BothAndBlog Forum

Donald Hoffman

Note: how strong is his "case" such that evolution is refuted. That is, does evolution lead to an absurd conclusion? — Gregory

You may have taken his metaphorical language too literally. Hoffman makes no attempt to "refute" Reality or Evolution. Instead, he takes Darwinian Evolution for granted, as the mechanism that produced human observers, such as scientists & philosophers, and assumes that a real world is out there.

Then, he merely notes that our knowledge of that vast & complex world is inherently, and necessarily, incomplete. Also, our personal worldview is an interpretation, not an observation. Moreover, as the link below implies, we create our own Ideal version of Reality by selectively omitting most of the available information. His metaphor portrays your perspective on the world as something like an icon on your computer or phone screen : it serves as an abstract symbol of the underlying world, and "hides" irrelevant details that are not necessary for your livelihood.

Whether his conclusion is "absurd" or not, largely depends on the worldview that you bring to the book. For a Christian or Muslim, the creator of the human mind is God, not an accidental fluke of random evolution. So, if you don't accept the concept of godless evolution, Hoffman's "conclusion" won't make sense. Unless perhaps, God wanted to spare you from certain harsh realities that are beyond your comprehension.

PS___ The "Reality" he refers to is your personal partial worldview : subjective vs objective reality.


What is the case against reality summary?
The Case against reality can be summed up succinctly. We are participants in the creation of reality, we operate using a species specific user interface which selects information that's out there and condenses it into information that guides our action.
https://wisewords.blog/book-summaries/c ... k-summary/

Hoffman makes the same mistake as Kant, supposing that there is a really, truly world out there that is different to and inaccessible from the world we live in.
But the world is the world we live in. — Banno

That sounds like a statement of metaphysical Materialistic belief*1 . But Kant was a philosopher. He was not talking about the world we "live in" (objective reality), but about the world we "think in" (subjective ideality). Do you think the world we live & breathe in is the same as the world we imagine? If the only "world" was the physical environment, why do we amateur philosophers so often argue about what is real and what is illusion? If we all saw the same world-model, why do we disagree on its properties and qualities? Was Einstein also mistaken in his frame-of-reference theory of Relativity?

Physical Science studies its macro-scale properties, and over centuries has gradually come to a stable understanding of its material structure. But Quantum Science has found that, on the fundamental scale, those classical properties are not so stable and certain. For example, the table you see before you as a solid object, is now defined by quantum science as mostly empty space with a few bits of condensed energy. So which "reality" does Philosophy argue about? Kant's hypothetical ding an sich was not postulated as a "real" physical object, but as an ideal metaphysical concept. Hoffman's theory is not about sensable objective reality, but about our subjective conception of that reality.

Which world do you live in? The scientific world of sight & touch, or the philosophical world of imaginary worldviews? This forum, as indicated by its name, is for the latter.


*1. Metaphysical Materialism :
The metaphysics of materialism is a belief system held in large swathes of academia in the same manner, and often for the same reasons, that religious beliefs are held in fundamentalist organizations, argues Dr. Quinn, with 30 years of academic experience to substantiate her views.
“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” Anais Nin (1961)
https://www.essentiafoundation.org/mate ... m/reading/
Note : Werner Heisenberg said, "We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning."