Truth vs Reality: How we evolved to survive, not to see what’s really there | Donald Hoffman

[@bigthink]

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[@GODHATESADOPTION]

We never evolved.

[@priyakulkarni9583]

Objective reality and simulation both are part of existence and part of reality

[@priyakulkarni9583]

@@cirohernandezrodriguez2928 , Either reality part of unreal or Vice versa!!

[@cadearthur3227]

i guess I'm kind of off topic but does anybody know a good site to stream newly released tv shows online?

[@garrettvalentino4856]

@Cade Arthur flixportal :D

[@bergsofcanada2757]

Here's something that should have been clarified at the beginning. When mentioning that tastes colours smells and other sensory responses only exist in the consciousness, one must qualify that by of course stating that even though smell is an internal experience created by the brain, your senses and brain are reacting to something that exists in objective reality, namely the molecules responsible for creating the smell. The perception of the color red happens in the brain, but the object that appears to be red is absorbing certain parts of the light spectrum oh, and this is a phenomenon in objective reality. So the colour red is subjective to our experience but the properties of the object that allow it to appear red to our eyes is not subjective rather but fully objective. Every creature with eyes were suddenly gone from existence, the thing that appeared red to those eyes would still possess the properties that made it appear red to those eyes.

[@bergsofcanada2757]

This is all sort of obvious and reminds me of the argument over free will. It's really just a sensationalized way of getting a scientific point across that really actually confuses people. It's also sort of disingenuous by saying the colours smells sound etcetera don't really exist. The physical objects and properties of those objects that create these sensory responses really do exist in our objective reality.

[@GuideGame1]

@@bergsofcanada2757 I 100% agree with you. Another thing: It may be so that those "secondary" properties have different functional effects on different organisms of different species. Like, a certain plant may be poisonous to humans, and we feel disgusted when smelling this particular plant. All the while the plant could be edible for another creature, making the function of "being in disgust" an unnecessary property for the creature to have - from an evolutionary standpoint. So yes, objective reality exists, but because different species function differently: the sensory impressions bring different organic functions and subjective experiences. This doesn't mean there exists no objective reality. It rather implies another difficult question: How to know reality when our apparatus of understanding interprets reality through states of human-functionalism?

[@markywaddy6504]

It could just be information ie there's no need to assume that there is an objective reality. Reality therefore would be a simulation created by conscious agents rendering information.

[@cogniterra]

Take wireless radiation, for instance. Radiofrequency/Microwave radiation exists, but we do not have a sense organ specifically targeting those frequencies for interpretation, and so we think it is not there. But it is. The telecom industry profits royally from this. Turns out, our bodies' cells have a way of receiving and responding to these frequencies, for better or for worse, as does our DNA, our skin, and more. But we are not conscious of these as they are responding. If they lead to damage over time, then we become aware of that, and start trying to trace the cause and how it happened. Too bad we aren't paying attention to the many peer-reviewed, published studies that are trying to tell us how it happens. Right now.

[@KK-sg5gl]

I disagree. Different creatures might look at an object and see a different color. You could say that it’s the eyes of each creature that are different, and the object stays the same. But it could also be that the object itself is every color (or no color at all, meaning it actually doesn’t exist) and that each creature’s eyes are interpreting the every colored object in a different way. So the object is every color at once, but the eyes only see it in a specific way. This would also work for smell, as someone else commented about. Every smell is all smells at once, but certain creatures only smell it in their own ways, for their own purpose with it.

[@alexcontreras6103]

"If reality won't change your beliefs, then your beliefs are not based off of reality"

[@anemoia-pixie]

well yes this is true, believing in a supernatural God is defiantly not reality to the Naturalist. Therefore reality is NOT altered to those who believe in super naturalism.

[@nickh2541]

I wonder if the point is whether you want to change your beliefs or your behaviours. For the latter, I would say reality does matter

[@dan8346]

@Gabe Webb That explains religion then lol.

[@theuniques1199]

All beliefs are reality or you wouldn't have concepts of reality based on all of our beliefs. An illusion can only exist by never changing but must believe it's always changing to create a set illusion, for something to exist it must be infinite by being finite. If matter is always changing by us observing it then our universe must be scripted for us to believe we are real by being self conscious and self aware, you must have a scripted background to have a scripted dialogue and vice versa. We are now destroying ourselves to have memory of ourselves or we could never have created ourselves as an illusion of memory, memory means to remember your existence, meaning you must have a beginning and an end or a frequency couldn't exist infinitely. If you have the concept of non duality and duality at point and place then all of the odds of opposites and attractiveness that make up our universe and ourselves must exist infinitely finite, the universe can never change to exist but it must always believe it's changing to know it exist.

[@japexican007]

Indeed and macro evolution is not based on reality Stereotypical View of Christianity: 1.Christians think themselves so righteous 2.Christians are Holy and never sin 3.You have to go to church or else you’re not really Christian 4.You have to give money to the poor and do good deeds to be a Christian and get into heaven True Christianity: 1.No one is righteous no not even one 2.Everyone is a Sinner 3.We are the temples of the Holy Spirit, going to church does nothing for salvation 4.No one is Worthy, Salvation is only gained by putting your faith in Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross to save you, nothing we do can ever save us, only God’s Grace and Mercy is what we look to by his free gift for us. My friend it’s not too late to be saved! The bad news: We are all sinners with a fallen nature. No sin is greater or worse than any other, sin is sin. God is a Holy God and he cannot allow not even 1 sin into heaven. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” The good news, If Jesus could ask his Father to forgive those who tortured, mocked, blasphemed and crucified him what makes you think he won't forgive you!? The Gospel: Jesus paid for our sins so that we might be saved, nothing we can do on this earth can ever save us. Ephesians 2:8-9“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” “Romans 3:20-26 “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” How to be saved? As a repentant sinner Look into your heart and confess: Dear God I am a wretched sinner, as I repent I put my faith that Jesus is God and that he died buried and resurrected so that his blood can wash away my sins I put my faith in that alone to save me not my good works in Jesus name I pray Amen. Romans 10:9-10 "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."

[@HawthorneHillNaturePreserve]

I love Donald Hoffman. Unfortunately he’s so intelligent that I find myself watching his videos two or three times just to get the gist of what he’s talking about. I have no doubt that he is a pioneer in his field and to hear him talk about reality in physics forces me to think outside the box and it’s amazing.

[@matthewmaguire3554]

This guy makes you wonder if there is a box to think on the outside of.

[@hugolopezmontenegro6644]

In my case, I put the video at a lower speed and stop it from time to time to try to understand what Dan is explaining.

[@hugolopezmontenegro6644]

In my case, I put the video at a lower speed and stop it from time to time to try to understand what Dan is explaining.

[@samuelsamu8340]

I'm not a native english speaker... But i have the nugging thought that i wouldn't understand it in my native language either...😅

[@justanotherfella4585]

Same

[@aethrya]

If 2020/2021 has taught me anything, it's that people would rather be right than survive and are literally willing to die to deny what's really there.

[@gratefulkm]

its the Abrahamic delusion that Cain killed Able, Able was never dead He is alive and well his real name is the Amygdala and Cains real name is Cortex

[@OdysseyHome-Gaming]

I took the opposite: People would rather continue to take the blue pill than risk the red pill shattering their schema for reality. And to get around the shame of taking the blue pill people will just agree that blue is the new red. 😐

[@aethrya]

@@OdysseyHome-Gaming I suppose what you think of red pill and blue pill are not necessarily what others do. Are you insinuating that people who got the vaccine are "blue pill" or similar?

[@AdrianLoganLive]

This talk connected a few dots I had in my mind that I wasn't sure how to connect. I've often wondered about why psychedlics (from marijuana, to mushrooms to DMT) make you feel like you've seen the true reality, yet people who often indulge with them too often have a hard time adjusting or progressing in the world. I think this video made it clear why. True reality is a great place to visit, but not to live. To progress or thrive in this world we can't swim in the ocean of true reality, otherwise we will drown.

[@jojobabok9373]

That's my cork, right there!

[@agnediciuniene9861]

I would bet that psychedelics don't show the true reality. 😅

[@gratefulkm]

@@agnediciuniene9861 they show the reversal of evolution very high dose and correct surroundings(harmonious) First the PFC goes thoughts, Then the Cortex, motor skills cant move The Amygdala deflates removing all fear and the because its a spectrum of flow you feel all the love you can feel (this is where the religions kick in, but the slavers removed this from common knowledge, Explained in the story Cain killed Able) finally you get to be the insect (Thalmus) So it shows you all the false idols, all the delusions man has imagined Including that the PFC matters delusion

[@iamsuperflush]

@@agnediciuniene9861 actually there is good deal of evidence that they do show you true reality. Under fMRI observation, brains under the influence of psychedelics have a suppressed direct mode network, which is basically the apparatus that filters for the useful sensory inputs amongst other brain functions.

[@omkarstha]

Dear Adrian, leave alone DMT and stuffs... look what just the caffeine can do and has been doing to all. Know the spectrums of human fickleness and how asymptotic will be the search of real truth*.

[@soggy___389]

"If you see the truth you'll go extinct" No wonder we can't handle the truth. We literally can't. What a lovely reality..

[@TheOmengod]

The elites like it that way.

[@sa-amirel-hayeed699]

@@TheOmengod deception is literally the name of the game

[@redreaper5083]

lmao

[@londonuntergunther252]

He didn't say life cannot _handle_ reality he said one aspect *of* reality is that truth allows you to escape the rat race.

[@lxoxrxexnx]

I can see how this concept puts us in the middle of a big experiment. Science is all about perceiving the truth. Will science lead humanity to persist and thrive despite the claim that seeing the truth can lead to extinction, or will the claim hold true and science leads us to extinction? Stay tuned

[@tariqedwards8142]

Great explanation of a really complex subject. It also begs some questions: 1) If perceiving reality is selected against, why are humans so interested in it? 2) In fact, are humans actually interested in it? 3) If not, then what are we up to when we watch films like this?

[@slomo4672]

Humans are interested in it. The reason is that, though we are surviving, the survival isn't satisfactory. There are always people who have to struggle through lives. And everyone becomes old, sick and going through the depressing dying process.

[@glennsimpson_aka_bobbysaccaro]

We are interested in it because we are beyond survival concerns. If I'm hungry, I don't care about the nature of reality.

[@pavanflow7666]

We got much developed brains

[@TheManonCanon]

It’s about perceiving truth vs perceiving the fitness payoff. Perceiving the fitness payoff is always more advantageous so our ability to perceive truth has been destroyed by that evolutionary mechanisms

[@TheManonCanon]

I would add, we’re generally more concerned with ourselves and our own survival than actually understanding truth/reality and we may not even be able to fully perceive it if it’s against our evolution. But with the scientific method of observation and complex math perhaps we could, or at least we’re trying!

[@alecogden12345]

I totally agree with this guy. The Buddha said the same thing. The mind comes first and creates the universe that we percieve; mass, space, time, temperature, gravity, etc.

[@robertdouglas8895]

Hey. I agree and add Jesus to that. "Judge not by appearance but judge by righteous judgment." Jesus Christ "Ask and you shall receive." Jesus Christ We also made evolution by our choice but it's part of the illusion. In this world there is no objective reality. We really go extinct when we return to reality, heaven, where all are equal, perfect and one.

[@tungngo2445]

This resonates strongly with Sadhguru’s words. The 5 senses we have only help with survival process. They don’t help to understand reality. For that you need to keep a distant from your old self and observe the world with no judgement. Then you’ll see the world as it is

[@Wlodzislaw]

Total misunderstanding. The whole point is that your perception never can tell you truth about reality. It is not a question of judgment.

[@petermiesler9452]

@@Wlodzislaw But that overlooks the fact that nature doesn't know any concept of truth or untruth, that is human's conception. So from the gitto Hoffman is working under delusional thinking. Evolutionary creatures are all about sensing and reacting and learning, trying to deny that is Religion and not science! Even if an idea boasts "mathematical rigor."

[@mindblowingdiscussions2707]

I am overwhelmed completely and if anybody listen to him with patience it's hard not to be mind blown.

[@ourtube4266]

If you take a shot every time he says “Fitness Payoffs” you will experience none of the truth.

[@nahCmeR]

I'm still sober though

[@JerryBear59]

😂😂😂

[@whitenoise509]

Jcidnd fnfncjdidjj mvmdioe. Fnvidid, sjfkfbd, sn fkgighrbr. Kfkgkgndb?

[@joshuabrown5576]

Not true being drunk is a truth sounds like a fun drinking game though thanks for the idea

[@mochasrori963]

the summary is " IGNORANCE is a BLISS "

[@t1m3l0rd]

Lmao you saved everyone 30min and that is a fitness payoff

[@kirstinstrand6292]

I see Reality more clearly than you. TRUTH!

[@amazingsupergirl7125]

@@t1m3l0rd nice reply 😅

[@hannahpickles4825]

More like: ignorance is causing most of the western world to experience debilitating mental illness

[@billybobhouse9559]

A fellow Cypherite. I agree.

[@fourdotsYT]

I was on board with the conclusions from his evolution simulations, that we evolved along fitness payoffs rather than "truth"... but that only got us to survive, to pass genes along. Even bacteria and archaea must have evolved like this. We can't perceive the truth of gravity waves, or infrared light, or distant back holes... sure, our fitness payoffs didn't lead us to evolve that ability.. but we can discover Einstein's equations, that eventually lead to techniques that enable us to perceive them. They were there before Einstein or the subsequent engineered detectors. And those weren't genetically evolved. We might not perceive the true nature of reality, but we have means to establish it objectively. The rest of what he says sounds like Deepak Chopra's brain food. I'm sure his ilk will be quoting this "science". Even if Hoffman's mathematical models are rigorous and correct, it seems to fall in the realm of theories of the "holographic universe", "Boltzman brains", String Theory, or hypotheses of living in a simulation. Scientific/mathematical curiosities... And I don't believe that Descartes included perception in his "cogito ergo sum" thesis - it was entirely skeptical of perception (the delusion provided by the demon). Hoffman even removes the "I", the thinker, from that axiom. Even if the "self" is a construct in consciousness.. the being with the brain that produces that consciousness... exists. Objectively.

[@richardscathouse]

You can't perceive, infrared light? Or gravity waves? I feel sad for you!

[@fourdotsYT]

@@richardscathouse Why, can you? Are you a superhero with super senses?

[@richardscathouse]

@@fourdotsYT just eyes open!

[@fourdotsYT]

@@richardscathouse So, with your unassisted open eyes you can see infra red and gravity waves, huh? Cool.

[@ZeroOskul]

Fun With English! Look up: Gravitational Waves. Now look up: Gravity Waves. Know the difference. I can see gravity waves because I know what they are, most everybody else just sees weird clouds. Seeing infrared: Go look at a dry road in the summer. See that weird reflection? That's the photoelectric effect, and it is not normal light, it's an infrared mirage.

[@harpyeagle5814]

Can confirm, most of my friends get confused or irritated at any word longer than 8 letters, but my goodness they are good with the ladies

[@alvaroschudeck957]

This is one of the most interesting videos I have ever seen, very very accurate. The expositor expresses himself very calm, with simple words and I notice he has developed this way of teaching is not natural for him, he is more introverted than a good communicator, but expresed so well. Good video, with this kind of topics, then the world will advance a little more step. Thanks to the expositor and to the team who worked on it.

[@gruppler]

That definition of "objective reality" is unfalsifiable by definition. I really like how he addresses this.

[@TranscendingPolygons]

Totally agreed before watching. Insanity = survival. Sanity = death.

[@kludgedude]

Doesn’t bode well for the survival of what we might call “rationality”

[@WormholeJim]

Life isn't logical. Objective truth right there.

[@johnbuckner2828]

"never gonna survive unless we get a little bit crazy" -Seal

[@tomrhodes1629]

"In an insane world a sane man must appear to be insane." You're on the correct path. If you want the full Meaning of Life, give me a "click"....

[@ZeroOskul]

Insanity=belief in what no others know.

[@fernorsol]

Fantastic lecture!! My personal view on the subject is that "objective reality" is basically INFORMATION. Our conciousnes is a creative act by which we assign some of the categories (space, time, color, ...) available in our consciousness to our "contact" with that information.

[@projectmalus]

That's my view also. The information becomes digitized on the way to the brain and is computed/sampled like thru a DAC, and we "see" the analog picture contrived from real data. This process is like a rubber flexible joint in a large water system, it allows the immense flow power to flex a bit and still handle it, makes it work. It's possible language translates this mental analog picture back into binary sort of digitization again, verbs and nouns, also the shapes of letters and numbers (in the Roman style) being like stick and stone shapes. Music being more elemental in describing melody and rhythm, expression and control. All of it being 'one' on a higher level perhaps but this is where the fun is.

[@shroudedgrove4679]

Not information. *Potential information. There's a difference.

[@hugolopezmontenegro6644]

Thanks, Dan. It’s one of the clearest explanations I have seen about the relationship between physicalism and conscious perception. It seems to me close to David Bohm’s vision of the whole and the order involved.

[@prschuster]

Here's one way to explain it. Compare yourself to your pet dog or cat. The dog smells things that don't exist for you but it doesn't see all the vivid colors that you can see. There are also cognitive differences. To the dog, a work week, month or year don't exist. Making plans for tomorrow, doesn't exist. Paying the rent doesn't exist for a dog. Neither does the heliocentric solar system. Now let's look at our limitations. All of quantum physics is nothing but theoretical models to us. Electrical charge, spin, quarks, bosons and fermions are nothing but images we created for our own convenience. We are in effect imposing our own experiences at the macro level to understand the micro level. Time and space as we know it doesn't really exist at the quantum level. Yes, reality exists beyond our experience of it, but we can only create a model of that reality in our minds for our own survival. I have thought about this before - how we live in a world of our own experience to navigate an outer reality we can only know in bits and pieces. So yes, an objective reality does exist and our experience of it does have some relation to it. I believe there is much more to reality than we can ever know, but that's not important.

[@deckearns]

Great comment.

[@Kilmoran]

I agree that our limited perceptions and our biased tools of measurement do not give us the whole of reality, but I do not understand yet how this also means that these things do not exist without us. Things such as time and space and such. On one level it makes sense, if not percieved, does it actually present itself or exist as what we percieved it as? But on the other hand, if our existence is contingent on those "realities" existing, then how are they not independent of us? It is not like our senses in the sense of an instance of something like a smell or even seeing something. Time and space are experienced relatively, but they also are necessary for all other forms of experiences we can have to be possible in the first place. It would be sort of like a stick figure denying a piece of paper exists without itself to inhabit it. Without it, what is the paper? Well... It is still a medium that can be manipulated by something else.

[@prschuster]

@@KilmoranYes Obviously, something exists independent of our experience of the world, but our senses and mental framework create a model of that reality for our own survival, however distorted our perceptions may be.

[@Kilmoran]

@@prschuster No issues with any of that. I was more speaking to the assertion of the video (which it seemed you were attempting to restate and simplify) that Space-Time is something sensed or experienced more so than is substantive on its own. I am not so certain. I definitely think our relative experiences of it are not necessarily "real", but the phenomenon itself seems to have to be for use to sense or experience anything.

[@prschuster]

@@Kilmoran Yes, it seems that space and time are the ultimate medium for all other experiences. We learn a lot of things in life, but space and time are somehow instinctively given to us a priori.

[@kevinhornbuckle]

This guy is talking about very important stuff. And right when he gets to a critical notion, the goddamn ads interrupt and intrude.

[@0cards0]

ublock

[@brendarua01]

If yo uuse a PC, try AdBlock Plus. It works well for me.

[@NickSBailey]

Seems a minor annoyance for getting free content, surely the channel deserves something.

[@sanders555]

KZbin Premium is one of the few subscriptions I think is worth the $. Also prevents content creators from being held hostage to arbitrary advertiser whims and demonetization.

[@kevinhornbuckle]

Adam Sanders Thank you, Adam.

[@Luper1billion]

@12:08 The flaw cascades from here. You would have to omit the nature of chaos in reality, and it its ability to create complexity that quickly approaches infinity. Try modeling an arrangement where the fitness payoffs are constantly changing, where adaption to the changes are required to survive; then see if a species who can accurately track these changes, have a better chance of survival then a species who is incapable of discerning reality. The long standing theory of the human’s advantage, is adaptability, which naturally implies a complex changing system. So to give clue that the universe is at least to be known as a complex system that changes over time.

[@carbon1479]

What you're describing reminds me of Daniel Schmachtenberger talking about 'local maximums', a bit like where anyone or anything with broader intentions to do good also have to win the short-range Machiavellian games with their immediate competition to get anything they want to get done. He went over that and his usual on multipolar traps in pretty deep detail with Bret Weinstein a few months ago, the later had a 2012 or 2013 lecture he gave titled 'The Personal Responsibility Trap' that got into a story of three corporations where the one who was ruthless made the most gains, the benevolent one went out of business, and the mixed company increased the size of it's ruthless division because that's the division that was successful.

[@LateButGreat]

So on those simulations the particles evolve eyes which could rightly see the Eart's curvature intead of evolving geometry and math before known the Earth was round. One Earth life's evolution course is not the best path it could hypothetically be caused in a perfect informed system. We still believe in things like real contra causal agency (free will) and despite it had good evolutionary "reasons" in former contexts we will surpass it for matter of civilizational and scientific progress. Illusions same as cognitive biases and things as limited frequency perception (20- 22000khz) were and still are pro life adaptive traits. Sadly, maybe we never evolve cognition or technology to see certain things as they actually are. For me any model of higher space dimensions than 3D will ever be just 3D. Hope not.

[@earthling01]

Good incite and observations, taking chaos into consideration and a perception from our own evolutionary standards we can assume the outcome with different factors with us at the center, taking into Galileos acknowledgment of Copernicus Earth not being the center of the Universe as we put our own being and relevance there; the set of circumstances of fitness and logic become relative for a different species and environment. Let's take the complexity of an octopus for example. Do the similar variables converge?

[@optionstrades1614]

Wouldn't the species with a false perception of reality ultimately outstride the species that percieves reality in your scenario? Even if there was chaos on the level of infinity, where fitness payoffs change constantly, the creatures that cannot perceive reality would change at a constant rate as a default characteristic of their being; since they don't know reality, they wouldn't know that payoffs are connected to change, but they would consciously or unconsciously change to survive. The other creatures, the ones who know reality wouldn't be able to adapt fast enough, bewildered by the constant changes.

[@societalwisdom9930]

@@optionstrades1614 Why must each be exclusive from the other?

[@bobdobbs8700]

"Success has always been the greatest liar." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

[@tempustempus9073]

You pass butter

[@jojobabok9373]

That's my cork, right there!

[@joeycarter8846]

Our senses are NOT lying to us. It's our interpretation of those senses that makes mistakes.

[@phreakydad]

When I was child I theorised that enlightened people have crossed that thin line between sanity and insanity. In essence they have gone mad. Now I understand that sanity is seeing reality for survival and seeing the truth of reality ie enlightenment ( crossing that line of insanity ) might lead us to give up on material life. In Hinduism those who see the truth will usually become an asetic/sanyasi. "The world is a Maya"

[@ConamaraCounty]

It's interesting that there are people who are mulling over stuff like this, I guess it means we have evolved.

[@ineax7447]

or we are faulty and those who are blind will continue to live on 😬

[@liamkruchten1267]

People have been thinking about this stuff for thousands of years, it just happens that we are viewing a modern western explanation of the same ideas.

[@Morning404]

True. @@liamkruchten1267

[@siriuslili]

People have thought about these things for millennia

[@OmniphonProductions]

The electromagnetic spectrum our eyes detect, the particulate matter our noses and tongues detect, these things _do_ objectively exist. Color, smell, taste...these are just our words to describe the means by which we have evolved to experience objectively real phenomena. Certainly my eye and brain may process the color of the sky differently than somebody else's, but what we're processing is objectively real...as demonstrated by the fact that we both process it. For that matter, countless studies...including those on perception of color, smell, taste, and so on...objectively demonstrate that other species we generally consider to be non-sentient _also_ experience these phenomena. Dr. Hoffman is unwittingly demonstrating the proverbial, "Putting the cart before the horse." When one dedicates one's life to the study of subjective experience, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that _most things_ couldn't be subjectively experienced _by multiple people_ if they didn't objectively exist. His theorem only drives home the point that Natural Selection is not just about Advantage vs. Disadvantage (See Also: Logical Fallacy; False Dichotomy); Biology includes countless examples of Neutral quality...offering neither advantage nor disadvantage. Evolution is full of organisms that don't "sense" things perfectly but "sense" them well enough. There are countless objective realities throughout the universe, the understanding of which offers absolutely no Evolutionary advantage...or disadvantage. Moreover, as Dr. Richard Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene" demonstrates, Natural Selection is not about _individual_ genetic heredity; it is a Theory of _population_ dynamics wherein survival of a _group_ (rather than the _self)_ is the ultimate, albeit unconscious goal. That survival may involve a trait that sacrifices bite strength in exchange for a larger cranial space, _but_ the environment itself doesn't change _because of_ that trait. In the context of Dr. Hoffman's theorem (not to be confused with Theory), our ability to subjectively "perceive" reality doesn't actually change the objective reality itself. His disks and cubes example is faulty because it is specifically designed to use "tricks" of Evolutionary Psychology that could only have been developed if there were reference points in objective reality. Our minds "create" the cube because the optical illusion is designed to make us do so, based on the objective understanding that cubes do _in fact_ exist, and only those who have ever observed one will fill in that image. His example of Oxygen concentration is egocentric. It assumes that _no_ life could exist outside the level that supports the life that _does_ currently exist. However, Evolutionary Biologists...and Theoretical Physicists for that matter...overwhelmingly agree that if the environment were _other than_ how it is, _different_ organisms would evolve to exist within _that_ system. It's not that 19.5% - 22.5% is necessary for LIFE; it's just necessary for OUR life because we evolved in an environment where 19.5%-22.5% is the oxygen concentration level. I get that his point was, "You don't have to understand the WHOLE truth to survive; you just have to understand the RIGHT RANGE of truth." I agree with that conclusion, as demonstrated in my second paragraph. Unfortunately it largely defeats the first ten minutes of the video because it makes an argument that objective truth actually _does_ exist; we just don't _need_ to subjectively perceive it all in order to survive. That's very different from the idea that Life, the Universe, and Everything only exist to the extent that we perceive them. That's why, contrary to his claim, we...scientists...generally _don't_ believe that the physical properties of the universe exist as we perceive them. Perhaps he should have brought in some actual Biologists or Physicists (or even other Psychologists) in on his research...rather than just mathematicians and computer modelers. They would very quickly point out that History is replete with examples (like Galileo) of how our perceptions demonstrably _don't_ represent reality. Again, he employs a False Dichotomy; Natural Selection versus Physicalism. In fact, generally speaking, those who accept Physicalism...like the Church in the time of Galileo...are less likely to accept Evolution, and vice versa, even to this day. That's because Physicalism is actually Science! Science seeks to look past "perception of reality" to discover _actual reality,_ often by employing experiments and tools that have nothing to do with what's needed to _survive._ That said, having embraced the fact that what we subjectively perceive _doesn't_ necessarily reflect reality has allowed our _species_ to flourish to such a point that the planet itself can no longer sustain it. Ironically it is those who refuse to embrace _objective reality_ and refuse to modify their individual (and collective) behaviors that may just bring about that "point of no return". As with String Theory (which is technically still only a Hypothesis) the computer models and mathematical computations are solid, _but_ the observable data don't support it. I'm sure he's a brilliant Psychologist, but his understanding of Evolutionary Biology, Physics, and basically every other scientific field are demonstrably rudimentary. For that matter, if I close my eyes and can no longer see an apple in front of me, but somebody else next to me does _not_ close their eyes, if they say the apple is still there, it would be irrational to conclude that they're lying just because I can's see it. OPEN YOUR EYES, DOCTOR! Funny that he would also reference Black Holes...something we can't see but which are very definitely real! (Addendum: As of April 2019, scientists have successfully photographed the event horizon of a black hole. The black hole itself still remains technically invisible, but the space around it is behaving exactly as Astrophysics and Relativity predicted.)

[@MarcioSouza1]

Thanks for the detailed response. I felt that this adds a lot more depth to this topic! Very insightful

[@OmniphonProductions]

@@MarcioSouza1 Thank you. I glad you took the time to read it. All too often, these days, people see an "expert" make claims online and automatically assume the person in the video (1) knows what they're talking about and (2) knows all there is to know on the subject. As with many...if not most...of the videos online today, neither of those criteria is strongly represented here. Just figured I'd add more data to the equation, for those who genuinely care about _understanding._ Yeah?

[@GlennHamblin]

Dude! You have blown my mind! I need to do some serious thinking. Thanks for the video, I really appreciate it.

[@richardscathouse]

Glad, you see that, so many don't! Less every generation it seems

[@cheyennealvis8284]

Wait until you Discover the diamond sutra lol

[@tempustempus9073]

You pass butter

[@Talleyhoooo]

@@richardscathouse I seriously doubt that, and it’s not like this video is really that mind blowing. Just take a few lectures about behavioral evolution and you can easily make this leap on your own.

[@bnasc9670]

Hes blown your mind when his facts are wrong, your just sad, it was COPERNICUS not galileo

[@ivanecho]

having to actively search for this type of value adding content, while passively being force fed popular but mundane content, in a poetic way is a good example of the topic being discussed.

[@RocS01111]

“I think therefore I am” is similar to “I am that I am.” It is your self-concept. It’s who you are conscious of being. It’s what you believe to be true about your self (I AM)

[@TruthvsReality]

Finally someone who understands...

[@bnasc9670]

He doesnt understand that it was COPERNICUS not galileo

[@londonuntergunther252]

I'm on a whole other level than survival at the cost of truth. 🤗

[@alfredoxz]

This view of reality is very related to "right view" from Buddhism.

[@nirmalsuki]

I was just going to say that. Thanks.

[@Humanaut.]

Also interesting that the 2 worst things in the buddhist doctrine are 1) murder and 2) wrong views. So holding a wrong view is considered to be pretty detrimental. And fighting about what is the right and wrong view (war) can be quite detrimental as well.

[@stephenpowstinger733]

Watch out for Buddhism, it is interesting and useful but dangerous, like all religions.

[@oldschoolman1444]

@@stephenpowstinger733 buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion, in a traditional sense. Buddha never claimed to be deity/god or sent by, just an enlightened human being.

[@TheLluison]

@@oldschoolman1444 True but also that if you meet a Buddha on the road, kill him.

[@ROBOTWORKMAN]

The very end concept on objections causing you to learn more is refreshing to hear. So many take criticism in the wrong light. Great presentation.

[@arielsong1289]

What we are consciously perceiving of the world, is a representation of the world that our brain constructed to help us to survive (with an emphasis on the fitness payoffs), that we share with each other as humans and we call "reality". The objective reality is far beyond our perceived/constructed reality. So our "reality" is something we perceive, and only exist as we're perceiving/believing it.

[@krissifadwa]

His explanation with The Institute of Art and Ideas is his best one. Check it out. The interviewer asked at least 5 great and challenging questions out of a 51 minute interview.

[@UURevival]

Oh thank you! I'm only 3 minutes in and I love his explanation much more in that interview.

[@krissifadwa]

@@UURevival I know right and the interviewer just asked about 5 questions that were really the pick of the litter.

[@margiecallahan3009]

Also this guy’s name please

[@krissifadwa]

@@margiecallahan3009 the man speaking in this video; Donald Hoffman

[@_GleeGlow]

I think thats why we go to school at a young age, to learn fitness payoffs. For example with colours we were told, 'this is green' what if all of us are not seeing the same colour? But we all call whatever we've seen green because we were taught so and our minds saved it...🤔

[@shroudedgrove4679]

Go back to school buddy

[@DennisMoore664]

"Reality is what you can get away with" ― Robert Anton Wilson

[@ZeroOskul]

Reality is what you get caught doing.

[@DennisMoore664]

@@ZeroOskul If you got caught you didn't get away with it and reality now shifts to what your captor can get away with until you can regain your freedom and try to get away with something else. Circles within circles, baby pop!

[@seanfaherty]

Hail Discordia

[@duewhit310]

I saw it............. I saw the fnord!

[@tempustempus9073]

You whadda own the world how do own disorderrr

[@notatakennick]

This guy is sometimes so hard to follow it's like he's talking 3 sentences at the same time but, I don't think this is bs. This is very logically solid to me. It makes no sense asking if objects are there when not looked at if they aren't there when looked either! It's all your mind. The truth is out there...

[@tristan4386]

this is the only person in the world I could listen to 24/7 and still not get sidetracked

[@anothermike4825]

"Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter was just energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves." - Bill Hicks

[@PaulHoward108]

Finding out we are in a dream is good, but the real trick is how to genuinely awaken.

[@DennisMoore664]

@@PaulHoward108 By getting off the ride. Enjoy it while it lasts, brother. It will be over all too soon and none of us know what, if anything, awaits. Oblivion or eternity - we all find out sooner or later. Ooo boogity boogity!

[@DennisMoore664]

Hells yeah! Bill was never going to last long in this place, but I'm grateful I got the share the world with him for a while and that there are all the recordings of his work still here. What a spirit!

[@PaulHoward108]

My method is trying to please Śrī Kṛṣṇa.

[@DennisMoore664]

@@PaulHoward108 It's your ride, bro - enjoy!

[@MrLeifyGreenz]

I'm going to start calling money fitness payoffs.

[@ptolemyauletesxii8642]

Is it the case that it's only a fitness payoff when you are using it to better your chances of survival? But how far can we take this? Can we say that simply having the money, in your account, or in material possessions, improves your quality of life, because it reduces your stress and anxiety about surviving, and gives you increased confidence when dealing with potential mates and rivals? Or if you become obsessed with money does it then lose its status as a fitness payoff and actually become, at times at least, the opposite, something that increases your stress and anxiety?

[@geoengr3]

Just don't call it an objective reality...

[@citizenschallengeYT]

@Lief Yeah, but what good is money when you don't have any water?

[@t1m3l0rd]

@@citizenschallengeYT you buy a whole lake

[@cliveadams7629]

@@ptolemyauletesxii8642 In my experience there's a whole lot more stress, anxiety and harm flows from not having money. As the saying goes, it's not the money that's the root of all evil, it's the love of money so really you're talking about a different thing when you consider an obsession with money.

[@orionmcnebula]

Psychedelics reveal to the eyes what is always present around us and plants and bugs&animals. Pretty neat stuff that our eyes have evolved to filter so much out. But unveiling that filter is a phenomenal tool to help view ourselves and our environment, as interdependent and in union always.

[@rocketfox1672]

I'd argue they are actually a further decoupling of reality to perceptions. unless the tree leaves are actually crystalizing into fractals, and the gravel is actually turning into the deepest of canyons . that my girlfriend of the time actually did turn into another person I was infatuated with while having sex... oops. While personally they have offered some insights to myself, others, and the meaning of it all it's always at the internal thinking level, perceptually they were just fun.

[@ZephyrAvoxel]

@@rocketfox1672 it may actually be as Orion McNebulas said. Under the influence of psilocybin mushrooms, people in an MRI had LOWER levels of brain activity, and yet were more stimulated...that suggests that normal (more elevated brain activity) is the result of the filters our brains put on our sensory experiences...I don't care if I go extinct (I've already reproduced anyways)...I want to know the truth and have my experience reflect back as objectively as possible the reality that is "real"...

[@WalterRead1]

Having a bit of experience with such, Psychedelic's reveal what our brains do when our perceptions are drastically changed by changing brain chemistry. Reality is still there. Others can perceive it while you bang into walls and fall over. Plus we understand how Psychedelics work now and it is not by revealing what is actually there.

[@ahungryzygote]

You explain things so perfectly and make complex, complicated topics very easy to understand and comprehend.

[@jojobabok9373]

👩‍🔬

[@vumanhtung]

"If someone is disagreeing with you and you are not going to listen to that, that's when you stop learning".

[@insalubriousdithyramb1742]

Finally someone is looking into this. Fills me with so much joy.

[@bnasc9670]

He is totally wrong about galileo and he fills you with joy, pathetic. COPERNICUS

[@andrewblack7852]

Information is never destroyed. That is the central item in the hawking vs suskind debate. The math says no, information cannot be lost or destroyed.

[@gradypicinich2404]

If that's true, then how come I can delete my internet search history??

[@motherofallemails]

It's not destroyed, it's discarded.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

@@motherofallemails Is information then indistinguishable from existents?

[@spiralsun1]

This fits so well With my theories and my first book which had a chapter entitled “our evolutionarily limited world views” yep…. We don’t even begin to understand what is out there. I may not have done the models or math that Donald Hoffman has done, my background is in evolutionary psychology and neuroscience, but I started to look at information differently and began to see some things… Everything we see in the world is RELEVANT. People say I have ADD, and they are correct. Probably worse than anyone in the world… and there’s a reason for that. A survival reason. For all of us. Thanks Donald Hoffman. 🙏🏻❤️👍🏻

[@varukenprime445]

Free advertising for a book heh ?

[@spiralsun1]

@@varukenprime445 Lol, not at all… I wrote it over 20 years ago now. People like Donald Hoffman are starting to see what I was talking about. We are all waking up to a new world. Ironically my book was about how the universe is actually a book. So yeah maybe we All are promoting “our” book no matter what we talk about lol.

[@nuttysquirrel8816]

@@spiralsun1 _"...the universe is actually a book..."_ Interesting 🤔

[@spiralsun1]

@@nuttysquirrel8816 Yes. And squirrels 🐿 live in trees, and trees are a symbol of the universe, and we print our books on paper. The collective unconscious KNOWS. Even if we don’t. Hi friend! 🥰 Exactly YES! Friend!!! 🥰👍🏻

[@Bannor21]

So this all needs to be applied with a sociological and economic perspective. As a species we have not evolved in such a way to see the truth about things like climate change and economic cooperation for the greater good rather than self interest. We have developed the ability to cooperate in small groups, but competition over resources is so ingrained through evolution that it becomes difficult to view the world through a wider lens. For many, the opportunity to do so doesn't happen because immediate survival is always the paramount concern.

[@GorgoReptilicus]

I see the example of red v green oxygen messaging at work all the time. I'm a software developer and have learned to apply the fitness payoff measurement to my reporting most of the time instead of the objective reality measurement when advising my teammates about the systems' wellness. Simply providing a report that says "here are the labels for the report and here is the state of the system using these labels to show the numeric ranges" effectively means nothing to my colleagues who aren't interested in reading the details. I must use the approach of, "here's a heat map of things that are at risk of damaging or being damaged" after understanding what the team defines as "damage". The fitness payoff measurement is far more effective at keeping the team in touch with what's at stake. This requires me to continually track and measure "damage" over time, as this can change. But that's easier for me to record and adjust than trying to manage and maintain the training of all my teammates to understand the intricacies of the objective numbers.

[@fluxdegreef5500]

I’m fascinated by Don’s unique and clever ideas, but what doesn’t add up for me (yet) is that he has created these ideas from a world where nothing he observes is real, which by definition must include this KZbin channel, his own voice and even his own brain. THAT gives me a headache.

[@elainedaprano9130]

This!

[@hairycanarythethird]

Don't worry. That headache isn't real.

[@GreatBigBore]

Never having studied Descartes, I’m sure mine is a naive view, but I always took “Cogito, ergo sum” as a statement of near-despair, as in, “All I know for certain is that I’m having a conscious experience; let’s take that as a sort of operational definition of existence.”

[@petermiesler9452]

I finally read Descartes "Method" for myself and found it way more interesting than I'd expected. The thing is you must realize he comes from the age just before science. All Descartes had was his mind! 1600s learned texts were more wishful thinking then evidence and facts to build upon. He was smart enough to recognize that, deliberately focused on his mind. He has plenty to tell us about disciplined thinking, but next to nothing about the ways and means of Earth. Heck he was fully saturated with a vision of a personal god, as was everyone in his society. Thus we shackled our imagination to dualism ever since. I go for Earth Centrism myself because I recognize myself as a creation of Earth and not the product of some unimaginable god or some fantasy that sells well to a gullible public that's more excited by provocative delusional fantasizing than pragmatic learning.

[@janglestick]

very interesting stuff. Some have written that his communication is perhaps no the best, but I think he is remaining understated in order to minimize any misinterpretations along the lines of quantum foo-foo etc. Each point is taken to the point of near undeniability if you attend carefully, but not reduced to a Tedx.

[@VladaldTrumptin]

Yes hard for us attention challenged individuals

[@justinmcbroom2500]

There is always another side of the box we aren't seeing and there always will be. Constructive criticism amongst colleagues is where fresh food for thought is born. We must hunger for the great debates. Being wrong can be a blessing.

[@Jmatad21]

Innocence is bliss..the meaning of life is to enjoy time given to you as an ideal person. Too much thinking causes sorrow.

[@tigerstudios]

"If you see the truth, you will go extinct" This has my mind overthinking right now, especially about religion's and the "truth" they create for people. I think seeing what you think is "truth" shut's down your ability to sense reality.

[@shroudedgrove4679]

Don't think, you'll only hurt your brain Sophia...

[@nuttysquirrel8816]

I'll have to watch the video again because I don't fully understand what he meant by that. Humanity is scheduled for extinction whether or not _"we see the truth."_ So, does seeing the truth cause us to go extinct faster than we would have had we not seen the truth?🤔

[@phreakydad]

That is why Hinduism is a liberating way of life. It is not a religion. But also it is not for those who can't handle the reality of this world when you see it. Simpler religions coerce you to not think but just believe the reality that they give you as the truth.

[@GroovismOrg]

Music is the only concept we can bring into reality. To Be manifested with our bare hands.... bangin' on drums!!!

[@AshtonClemens]

While listening to this I think about my more neurodivergent friends. I'm considering the implications of more information being damaging to a comfortable human experience.

[@kirstinstrand6292]

Your hypothesis fits into my hypothesis that Delusional Thinking protects those who are Delusional from Insanity or Dementia. Delusion is programmed into Sheeple. Waking Up takes a Lifetime. 🤔

[@EroticPlatypus]

@@kirstinstrand6292 remember that "delusional thinking" and delusions such as those that occur during states of psychosis, schizophrenia, etc. are not the same thing

[@nevertethered6386]

Congratulations. You figured out that reality sucks. Next step: Antinatalism.

[@nevertethered6386]

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all it's contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in it's own direction, have hitherto harmed us little but someday the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age". -H.P. Lovecraft - The Call of the Cthulu

[@madeline569]

I'm ND and I'm disabled by all the bigger patterns I see

[@stevenwilgus5422]

I am build fundamentally differently to most others. I am a Myers-Briggs INFJ type Assertive. My unconscious state is more available to me (vis a vis others) because it has been my lifelong vocation to make sense of reality. All of my nightly dreams are lucid. Last night I had a very deep realization about our/my role in the universe. Imagine a beach where the last push of the ocean reaches the highest incline in a fine sandy beach.(A signature gentle lapping wave among similar iterations.) I was raised on Coastal New Jersey. Brigantine Island has a National wildlife reserve so it is possible to visit primordial space that has remained the same for millennia. If one imagines a vantage just above the lapping of the repeating wave pattern, existence is just one brief iteration in the timeless repetition of waves repeating. It's like breathing itself. The universe that we experience is simply a single iteration among an infinity of nearly identical patterns in endless repetition. The entirety of the multiple universes can be imagined if one elevates(stands above) the vantage to perceive the enormity of the waves that result in our/my single iteration taken in an imaginary isolation by our/my own consciousness. It was profound. The One embraces and dissolves into the many. We exist apart in isolation only for a brief experience, and return to the enormity.

[@CyanBlackflower]

What we perceive as "objective" reality - What our senses are telling us is NOT a construct, rather it is a DESCRIPTION. An interpretation, of what is going on in the world at large. There are ways to apprehend the world at large a bit more directly than most people do when dealing with it in their daily lives. I don't have the time to explain all that here, and neither do You.

[@MarkoKraguljac]

This beautiful topic deserves much clearer and simpler elaboration. Its possible.

[@kyrlics6515]

People think about this for weeks, months and possibly years and you want a 5 minute video 😂

[@ZeroOskul]

Don't pay attention to the fact that you are absolutely going to die. Survive and believe that you will survive life. Lie to yourself.

[@bobdillaber1195]

@@kyrlics6515 🙂👍

[@elconquistador98]

@@kyrlics6515 that’s not what his comment means, a-hole

[@somnathdatta6040]

The great Swami Vivekananda once said, 'The senses fool you day and night.'

[@edzejandehaan9265]

Hm, "fooling" implies deception. It isn't. What the senses are designed for is keeping you alive as effectively as possible. They function optimally for the task that is asked of them. To accuse them of not showing you objective reality is like complaining your bicycle doesn't make you coffee.

[@damiencastillo6216]

Vivekananda, Ray and Tagore! Aren't there any other lenses through which you guys see the world? Bengali culture, which I love btw but do criticize because of that love, really is having diminishing "fitness payoffs".

[@markhathaway9456]

@@damiencastillo6216 It's also easy to say any overly capable society which enables survival of the genes to even the individually unfit is in trouble. Think rich kids with time & money on their hands.

[@alanliang9538]

It’s just like how a better functioning program can not just interact with 1 and 0 they have to have lots of layers

[@Fjuron]

As person who deeply cares about and seeks the truth: Is there any value in the truth? Any reason in my efforts? Or does this mean I am simply chasing what I subjectively experience as the most valuable?

[@questor5189]

Outstanding observations Mr. Hoffman. I have been asking similar questions for a long time. You have given me greater clarity on what I call the "Survival Mechanism". If the evolving organism dies, it cannot pass on information to other living organisms as to what, in fact, killed it. Either the remaining organisms are able to connect to the dying one and information is transmitted, enabling them to avert that which is detrimental or malevolent; or, only those organisms which partially die can retain information concerning that which is malevolent, and learn to identify it for future reference and devise a method for averting it or overcoming it. My current position is that there is a pre-existing condition which gives the organism a learned response and will to survive.

[@WalterRead1]

YUP! life wants to exist and keep on existing for sure. The rest is just 100 year old theory.

[@questor5189]

@@WalterRead1 David Berlinski and Stephen Meyer have two good books worth investigating: "The Devil's Delusion" and "The Return of the God Hypothesis". I believe the Darwinian Model must be reworked in order to explain Force or Impetus in Natural Selection, Mutation, and adaptation. If Direction is demonstrated through evolutionary processes, then a Pre-existing Designer cannot be discounted.

[@OldEarthWisdom]

So, what you are saying is that I should not believe what you are saying or it will kill me.

[@goodleshoes]

No, he's saying you should take what our interface shows us seriously because it keeps you alive but you don't have to take it literally. Because what we perceive is not objective reality and if we did perceive objective reality we could not navigate it well enough to survive.

[@helmutgensen4738]

No - what he's saying is only what you've evolved to understand

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

It's very tricky to distinguish concrete metaphors from metaphorical metaphors.

[@Travelinman3775]

I came out of surgery once and when I opened my eyes I could see reality for what it was! Brown liguid like chocolate, even transparent objects like glass and hard surfaces where swirling masses of brown shiny liquid! Seen it for about ten to fifteen seconds before my senses kicked in and constructed reality for me as we normally perceive it! Who knows what each other's perceptions really are if reality is so foreign from what we construct for ourselves!

[@markhathaway9456]

My guess of what he means is that Reality is like a picture in a format your software can display for you, so the software makes up something. But, the software works consistently, so we can get used to red being red and heavy being heavy, etc.

[@pogosbayardzeein]

Did that experience change your daily life experience?

[@EroUsagiSama]

Brown sludge everywhere? Who would have guessed reality looked like shit?

[@JustJen1386]

“Of course seeing the truth would make me more fit to survive,” thinks the person not raised by a malignant narcissist

[@veritas2222]

Absolutely true! Had the same thought. Donald needs to meet my mother.

[@bnasc9670]

He doesnt even know galileo wasnt the one who discovered, how can he teach anything else

[@teeniequeenie8369]

I LOVE Donald Hoffman!!! Hes amazing…thank you for this!

[@sarahlight956]

Yes, absolutely.This is how I think things work: We are a simulation that our own evolving self , inevitably running toward death, keeps alive. That means, inevitably at the end of space time there is death, and our self from this particular space time period is struggling to keep the simulation, because that is all we have got. This means our distant self , which is our past self too, the Nine collective, is doing whatever he can to keep the simulation alive, because it is all what he got. The question is: your choice of generator. What is the source of your simulation? and how do you keep powering it? That is the question.

[@macdougdoug]

Einstein's relativity helps us take the next step beyond Galileo's simplistic idea of objective reality of shapes, position, time

[@bnasc9670]

Your full of crap too, he was working on COPERNICUS theory

[@tempustempus9073]

You pass butter

[@xorn69]

Beginning: Defines his theory into existence using twisted semantics. Middle: Word salad and “maths is complicated”. End: Admitting his confirmation bias.

[@slindilengcobo3235]

Appreciating the link between objective science/reality and consciousness/ perception. It’s an old question but his explanation is slam bang for me.

[@bnasc9670]

Hes also slam bang wrong that it was COPERNICUS not galileo

[@mrsullied]

@@bnasc9670 for what it's worth, I believe the presenter isn't putting emphasis on heliocentricity itself, but Galileo's philosophy regarding senses & perception. Hope that helps 🙏

[@hithere748]

I'm blown away how people make up a problem that isnt there. And they get all upset and hateful and cry victim about some problem that isnt real.

[@Kilmoran]

As far as the simulations about the creatures that could see the "truth" versus those that cannot, this to me is directly confirmed and paralleled by (to our knowledge) the success of single celled life versus multicellular. The extra features and abilities allow for more varied exploitation of the environment and "greater reality", but it also takes more energy and more complexity in survival methods. I am being very general and there are certainly macroscopic examples as well and I am not saying all single celled organisms are superior survivors to all multicellular, but I am positing that in general, the efficiency of survival is higher when things are more simple and less so as they grow in complexity and thus "understand" more of reality.

[@qissahelpdesk4850]

I recently heard him on the Sam Harris podcast. A must hear.

[@___Truth___]

Link?

[@peculiarlittleman5303]

So..."Idiocracy" is a movie about the future? This explains a lot.

[@pdcdesign9632]

Too many people here posting NONSENSE that there are several types of REALITY. They're confusing supernatural beliefs with scientific theories. It's all a play on words now. MY REALITY IS WHATEVER I WANT TO MAKE IT they say.

[@skiphoffenflaven8004]

@@pdcdesign9632 The nonsense/“aren’t I clever” responses have been old hat, overused and overplayed, for far too long on all of social media/platforms. It is absolutely tiresome, the equivalent of “Nice weather we’re having, huh?”

[@shaunsnowmusic33]

Trite af… but it’s about the present, not the future. I mean, we did just have a WWE character in the White House 🤷‍♂️

[@jhinthevirtuoso4886]

@@pdcdesign9632 they aren't wrong though you can shape the future by willingly taking certain actions and understanding cause and effect so yes there are always multiple realities to the subject and through action the subject can make it objective

[@alfredoxz]

I would like to know more details about these evolutionary game simulations in random worlds? how exactly these were run?

[@linked.5521]

I quess similar to Conway's Game of Life but just way more complex

[@rosealexander9007]

You live in a different reality than I do. My reality is that this isn’t some dumb simulation!

[@amazingsupergirl7125]

Me too. The possibilities are endless so how could they back up anything at all?

[@mattberinger2114]

I agree with everything Dr. Hoffman explains in this video, he embarks in a very stimulating talk, except at 12:30… when he tries to explain why having fitness advantages impairs the ability of understanding the truth. He arrived at this conclusion but after starting with the same assumption… namely that there are two *different* organisms, a truth organism and a fitness organism, and so each with their own different approach to the world. So, if you initially state that these organisms see the world and behave differently, how can you not expect that the result of their actions and their respective evolution can be different from each other?? It is quite evident that the two different premises and behaviors - looking for fitness vs looking for truth - will lead to the conclusion that having fitness advantages is in conflict with gaining information about the truth! What’s so exciting about this conclusion? I would rather be surprised of an opposite outcome. Really, here I find his explanation a tautological and unnecessarily convoluted argument potentially leading to wrong assumptions about reality and evolution.

[@nexstory]

Truth is that the universe is massive and violent and that it inevitably crushes us into dust. Ego, both individual and collective, is our protective shell. Religion, in its deeper sense, is the realization and acceptance of our transient nature, coupled with the knowledge that there is a greater intelligence driving the show. Ignorance, is in the final analysis, is the fear of death. Wisdom is a glimpse at the reality which lies beyond.

[@tracewallace23]

Should Descartes's quote be amended to "I think therefore I am, but I can't truly know WHERE I am",?

[@tomrhodes1629]

Better: "I think therefore I am, but I don't know WHAT I am." However, as my book shows, the ultimate discovery is: "I think therefore I am, because I AM THOUGHT." Give me a "click" to learn a whole lot more, including the very Meaning of Life.....

[@ZeroOskul]

No the quote should stay as quoted. We can expound on it as we like, but DesCartes said what DesCartes said.

[@Zachorazor1]

Descartes recanted this, noting that it did not account for the obvious fault, that the, "I," referred to, is presumed to exist. It solved nothing.

[@liamkruchten1267]

That’s the reason he wrote the book, because he can’t know where he is or anything about anything. The only reason he knows he exists at all is because he thinks, and something has to do the thinking. Even if everything else is illusion or false perception, something is thinking about that perception still.

[@amazingsupergirl7125]

I feel like he butchered the whole idea of the statement.

[@thebomb1393]

I’d love to see the rebuttals to this. Just to see where the edges are.

[@AndreiStoen]

Go to church. lol especially Islam and Christianity

[@rocketfox1672]

alright my shot at a rebuttal... this is starting to feel like flat earth theory to me, so maybe I'm missing something. but just some quick rambling thoughts on it... the perception of color doesn't *actually* completely destroy the underlying information of the wavelength of that light. It Aggregates it, and compresses it, but the original values can still be approximated from the perception. the transformation is more or less 2 way. Pain/touch perceptions map to visual perceptions of object sharpness/fuzziness etc it also maps to how sounds are made when hitting these materials/objects. these perceptions also correlate to other meaningful properties.. dryness->flammability. This huge web of relations between perceptions would be hard to completely fabricate in a mind, since that fabrication would have to correlate with an unseen objective reality. ... it would be like for example taking 10000 hamsters, and elaborate system of marbles and carrots, and building a reliable computer from it. If you think about most of the perceptions we know break from objective reality, they are more like embellishments of the truth, sure some of the truth is lost but what seems more evident is that we are creating an extra layer of fantasy held up by the underlying truths There is also the fact that we can make physical computer that simulates aspects of the world as we know it, the same systems answer questions we do not yet know, or cannot perceive, but in practice end up being true. Einstein's equations predicted black holes way before they were actually observed, this is a stimulus completely removed from our evolution, yet we perceive them as the theories would suggest we would (absence and bending of light) our theories work very differently than our perceptions, yet the two interlock we can continue this theory->actual perception in areas that we never evolved to handle, nanoscale circuit boards, picoscale? elementary particle interactions , planetary orbits... we can model abstract mathematics, and other systems that have very to no basis in our reality. our "faked" perceptions never falter or go of the deep end in any of these situations. I think they would if we had somehow evolved a completely separate way of perceiving our surroundings, that wasn't mostly objectively true ok ok.. maybe this But if you throw physicalism out the window, you just as well throw yourself out with it :P.

[@societalwisdom9930]

@@rocketfox1672 It seems your point is getting a little muddled but I do agree with the general direction you are headed. I would continue to elaborate on what you started but I would have to type for about equal a length as he spoke in order to give a fair rebuttal. He said he wouldn’t stand in front of an oncoming train because although he does NOT take it LITERALLY (that the mass and speed of the train is reality as opposed to simply his perception), he does take it seriously. Might that be because it would literally kill him and that is pretty serious. :p I will say that there was much of what he said that sheds much light on truth. But he asserts much more than for what he has actually provided evidence.

[@ginasalinas2731]

The edges are made out of ice so we don't fall off earth.

[@eagillum]

The personality typing system called the enneagram shows how we each have a filter to protect us from trauma and discomfort. So yeah, if uncomfortable information is "the truth", we're probably going to crumple up on the foetal position and not be able to move forward with our lives. But if we can use a defence mechanism against discomfort like false peace or forced cheeriness (ie. defensive peace or defensive cheeriness), we can power through discomfort (obviously causing more discomfort to those around us) to get to our goal. Usually it's called manipulation. Humans are pretty good at that.

[@yoanngouon]

Really great video. The way you took time to explain it clearly and in detail is really appreciated. Thank you.

[@lizgichora6472]

Perceptions could shape reality, as thought incurs theoretical reality. Rene Descartes may have been encouraging learning, by going into depth ' I think therefore I AM '. Inquiry of the subject and there I AM. Thank you Donald Hoffman.

[@gamezswinger]

Self honesty does not serve our fitness. Which is why self deception (which produces confidence) and deception of others reigns supreme.

[@RichLuciano1]

In summery we survive, use philosophy, mathematics, and science if we trust our senses, but our senses are not to be trusted because if our senses were to correspond with reality we would go extinct. Would it be horrible to suggest that if we didn't have reliable senses about reality, we would already gone extinct?

[@treck87]

Ironic. I want to put that guy out in Moose habitat and see how well he survives by not trusting and following his senses.

[@camerontaylor7471]

Exactly! It takes simple, practical, and logical observations and scrutiny applied to all intellectual properties and it’s claim over reality/life/nature... you already discredited the foundation to the institutions and educational systems, whom hold the authority rights to administer the qualifications and certificates to the ‘privileged’ students, to be the experts of there chosen field of study. These ‘qualified’ agents work together to create a collection of documents to which are used as ‘evidence’ to grow and support the chosen explanation/storyline/narrative of intellectual properties, belief system , and philosophies for the mass population to fall under as the standardized version of reality which is supposed to “unite the people under a common order of ideas” but like all forms of magic the inverted/negative effect is not unity, it is CHAOS which is the Egyptian occult teachings “order out of Chaos” ... basically there is a whole circuit of free information circulating and this is prime for exploitation and corruption, and The Elite, the Cabal, Illuminati, free masons .. whatever use KNOWLEDGE as POWER.. they use the summoning of the human mind over the masses as a backdoor to program and reprogram the ideas, perceptions, belief systems, etc of their “cattle. Or “sheep” they own (me, you, and everyone else) to make sure everyone stays in a mental STATE of ignorance, self doubt, fear, and dependency on ‘the system’ and the elite who facilitate the lower classes and maintain there positions at the capstone of the pyramid holding all the treasures of the land, and the people begging for resources... now with this guy in the video he speaks in so many half truths... and just as you noticed, the explanation in a contradiction, since all living organisms are completely adapted to there sensory perceptions, even if one body sense is weakened (like vision in cats in) they make up for there poor ability to see far distances with there night vision, whiskers ability to calculate space and surroundings of environment, etc... the whole idea that our body senses and physical world is some grand and insignificant illusion just because of some philosophical doctrine based from OPINIONS and PERSPECTIVE and COMPREHENSION makes the entire statement invalid and essentially non sense to discuss... life is a gift, our bodies and it’s senses are the proof of a miracle and genius creation of a higher cosmic force, i also do not buy into the idea of evolution and the Big Bang theory and natural selection, it may be true and if it is will it bring world peace to humanity and earth? NO so it’s just more intellectual BS which just takes away from the presence of our bodily sense, and keeps everyone arguing over words... I now for a fact the Big Bang is a lie since it has elements of previous told storyline and naming classifications which originate in Egyptian, Greek, Hindu, etc. ancient mythologies and doctrines... if the There are two short stories with same scenarios taking place and just name changes... you have the same story!

[@daviddemars797]

cameron taylor bro... how high were u when u typed this and can I get whatever u had?

[@VladaldTrumptin]

cameron taylor is that true about the Big Bang???

[@VladaldTrumptin]

cameron taylor I’d caution saying it’s a lie...? More like a generally accepted theory? Science is rarely a start to finish practice. With advancing knowledge, existing theories are updated and adapted or sometimes completely thrown out?

[@PeterKaitlyn]

You are thinking about the objective reality of an Apple VS. the Subjective reality of an Apple... They aren't the same. One is sensory input from our eyes or our mouths, and the other is chemical connections in our brain that we call memory. The two can't be the same, but they can have the same meaning, which is arbitrary... depending on experience... Apples we have eaten, or have learned about... are good to eat. Does this Apple fall into our experience of Apples that are good to eat. It's a survival comparative structure... Do it correctly and you survive, you thrive... animals that survive and thrive sufficiently have more chances to mate and pass their genes on... Survival has nothing to do with sanity, but only to do with judgement based on experience. Can I eat this Apple a survive? That's it. You don't need massive amounts of intelligence, just some learning, some experience, with eating Apples. I once though that, for every poison, for every deadly food, someone in our history had to eat that and die... or get sick... And someone had to experience that illness or death, who survived. Sanity or insanity has nothing to do with the outcome. Or... a sane person can eat a bad apple & die the same way a Moron would.

[@bogbody9952]

Or, once nature had made it's choice and the fittest lifeform received it's opportunity to implant it's genes, blah, blah. The conscious, observant lifeform decided to fill all the wrong places with it's DNA, i.e. this narrators colon and face, the red apple, the remains of Leonard Nimoy's ears and as a thickened, sweet filling in Moon Pies made from March-September 1998. Nonetheless some twenty years later, unconfirmed reports confirmed that complex female lifeforms ranging from salmon to humans had become impregnated after ingesting the modified apple, moon pies, ears and the dull speaking narrators sphincter of this made for TV special. How many pregnancys could be accounted for by this unusual sexual behavior? A declassified report by the department of departmental studies explained that statistics will show that nearly 78% of life on planet Earth will contain the DNA of a Mr. Ronald Jeremy by 2025. This will have the immediate affect of enlarging all forms of male sexual reproduction including the human males penis by 2.4" and an increase of 40% of male salmon jizz holes. Comments on the changes to salmon reproduction were outlined in "Eggs" magazine and detailed that eggs even under four seconds old could be jacked off upon. This did not include the narrator of this video as he claimed. All salmon commenting on this were eaten to shut them up. A call to all large predators asking them to consume the narrator resulted in the promise of him being eaten and transformed into a more pleasing form of matter than my fake senses currently display.

[@PeterKaitlyn]

@@bogbody9952 Please don't think that there is any guiding principals here.. it's chance, and genetic survival has more to do with random luck & circumstances than it does with intent... Not to mention that improvement or the lack of them has nothing to do with it... the results are random... and offspring will succeed or fail on their own... history is filled with failures as well as successes and there isn't a value system less forgiving than random chance... or have you forgot the dinos... all it took was one meteoroid and thousands of species went extinct... didn't happen overnight, but it happened...

[@bogbody9952]

@@PeterKaitlyn I'm certain that I just made this point albeit less direct by design.

[@bogbody9952]

@@PeterKaitlyn In fact I'd be willing to bet that the comment you wrote here was in fact complete and waiting for a response prior to my posting. I'll skip the details but I believe it's safe to conclude that I'm not writing to anyone but rather the equivalent of an answering machine. Ring....ring....ring..."Hello?" "Yes did that DNA up your kazoo result in creating a clone?" "Well I don't know how I could conclude the creature to be a clone but it's....hello?" That's right sir. I hung up on you. You have heard of the organization? You will know us very well very soon I'm afraid. 1956hrs 7/19/21 cat. 0053av Fwd: DrHolso rehighl via intra0

[@amazingsupergirl7125]

That only seems to work with something as simple as an apple. A lifetime of millions of life choices aren’t random or by chance. I’m not talking about fate but if you always make bad life choices, it’s most likely going to turn out bad. Human behavior can’t truly be predicted nor can subjective perception. And who can prove objective reality? A moron may, or may not, eat the apple that made her sick last week. Also, an intelligent person may, or may not, rely on experience deciding whether or not to eat the apple. There are endless factors that could help them decide…on or off the tree, variation or color or size or location, peer pressure, cutting it open, new information about apples, etc. sometimes people believe things for basically no good reason. For example, I lived in Japan in the 90s and they didn’t have dryers because they thought it was dirty and they didn’t drink milk even though calcium deficiency was rampant. Same thing with all religions. People mold their lives around a not so old book a person wrote. I’m saying everyone could refuse to not eat apples for no reason…no experience, a societal myth, or just not liking the looks of it. Also, if you’re talking about insanity as in mental insanity, that definitely influences survival. Insane people dont live long lives unless they have help from other people. They’re probably worse off than a dumb person because their decisions aren’t based on the kind of reality needed for living on earth, if they even want to live. Maybe they dont eat anything round, or red based on nothing at all. I think this guy’s statements run an endless circle because there are endless examples that prove it but also disprove it. Love ya ❤️🤟🏻

[@teegees]

Literally the last few seconds was my favorite part :) But regarding perception versus reality, when I close my eyes I have another experience and that is that the apple is probably still there. If reality matches, I won’t be surprised and if someone quickly takes the apple away without me detecting anything, I’ll likely be surprised. In both cases my perception and the reality coexisted fine. So I’m not sure what the conflict is here. Objective truth versus subjective truth can coexist. What am I missing?

[@ZeroOskul]

28 Days Later

[@VeteranVandal]

The tldr of it is that you aren't missing anything, he's just overextending his conclusions to where they do not apply. It is that simple. Light frequencies do not change because we can't perceive them. The apple exists and rots regardless of your perception. My man here is right as far as fitness payoffs not having to match reality precisely, since that doesn't matter to a living being in general. In fact, it demands a lot more energy to describe reality precisely than the energy you'd need to describe it just well enough so you survive. And that is the thing: we were naturally selected to do the latter, not the former! That part he's right about and he can simulate using his oxygen example for instance. Also, his point is along the lines that you, person that closes your eye and the person that steal your apple (somehow, without you noticing in any other way) agree that that's an apple and that that's the reason both think the apple is objective. Problem is that if you take nonphysicalism to its last consequences, we can't study reality because it is impossible to agree on any objective stuff, since, they argue, nothing is objective. So we can't measure anything or do neuroscience, since we can't agree on what is and what isn't. Summarizing: he's right that evolution doesn't select us to perceive reality (which matches basically everyday experience of every person in the world), but he is wrong that that fact means the world is impossible to be objectively described and that the world is physicalist. He's just going on a limb and overextending his conclusion to where it doesn't apply. It is that simple. Perception isn't reality. As I'm sure you know.

[@VeteranVandal]

Oh, and just so we are clear: theories require testing and it is impossible to agree on objective things to test without a subjacent reality. A theory is just as smart as its last experimental update let it be, and his belief in his blinds him to that simple truth. For instance, a lot of theories claim bs has to exist. We once believed the phlogiston had to exist. Then ether had to exist. We believed atoms to be indivisible. Einstein didn't accept black holes or entanglement as possible because he couldn't see how those things would be physically possible or testable. So, no. Theories are dumb and only ever describe what's real in imprecise manner (what you find inside them doesn't need to exist) until they are superceded by a description of reality with slightly more fidelity. A lot of scientists around the world work under some assumptions they judge true for many years in fields like particle physics just to have their entire work basically be proven wrong by a simple experiment, say, the existence of the Higgs Boson, for instance. A few scientists worked under the assumption that it didn't exist, and published their papers. Their work wasn't "true" in the sense that all of what they are describing has an inherent flaw: the Higgs Boson exists. So, that makes their efforts useless in a sense, but that doesn't mean that eventually they wouldn't conclude somewhere that they would have to have a problem in their theory, since their theory would be unable to describe the Higgs Boson, for instance. He just didn't work enough within physicalism to realize that this is the fundamental problem with his premise.

[@jojobabok9373]

@@VeteranVandal That's my cork, right there!

[@susantaylor2937]

You are missing that the 🍎 isn’t an 🍎. It’s something else all together. Your GUI sees it as an apple. You see it as red to get your attention. You smell it as sweet to tell you it taste good. It taste good to tell you your body can use it’s energy. You eat it and throw away the core to disperse its seeds. But what it actually is? You don’t see it. It could be a 4 or 5D crystalline structure that resonates and vibrates and has some radiation you don’t even see. Just like the UV patterns bees see on apple flowers to pollinate them. It’s not that there isn’t an apple, it’s just that it’s not at all what your simple little snail brain thinks it is. Lol.

[@marcelinogalicia7612]

Most informative lecture: we're all born with our parent's teachers and us what is what, this is a chair, a table, and so on. but nothing is solid it is all energy, so what we think is real is just a recall of what we were taught as a child. I think reality itself is changing, for example, the Great Wall of Pakistan, and the Great Wall of India, most people have only heard of the Great Wall of China, Bananas grow upside down. Donald Hoffman thank you for that great lecture.

[@dharmapalsharma2679]

Let’s dare to grapple with any & every abstract phenomena…& create our Reality, Actuality and Truth.. Primary qualities, Secondary qualities…&..so on… Transcending anything or everything…

[@puluzo]

One day this man will be called as one of the most important scientists like Einstein. He is onto something. I can sense it.

[@thebomb1393]

Or not. There is plenty of theories out there that are similar to this with different tweaks.

[@VeteranVandal]

Nah. A lot of smart people formulate bs theories. We just erase those failed attempts and focus on the successes. I think the last part of his argument is total bs. It is a theory that'll eventually fail under scrutiny of experiments. Like many before and many after. Einstein didn't think entanglement was possible and used the precise wrong argument to claim he had to right too, so...

[@damonhicks969]

You can’t see the truth.

[@sinkler123]

Great talk ! The subjects were very interesting and well explained. I feel like i`ll think about them a lot in the days to come. Thank you

[@sebastianelytron8450]

Me before this video: 🧠 Me after this video: 🧠🧠🧠🧠🧠🧠🧠🧠🧠

[@kareldegreef3945]

@@cheapalopod8563 eeuuuhhh => is that a pink cloud or a piece off ass ??? :-D

[@gangsterkami1]

That's Donald Hoffman for you

[@Siggvard]

you might want to see a doctor about that

[@InnerLuminosity]

So it made you chew gum?

[@deadman746]

This is the first time I heard that Galileo questioned objectivism, of course before Descartes. Thank you.

[@davidstout6051]

This is a variation of the classic question of skepticism and it still raises the counter question of how do you know you don’t know if you don’t know anything?

[@yoppindia]

Money is an abstract concept created by man, you can live without money, but cant survive without it in the modern world/hell we created.

[@ZeroOskul]

Try.

[@DennisMoore664]

You could be a bum.

[@victorarregnelle8976]

And many commit suicide thinking the same, but you could go off-grid and hunt or father fruit and survive. Although governments prohibit this typically. No?

[@ZeroOskul]

@Orwellian Horseman of the Apocalypse: That's still chasing money.

[@DennisMoore664]

@@ZeroOskul The OP said "...can't survive without it [money] in the modern world/hell we created." Most any homeless person who has fallen between the cracks of our society may still chase after money, but they survive without it when they don't have any. They make do from what others throw away and leave behind.

[@neonsashimidream1075]

I've had similar thoughts on the subject regarding our perceptions of things and how it results from our evolution and how they may not exist in an objective reality. I think that the concept of "truth" as we tend to define and understand it becomes pretty muddy at that point. It seems to me that it's difficult to try to parse out the subjective from the objective in terms of what is "real," simply because we lack critical information and we have a bias towards an incorrect model of reality that we evolved to use. For example, the idea of an individual creature's subjective reality experience being separated somehow from an actual "physical" or otherwise objective reality is probably an artifact of the way our brain's evolved to navigate existence. I don't think that these are in any way separate phenomena. It would seem that the process of evolution, leading to some form of perceptual awareness, is also the process of the "creation" of reality and that the idea of there being an "objective" reality that exists outside of the awareness of a mind is erroneous simply because it's the wrong way to look at it. If that's true, which I believe there are many reasons to think it might be, then the real problem is that we either don't know how or we don't have the ability to ask the right questions. It's also highly possible that the very concepts that we hold about existence, reality, objectivity, truth, etc. are all artifacts of the process of evolution of the brain and don't actually exist outside of their utility in our ability to survive.

[@4paapii]

Good thinking

[@higguma]

*Pseudo Woke comments incoming*

[@Necris986]

Explain Pseudo

[@HaloForgeUltra]

@@Necris986 fake

[@Necris986]

How does one identify a fake?

[@HaloForgeUltra]

@@Necris986 by flipping coins

[@Necris986]

CMDR Dantae lol

[@wisedupearly3998]

Our eyes do not lie to us, the lies are the stories society tells as truth.