[Martin Elster]

Do we see reality as it is? | Donald Hoffman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY

[RCL]

Wow, and I’m still wrestling with Plato’s cave and Bishop Berkeley…. And don’t mind, if there is one. Unless it's The Matrix.

Really

There was an old Bishop named Berkeley
who thought of the real Ideally:
that there’s sound is absurd
when felled trees are unheard
unless by God’s ears. Really!

[Martin Elster]

Ralph, I am — right at this very moment — listening to a much more in-depth talk about this topic. I'm finding it quite interesting, as you may.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL8wopYLM7Y

[Orwn Acra]

Reality is real enough, but there is no reality.

[Martin Elster]

Walter, at the end of the video in my second link, Hoffman says that in a thousand years we will be playing with space-time, since it is actually the interface between us and the fundamental (or at least some deeper) reality. He says that, so far, science has probed inside what he calls our "headset," and is only just beginning to understand what's beyond the headset. He claims that, because of evolution, space-time (and everything we experience) is a construct of our senses to better enable us to find food, fight, flee, and produce offspring.

[Martin Elster]

Here is a quote I just found by Donald Hoffman:

"Physical objects are the eye candy. They are there not to show us the truth but to hide the truth and let us act in ways that keep us alive. Space-time is not a fundamental reality. It's a data structure that we evolved."

[Roger Slater]

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?

[Allen Tice]

Oh my, I shall look at the videos one of these days. (Nice new avatar on the thread.) Martin, do you think that we evolved the Big Bang and its effluvia? It seems like we are in the effluvia. A bigger question: what gave the Big Bang permission to Bang? Since parts of the effluvia can think about themselves, the Bang certainly can harbor some interesting features. I agree that the physical world is perhaps less and much more than we perceive, certainly “different” than we think. But here we are, thinking. Who or what “said”, “Go Bang”? The Bang had a substrate at least.

[Martin Elster]

That's a great question, Roger. But I think he's talking about a more underlying reality than an organism's data structure.

Allen, I'm not saying that I agree with Hoffman. (He himself admits that he doesn't know what the ultimate reality is.) As Carl Sagan said,

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

(So the burden of proof is on Hoffman, which he also admits.)

This evening I was skimming through a book review of Hoffman's book, The Case Against Reality. It seems to give a pretty good summary of his theories. I haven't read the book, however.

Do We See Icons or Reality? A Review of Donald Hoffman’s The Case Against Reality, Brian Martin

https://social-epistemology.com/2019...-brian-martin/

Here's the conclusion of the review:

The interface theory of perception can seem exceedingly strange, but perhaps that is only because it is unfamiliar. Interface Theory of Perception (ITP) does not affect everyday behaviour, just as the physics understanding of objects as made up of atoms that are mostly empty does not affect the way we think about or interact with objects.

Some scientists treat entities they study but cannot directly observe, such as quarks, neutrinos and black holes, as useful concepts, without assuming they really exist. ITP expands this instrumentalist view to the macroscopic world: it is useful for individual and species survival to see objects in three dimensions, but we should not assume they really exist.

ITP is definitely a challenge to usual understandings of perception, and of what we perceive. It is also, potentially at least, a challenge to scientists who say scientific knowledge is about reality, or about truth. ITP instead says scientific knowledge, indeed knowledge more generally, is about fitness, in other words usefulness for survival, by humans or other conscious entities. In this, it seems closest to the philosophy of pragmatism and to semiotics.

Hoffman’s book is filled with fascinating information and provocative ideas. It is well worth reading even if you remain convinced that you directly observe some part of reality. It may be safer to take the blue pill and remain at the interface. Or you can risk taking Hoffman’s red pill and upending your intuitions.

[Martin Elster]

Originally Posted by Allen Tice

A bigger question: what gave the Big Bang permission to Bang? Since parts of the effluvia can think about themselves, the Bang certainly can harbor some interesting features. I agree that the physical world is perhaps less and much more than we perceive, certainly “different” than we think.

That brings to mind something Einstein said: “Do you really believe that the moon isn’t there when nobody looks?” Hoffman would say that the moon isn't actually there at all!