387. What You See and Feel is Not Reality | Dr. Donald Hoffman

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

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Education, Science, Society & Culture

4.6 • 34.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2023

⏱️ 93 minutes

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Summary

Dr. Jordan B Peterson and cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Donald Hoffman discuss what we know as reality, why space time is now being considered a “doomed” framework, and how consciousness can be understood as a vast probability space within which we orient ourselves. Hoffman received a Bachelor of Arts degree in quantitative psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles, and then his Doctorate of Philosophy in computational psychology at MIT. He briefly worked as a research scientist at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, before taking on the role of assistant professor at the University of California at Irvine. He is now a professor in the department of Cognitive Sciences. He has written four books (below), on the topics of human vision, perception, consciousness, and the effects of/reasons for evolution on each. He is also a key proponent of MUI (Multimodal User Interface) theory, which states that "perceptual experiences do not match or approximate properties of the objective world, but instead provide a simplified, species-specific, user interface to that world." Hoffman argues that conscious beings have not evolved to perceive the world as it actually is but have evolved to perceive the world in a way that maximizes "fitness payoffs.” - Links - For Dr. Donald Hoffman: "The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes" (Book) https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Reality-Evolution-Truth-ebook/dp/B07JR1FDXH/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1OMOD0ZGPHCT9&keywords=the+case+against+reality&qid=1697060197&s=digital-text&sprefix=the+case+against%2Cdigital-text%2C189&sr=1-1 "Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See" (Book) https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Intelligence-How-Create-What/dp/0393319679/ref=sr_1_1?crid=QZBIXXULF7VC&keywords=Visual+intelligence+hoffman&qid=1697060273&s=digital-text&sprefix=visual+intelligence+hoffman%2Cdigital-text%2C138&sr=1-1-catcorr Dr. Hoffman on X https://twitter.com/donalddhoffman?lang=en Dr. Hoffman's Ted Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/donald_hoffman_do_we_see_reality_as_it_is?language=en

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone watching and listening. Today I'm speaking with author and cognitive neuroscientist
0:20.8	Dr. Donald Hoffman. We discuss Dr. Hoffman's research on what we know is reality. Why space
0:28.4	time itself is now considered by many a doomed framework of interpretation and how consciousness
0:35.1	might be best understood as a vast probability space within which we orient ourselves.
0:42.1	Hello Dr. Hoffman, it's very good to see you. I've been interested in your theory for a long time
0:48.8	partly because I'm quite attracted by the doctrine of pragmatism which was really part of what I
0:56.1	tried to discuss with Sam Harris many many times and it seems that your work bears well it's a
1:02.5	broad general interest but it also bears on specific interests of mine because I'm
1:07.4	I've always been curious about the relationship between Darwinian concepts of truth and let's say
1:13.8	the concepts of truth put out by the more Newtonian say objective materialists. They don't seem
1:20.3	commensurate to me and so would you start by explaining your your theory your broad theory of
1:27.4	perception. I know that'll take a while but it's it's a tricky it's a tricky theory so do you
1:33.2	want to lay it out for us to begin with? Most Darwinian scholars would agree that evolution
1:39.2	shapes sensory systems to guide adaptive behavior that is to keep organisms alive long enough
1:46.6	to reproduce but many also believe that in addition evolution shapes us to see
1:56.1	reality as it is at least some aspects of reality that we need for survival so
2:02.8	so that's that's often among my colleagues in studying evolution with natural selection they'll say
2:08.8	yeah seeing the truth will make you more fit in many cases and so even though Darwin says it's
2:14.2	you know evolution shapes sensory systems just to keep you alive long enough to reproduce
2:20.7	many people think that seeing aspects of reality as it is will also make you more fit and make you
2:27.2	more likely to reproduce so I decided with my graduate students a few years ago to look into this
2:35.6	and there are tools at Darwin's theory is now a mathematical theory we have the tools of evolutionary
	...

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