Re: “Individual organisms are best thought of as adaptation-executers rather than as fitness-maximizers”.
It’s a bit like saying deep blue is an instruction executor, not an expected chess position utility maximizer.
The statement muddles up the “why” and “how” levels of explanation.
Executing instructions are how chess programs go about maximizing expected chess position utility.
Of course organisms cannot necessarily maximise their fitnesses—rather they attempt to maximise their expected fitness, just like other expected utility maximisers.
Tooby and Cosmides go on to argue the even more confused thesis:
“[Goals such as “maximize your fitness” or “have as many offspring as possible”] are probably impossible to instantiate in any computational system.”
Re: “Individual organisms are best thought of as adaptation-executers rather than as fitness-maximizers”.
It’s a bit like saying deep blue is an instruction executor, not an expected chess position utility maximizer.
The statement muddles up the “why” and “how” levels of explanation.
Executing instructions are how chess programs go about maximizing expected chess position utility.
Of course organisms cannot necessarily maximise their fitnesses—rather they attempt to maximise their expected fitness, just like other expected utility maximisers.
Tooby and Cosmides go on to argue the even more confused thesis:
“[Goals such as “maximize your fitness” or “have as many offspring as possible”] are probably impossible to instantiate in any computational system.”