From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 19:19:39 MDT
At 05:33 PM 7/7/2003 -0700, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > Why couldn't evolution have let people better see
> > their own preferences? Now it isn't crazy to think
> > that our preferences are encoded in such complex and
> > kludgey mental modules that our conscious mind must
> > struggle to infer their contents from lots of
> > specific decisions. But even so it seems odd that
> > we now seem to know more about the (really quite
> > strange) nature of the atom than we do about what the
> > typical person really wants. Why were not our
> > ancestors able to slowly learn what they wanted, and
> > then use language to
> > pass that knowledge on to succeeding generations?
>
>Because the human brain is far more complex than, and
>not as easy to objectively observe as, an atom?
>
>Consider: Boolean logic, having few practical uses
>before the invention of the computer (a tool with
>which to implement its predictions), did not receive
>as much study before that time as since. Likewise, we
>have been lacking in tools to observe mental states -
>beyond notoriously subjective observations of actions
>that said states trigger, with often unreliable
>connections back to said states - until the past
>century or so.
What crucial ability to observe mental states, without
which we could know what we want, was invented a
century ago?
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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