Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qs9v7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T01:10:07.481Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Evolution of Bayesian Updating

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Samir Okasha
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An evolutionary basis for Bayesian rationality is suggested, by considering how natural selection would operate on an organism’s ‘policy’ for choosing an action depending on an environmental signal. It is shown that the evolutionarily optimal policy, as judged by the criterion of maximal expected reproductive output, is the policy that, for each signal, picks an action that maximizes conditional expected output given that signal. This suggests a possible route by which Bayes-rational creatures might have evolved.

Type
General Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 80 , Issue 5 , December 2013 , pp. 745 - 757
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Thanks to John McNamara, Cedric Paternotte, Jonathan Grose, Chris Clarke, Richard Pettigrew, James Ladyman, and Nick Shea for discussion. This work was supported by the European Research Council Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013), ERC grant 295449.

References

Brown, Peter M. 1976. “Discussion: Conditionalization and Expected Utility.” Philosophy of Science 43:415–19.10.1086/288696CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, David. 1991. “Clever Bookies and Coherent Beliefs.” Philosophical Review 2:229–47.Google Scholar
Cooper, William S. 2003. The Evolution of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Frank, Steven A., and Slatkin, Montgomery. 1990. “Evolution in Variable Environments.” American Naturalist 136 (2): 244–60..10.1086/285094CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gigerenzer, Gerd, Todd, Peter, and Pachur, Thorsten, eds. 2011. Heuristics: The Foundations of Adaptive Behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199744282.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, John. 1977. “Natural Selection for Variances in Offspring Number: A New Evolutionary Principle.” American Naturalist 111:1010–14.10.1086/283230CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greaves, Hilary, and Wallace, David. 2006. “Justifying Conditionalization: Conditionalization Maximizes Expected Epistemic Utility.” Mind 115:607–32.10.1093/mind/fzl607CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Houston, Alasdair I., McNamara, John M., and Steer, Mark D.. 2007. “Do We Expect Natural Selection to Produce Rational Behaviour?” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 362:1531–43.10.1098/rstb.2007.2051CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leitgeb, Hannes, and Pettigrew, Richard. 2010. “An Objective Justification of Bayesianism II: The Consequences of Minimizing Inaccuracy.” Philosophy of Science 77:236–72.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1999. “Why Conditionalize?” In Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, 403–7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511625343CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maher, Patrick. 1992. “Diachronic Rationality.” Philosophy of Science 59:120–41.10.1086/289657CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNamara, John M. 1995. “Implicit Frequency-Dependence and Kin Selection in Fluctuating Environments.” Evolutionary Ecology 9:185–203.10.1007/BF01237756CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNamara, John M., Green, Richard F., and Olsson, Ola. 2006. “Bayes’ Theorem and Its Applications in Animal Behaviour.” Oikos 112:243–51.10.1111/j.0030-1299.2006.14228.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robson, Arthur. 1996. “A Biological Basis for Expected and Non-expected Utility.” Journal of Economic Theory 68:397–424.10.1006/jeth.1996.0023CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savage, Leonard J. 1954. The Foundations of Statistics. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Seger, Jon, and Brockmann, H. Jane. 2002. “What Is Bet-Hedging?” Oxford Surveys in Evolutionary Biology 4:182–211.Google Scholar
Skyrms, Brian. 1995. Evolution of the Social Contract. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sterelny, Kim. 2003. Thought in a Hostile World. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas. 1989. Laws and Symmetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0198248601.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar