From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Thu Jun 06 2002 - 15:44:56 MDT
Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> Reproductive fitness is not everything. It certainly isn't in
> the world we are seeking to build.
I am not talking about what should be. I am talking about the forces that
govern human nature as it currently is; what we should seek to sculpt that
nature into today, or what we should recode it as when we have that degree
of power tomorrow, is a separate and more moral question. But just as
reproductive fitness does not control morality, morality does not control
reproductive fitness or human nature. And understanding this is critical to
understanding the materials with which we must shape ourselves.
As for the interaction of cultural evolution with genetic evolution, I
strongly advise everyone who is seriously interested in it to read "The
Psychological Foundations of Culture" in "The Adapted Mind" - an absolutely
beautiful work that deals directly with this topic.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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