Organism, Environment, and Bounded Rationality

in
Speaker: 
Werner Callebaut
Date: 
18 Feb, 2010

Location: Room A, Philosophy Institute.

Time: 4pm.

Abstract:

There is an intimate relationship between niche construction, the process by which organisms modify the abiotic and biotic environments in which they are subject to natural selection, and bounded rationality, the circumstance that the capacity of animal (including human) minds for formulating and solving complex problems is small compared with the size of the problems whose solution is required for objectively rational/fitness-maximizing behavior in the real world — or even for a reasonable approximation to such objective rationality.

Herbert A. Simon pointed to the joint effects of the computational capacities of agents and the structure of their (task) environments, and likened them to the blades of scissors — theories of bounded rationality have cutting power only when both blades operate. What matters in a model of bounded rationality is not how "smart" agents or how "hard" the problems they face are assumed to be in some absolute sense, but rather the difference between the two. Richard Lewontin is often credited for pioneering the theory of niche construction that is currently flourishing (e.g., F. J. Odling-Smee et al., Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution, Princeton UP, 2003), but Simon (Reason in Human Affairs, 1983) is a close contender. Both Lewontin and Simon conceptualize the evolutionary process without relying crucially on the Malthusian principle. Lewontin has elaborated an impressive number of arguments that might disable the application of optimality theory in evolutionary studies, and stresses the role of evolutionary and developmental contingency. Simon, who liked to think of his own behavioral economics as a “historical science,” could not have agreed more.

In my talk I will discuss the limitations of optimality analysis in animal behavior studies, focusing on the challenges posed by niche construction, phenotypic plasticity, and other issues studies in EvoDevo (evolutionary developmental biology).