Nutrition

Background

Real-world computational systems trained via gradient descent expend costly/limited substrate on predictive models of the following:

  1. the distribution of inputs they're trained on, and
  2. the gradient descent function itself (or "meta-objective")

A means of minimizing zero-sum tradeoffs in the quality of these predictive models that would otherwise have to compete with eachother for computational resources is to unify them via a system of heuristic sub-goals specific to the training distribution (or "mesa-objective").

The relationship between the meta-objective and the mesa-objective becomes increasingly undefined and emergently antagonistic the further away from the training distribution of inputs the computational system finds itself executing on. (video)

How does this relate to nutrition?

Evolution has an (emergent) meta-objective of "maximize genomic/proteomic replication" that it uses to train the computational systems of genomics/proteomics via the (stochastic) gradient descent system of mutation and differential survival. Genomes/proteomes have developed mesa-objectives that are conducive to the organization and protection of resources needed to achieve replication within the training distribution of their evolutionary history.

Problem statement

The relationship between "replication maximization" and "the organization and protection of resources correlated with replication" has become increasingly antagonistic as the human genome/proteome execution environment has drifted relative to its evolutionary training environment.

This mesa-misalignment is the primary cause of death today and will get worse as the emergent meta-objective of "maximize genomic/proteomic replication" is getting switched out from under humanity for the new emergent meta-objective of "maximize capacity for inductive reasoning" that genomes/proteomes have much less training exposure to.

Mesa-alignment must be conscientiously addressed.

Examples

Physiological attractor mesa-alignment

The essential nutrient sodium is an example of a regulatory motivational/behavioral attractor that remains well-aligned between the training input distribution and the current input distribution.

It is well-aligned because it is as directly sensed as possible; there are no intermediate correlates. What is needed by the proteomic machinery is what is sensed by the proteomic machinery.

Pathological attractor mesa-alignment

By contrast, most of the other essential nutrients do not have direct sensing, instead relying on one particular unified correlate variable due to the extreme computational savings involved in doing so:

The unified correlate in question, Glutamate, then has a potential problem: if modifying the input distribution becomes faster and more economical than modifying the mesa-objective, (e.g., agronomic engineering or chemical engineering becoming faster and cheaper than genetic modification via mutation and natural selection), then the measure becomes the target.

This leaves a wide variety of nutrients critical to everything from reactive oxygen species management, to inflammation modulation, to electron transport chain throughput in a state of resource insufficiency.

Options for re-alignment:

TODO: systemize these better somehow. I suspect there's a dimensional/vector way to compose and more efficiently search this problem space.

  • Disintermediation between regulatory sensing and requirements
  • Remove requirements (e.g. amino acid conversion, GULO)
  • Broaden requirement specificity (e.g. phytase, prolase)
  • Bypass regulatory sensing by modifying inputs to better match requirements
    • In small degree, by selecting for inputs with oxidative safety, immunological safety, nutrient sufficiency, and nutrient bioavailability (e.g. paleo/primal/ancestral/traditional/AIP/WAPF/GAPS/SCD/Wahls/Bredesen)
    • In large degree, with Parenteral nutrition (sort out linoleic acid excess, menatetrenone insufficiency, vitamin D insufficiency)
  • Improve retention/recycling of desirable inputs
  • Improve sensing/breakdown/disposal of undesirable inputs
  • Aligning the microbiome.
  • Aligning exo-metabolome. (e.g. enviropig, golden rice).

All of these have resource tradeoffs, many of which are completely unstudied.

TODO:

  • full list of n essential+prudent nutrients as something like line segment attractors in n-dimensional-behavior-space
  • some list of antinutrients/pathogens to build obstructive manifolds in n-dimensional-behavior-space
  • Failures to systemize requirements correctly, either with a lack of sensitivity (e.g. including menatetrenone, docosahexaenoic acid, collagen, non-homeopathic doses of Vitamin D) or a lack of specificity (e.g. excluding phytate-bound or picolinate-bound minerals, carotinoids, various proline-rich peptides, cyanocobalamin,
  • examples of antinutrients/pathogen mesa-alignment, in physiological and pathological forms.
  • think hard about how to manage the anti-inductiveness of antinutrients/pathogens in the future