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  #11  
Unread 12-21-2020, 07:47 AM
Max Goodman Max Goodman is offline
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Originally Posted by Roger Slater View Post
Why isn't it reality? Even if it's all a data structure we evolved, it's a real data structure, isn't it, and one that we really evolved? What are the qualities of "reality" that are lacking from what we "falsely" perceive as reality?
As a way of testing my understanding of Hoffman, I'll give what I think Hoffman's answer would be.

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Originally Posted by Roger Slater View Post
Why isn't it reality?
It is reality--of a sort. The same way, to use H's analogy, that an icon on your computer desktop representing a text document, is really an icon on your desktop, is really rectangular (or whatever shape it is), etc. But it isn't in any sense the whole reality of that document, which consists of processes going on in the innards of the computer.

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Originally Posted by Roger Slater View Post
What are the qualities of "reality" that are lacking from what we "falsely" perceive as reality?
We don't know. Maybe we can't know.

***

I think, Bob, you wrote a children's poem speculating that the blue I see may be a completely different color than the blue you see. Hoffman's idea seems to apply a similar concept, but apply it more deeply. Just as we can be confident that something real exists which both you and I experience and call blue, the reality of what we're experiencing may be different for each of us and therefore different from what either of us is experiencing.

The same, Hoffman speculates, is true of space-time and all the physical objects in it.

Yes, something exists which you and I both call space-time, but it (our perception of it) may have no more relationship to reality than the color I experience as blue has to whatever it is in reality provokes the experience blue in my brain.

It's really hard to put accurately into words! Hoffman says that's because we have the wrong language for it, which sounds like a copout when I write it down, but feels possible.
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  #12  
Unread 12-21-2020, 08:05 AM
Jim Moonan Jim Moonan is offline
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.

Martin: Here is a quote I just found by Donald Hoffman:

"Physical objects are the eye candy..."


...And imagination is our appetite.
.
.
.
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  #13  
Unread 12-21-2020, 08:09 AM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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Thanks for those thoughts, Max.

I think it's pretty obvious that there's a whole lot of reality that we don't perceive and are incapable of perceiving, but I still don't think that means that the fraction of reality that we can indeed perceive and experience is any less real or somehow invalid. If you're a dog, there are things that your master knows and experiences that are literally beyond your hope of comprehension, but that doesn't make it any less real when he scratches your belly or throws a stick for you to fetch.
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  #14  
Unread 12-21-2020, 11:23 AM
Max Goodman Max Goodman is offline
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Originally Posted by Roger Slater View Post
that doesn't make it any less real when he scratches your belly or throws a stick for you to fetch.
You seem to assume that the dog understands there's another being doing the scratching or throwing, a being that differs in a significant way from, say, a steak or a bowl of dog food. But it's possible that all the dog understands is that one smell should be eaten and the other smell should be made googly eyes at, and each results in a good feeling of a different sort.

The human scratching the dog's belly is real. So is whatever the dog perceives that prompts him to do what he needs to do to get the scratching. But that doesn't mean that they're the same thing or even that they exist on the same plane (or level?) of reality.
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  #15  
Unread 12-21-2020, 12:08 PM
Martin Elster Martin Elster is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Moonan View Post
.

Martin: Here is a quote I just found by Donald Hoffman:

"Physical objects are the eye candy..."


...And imagination is our appetite.
.
.
.
I like that, Jim!
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  #16  
Unread 12-21-2020, 12:18 PM
Martin Elster Martin Elster is offline
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Originally Posted by Max Goodman View Post
It is reality--of a sort. The same way, to use H's analogy, that an icon on your computer desktop representing a text document, is really an icon on your desktop, is really rectangular (or whatever shape it is), etc. But it isn't in any sense the whole reality of that document, which consists of processes going on in the innards of the computer.

We don't know. Maybe we can't know.
It's possible that we are not only incapable of knowing, but might never know. On the other hand, who knows what we'll know thousands of years from now (when we are either part machine or wholly machines).

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Originally Posted by Max Goodman View Post
I think, Bob, you wrote a children's poem speculating that the blue I see may be a completely different color than the blue you see. Hoffman's idea seems to apply a similar concept, but apply it more deeply. Just as we can be confident that something real exists which both you and I experience and call blue, the reality of what we're experiencing may be different for each of us and therefore different from what either of us is experiencing.
Yes, since what we perceive as color is merely somehow correlated to a wavelength of the electromagnetic field (called light). Bees can see ultraviolet, and pit vipers can sense infrared (night vision).

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Originally Posted by Max Goodman View Post
The same, Hoffman speculates, is true of space-time and all the physical objects in it.
That's what I understand he's saying. But I'm still trying to fathom the gist of his "theory," which I think he is still working out. He's working on what's called the hard problem of consciousness, a subject that no scientist understands yet. But if we ever do, then AI will potentially become conscious and self-aware.

Last edited by Martin Elster; 12-21-2020 at 12:22 PM.
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  #17  
Unread 12-21-2020, 01:08 PM
Martin Elster Martin Elster is offline
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I just saw this in Wikipedia. It doesn't mention his new book, so it's probably not a recent article, but seems to explain Hoffman's theory in a nutshell.

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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.[3]

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."[4][5]

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.[6] Reality may not be made of space time and physical objects.[7]

Implications ref. 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.
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  #18  
Unread 12-21-2020, 01:20 PM
Martin Elster Martin Elster is offline
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Regarding the perception of color (and other senses), here’s a paragraph from the book review:

Fitness enables an organism to survive and reproduce, but evolutionary theory says nothing about whether the development of perceptual capacities necessarily tailors them to register reality. Hoffman gives many examples suggesting the divergence between fitness-tuned-perceptions and reality. Other species have quite different perceptual systems. The cyanobacterium has 27 types of photoreceptors (compared to 4 for humans); bees can see ultraviolet light; flies find the smell of faeces appealing. It is usual to think that all organisms sense the same reality, just registering different intensities or aspects of the same objects, but Hoffman turns this around, saying that the perceptions of different species can be so radically different that it is more logical to think that perceptions create an organism’s personal reality.
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  #19  
Unread 12-21-2020, 01:24 PM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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Originally Posted by Max Goodman View Post
You seem to assume that the dog understands there's another being doing the scratching or throwing, a being that differs in a significant way from, say, a steak or a bowl of dog food. But it's possible that all the dog understands is that one smell should be eaten and the other smell should be made googly eyes at, and each results in a good feeling of a different sort.

The human scratching the dog's belly is real. So is whatever the dog perceives that prompts him to do what he needs to do to get the scratching. But that doesn't mean that they're the same thing or even that they exist on the same plane (or level?) of reality.
Yes, I assume that, just as I assume that you are a being that differs in a significant way from a book or a chair. Can I prove it? No, I can't. You may just be a robot or a simulation, an advanced form of Alexa. But I don't think we should be philosophical conspiracy theorists who conclude that we are each of us the only real consciousness and that all other beings are mechanical zombies without a rich internal life that at least in some ways is like our own.

For me so much of this is poignantly expressed in Bishop's great poem, "In the Waiting Room." She's just seven years old, but it's not strange to me that even a seven-year old gets right to the heart of the problem (and, incidentally, let this be a lesson to all children's poets: children are as deep and thoughtful as adults):

But I felt: you are an I,
you are an Elizabeth,
you are one of them.
Why should you be one, too?
I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was.
I gave a sidelong glance
--I couldn't look any higher--
at shadowy gray knees,
trousers and skirts and boots
and different pairs of hands
lying under the lamps.
I knew that nothing stranger
had ever happened, that nothing
stranger could ever happen.

Those final three lines are pretty much where I leave off, as well. Nothing stranger could ever happen. I truly don't think we'll ever understand it.
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  #20  
Unread 12-21-2020, 03:31 PM
Max Goodman Max Goodman is offline
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Beautiful poem, Bob.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Max Goodman View Post
You seem to assume that the dog understands there's another being doing the scratching or throwing, a being that differs in a significant way from, say, a steak or a bowl of dog food.
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Originally Posted by Roger Slater View Post
Yes, I assume that, just as I assume that youare a being that differs in a significant way from a book or a chair.
I wasn't asking you to ponder the difference between the scratcher and the food, but of the dog's perception of that difference. Clearly I lack the skill and/or vocabulary to clearly communicate about such issues.

Thank you, Martin, for introducing me to Hoffman. I'm particularly intrigued by his claim that natural selection proves that a being accurately perceiving reality would not, in the long run, survive. In the 20-minute clip, he glosses over the proof of this counterintuitive conclusion by claiming to have run simulations. Even if he shared the simulations, I would lack the expertise to check their accuracy, but I'm eager to better understand the proof.
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