# Donald D. Hoffman vs. Reality. Am I "un-evolved" not getting this (conscious realism) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 16, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855 "2019-10-16T17:14:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/1 "2019-10-16T17:14:44Z")
New book “The Case Aaginst Reality - How evolution hid the truth from our eyes”. Apparently you’re not just wrong about your outdoor cat. This has me a little exasperated, so I’m looking for some back up. The gist seems to be that evolution set us up to perceive our world in terms of Darwinian “fitness” - rather than objective “truth” (in the book’s term _fitness beats truth_). Therefore (and here is where I think he’s stretching his point a tad) objective reality as we conceive it as space, time, and objects in space and time - DOES NOT EXIST. Apparently some (familiar) visual illusions help make his point, also he pulls in a “because of quantum” (Bell’s inequality) argument - but I haven’t read yet how that links in. Here’s a couple of tasters for both style and content. > [@Donald D. Hoffman](#): > > When the acid of Darwin’s dangerous idea is poured onto our perceptions, it dissolves the objectivity of physical objects, which we assumed exist and interact even when no one looks. Then this acid dissolves the objectivity of spacetime itself, the very framework within which Darwinian evolution has been assumed to take place. This requires us to devise a more fundamental framework – without space, time, and physical objects – for understanding reality. We will need to understand the dynamics of this new framework. When we project this dynamics back into the spacetime interface of _Homo sapiens_, we should get back Darwinian evolution. > [@Him again](#): > > Conscious realism makes a bold claim: consciousness not spacetime and its objects, is fundamental reality and is properly described as a network of conscious agents. To earn its keep, conscious realism must do serious work ahead. It must ground a theory of quantum gravity, explain the emergence of our spacetime interface and its objects, explain the appearance of Darwinian evolution within that interface, and explain the evolutionary emergence of human psychology. OK. Is this all drivel, _utter drivel_? Are any real scientists (physicists etc.) on board with it, of should we let him argue it out with the Flat Earth people? (actually none of this (conscious realism) would conflict with a flat-earth outlook, so, some other contrarian bunch - we’re all actually living in the Matrix!). ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/2 "2019-10-16T18:39:50Z")
“Yeah, I remember when I had _my_ first beer.” (directed at the author of the drivel, not OP.) ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/3 "2019-10-16T19:01:51Z")
I’d agree that a mammal brain evolved for hunting and gathering on the plains of Africa is perhaps not perfect for truly understanding the universe as a whole; but I was actually surprised at the poor quality of the drivel quoted in the OP. Please, for goodness sake please, do not introduce Machinaforce to this philosophy. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/4 "2019-10-16T19:07:35Z")
FWIW - > [@](#): > > Hoffman is an affiliate/adviser at the Chopra Center. The center is a wellness and meditation center founded by Deepak Chopra that promotes Vedic astrology [2] and the teachings of Osho.[ [Cite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_D._Hoffman). You can read more about his ideas [here](https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality-20160421/). I am not entirely clear on how we know there is a difference between reality, and what we are evolved to see as reality, but perhaps that’s just me. The part about how there isn’t anything except consciousness is woo, IMO - if that were true, there wouldn’t be any Darwinian pressure to shape our evolution, nor that of any other species. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/5 "2019-10-17T01:40:06Z")
Yes, it is drivel. Evolution is the survival of change over time, and evolutionary concepts have been adopted in numerous non-biological fields. Darwin, writing fast to beat the competition, described mechanisms that drive biological evolution. Others have revised that model, but Darwinism isn’t needed to model stellar evolution. And “survival of the fittest” isn’t Darwinism. The cited author wrote, “…consciousness not spacetime and its objects, is fundamental reality and is properly described as a network of conscious agents.” That means that either 1) every object down to atomic scale and beyond is conscious, or 2) nothing exists because neutrinos aren’t conscious, or 3) the notion is drivel. Does ‘Darwinian’ evolution bias our perceptions? Sure. Does it bias our instrument readings? Yes, which is why we build subtler instruments. Is reality a dream? Drop a large boulder on your bare foot and find out. But carefully… ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/6 "2019-10-17T03:56:04Z")
> [@Staggerlee](#): > > Please, for goodness sake please, do not introduce Machinaforce to this philosophy. Oh fuck! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/7 "2019-10-17T10:35:14Z")
> [@Small\_Clanger](#): > > The gist seems to be that evolution set us up to perceive our world in terms of Darwinian “fitness” - rather than objective “truth” (in the book’s term _fitness beats truth_). Therefore (and here is where I think he’s stretching his point a tad) objective reality as we conceive it as space, time, and objects in space and time - DOES NOT EXIST. I see. And these conclusions of his — are they supposed to be objective “truth”? ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/8 "2019-10-17T14:04:38Z")
> [@The Other Waldo Pepper](#): > > I see. And these conclusions of his — are they supposed to be objective “truth”? I think the consensus here is that his conclusions are truly and objectively 100% _wank_. Also poorly explained (the text is rambling and repetitive) and now on page 99 he starts with the god bothering (in the form of Vogon poetry). > [@Donald D. Hoffman](#): > > I also think that conscious realism can breach the wall between science and spirituality. This ideological barrier is a needless illusion, enforced by hoary misconceptions: that science requires a physicalist ontology that is anathema to sprituaility… > [@Him again](#): > > The theory of God that emerges from a scientific theology need not posit a magician that flouts the laws of physics. These laws do not describe an unconscious reality; they describe the dynamics of conscious agents, finite and infinite, projected into the language and data structures of the spacetime interface of _Homo sapiens_ This book is going into next-door’s skip\* Thanks everyone for letting me know I can just forget I ever came across this bollocks. I going back to reading “The Order of Time” by Carlo Rovelli, which likes to quote poetry, has space-time diagrams populated with smurfs and is translated from Italian(?) but which is much more readable and explains its concepts infinitely better than Donald D. Hoffman. - actually it’s a library book so it’s not going in the skip. But I am not reading another syllable. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/9 "2019-10-17T14:14:44Z")
> [@Small\_Clanger](#): > > - actually it’s a library book so it’s not going in the skip. But I am not reading another syllable. I would be asking the library for a refund. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/10 "2019-10-17T14:58:21Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I would be asking the library for a refund. I’ll see if the kiosks have an “opportunity cost refund” option, but that would probably be more appropriate for “Fall/Dodge in Hell” which I wasted the best part of a week reading. At least Don Hoffman’s wankery got (metaphorically) thrown at the wall after about 45 minutes, then (metaphorically-again) shredded, burned and binned after “consulting” here. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/11 "2019-10-17T17:24:01Z")
Does this have anything to do with the idea that Columbus’ ships were invisible to the indigenous people because they couldn’t conceive of anything like them? ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/12 "2019-10-17T17:54:00Z")
Clearly we would expect evolution to make our perception accord with visible reality. That will clearly enhance survival and all that. On the other hand, we did not evolve to “see” reality at a deeper, say atomic, level so all that is inference. Interesting to note that until Einstein’s Brownian motion paper, many physicists did not believe in atoms because they could not see them. They explained Brownian motion so well that they were convinced. The Milliken oil drop experiment demonstrated pretty convincingly the reality of electrons. But nothing in evolution prepared us for quantum mechanics. Nothing. That’s why Feymann famously said that anyone who claims to understand quantum theory is lying. I assume that was what the reference to Bell’s theorem is all about. Roughly speaking Bell’s theorem implies that we either have to give up causality or locality. But basically, the quoted paragraphs are drivel. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/13 "2019-10-17T17:56:20Z")
God spelled backward is doG. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/14 "2019-10-17T18:01:24Z")
> [@Two Many Cats](#): > > Does this have anything to do with the idea that Columbus’ ships were invisible to the indigenous people because they couldn’t conceive of anything like them? Not really. The premise is that we (Homo sapiens) “interface” with the world via an understanding of space, time and objects in space & time that IS NOT REALITY. He doesn’t say what we’d all do faced with something _inconceivable_ like the alien(s) from _Arrival_ or _Solaris_ (or anything actually interesting like that). See the links that **Shodan** posted. I think the whole “conscious realism” concept is sort of bankrupt and dull (and I’ve only just come across it). Like I said, I’m going back to books by real scientists (the book explaining subatomic physics using LEGO bricks looks promising). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/15 "2019-10-17T18:14:24Z")
I think this falls into the “it doesn’t make enough sense to even be wrong” category. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/16 "2019-10-17T18:22:49Z")
> [@Hari Seldon](#): > > But basically, the quoted paragraphs are drivel. I really didn’t have to do more than pick a page at random. And the – _Bell’s inequality lets in any old bollocks_ – is a bit old hat by now, surely? > [@TriPolar](#): > > God spelled backward is doG. And… Dodge backwards is Egdod, took me ages to figure that out (and it wasn’t worth it). ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/17 "2019-10-18T04:05:12Z")
I like the hypothesis that our universe is a computer which calculates itself. > [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Does this have anything to do with the idea that Columbus’ ships were invisible to the indigenous people because they couldn’t conceive of anything like them? No, but Columbus set sail with FOUR ships, not three. The Santa Cruz fell off the edge. With no help from a gorilla amidst the basketball players. > [@TriPolar](#): > > God spelled backward is doG. “A mighty hot dog is our lord!” -Firesign Theatre ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/18 "2019-10-18T04:26:46Z")
> [@Small\_Clanger](#): > > I really didn’t have to do more than pick a page at random. And the – _Bell’s inequality lets in any old bollocks_ – is a bit old hat by now, surely? > > And… Dodge backwards is Egdod, took me ages to figure that out (and it wasn’t worth it). Oh I missed that. I got Reamde! ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/19 "2019-10-18T10:55:40Z")
Seveneves spelled backwards is Seveneves. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855/20 "2019-10-18T11:19:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think this falls into the “it doesn’t make enough sense to even be wrong” category. This is the best example of Not Even Wrong I’ve seen in quite a while. The author misunderstands basic ideas and goes on to draw conclusions from them which have absolutely nothing to do with anything anyone else thinks. It’s impossible to simply answer his critiques without upending the whole mess, which is what some people confuse for the philosophy being correct. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-d-hoffman-vs-reality-am-i-un-evolved-not-getting-this-conscious-realism/841855.md?page=2)