There seems to be some genetic mechanism for at least things like sexual preferences. It is clearly able to locate concepts in neural circuitry, although with some noise around it (hence, fetishes). Similarly for being instinctively scared of certain things (also with noise, hence fobias).
I think what TurnTrout wants to say is that things like sexual preferences are actually learned generalizations from very basic hardcoded reward signals that latch onto things like the pheromones of the opposite sex. But I don’t think he’s got it all worked out yet.
What I gather from https://www.lesswrong.com/s/HzcM2dkCq7fwXBej8 is that it’s sort of like what you’re saying but it’s much more about predictions than actual experiences. If the Learning Subsystem is imagining a plan predicted to have high likelihood of smelling sex pheromones, seeing sexy body shapes, experiencing orgasm, etc. then the Steering Subsystem will reward the generation of that plan, basically saying “Yeah, think more thoughts like that!”.
The Learning Subsystem has a bunch of abstract concepts and labels for things the Steering Subsystem doesn’t care about (and can’t even access), but there are certain hardcoded reward channels it can understand. But the important thing is the reward signals can be evaluated for imagined worlds as well as the real immediate world.
The post isn’t saying that there’s no way for the genome to influence your preferences / behavior. More like, “the genome faces similar inaccessibility issues as us wrt to learned world models”, meaning it needs to use roundabout methods of influencing a person’s learned behavior / cognition / values. E.g., the genome can specify some hard-coded rewards for experiential correlates of engaging in sexual activity. Future posts will go into more details on how some of those roundabout ways might work.
The post is phrased pretty strongly (e.g. it makes claims about things being “inaccessible” and “intractable”).
Especially given the complexity of the topic, I expect the strength of these claims to be misleading. What one person thinks of as “roundabout methods” another might consider “directly specifying”. I find it pretty hard to tell whether I actually disagree with your and Alex’s views, or just the way you’re presenting them.
The post is phrased pretty strongly (e.g. it makes claims about things being “inaccessible” and “intractable”). Especially given the complexity of the topic, I expect the strength of these claims to be misleading.
I think the strongest claim is in the title, which does concisely describe my current worldview and also Quintin’s point that “the genome faces similar inaccessibility issues as us wrt to learned world models.”
I went back and forth several times on whether to title the post “Human values & biases seem inaccessible to the genome”, but I’m presently sticking to the current title, because I think it’s true&descriptive&useful in both of the above senses, even though it has the cost of (being interpreted as) stating as fact an inference which I presently strongly believe.
Beyond that, I think I did a pretty good job of demarcating inference vs observation, of demarcating fact vs model? I’m open to hearing suggested clarifications.
What one person thinks of as “roundabout methods” another might consider “directly specifying”.
I meant for the following passage to resolve that ambiguity:
I’m going to say things like “the genome cannot specify circuitry which detects when a person is thinking about death.” This means that the genome cannot hardcode circuitry which e.g. fires when the person is thinking about death, and does not fire when the person is not thinking about death.
But I suppose it still leaves some room to wonder. I welcome suggestions for further clarifying the post (although it’s certainly not your responsibility to do so!). I’m also happy to hop on a call / meet up with you sometime, Richard.
Agreed, modulo Quintin’s reply. But I want to be careful in drawing conclusions about which things we are instinctively scared of—surely some things, but which?
There seems to be some genetic mechanism for at least things like sexual preferences. It is clearly able to locate concepts in neural circuitry, although with some noise around it (hence, fetishes). Similarly for being instinctively scared of certain things (also with noise, hence fobias).
I think what TurnTrout wants to say is that things like sexual preferences are actually learned generalizations from very basic hardcoded reward signals that latch onto things like the pheromones of the opposite sex. But I don’t think he’s got it all worked out yet.
What I gather from https://www.lesswrong.com/s/HzcM2dkCq7fwXBej8 is that it’s sort of like what you’re saying but it’s much more about predictions than actual experiences. If the Learning Subsystem is imagining a plan predicted to have high likelihood of smelling sex pheromones, seeing sexy body shapes, experiencing orgasm, etc. then the Steering Subsystem will reward the generation of that plan, basically saying “Yeah, think more thoughts like that!”.
The Learning Subsystem has a bunch of abstract concepts and labels for things the Steering Subsystem doesn’t care about (and can’t even access), but there are certain hardcoded reward channels it can understand. But the important thing is the reward signals can be evaluated for imagined worlds as well as the real immediate world.
The post isn’t saying that there’s no way for the genome to influence your preferences / behavior. More like, “the genome faces similar inaccessibility issues as us wrt to learned world models”, meaning it needs to use roundabout methods of influencing a person’s learned behavior / cognition / values. E.g., the genome can specify some hard-coded rewards for experiential correlates of engaging in sexual activity. Future posts will go into more details on how some of those roundabout ways might work.
The post is phrased pretty strongly (e.g. it makes claims about things being “inaccessible” and “intractable”).
Especially given the complexity of the topic, I expect the strength of these claims to be misleading. What one person thinks of as “roundabout methods” another might consider “directly specifying”. I find it pretty hard to tell whether I actually disagree with your and Alex’s views, or just the way you’re presenting them.
I think the strongest claim is in the title, which does concisely describe my current worldview and also Quintin’s point that “the genome faces similar inaccessibility issues as us wrt to learned world models.”
I went back and forth several times on whether to title the post “Human values & biases seem inaccessible to the genome”, but I’m presently sticking to the current title, because I think it’s true&descriptive&useful in both of the above senses, even though it has the cost of (being interpreted as) stating as fact an inference which I presently strongly believe.
Beyond that, I think I did a pretty good job of demarcating inference vs observation, of demarcating fact vs model? I’m open to hearing suggested clarifications.
I meant for the following passage to resolve that ambiguity:
But I suppose it still leaves some room to wonder. I welcome suggestions for further clarifying the post (although it’s certainly not your responsibility to do so!). I’m also happy to hop on a call / meet up with you sometime, Richard.
Agreed, modulo Quintin’s reply. But I want to be careful in drawing conclusions about which things we are instinctively scared of—surely some things, but which?