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If our brains are Bayesian, evolution is what invented it.
by jamesrcole 8y ago
If our brains are Bayesian, evolution is what invented it.
- User23 8y agoWhen I studied biology it was drilled into us that evolution doesn't have agency. Has that changed?
- stan_rogers 8y agoNot as such, no, but if a heritable trait increases the likelihood of survival to reproduction, there is little other than unnecessary pedantry in the way of saying in a lay forum that evolution "invented" it.
- jamesrcole 8y agoI don't mean "invented" in the sense of conscious design process with foresight or intentions. I just mean the way the blind evolutionary process creates any "design".
- coldtea 8y agoYou don't need to have "agency" to invent. LSD and sticky notes were invented by accident -- as were tons of other things. Sure, one could add several pedantic reservations here, if they wanted to be thick on purpose, but the meaning of the parent's statement is clear. This series of passive aggressive counter-questions seems to violate the principle of charity.
- User23 8y agoIt's good that you are concerned with the principle of charity, perhaps you should apply it here? It's pretty obvious that evolution didn't "invent" anything because accident or not, to invent requires an originator or discoverer which is to say an entity with agency. It's as absurd as saying relativity invented black holes.
- coldtea 8y ago>It's pretty obvious that evolution didn't "invent" anything because accident or not, to invent requires an originator or discoverer which is to say an entity with agency. And yet everybody understood what the parent means, which is that it was created by an evolutionary process. And also everybody understands that the pedantic minutiae of whether "invent" can be used here is beside the actual point the parent makes.