[ExI] Narrow ecological niches Re: Portia Spider hunting Spiders on 600K neurons - Was: Bees are clever!

[Robin D Hanson]

On Apr 23, 2015, at 7:58 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com<mailto:rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>> wrote:
### There is a general observation in ecology that the presence of two non-interbreeding populations in the same ecological niche is an unstable situation, always leading to the extinction of one of the populations.

I have the impression that general intelligence in a fitness-maximizing self-replicator creates its own niche and all such replicators inhabit it. That is to say, any group of interbreeding fitness-maximizing replicators with general intelligence is a direct competitor of all other such groups that are reproductively separate from it.

But why is there only one niche in this case? The biological world seems to have a vast number of niches, and modern economies also seem to have a great many niches. Why is this illusory?

Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
Assoc. Professor, George Mason University
Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323



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