TPF : Don Hoffman -- Ontology

[Gnomon]

The question I would have for Donald Hoffman is why is his theory not a product of the same evolutionarily-conditioned process that our perception of everything else is? What faculty is it that is capable of arriving at the judgement that he is making? I'm sure he must have considered this, or that it has been asked of him, but I'd like to see the answer. — Wayfarer

The title of Hoffman's book was intentionally provocative. The term "illusion" can be interpreted negatively as "deception"*1 or neutrally as "conception"*2 (i.e. imaginary). So some interpret his message as saying that A> there is no mundane material reality or B> there is no Ultimate Reality, from God's perspective, so to speak. But that's beside the practical point he's trying to make with computer metaphors. Instead, he's talking about the differentiation between sensory Perception (Materialistic) and mental Conception (Idealistic).

Kant addressed the same Real vs Ideal problem in his ding an sich analogy. The thing-in-your-mind is merely a representation of a thing-in-the-material-world, which may also be a single instance of a Platonic Ideal, in the mind of god, as it were. "Donald Hoffman argues that while we should take our perceptions seriously, we should not take them literally". What you conceive figuratively is a merely a model of actual Reality. And that's as close to ultimate Reality as you will ever get.

Another approach to that basic distinction is the Cartesian Theater model of imagination, in which a little homunculus in the head --- representing the Soul --- makes sense of the flickering images presented by the senses*3. But that merely kicks-the-can of who's doing the perceiving further down the road. The "faculty" of Knowing (Conception) is functionally different from Sensing (Perception). For example, a video camera dumbly records images from external "reality", but to be aware of that externality requires a conscious Mind. And that transformative functionality raises the modern conundrum, taken for granted by the ancients, of how a data-processing Brain can produce a meaning-making Mind.

Anyway, the mysterious "Faculty" that allows us to interpret sensory data as abstract ideas is old-fashioned Reason : the ability to infer (transform) raw sensory data into personal meaning. The mental Meaning is not the Material Thing, but we use the imaginary model as-if it is real-enough for our practical purposes. An icon on a computer screen compresses all the invisible information processing into a simplified abstract picture, shorn of all its real-world complexities*4. So, what you think you see, is not what's really out there.


*1. Illusion : Descartes' Deceptive Demon

*2. Concept : an abstract idea; a general notion ; mental image

*3. Sensory shadows : Plato's allegory of the cave

*4. Interface Reality : Model Dependent Realism
https://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page21.html

CARTESIAN THEATER with "mini-me" Soul in the seat
1200px-Cartesian_Theater.svg.png

[Gnomon]

So, says Hoffman, the material world is a bunch of icons in spacetime, a headset, which we use to manipulate reality. Evolution has given us this headset because if we had to manipulate reality directly, we couldn’t. — Art48

Yes. As I understand the thesis, Hoffman is not saying there is no material reality out there, but that all we know about that presumptive*1 reality is the images in our minds. So we humans are somewhat insulated from harsh reality by our reason-enhanced imagination. Ontology is a theory.

Besides the computer icon, another analogy is that our concept of Reality is a simulation : like the ground-based pilots of remote military drones*2. What they see is a low-res simulation of the terrain the drone is flying over*3 -- plus a lot of non-visual information pertinent to the job. Likewise, our visual images are supplemented with data from other senses, such as smell & hearing in order to give us a broad-spectrum overview that is adequate for survival. It's not a perfect bit-for-bit representation of reality, but it's good enough to get the job done.

*1. Presumptive : conjectured, speculative, notional, theoretical

*2. LOW-RES REALITY SIMULATION
A%20drone%20pilot%20operates%20an%20MQ-1%20Predator%20during%20a%20t
*3. FULL RESOLUTION REALITY
2-drone-16_9.jpg

[Gnomon]

↪Gnomon
I think you need to infinitely nest your Cartesian theatre image. The mini-me needs his own control-room in the skull, with its own screen that shows the first screen. And then mini-mini-me needs... — green flag

Yes. That's why the homunculus theory doesn't explain Sentience. It's a same-thing-all-the-way-down theory. But, what's missing is Transformation from sensory data to meaning in the mind. My Enformationism thesis begins with a Quantum science concept : that Matter & Energy are different functional forms of Generic Information (power to enform ; to cause change ; to transform). Hence, I have inferred that Matter, Energy and Mind are all various instances of Information (relationships ; mathematical ratios ; meanings). So, Cosmos (reality + ideality) is indeed the same-thing-all-the-way-down. But the essential thing is Mind-stuff (information) instead of Material-stuff (atoms in void). Another way to express the idea is : Ontology is all Mind. And that notion opens up a Pandora's Box of infinite possibilities, including mis-interpretations of the Mind-Matter relationship.

[Gnomon]

Agree. However, Hoffman is trying to model reality in terms of "conscious agents." So, while I don't think he specifically denies material reality, he is working on an alternative based on consciousness. He says the hard problem of consciousness was one of the things that motivated his search for an alternative to materialism. — Art48

Yes. As ↪Wayfarer noted, I suspect that Hoffman is leaning toward some form of Idealism. But, I try to cover both bases -- material Realism and mental Idealism -- in one thesis : Enformationism. It's based on the Quantum implication that both Energy (causation) and Matter (malleable substance) are functional forms of Generic Information (power to enform).

[Gnomon]

Another way to express the idea is : Ontology is all Mind. — Gnomon
My objection to approaches that want to call everything 'mind' is that only make sense in a world where we see animals with nervous systems and speculate about what it's like to be them or about their umwelt. This applied to us encouraged philosophers to think of themselves as trapped behind a wall of sensory experience, within a mere image of the world on a screen and not the world itself. — green flag

Sorry! I didn't mean to imply that there's something unreal, spooky, or fatalistic about Reality. Instead, sensory experience, including vision, is our only connection to the non-self world, by which we create Mental Maps*1 to guide us through the environment. Those ideal models are sufficiently accurate for way-finding, so they are our window-in-the-wall to the world outside. Even the blind are not "trapped" if they have other senses by which to know what's out there. You are only imprisoned behind your mind-screen if you feel trapped.

I just threw that "all is Mind" summary in there because the topic of this thread is Ontology : the nature of existence. And Quantum physics has undermined mechanical Newtonian physics, with its implicit Materialism, by discovering, at the foundations of Reality, that there are no ultimate Atoms (particles) of matter, only Fields of inter-relationships (Information). Some scientists went on to infer that a Subjective Observer is an integral part of that system of immaterial elements : John A. Wheeler's "It From Bit" theory*2. Which indicated that, not just the Mind, but the World itself is a mental construct. Yet Wheeler's Observer is just a Participant (an avatar in the model), not the creator of the Mind-world. This was a scientific speculation, not a religious assertion. A world-creating Mind is implied, but not specified, by Wheeler's quip.

"Objective" knowledge of material reality is a cultural consensus, not an absolute fact. Ironically, you would never know anything about that "quantum field world" if priest/scientists didn't reveal to you what's beyond the reach of your bodily senses. So, our worldviews are all, to some degree, acts of faith. Yet no one, especially Philosophers, should feel "trapped", merely because their physical senses cannot see the fundamental Fields all around us. The rational mind is what frees us from the solitary confinement of Solipsism.


*1. Mental Map vs Material World :
This quote comes from Alfred Korzybski, father of general semantics: “A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness”. To sum up, our perception of reality is not reality itself but our own version of it, or our own “map”.
http://intercultural-learning.eu/Portfo ... territory/

*2. World of Appearances :
Wheeler's "it from bit" concept implies that physics, particularly quantum physics, isn't really about reality, but just our best description of what we observe. There is no "quantum world", just the best description we have of how things will appear to us.
https://plus.maths.org/content/it-bit

*3. Wheeler: It from bit.
"Otherwise put, every it — every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself — derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely — even if in some contexts indirectly — from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. It from bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler

[Gnomon]

↪Gnomon
Thanks. But you haven't addressed my criticism of this kind of quasikantian dualism.
For instance, can you clarify what a self is this theory ? — green flag

The Enformationism thesis may be "quasi-Kantian", but it is not Dualistic. It is instead Monistic, with Information being the universal Single Substance (Spinozan?) of our world, expressed in the forms of both Matter & Mind.

If you are only familiar with Shannon's narrow definition of "Information", the notion that Generic Information (EnFormAction) has universal constructive positive power -- to create all possible forms in the world -- may not make sense. The key is to think of Information as a combination of Energy & Logic. Unfortunately, the Causal power of Information was minimized by Shannon, when he associated it with dissipative Entropy. But other researchers began to label Information as "Negentropy"*1. The opposite of dissipation is en-formation (concentration, integration). Negative Entropy is better known as Energy. So, Information is the pushing power of Energy and the organizing power of Logic (mathematics)*2. If you can conceive of Information in those terms, the rest will make more sense.

Besides its Causal power, Information also has Semantic power, to associate sensory inputs into concepts & meanings. I won't try to explain that in a single post. But I will answer your question about The Self*3. The human Brain is made of matter, which is organized (by natural logical processes) into a Meaning-Seeking machine. So it processes incoming information (data) into abstract concepts that are meaningful to the observer. But, in order to establish a relationship between the observer and its environment, the brain constructs a concept (the Self image) to represent its own subjective perspective*3 on the objective world. No spooky spirits required.

The website & blog go into much more detail, with scientific references, to support the novel notion that Information is the Single Substance of reality. For example, I have coined a neologism to replace "Negentropy" with "Enformy" (opposite of Entropy). In physical terms, Entropy is the erasure of Information, while Enformy is the creation of forms (both material & mental)*4.


*1. Negentropy :
"many of Shannon's followers found it more intuitively satisfying to put a minus sign in front of the expression for information, making it the opposite of entropy".
Fire In The Mind, by George Johnson
https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Mind-Scienc ... 067974021X

*2. Information is :
*** Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing causal effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. Like Energy, we know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
*** For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
*** When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

*3. Self/Soul :
The brain can create the image of a fictional person (the Self) to represent its own perspective in dealings with other things and persons.
1. This imaginary Me is a low-resolution construct abstracted from the complex web of inter-relationships that actually form the human body, brain, mind, DNA, and social networks in the context of a vast universe.
2. In the Enformationism worldview, only G*D could know yourself objectively in complete detail as the mathematical definition of You. That formula is equivalent to your subjective Self/Soul.
3. Because of the fanciful & magical connotations of the traditional definition for "Soul" (e.g. ghosts), Enformationism prefers the more practical & mundane term "Self".
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page18.html

*4. Excerpt from Fire In The Mind, by George Johnson :
"Thus, Shannon's new information theory reinforced the notion that there is something subjective about entropy and order. . . . not everyone liked the idea of introducing this slippery concept as one of the atoms of creation".
Note --- I suppose the "fire" in the mind is the creative energetic aspect of information processing. The book title may have been inspired by Joseph Campbell's writings. Johnson's book is about the development of Information Theory in the 20th century, beginning with Shannon's problem of correctly communicating ideas, to the Quantum physics of Atomic bomb development at Los Alamos, and on to the study of Information & Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute.

[Gnomon]

The human Brain is made of matter, which is organized (by natural logical processes) into a Meaning-Seeking machine. So it processes incoming information (data) into abstract concepts that are meaningful to the observer. But, in order to establish a relationship between the observer and its environment, the brain constructs a concept (the Self image) to represent its own subjective perspective*3 on the objective world. No spooky spirits required. — Gnomon
I don't think you've presented a monism. Problematic quotes above. — green flag

Enformationism may not be a formal Monism*1 as you are used to it. It's primarily based on scientific concepts, instead of academic philosophy. So it does not deny the practical (functional) distinction that humans make between Brains & Mind. It merely traces the physical (material) & metaphysical (mental) elements of the Real world back to a single Source. Depending on your personal preferences, you can label that source as mathematical "Singularity" or as metaphysical "G*D". A common metaphorical explanation for a non-intervening Deistic Creator is to imagine that the Big Bang Singularity represents a conception in the Mind of God, and that the evolving material world represents the Body of God. In effect, it's all G*D, all the time.

I can accept a variety of metaphors to make sense of a physical world with Minds that question their own origins. But, my thesis is an extrapolation from 20th century Quantum theory and Information theory, not from any historical philosophical conjectures. However, my notion of Information as the Single Substance of reality is similar to Spinoza's equation of God with Nature (Pantheism)*2. Yet, I diverge from that 17th century speculation, which assumed that Nature was Eternal. Since we now have reasons to believe that the material world of Space-Time had a dramatic Birthday, it seems necessary to make a distinction between what-now-is and what-existed-before the Creation Event of the universe (PanEnDeism). Multiverse theories assume, without evidence, that Physics (matter & energy) is eternally cycling, so the emergence of inquiring minds is routine. Possible : but I prefer the simpler (Ockham's Razor) version of the creation story.

The essential distinction in my non-religious thesis is derived from the radical notion that all-is-Information. Quantum physicist John A Wheeler proposed his "It from Bit"*3 concept, (IT = matter ; BIT = mind) to illustrate his belief that both Matter & Mind are essentially forms of Generic Information (some may call the Enformer : "G*D"). I merely expanded on that notion, of the world as an Information Processor, to conclude that the process was initiated by an intentional Programmer. Processing & Programming are functionally different, but the substance in both cases is the Power to Enform (energy + logic). For example E = MC^2 equates causal Energy with massive Matter. So, I conclude that the Programmer's (Creator's) ideas are also the substance of the Program (creation). Technically, that's a Monistic concept, but it's not a traditional philosophical Ontology.

PS__I have no formal training in Philosophy, so most of my knowledge of such abstruse concepts comes from professional Scientists. These esoteric ideas are expounded in greater detail in the Thesis & Blog.


*1. Monism :
a theory or doctrine that denies the existence of a distinction or duality in some sphere, such as that between matter and mind, or God and the world.
___Oxford

*2. Substance Monism :
Substance monism posits that only one kind of substance exists, although many things may be made up of this substance, e.g., matter or mind. Dual-aspect monism ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism

*3. It from Bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/09/ ... t-wheeler/

[Gnomon]

↪Gnomon
It seems to me that you have both a World and a Programmer who made it. What is the space that contains them both ? — green flag

The "space" that contains the program "world" is the mind of the "programmer". It's a dual-aspect Monism. No distinctions, no information, no meaning, no philosophy. A monism without defining distinctions would be a socked-in fog.

[Gnomon]

↪Tom Storm
He’s a cognitive scientist but as he doesn’t subscribe to materialism so it seems suggestive of idealism. I’m going to read that critical review Banno posted. — Wayfarer

The current issue of Philosophy Now magazine has an article by columnist Raymond Tallis that is critical of Hoffman's theory. He accuses Hoffman of "Darwinitis" : "the claim that evolution completely explains the human person". But I didn't get that impression from The Argument Against Reality. Instead, he uses the step-by-step heuristic*1 mechanism of adaptation to illustrate how an incomplete understanding of Reality could be "good enough" for practical purposes*2 . Presumably, long-suffering Evolution is not concerned with perfect adaptations, only workable solutions. Tallis also accuses Hoffman of "self-refutation". As a truth-seeker himself, Tallis is especially critical of Hoffman's "Fitness Beats Truth" theorem. But that's how evolution works, as opposed to the one step perfection of divine creation.

Despite the messiness of reality, Philosophers like clear-cut conceptual categories. So, Tallis's put-down of Hoffman's theory seems to assume that Idealism and Realism are mutually exclusive. And that is indeed how those worldviews are typically presented, by believers in one paradigm or the other. But my BothAnd worldview treats those clashing categories as just one of many apparent paradoxes in both Philosophy (e.g. Sorites) and Physics (e.g. wave/particle). We may not like those contradictions, but we have no choice but to learn to live with them. Whether the world appears Materialistic or Idealistic depends on how you frame your perspective. Either/Or thinkers are not able to deal with the complexities & contradictions of heuristic evolution, and its hybrid offspring*3.

I wasn't familiar with the Multimodal User Interface (MUI) theory, but after a quick scan it seems reasonable*4. Human perception receives inputs of raw Data from the environment, and converts it into the meaningful information that we call Concepts. The Data represent the concrete Reality outside the Mind in terms of abstract bits of energy (photons), but the brain transforms those "particles" of energy into meaningful integrated images that are not real, but merely maps of reality. It seems that Tallis is criticizing Hoffman for making a distinction between a useful Map and the actual Terrain.


*1. Heuristic : a trial & error process that produces many imperfect candidates, and selects the ones that survive the rigors of reality to serve as candidates for the next round of trials. This error-ridden method may never reach final perfection, but it gets closer at each step. For example, biological evolution, after billions of trials, has produced the human brain as the epitome of survival fitness. Yet, the brain is still subject to imperfect representations (optical illusions), some of which may be adaptive for pragmatic purposes.

*2. Practical Adaptations are Pragmatic, not Perfect, and not Ideal. They have short-term survival value. Likewise,pragmatic Science never reaches absolute Truth, but it does get incrementally closer to truth.

*3. How hybrids have upturned evolutionary theory :
Hybrids are not an evolutionary bug. They are a feature. That knowledge is changing the way people think about evolution.
https://www.economist.com/science-and-t ... ary-theory

*4. Truth and fitness, they claim, are not rival strategies, but rather the same strategy, seen from different perspectives.
https://meaningfulparticipation.org/pos ... ace-theory
a day ago

[Gnomon]

One weakness in the 'desktop metaphor' is that at least a computer scientist will understand exactly the real operations that are being performed by the user interface, right down to the machine code and micro-electronics that underlie it. A scientist could explain comprehensively what the icons really are and how they work to achieve the user's purposes. I don't know if Hoffman can have any corresponding ontology of what the real connections are between perceiving subjects and objects that correspond to his metaphor of creatures manipulating icons. He says it's not real - compared to what? — Wayfarer

Hoffman's Interface theory is based on the mechanism of Darwinian adaptation. But I just came across a similar notion in Fire In The Mind, an overview of 20th century quantum science development. The book focused primarily on information coming out of quantum & complexity studies in Los Alamos and Santa Fe, New Mexico. In a chapter entitled The Democracy of Measurement --- after discussing the "collapse" (decoherence) of the wavefunction from superposition --- the author notes that the reason we observers normally see a classical reality, is that "the environment is monitoring everything all the time, collapsing wave functions, bringing hard-edged classicality out of quantum mushiness"*1. Therefore the Observer Problem only arises when scientists eliminate as many variables as possible (simplicity ; reductionism), in order to focus on, and measure, a single particle in an unnatural situation. But superposition is a Holistic property.

Outside the lab though, complexity rules. Hence, "In this democracy of measurement, we cannot really say which is the observer and which is the observed". Then, he quotes Wojciech Zurek, "Our senses did not evolve for the purpose of verifying quantum mechanics. . . . And when nothing can be gained from prediction, there is no evolutionary reason for perception". Based on sensory perception, the scientist observer creates an abstract (unnatural) model of quantum scale reality; which seems weird compared to Newtonian physics. To me, that quote sounded a lot like Donald Hoffman's conclusion, but drawn from a different field of evidence*2. So, regardless of any later spooky idealistic interpretations, Hoffman's basic observation rings true for me. Therefore, I'm guessing he simply means that our abstract mental models are "not real" compared to concrete*3 classical reality.


*1. How Does Classical Reality Emerge From Quantum Environments? :
It's not possible to make a sharp division between scales with quantum rules for small things and classical ones for big things— that's the real point of the Schrödinger cat thought experiment. The world is quantum, all the way up.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chadorzel/ ... 1498214526

*2. The Interface Theory of Perception :
Our perceptual capacities are products of evolution and have been shaped by natural selection. It is often assumed that natural selection favors veridical perceptions, namely, perceptions that accurately describe those aspects of the environment that are crucial to survival and reproductive fitness. However, analysis of perceptual evolution using evolutionary game theory reveals that veridical perceptions are generically driven to extinction by equally complex nonveridical perceptions that are tuned to the relevant fitness functions. Veridical perceptions are not, in general, favored by natural selection. This result requires a comprehensive reframing of perceptual theory, including new accounts of illusions and hallucinations. This is the intent of the interface theory of perception, which proposes that our perceptions have been shaped by natural selection to hide objective reality and instead to give us species-specific symbols that guide adaptive behavior in our niche.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs ... 74.epcn216

*3. Concrete : existing in a material or physical form; not abstract.
Note-- to me this definition implies that quantum physics --- as abstracted into mathematical equations by scientists --- is meta-physical. By "metaphysical", I mean non-physical mental ideas & concepts. Is that spooky, or what?