Is Reality an Illusion? | Dr. Donald Hoffman | EP 387
Dr. Jordan B Peterson and cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Donald Hoffman discuss what we know as reality, why space time is now being considered a “doomed” framework, and how consciousness can be understood as a vast probability space within which we orient ourselves.
Hoffman received a Bachelor of Arts degree in quantitative psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles, and then his Doctorate of Philosophy in computational psychology at MIT. He briefly worked as a research scientist at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, before taking on the role of assistant professor at the University of California at Irvine. He is now a professor in the department of Cognitive Sciences. He has written four books (below), on the topics of human vision, perception, consciousness, and the effects of/reasons for evolution on each. He is also a key proponent of MUI (Multimodal User Interface) theory, which 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.”
Dr. Peterson’s extensive catalog is available now on DailyWire :
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“The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes“ (Book) =sr_1_1?crid=1OMOD0ZGPHCT9&keywords=the case against reality&qid=1697060197&s=digital-text&sprefix=the case against,digital-text,189&sr=1-1
“Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See“ (Book) =sr_1_1?crid=QZBIXXULF7VC&keywords=Visual intelligence hoffman&qid=1697060273&s=digital-text&sprefix=visual intelligence hoffman,digital-text,138&sr=1-1-catcorr
Dr. Hoffman on X
Dr. Hoffman’s Ted Talk
- Chapters -
(0:00) Coming up
(0:24) Intro
(1:30) Dr. Hoffman’s theory of perception
(4:12) Fitness payoffs
(9:40) How has “reality” been shaped by evolution?
(18:19) Iconography, constraints, and pragmatism
(23:25) The VR headset analogy, the underlying reality
(27:54) Levels of potential patterning, “specifying the grip”
(37:08) Consciousness as conceptualized in mythology
(39:55) Why spacetime is a doomed framework, the theory of conscious agents
(46:53) Karl Friston, anxiety, and entropy
(51:59) How anxiety disorders warp your probability space
(54:25) Time is the fundamental limited resource
(57:41) Our reality is a projection of what lies deeper
(1:00:00) Every scientific endeavor starts with inherent axioms of faith
(1:05:34) Dawkins, reproduction, and the role of sex
(1:13:48) Is consciousness the primary reality?
(1:16:14) That which God lacks
(1:18:47) When the math backs the impossible
(1:23:50) There is no theory of everything
(1:24:45) Evolutionary game theory
(1:28:03) What lies beyond spacetime absolutely matters within it
(1:31:00) How has this understanding of reality affected Dr. Hoffman existentially?
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