Oct 13, 2023
Jamie Jones visits Google to discuss the evolution, ecology, and
adaptation of the human species.
Rationality has taken a hit recently. Recent work in psychology and
economics has challenged the notion that the human brain is
designed to make rational decisions. However, this observation
raises a paradox. By almost any measure, Homo sapiens is a
spectacularly successful species. From humble origins approximately
two million years ago, humans have grown to a population that
exceeds seven billion and have colonized nearly every terrestrial
biome. This phenomenal growth suggests that our ancestors made very
good decisions. Yet this work from psychology and economics
suggests that the decision-making software that our brains run is
profoundly flawed — that we are, in a word, irrational.
How is it possible that a species apparently so defective in its
ability to generate sound decisions can be so incredibly
successful? It turns out that the rules for a living organism,
anchored in the present and subject to a force of selection which
is extremely averse to extinction, are quite different from the
rules of abstract, formal rationality. In this Talk, Jones will
show how the all-important need to avoid extinction in a world that
is at best incompletely known has profound implications for
preferences, utility, and rationality. By ignoring the condition of
existential uncertainty, the theory of rational decision-making has
developed distorted expectations of how an organism working in its
own best interest should behave.
Originally published in March of 2018.
Visit YouTube.com/TalksAtGoogle to
watch the video.