Do we see reality as it is? Or, are we stuck inside our own mental representations of the world?
My guest this week is Dr. Donald Hoffman, who believes that there’s a 0% chance that we accurately perceive the world. He believes that mental phenomena – consciousness, experience, qualia – is the real stuff that makes up the world, not physical objects.
Topics Discussed:
2:22 Do we see reality as it is? What do we actually perceive?
5:43 Perception and Natural Selection – Are true perceptions fitter perceptions?
10:02 Are true perceptions disadvantageous?
23:15 Do space and time necessarily not exist?
27:30 Evolutionary fitness of our conceptual system
37:11 Are math and logic fundamental?
41:11 What actually exists?
43:43 What are conscious agents? What is and is not conscious? Is everything conscious?
51:07 Where is the starting point?
59:36 Where does this theory go? To what end/use?
