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Interesting to think that in hunger evolution chose to increase the noise (irrationality) in our system, and that actually worked to make us more likely to surv

• PhilipRoman 2y ago
  Works in games too, if you're in a worse situation and almost guaranteed to lose with standard strategies, might as well try high-risk/high-reward strategies instead (since you need enough "reward" to overcome the difference and the risk doesn't matter).
  • _the_inflator 2y ago
    I don’t want to quote Einstein here, or the path not taken. ;)
    • keepamovin 2y ago
      Ok, the latter I know (Frost). Pray quote the former? :)
  • gradyfps 2y ago
    "High-risk/high-reward" basically translates 1:1 with increased variance. Seeing it framed that way was a helpful mental model for me.
    • keepamovin 2y ago
      Thanks for pointing that out. I think that will be useful for me too, even without the finance background, that I guess you back your understand up with.
  • keepamovin 2y ago
    This is a good point. And seen in predatory animals. Hungry animals will take the more risky food/prey.
• deleted 2y ago
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• adammarples 2y ago
  It would make sense to increase exploration vs. exploitation when resources in a local area seem scarce
  • keepamovin 2y ago
    Exactly! That's what I'm saying. Thank you! :)
• echoangle 2y ago
  Is it confirmed that this effect is “intentional” by evolution? Couldn’t this also just be a side effect of how the brain works which wasn’t negative enough to evolve a defense against? Maybe the neurons becoming less reliable when having too little sugar for example?
  • Out_of_Characte 2y ago
    It might be a similar stressor like performing a task with a full bladder. there's definitely something that negatively impacts your cognition and you'll be more likely to refuse complexity to 'get it over with' whatever that means for the ruling of a court.
    • echoangle 2y ago
      Sure, the question was if this is actually beneficial from an evolutionary perspective. Was this an advantage for survival and humans evolved to be this way or is this an accidental side effect of the working mechanism of the brain which just stayed because it wasn’t a large enough disadvantage to evolve against?
      • rocqua 2y ago
        A mechanism that causes people to become more decisive (but much less contemplative) when short on food seems like it would be beneficial. It stops analysis paralysis, and makes someone try something rather than just accept their fate.
        • keepamovin 2y ago
          Essentially the point I was making. There's truth to that pithy aphorism: decide in limited information and act. Making a decision and an action is better than not. And the feedback from the world you get for that choice will be the balm to your previous lack of information. Iterate to grow knowledge, and keep moving to progress. Question I was considering was whether evolution had a goal in this? I guess it did. Nervous-system-noise helps explore that state space and extreme states (hunger, sleep deprivation) lower inhibition, leading to greater exploration of the decision space. Biochemical/genetic mediators of more efficient (in aggregate across all humans ever) search algorithms. Those despotic genes! Programming us, the nerve of them! :) Hahaha :)
• broken-kebab 2y ago
  It's easy to propose a different explanation: brain consumes a lot of energy, and in hunger it makes sense to run it in a sort of simplified economode to avoid risk of shutting down completely. It doesn't mean that going into less rational state increases survivability vs more rational one, it does however when compared to lying down unconscious because sugar is too low to support full throttle run
  • keepamovin 2y ago
    I didn't totally get your last phrase on the comparison (I think you mean we evolved less rational low power state on low food to conserve energy for when we need it more, because low power but operational is more survivable than passing out due to hunger - did I get you right?), but this is a good counter. How could we test between them? It's possible it's /both, but without a good experiment hard to say. Hypothesis 1: brain on low sugar, increases variance in problem solving. Hypothesis 2: brain on low sugar low power mode prioritizes simpler solutions (I think I got you?). Your point is a good counter to mine, but I think the qualifier is that in low food situation, a less rational state is a more effective search algorithm to find key resources, than a more rational one (with definition of rational tempered by what is achievable passing as rational for most humans in aggregate). But maybe we are getting too complex for a hn comment when we might not be running the experiemnt oursleves hahaha :)
• austinjp 2y ago
  If you're hungry, surely the evolutionarily 'rational' action is to prioritise eating. That seems to be what's happening, certainly for those lucky enough to be able to control who eats and when.
  • keepamovin 2y ago
    Maybe. But judges are also disciplined and anally retentive. Gratification delayers. I can imagine many of them just want to get it done, then eat. May even be a cerebral-overemphasis leading to lack of body awareness. So for them, the rational action would be complete work, then eat (if time haha :)). But I guess you meant more generally in evolution. Yes, but the question is how does the body prioritize eating in situations where food is not available but hunger is? If food is not obvious, it must be sought. Increase the noise in the search algorithm, would seem to maximize state space exploration in food quest, which seems something evolution would then pass on. Better than cargo culting anyway hahaha! :)
• tylervigen 2y ago
  I’m not sure this study does anything to show that hunger increases irrationality. If anything, the authors point to rational, predictive decision-making right before meal time. Do you see something that indicates increased irrationality?
  • keepamovin 2y ago
    Honestly I was responding to the title which suggests that "irrational hungry judge" is a thing. If it is not, I revise all my ideas hahaah! :) But then again, we must question a study that questions a proceeding one and so on. I'm not getting into the weeds of it to do that right now, just speculatin :) What did you see about it that counters the "irrational hungry judge effect"?
    • tylervigen 2y ago
      Got ya. There are two studies here. The first study, referenced in the title, is from years ago that purported to show that judges were harsher just before mealtime. The second study was done to re-visit the first, and found that there are confounding variables that made the original findings look stronger than they otherwise would have been. The article is about the second study, which found that the original study missed these confounding variables.
      • keepamovin 2y ago
        Omg the landscape of modern media is writing about writing ad infinitum/nauseaum. Thank you for expounding hahaha! :)
• keybored 2y ago
  You can’t glean insight about evolution from this. Hunger doesn’t follow a steady rate of making you irrational or whatever else. People who are used to it can go 18 hours without eating just fine. In fact they might report that it makes them sharper. While other people get “hangry” if they don’t eat every four hours.
  • keepamovin 2y ago
    This is a fair point about different conditioning to hunger, which to some extent, we are all capable of attaining. Those responses you mention do seem like evolutionary adaptations themselves, which may nevertheless vary across individuals. Such as ketolysis making people sharper mentally, which I've certainly experienced. Your point about that making it hard to tell what evolution may have wanted from this, given such variety, is fair. However it's not necessarily a point against an evolutionary trend here, just because responses are varied. There could be adaptiveness, in aggregate (as it always is in these considerations I think), to having some people express different responses. I think this stressor is ripe for gleaning insight about evolution, tho. Because of how critical food is. And therefore how much effective ways to overcome food loss would have been critical for evolution to hack at. It's likely evolution has laid out a series of algorithms for us, depending on what stage of hunger we are at - each developed to be the most effective balance at that stage between resource usage, and search success. In that sense the different modes you describe "hangry" and "hunglightened" (and possibly some more in between) are most likely evolutionarily designed "behavior algorithms" that each maximize adaptiveness for finding food and surviving at each stage of progression towards starvation. I really think you should think more about it, because how could it be any other way? Food is so crucial, evo is obviously going to get right into how we react to its absence. Of course if your point is more about difficulty in concluding from the paucity of data in this discussion, I'm all with you! We are just hypothesising now, which is perfectly valid. And, for me at least, insightful. I feel truly sorry for you, that you didn't find it that! :) I'd like to end with this weird little side-note counter: another pithy aphorism about food and performance: never make any big decision on an empty stomach! Hahaha! :) Many have said that.
    • keybored 2y ago