Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman is trying to answer a big question: Do we experience the world as it really is ... or as we need it to be? In this ever so slightly mind-blowing talk, he ponders how our minds construct reality for us.
Thanks! I totally intend to. After watching this I went down the rabbithole to watch 2 more hours on the subject from a podcast in 2019. His thinking seems to have evolved between 2015 and 2019. Where the TED talk treats evolution as axiomatic, he seems to now be thinking about what sorts of physical laws in the space of consciousness might lead to emergent evolution and natural selection in the perceptual realm. But that feels a lot less falsifiable and scientific? He seems to be giving up a lot of what got him to this point. So I’m curious to read more and understand what he’s planning to model if not evolution.
Thanks! I totally intend to. After watching this I went down the rabbithole to watch 2 more hours on the subject from a podcast in 2019. His thinking seems to have evolved between 2015 and 2019. Where the TED talk treats evolution as axiomatic, he seems to now be thinking about what sorts of physical laws in the space of consciousness might lead to emergent evolution and natural selection in the perceptual realm. But that feels a lot less falsifiable and scientific? He seems to be giving up a lot of what got him to this point. So I’m curious to read more and understand what he’s planning to model if not evolution.