into an argument regarding semantics. It is very very difficult to talk about these things without going into fitness landscapes. It would be better to describe it as the iterative finding of a local fitness maximum if you imagine fitness peaks and valleys on a massive three dimensional grid with possible genotypes on the X and Z axes and the associated fitness values of the associated phenotypes in a given environment at a given time on the Y when you consider mutation to be small random movements along the X and Z axes... You cant talk like that casually

Look, obviously we evolved those behaviors. But you could not have predicted that we would have evolved those particular behaviors and not a different set of behaviors because the driving force that creates changes to the gene pool is random mutation. There are any number of traits that could have evolved... but they didn't. Evolution does not plan ahead.

Indeed it does not. Some things however are easier than others, particularly given prior history (and associated constraints) and positive feedback loops in selective pressures.

[Alyrium Denryle]

No, they are explained by chemical processes, and the brain/mind is explained by its own set of processes analogous to computation. Do you see the difference?

Edit: okay, here look. In terms of science, explanations must propose a mechanism. Saying "organism X exhibits behavior Y because the gene that expressed behavior Y was selected as advantageous" does not do this, all it does is propose a causual chain. Causual chains are useful to know, but say nothing about human nature on their own.

Sure. You have to define what the selective pressure was, if you can what genes it drive to fixation (or diversified in the case of diversifying selection), and what the gene or genes do which create the behavior in question.

[Formless]

Look at it this way. Without kin recognition how are we to determine who is In and who is Out? Social relationships. In the beginning, we formed these same stereotypes, these simple cognitive shortcuts, for relatively small groups of people. Now the groups are large and have become more abstract. The same basic rules still apply to the behavior however. Our brains use an existing mode of behavior in order to cope for a new situation for which it is not optimized.

That sounds like another ad hock justification, Aly. We see that the same mental process is at work when dealing with the elderly (who may even be your blood relatives!), other groups of people, and even animals: that to me suggests that there is some other selection pressure at work that drove the development of steriotyping besides or in addition to inclusive fitness.

There is also a competing need for genetic diversification. People do not like the smell of someone with the same MHC, they like the smell of someone with a slightly different MHC, but not too different, that may lead to incompatibilities and immune deficiencies. Your attraction is atypical, but probably also evolutionarily stable. There have always been individuals who are attracted to those who are significantly different from them while the majority is not.

This strategy probably exists, like many other forms of polyphenism as an Evolutionary Stable Strategy. The cost/benefit ratio of the different strategies determines its frequency. Genetically speaking, you take a higher risk, but the potential benefit in terms of genetic diversification of your offspring makes it a successful bet-hedging strategy that is stable through time. These ESS's are very common.

I should probably note that I'm not just attracted to aisian girls (of which there aren't many in this area), although that might explain why black girls generally do nothing for me.

Now we are just getting into an argument regarding semantics. It is very very difficult to talk about these things without going into fitness landscapes. It would be better to describe it as the iterative finding of a local fitness maximum if you imagine fitness peaks and valleys on a massive three dimensional grid with possible genotypes on the X and Z axes and the associated fitness values of the associated phenotypes in a given environment at a given time on the Y when you consider mutation to be small random movements along the X and Z axes... You cant talk like that casually

I don't know, most of the time I see this it goes beyond metaphore, especially amongst ignorant lay people whove been wowed by evo-psychobabble. But then, I've also seen at least one professional attempt to re-formulate Maslows Higherarchy of Needs into Evo-psych terms, and... well, lets just say that they came off like they didn't know what either motives or selection pressures are. You really do have to know your stuff in both fields before you can comment on evo-psych.

Sure. You have to define what the selective pressure was, if you can what genes it drive to fixation (or diversified in the case of diversifying selection), and what the gene or genes do which create the behavior in question.

Which is all and good, but once it comes time to describe the motive for the behavior you can bet all that evolutionary jargon becomes unnecessary.

Indeed it does not. Some things however are easier than others, particularly given prior history (and associated constraints) and positive feedback loops in selective pressures.

Then we have come to a conscensus. Excellent.

[Alyrium Denryle]

That sounds like another ad hock justification, Aly. We see that the same mental process is at work when dealing with the elderly (who may even be your blood relatives!), other groups of people, and even animals: that to me suggests that there is some other selection pressure at work that drove the development of steriotyping besides or in addition to inclusive fitness.

To be fair, most of trying to determine what selective pressures acted to give us current phenotypes is ad hoc. It is done after the fact by definition. That said, finding a local maximum in inclusive fitness is one of the constraints I was referring to. Of course there were other things in the environment. The requirement that altruism evolve through kin selection and reciprocal altruism, and any other forms of altruism being by-products of how humans accomplish that in a social environment is just part of the equation.

Stereotyping is a cognitive shortcut to decision making. Think through it and think why this may be better than possible alternatives for early humanoids. I await your response (I will do the same, though right now I am mentally exhausted from my Bible Fight with my own sperm donor, and Elfdart being a fuckstick). We can then go through them, rule out the ones that require evolution to be forward thinking, and in the absence of testing... Well. Cogitate on it. Either that or I can find citations. I am fairly certain someone out here has studied this.

I don't know, most of the time I see this it goes beyond metaphore, especially amongst ignorant lay people whove been wowed by evo-psychobabble. But then, I've also seen at least one professional attempt to re-formulate Maslows Higherarchy of Needs into Evo-psych terms, and... well, lets just say that they came off like they didn't know what either motives or selection pressures are. You really do have to know your stuff in both fields before you can comment on evo-psych.

Yes. Yes you do. I am a behavioral ecologist. I work with frogs. On the other hand it translates well, at least in principle. I know how to ask the right questions and form reasonable hypotheses. I just dont work in that specific field.

Some people are just bad at keeping it in their heads that yes, the way we talk about evolution is a linguistic shortcut. Most biologists at least are pretty good at keeping that in the back of their heads. It is just really really hard to talk about otherwise.

Which is all and good, but once it comes time to describe the motive for the behavior you can bet all that evolutionary jargon becomes unnecessary.

Well, it depends on where in the causal chain you are looking.

"What motivated this person to do X?"

and

"Why does the motivation to do X exist?"

Are two separate questions. When I talk about human behavior, I dont generally go into the first one. A particular interest of mine when it comes to human behavior is sexual behavior and "ethical" behavior. I dont know why, my mind just likes to be in the gallows and the gutter at the same time. I skip past the cognitive stuff and go right to the point. The ultimate cause. Reproductive success, and under what conditions it may be beneficial to cheat on your spouse, and how this particular strategy came into existence.

[Formless]

That sounds like another ad hock justification, Aly. We see that the same mental process is at work when dealing with the elderly (who may even be your blood relatives!), other groups of people, and even animals: that to me suggests that there is some other selection pressure at work that drove the development of steriotyping besides or in addition to inclusive fitness.

To be fair, most of trying to determine what selective pressures acted to give us current phenotypes is ad hoc. It is done after the fact by definition. That said, finding a local maximum in inclusive fitness is one of the constraints I was referring to. Of course there were other things in the environment. The requirement that altruism evolve through kin selection and reciprocal altruism, and any other forms of altruism being by-products of how humans accomplish that in a social environment is just part of the equation.

And then there is empathy-altruism, the possible role of mirror neurons... yeah, I know what you mean.

Stereotyping is a cognitive shortcut to decision making. Think through it and think why this may be better than possible alternatives for early humanoids. I await your response (I will do the same, though right now I am mentally exhausted from my Bible Fight with my own sperm donor, and Elfdart being a fuckstick). We can then go through them, rule out the ones that require evolution to be forward thinking, and in the absence of testing... Well. Cogitate on it. Either that or I can find citations. I am fairly certain someone out here has studied this.

For starters, it may be a simplification done for survival reasons. When you have multiple predators to keep track of in your environment that hunt you the steriotype may in fact be accurate, and help you survive in any given situation. Similarly, it could be related to our learning processes, as a by product of pavlovian style conditioning ("see those herd beasts, Gug? They're going to the water hole. Once there they will be paying less attention, and make for easy prey"). Either way, once it was there it would have been useful for thinking about rival groups of humans and predicting their behavior. They may also have helped create group cohesion, evolving alongside other cultural behaviors like oral history and storytelling (hence the origin and ubiquity of archetypes in literature and folklore across cultures).

Yes. Yes you do. I am a behavioral ecologist. I work with frogs. On the other hand it translates well, at least in principle. I know how to ask the right questions and form reasonable hypotheses. I just dont work in that specific field.

You're right, it DOES translate well.

Some people are just bad at keeping it in their heads that yes, the way we talk about evolution is a linguistic shortcut. Most biologists at least are pretty good at keeping that in the back of their heads. It is just really really hard to talk about otherwise.

Its really frustrating that our language does not have a decent vocabulary for these sciences. Well, it has a good (if not extraordinarily good) vocabulary for psychology-- but perhaps a little too good in that everyone has some latent knowledge on the subject by virtue of existing but no understanding of science or even a half decent bullshit detector. And evolution? Most people wouldn't know a phenotype from an allele, they think a mutation is some kind of superpower source, that "missing links" are somehow problematic, and concepts like "genetic drift" and "reproductive isolation" are simply alien in their entirety.

Well, it depends on where in the causal chain you are looking.

"What motivated this person to do X?"

and

"Why does the motivation to do X exist?"

Are two separate questions. When I talk about human behavior, I dont generally go into the first one. A particular interest of mine when it comes to human behavior is sexual behavior and "ethical" behavior. I dont know why, my mind just likes to be in the gallows and the gutter at the same time. I skip past the cognitive stuff and go right to the point. The ultimate cause. Reproductive success, and under what conditions it may be beneficial to cheat on your spouse, and how this particular strategy came into existence.

But see, to me the first one is the one that actually matters to people in real life. Its particularly interesting because when you talk about motivations, the line between normative statements and factual statements starts to blur. Also, the former has all the predictive power when talking about human behavior. The latter just adds extra verbage.

What's more annoying is that when people talk about the latter, they almost invariably use the same language as when they are talking about the former, making things so much more confusing than it has to be.

[Alyrium Denryle]

For starters, it may be a simplification done for survival reasons. When you have multiple predators to keep track of in your environment that hunt you the steriotype may in fact be accurate, and help you survive in any given situation. Similarly, it could be related to our learning processes, as a by product of pavlovian style conditioning ("see those herd beasts, Gug? They're going to the water hole. Once there they will be paying less attention, and make for easy prey"). Either way, once it was there it would have been useful for thinking about rival groups of humans and predicting their behavior. They may also have helped create group cohesion, evolving alongside other cultural behaviors like oral history and storytelling (hence the origin and ubiquity of archetypes in literature and folklore across cultures).

Thee you go. Actually it is exactly where I would have gone. It is much much easier to predict something when you can shove it in a little box. The issue we have now is of course that the little box is too damn small.

And then there is empathy-altruism, the possible role of mirror neurons... yeah, I know what you mean.

Yes. But those evolved for what? Kin selection and reciprocal altruism. They are just not especially accurate and our social systems are very plastic.

Its really frustrating that our language does not have a decent vocabulary for these sciences. Well, it has a good (if not extraordinarily good) vocabulary for psychology-- but perhaps a little too good in that everyone has some latent knowledge on the subject by virtue of existing but no understanding of science or even a half decent bullshit detector. And evolution? Most people wouldn't know a phenotype from an allele, they think a mutation is some kind of superpower source, that "missing links" are somehow problematic, and concepts like "genetic drift" and "reproductive isolation" are simply alien in their entirety.

Yep. That later bit is why I refer to most people as Plebs.

But see, to me the first one is the one that actually matters to people in real life. Its particularly interesting because when you talk about motivations, the line between normative statements and factual statements starts to blur. Also, the former has all the predictive power when talking about human behavior. The latter just adds extra verbage.

Well it depends on what your questions are. If you want to give a percentage chance to whether or not a particular person will cheat on their spouse at a given time given an index of their emotions, then yeah. You are right. However, if you want to know why those emotions have been coupled to a desire to cheat, you have to look at what impact the conditions which lead to those emotions have on reproductive success.

What's more annoying is that when people talk about the latter, they almost invariably use the same language as when they are talking about the former, making things so much more confusing than it has to be.

Yes. Unfortunately it is very difficult to talk about without accidentally doing that.

[Formless]

Yes. But those evolved for what? Kin selection and reciprocal altruism. They are just not especially accurate and our social systems are very plastic.

Not so fast. Empathy may also be helpful for detecting cheats and liars (at least when they are face to face with you). Likewise, mirror neurons may be part of our learning system, allowing us to immitate our parents and peers so we don't have to start from scratch when learning how to use tools. These are multipurpose adaptations, with many possible selection pressures that could be acting on them.

Yes. Unfortunately it is very difficult to talk about without accidentally doing that.

Just makeing it clear what evolutionary theory is and is not for, and what it is and is not good at predicting, goes a long way to clearing up confusion. Most people have no problem distinguishing physics and chemistry for the same reason.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Not so fast. Empathy may also be helpful for detecting cheats and liars (at least when they are face to face with you).

Which is the converse of reciprocal altruism. If you cannot detect who may return the favor... well..

But you are right. Empathy is the swiss army knife of human social evolution.