How do I know that it matters if those traits continue? Again, you are re-phrasing the same a-priori assumptions without examining them. How do you even know if someone even has any “competitors” if you don’t know what their goals are? Everything you are saying here seems to be based upon the presumption of: “Assuming that the framework of natural biological birth and death are universally relevant…”. Well, those assumptions, and their relevance are precisely what I am questioning.
As an agent, I am not assuming anything. Why live as long as possible for its own sake? If my goals require me to live 27 years, wouldn’t that be more efficient? What if people mate at random? If I combine 100,000 sperm with 100,000 ova are any of them actually “competing” once they are in a different conceptual framework than natural selection? How do I know how prevalent my genes or traits should be? What is the optimum?
We could model it like this. But why? And perhaps more crucially - what is the significance? How do I know how much of “me” there should be in the population? And for what purpose?
This sounds circular also. How can we speak of “success” without any goals? If the goals are determined by traditional reproductive processes, then how much agency can be attributed to the participants? The only way an outcome can be recognized as successful is to devise a system which favors certain outcomes. Advantage is subjective, as it depends entirely upon what one is trying to do.
It could, if you like. But this still evades explaining why the rates of survival or distribution of traits might be significant. There are no doubt countess things which could be measured. What is so special about these?
If you thought so, I would be curious as to why you think people should subordinate themselves to randomly-defined goals. It sounds like you are trying to universalize a game based upon the fact that it already exists.
