From: Ramez Naam (mez@apexnano.com)
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 16:18:01 MDT
From: Robin Hanson [mailto:rhanson@gmu.edu]
> Of course that raises the question of why believing in the
> truth should have such an overwhelming importance, moral or
> otherwise.
From an evolutionary perspective I'd conjecture that creatures that
are better able to model their environment will have both survival and
reproductive advantages.
This strikes me as the driving force of both "intelligence" and the
"truth-seeking" urge, which I suspect are inextricably linked.
The evolutionary pressure to find "truth" is likely increased by
environments where other intelligent agents have the ability and
motivation to deceive (e.g., human pre-history).
However, from this evolutionary perspective there is no reason that
either "intelligence" or "truth-seeking" should be an absolute
priority over other traits or activities.
Certainly it's easy enough to come up with hypothetical cases where
either believing something untrue or communicating something you
believe to be untrue is to one's advantage or is consistent with the
moral sense of most humans.
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