[Martin Elster]

Here's a fun debate:

The Nature of Reality: A Dialogue Between a Buddhist Scholar and a Theoretical Physicist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLbSlC0Pucw

[James Brancheau]

If you can identify it, maybe I can do a better job avoiding it.

[Kevin Rainbow]

Yes, we see reality as it is. It is impossible not to. Reality is always there and is always seen correctly through the medium it is looked at and under the influences that are upon it, for the medium and influences are part of the reality and it needs to follow its own rules of how it changes in different conditions. It is correct to see reality one way in the darkness and one way in the brightness, one way when you are intoxicated, one way when you are sober, one way through this animal's eyes, one way through that animal's: reality itself is what makes the difference, not "non-reality" or some "lie". We see reality according to reality, because there is no other means to see reality: reality is everything, including the speck of control we have over it.

[Max Goodman]

Hoffman’s book (which I haven't finished reading) argues convincingly that our perceptions might not show reality—an intriguing idea. But his assumption that objective reality is vastly unlikely be the “reality” we perceive still seems an assumption. In fact, in places, I think I catch outright errors in his thinking. I share two here to give you smart folks a chance to show me that I’m wrong, as you’ve recently helped me solve other more mundane problems.

In chapter 4, to dispute the claim that (I understand to be that) his theory can’t be accurate because it does not propose a reality to replace the one we think we perceive, he writes “Suppose that I tell you that p is some particular claim and q is some particular claim, but I refuse to tell you what either claim is. Then … suppose that I … claim ‘if either p is true or q is true then it follows that p is true.’ … You know that this claim is false, even though you don’t know the contents of p or q."

That’s plain wrong (right?)—in way that doesn’t invalidate his theory, but does fail to falsify the counterargument. It’s easy to choose a p and q for which it is true that “if either p is true or q is true then it follows that p is true.” For instance:

p = All Australians are at least 10 feet tall.
q = All Australians are at least 11 feet tall.

It is also possible (probable, it seems to me) that objective reality and the fitness payoffs natural selection has fashioned our senses to perceive are at least as closely related as these two claims.

**

Hoffman admits that fitness payoffs change depending on an organism’s needs. A hungry teen, he says, perceives great fitness payoffs in a pizza. But six slices later, the same teen reacts differently to the same pizza. The fitness payoffs are no longer there. Doesn’t this falsify Hoffman’s belief that perceiving fitness payoffs makes it unlikely that we accurately perceive reality? If our perception of fitness payoffs showed something unreal, wouldn’t that unreal thing change as the fitness payoffs it was designed to direct us toward changed?

(Of course, the pizza has changed in the sense of being six slices lighter, but the fitness payoffs of a given pizza are different to a teen who hasn't eaten in several hours than to one who has just consumed a different pizza, without, I think, changing the pizza as perceived by the teen.)

Added: Maybe the pizza issue is resolved by regarding what I've dismissed as the teen's changing reaction as part of the teen's perception? The pizza's smell, look, feel, and taste are the same whether or not the teen's eaten, but the whole package is perceived as a "delicious pizza" when it points the teen toward a(n unknown, according to Hoffman) fitness payoff, and as a "disgusting pizza" when it warns the teen away from the fitness penalty that we (from the standpoint of our limited perspective) describe as overeating.

[Roger Slater]

I would like to quibble with the question as Martin posed it. Please delete the words "as it is" since if you don't see reality as it is you are not seeing reality.

I wonder if we see irreality as it isn't?

[Julie Steiner]

Max, if I'm reading it correctly, the wording 'if either p is true or q is true' is a binary that specifically excludes situations in which both p and q are true.

(Then again, a certain part of Fiddler on the Roof comes to mind....)

[Allen Tice]

Max, Julie, et alii. Julie is partly correct. I’m double plus nonplussed that we (y’all) are still wasting time with Hoffman — unless he is being seriously misunderstood all around.

If P or Q is true, then P is true is rubbish!

We can write “P or Q” as P V Q, where the symbol V is an inclusive Disjunction. That’s all I will touch on here.

When I teach this, I jump up on the classroom desk to illustrate Conjunction (the “And”, symbolized by an inverted V [like a Greek uppercase lambda: Λ] by standing with my legs wide part in a Λ shape] to show how I stand on both legs at once—thus standing on one leg AND the other at the same moment. Both Q and P MUST be true for the conjunction to be true.

An inclusive Disjunction (OR) I show by sticking both arms out straight above my head in a V display. I can tap a basketball into the hoop with one hand OR the other OR both at the same time.

There is not one student, no matter how unprepared who doesn’t get the message, ever, with me on the desk waving my arms: V is not Λ.

Anyway, starting a logical inference with a Disjunction is very uncommon, and P V Q (true) implying that P is true is wrong. Just plain erroneous.

Apart from the picturesque material above that merely emphasizes what Hoffman himself says, my problem with much of this thread is that the answer to its question is easily seen to be No. Stuff is there; we are thinking stuff; there is stuff we don’t see like stinks; stuff outside us exists that we don’t hear, and stuff that we don’t taste or smell, like some poisonous chemicals such as carbon monoxide, QED: we directly sense some of the reality stuff. Beyond physical stuff, we might think we know something—however, do beware of wish fulfillment.

[Max Goodman]

Thank you, Julie and Allen.

I don't share your attitude about Hoffman, Allen. An idea doesn't have to be right to be intriguing.

Funny stuff, Roger. "Reality" is hard to write about precisely, because it can mean so many different things. Even an illusion is real in some sense.

[Ron Greening]

Oliver Sax did some interesting work a couple or three levels above Reality to examine how damage and alternate processes within brains reveal pathways from sensation to meaning in people. "Anthropologist on Mars" and "River of Consciousness" are two books that take different tacks, both rooted in biology, to look critically at consciousness. The mechanisms that receive physical stimulus, process the signals, and bring them into mind are multiple and specific. To me it seems obvious that perceptions are narrowly filtered, species and individual unique windows, best located to respond to food, sex and predators. But this is more the influence of Dawkins than Sax. Dr Sax seemed a kind and gentle man.

[Martin Elster]

Like Max, I think Hoffman’s ideas are intriguing, which was why I started this thread. But having gotten somewhat more familiar with his theory, I am having trouble buying it. It seems far more likely that consciousness emerges (in a way scientists are still striving to understand) from more fundamental things (such as particles and fields) rather than the other way around. I found this summary of Hoffman’s theory (from Wikipedia). By the way, Roger Penrose’s ideas (which are far too complex for me) about how consciousness arises are also intriguing. Though difficult and controversial, his theories about consciousness are at least based (as far as I know) on physics rather than some sort of monism.

Introduction and overview

Hoffman notes that the commonly held view that brain activity causes conscious experience has, so far, proved to be intractable in terms of scientific explanation. Hoffman proposes a solution to the hard problem of consciousness by adopting the converse view that consciousness causes brain activity and, in fact, creates all objects and properties of the physical world. To this end, Hoffman developed and combined two theories: the "multimodal user interface" (MUI) theory of perception and "conscious realism".

Multimodal user interface (MUI) theory

MUI theory[2] states that "perceptual experiences do not match or approximate properties of the objective world, but instead provide a simplified, species-specific, user interface to that world." Hoffman argues that conscious beings have not evolved to perceive the world as it actually is but have evolved to perceive the world in a way that maximizes "fitness payoffs". Hoffman uses the metaphor of a computer desktop and icons - the icons of a computer desktop provide a functional interface so that the user does not have to deal with the underlying programming and electronics in order to use the computer efficiently. Similarly, objects that we perceive in time and space are metaphorical icons which act as our interface to the world and enable us to function as efficiently as possible without having to deal with the overwhelming amount of data underlying reality.

Conscious Realism

Conscious Realism is described as a non-physicalist monism which holds that consciousness is the primary reality and the physical world emerges from that. The objective world consists of conscious agents and their experiences that cannot be derived from physical particles and fields. "What exists in the objective world, independent of my perceptions, is a world of conscious agents, not a world of unconscious particles and fields. Those particles and fields are icons in the MUIs of conscious agents, but are not themselves fundamental denizens of the objective world. Consciousness is fundamental."

Perception of physical world is a byproduct of consciousness

Together, MUI theory and Conscious Realism form the foundation for an overall theory that the physical world is not objective but is an epiphenomenon (secondary phenomenon) caused by consciousness.
Hoffman has said that some form of reality may exist, but may be completely different from the reality our brains model and perceive. Reality may not be made of space time and physical objects.

Implications for evolution

Hoffmann has argued that fitness for evolution may be higher in entities that see some of reality, or create models of reality, than in those which see more or all of reality.