On 3/26/2014 9:03 PM, LizR wrote:
On 27 March 2014 16:33, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I don't think you can infer anything about gender preference for "triple or
bust" vs
"maintain what we've got" from evolutionary biology.
Well OK, but what I've read (and indeed observed and experienced throughout my life)
indicates that people, and most animals who care for their young, employ strategies
which could (roughly) be described as male-risky, female-play-it-safe (or at least
safer). E.g. it's the male grasshoppers who keep me awake with their racket, the male
birds who wake me in the morning with THEIR racket, peacocks with the big showy tails,
male bower birds who expend the energy to make the bowers - all males employing
(relatively) risky strategies to attract females. (Because, you see, we're just
naturally fabulous and you guys have to make the running. Sorry!)
Kent's idea would be to look around and see whether people were
overwhelmingly
type A or type B. If MWI is true they should be type B, if false type A.
Yes, I realise what he was saying. I don't think it makes much sense, because it would
require people to believe in the existence of a multiverse before they could formulate a
reproductive strategy involving that knowledge, and the idea of a multiverse has only
existed for about 50 years.
Not "believe in", just believe MWI is possibly true. But they wouldn't actually have to
have any opinion; that's just a way to explain it. Presumably evolution would have
already made the choice and we'd all be overwhelmingly either A type or B type, whether we
knew it or not. The problem would be finding out which we are if it's just in our genes
and not necessarily consciously available.
I'd say more of problem for the test is that the aren't really two choices which are
passed on genetically. There's really nothing to limit one to just replacement even if
there's only one universe.
Otherwise, I'd expect people to act as though they are in a single universe, regardless
of whether that is so, because that's how things appear to be. I'd expect genes to
exhibit a similar strategy - they aren't (can't be) "interested" in what happens in a
parallel world which can't communicate with the one they're in.
There shouldn't be any split along gender line.
Well there is, at least in my experience (and in various books, articles, nature
documentaries and so on that I've come across). Indeed, apart from a few die-hard
feminists I don't know of anyone who still adheres to the notion that people are "blank
slates" and that gender roles are purely assigned by culture (humans exhibit sexual
dimorphism, and brain scans indicate that it doesn't magically stop at our necks. Plus,
why would blank-slatism only be true of us, but not the rest of the animal/fish/insect
kingdom where it - often blatantly - isn't the case?)
Anyway, that's why I don't think one can sensibly analyse an entire species'
reproductive strategy to see if it was A or B (or something else), because reproductive
strategies tend to be gender specific. It seems like a daft idea - maybe it's a guy
thing? ;-)
I don't understand your reasoning. Sure guys are less risk averse. But A vs B is pure
win-or-lose depending on whether MWI is true or not. If MWI is true then strategy B is
the winner no matter whether you're male or female...and not by a little bit or just
probabilistically, but exponentially, overwhelmingly better. If MWI is false and there's
just one universe then B is an absolute, zero survivors loser.
Brent
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