“Your example is pathological. “Painless sterilisation” and “being shot in ten years” are uncommon in the ancestral environment.”
Yes, that’s why the two are different- because evolution did a lousy job at making an organism’s desires match its own desires.
“Like I said, most organisms value having kids over living for a long time. That is because nature is concerned with reproduction—and not longevity. If you still do not “get” that, try sitting in on the class I mentioned.”
You seem to be having difficulty with reading what I wrote. I never claimed that “what evolution wants” and “what an organism wants” referred to the same thing in the first place. You appear to be criticising a straw man of your own making.
You are saying, “Evolution would want organisms to value X, therefore organisms really do value X”. I pointed out that this is not valid logic, and gave a case where the logic breaks down. What is your reply? From your comment “For “lousy” read “excellent”″ it seems to be faith in the ability of evolution, to which my reply is http://lesswrong.com/lw/ks/the_wonder_of_evolution/.
I do also think is is generally true that most people value having kids over living for a long time—though I wasn’t making a logical generalisation from “most organisms” to “most people” in the absence of other observations.
Biology has reproduction as an ultimate goal, and longevity as an instrumental one—and most people’s actions seem broadly consistent with that to me—though obviously there are a few methusalahites.
“I said MOST organisms—and referred to a specific example: kids vs lifespan.”
You were obviously not excluding humans, since you then said immediately afterward:
“It appears to be fairly easy to trade kids for longer life—adopt a regime of dietary energy restriction. Very few people do that. I figure they mostly value kids over a long life.”
If you had said “most organisms would prefer to die in a few years rather than be sterilized, but humans are different because we have more complex value systems” you might at least have a case, but you’re very clearly trying to extent your argument from biology to humans (at least most humans) and it very clearly fails.
Humans are organisms too. They appear to do a pretty good job of reproducing to me. Check with the 6.9 billion humans. Looking at their actions, it seems fairly evident that most humans value kids pretty highly—otherwise they wouldn’t consistently raise so many of them.
This is a complete non-sequitur. Most people, I think, want to have kids, but this says nothing about whether people want kids or not dying more. I, after all, have always wanted a pony.
Humans are organisms. But it does not follow that if something applies to most organisms, it applies to most humans; after all, most organisms cannot learn to read. This kind of inference would only follow if instead of “most organisms X” the claim was “most members of all species of organisms X”.
It’s true. You did not use those exact words. However, you made the claim about most organisms, and went on to talk about humans. If you did not mean to imply an inference, you a) failed and b) were talking even worse nonsense than I thought.
Not inference: analogy with supporting statements.
I made a statement about biology, then I made an observation about humans and said that this observation was consistent with the statement made about biology.
Then, pray tell, why do so many people work so hard to go from the Third World to the First World, when the Third World has higher population growth and so a higher chance for more surviving grandchildren?
“Your example is pathological. “Painless sterilisation” and “being shot in ten years” are uncommon in the ancestral environment.”
Yes, that’s why the two are different- because evolution did a lousy job at making an organism’s desires match its own desires.
“Like I said, most organisms value having kids over living for a long time. That is because nature is concerned with reproduction—and not longevity. If you still do not “get” that, try sitting in on the class I mentioned.”
You do not understand the difference between what evolution wants and what an organism wants. They are not the same thing. See http://lesswrong.com/lw/l0/adaptationexecuters_not_fitnessmaximizers/.
For “lousy” read “excellent”.
You seem to be having difficulty with reading what I wrote. I never claimed that “what evolution wants” and “what an organism wants” referred to the same thing in the first place. You appear to be criticising a straw man of your own making.
You are saying, “Evolution would want organisms to value X, therefore organisms really do value X”. I pointed out that this is not valid logic, and gave a case where the logic breaks down. What is your reply? From your comment “For “lousy” read “excellent”″ it seems to be faith in the ability of evolution, to which my reply is http://lesswrong.com/lw/ks/the_wonder_of_evolution/.
What I originally said was:
“most organisms value having kids over living for a long time.”
I said MOST organisms—and referred to a specific example: kids vs lifespan.
Your representation of my position drops the qualifying word “most” and generalises it. That is not a legitimate operation in an argument.
Also, perhaps best to stop using quotation marks when attributing distorted versions of my views to me.
You appeared to be generalizing in this case from ‘most organisms’ to ‘most people’ which doesn’t seem valid to me.
I do also think is is generally true that most people value having kids over living for a long time—though I wasn’t making a logical generalisation from “most organisms” to “most people” in the absence of other observations.
Biology has reproduction as an ultimate goal, and longevity as an instrumental one—and most people’s actions seem broadly consistent with that to me—though obviously there are a few methusalahites.
“I said MOST organisms—and referred to a specific example: kids vs lifespan.”
You were obviously not excluding humans, since you then said immediately afterward:
“It appears to be fairly easy to trade kids for longer life—adopt a regime of dietary energy restriction. Very few people do that. I figure they mostly value kids over a long life.”
If you had said “most organisms would prefer to die in a few years rather than be sterilized, but humans are different because we have more complex value systems” you might at least have a case, but you’re very clearly trying to extent your argument from biology to humans (at least most humans) and it very clearly fails.
Humans are organisms too. They appear to do a pretty good job of reproducing to me. Check with the 6.9 billion humans. Looking at their actions, it seems fairly evident that most humans value kids pretty highly—otherwise they wouldn’t consistently raise so many of them.
This is a complete non-sequitur. Most people, I think, want to have kids, but this says nothing about whether people want kids or not dying more. I, after all, have always wanted a pony.
That just looks like this to me:
Tom: “you’re very clearly trying to extent your argument from biology to humans”
Tim: “Humans are organisms too”
Tom: “This is a complete non-sequitur”
Tim: It seems as though you missed some connections.
Humans are organisms. But it does not follow that if something applies to most organisms, it applies to most humans; after all, most organisms cannot learn to read. This kind of inference would only follow if instead of “most organisms X” the claim was “most members of all species of organisms X”.
Riiight. However, note that I never claimed that “if something applies to most organisms, it applies to most humans” in the first place.
It’s true. You did not use those exact words. However, you made the claim about most organisms, and went on to talk about humans. If you did not mean to imply an inference, you a) failed and b) were talking even worse nonsense than I thought.
Not inference: analogy with supporting statements.
I made a statement about biology, then I made an observation about humans and said that this observation was consistent with the statement made about biology.
“For “lousy” read “excellent”.”
Then, pray tell, why do so many people work so hard to go from the Third World to the First World, when the Third World has higher population growth and so a higher chance for more surviving grandchildren?