Your idea sounds plausible and interesting, but I don’t completely understand the implications. What am I supposed to do if the environment changes from generation to generation, e.g. due to advances in science? Should I adopt the behaviors that helped my ancestors have many kids, or the behaviors that will help me have many kids?
Should I adopt the behaviors that helped my ancestors have many kids, or the behaviors that will help me have many kids?
Respectively, these would mean “obeying your base desires or engineering a retrovirus to turn the next generation into your clones.” I’m hedging on that. You could consult timtyler, our friendly neighborhood Azathoth-worshipper.
What’s truly terrifying to me about this line of thinking is that the answer could be both. Many different factors went into making sure I existed, and the concept of acausal trade seems to suggest that I’m beholden to all of them.
You can generally expect evolution to have made you so that you figure out that your purpose in life is to reproduce—or otherwise help increase your inclusive fitness.
Surveys on the topic suggest that not everyone manages this, though. It is common for organisms to die without reproducing. That is especially true for organisms with heavily-infected brains. Notoriously, not much reduces your fertilty as much as a college education does. It is the memetic infections that do it. They don’t have your interests at heart. In the future, access to the internet will no doubt be proven to reduce fertility more than colleges ever did. Japan is leading the way in this department.
Your idea sounds plausible and interesting, but I don’t completely understand the implications. What am I supposed to do if the environment changes from generation to generation, e.g. due to advances in science? Should I adopt the behaviors that helped my ancestors have many kids, or the behaviors that will help me have many kids?
Respectively, these would mean “obeying your base desires or engineering a retrovirus to turn the next generation into your clones.” I’m hedging on that. You could consult timtyler, our friendly neighborhood Azathoth-worshipper.
What’s truly terrifying to me about this line of thinking is that the answer could be both. Many different factors went into making sure I existed, and the concept of acausal trade seems to suggest that I’m beholden to all of them.
You can generally expect evolution to have made you so that you figure out that your purpose in life is to reproduce—or otherwise help increase your inclusive fitness.
Surveys on the topic suggest that not everyone manages this, though. It is common for organisms to die without reproducing. That is especially true for organisms with heavily-infected brains. Notoriously, not much reduces your fertilty as much as a college education does. It is the memetic infections that do it. They don’t have your interests at heart. In the future, access to the internet will no doubt be proven to reduce fertility more than colleges ever did. Japan is leading the way in this department.