Donald Hoffman: The Most Rigorous Argument for Conscious Realism

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal

Curt Jaimungal

Physics, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 606 Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2022

⏱️ 190 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Donald Hoffman argues consciousness is fundamental and perception functions as evolutionary user interface He debates evolutionary implications, quantum realism, free will, and the limits of virtual‑reality metaphors while discussing meditation, truth, and the nature of self.0:00 Introduction0:35 Hoffman's view on the country during COVID and its relevance to his theories2:51 Why he meditates three hours daily and the type of practice7:26 Hoffman's diet and health habits9:52 Computational psychology background13:05 Outline of the conscious agent model and its motivation16:41 Consciousness as primary to being, a challenge to rationalists26:50 Neural correlates as potentially causal and limits of the virtual‑reality metaphor38:44 Nima Armani Hamed's amplituhedron and consciousness40:23 Local hidden variables and loopholes in Bell's theorem47:46 Uniform probability of fitness functions on cyclic groups as a problem for non‑veridical perception1:01:44 Evolution hides truth and reality1:05:10 Over‑simplification of evolutionary models to a one‑dimensional line1:09:17 Intensity of meditation and fear of the unknown1:15:25 “Illusions are failures to guide adaptive behavior.”1:16:41 Philosophical theories of truth (correspondence, pragmatic, deflationary, etc.)1:27:20 Spacetime as data compression for conscious agents1:32:39 Nature of causality1:37:50 Objectivity of reality in a subjectively predicated model1:40:00 Questions of “you,” identity, and self (Eastern vs Western views)1:50:15 Free will in a stochastic framework1:58:59 Hofstadter’s “strange loop” vs Tononi’s IIT and Hoffman’s model2:14:37 Where God fits and Hoffman’s definition of God2:21:22 What happens when you die?2:28:38 Gödel’s incompleteness theorem implications for Hoffman’s model2:34:35 Vervaeke’s non‑propositional forms of knowledge2:37:45 Landauer’s limit critiques2:41:29 The moon’s existence without observation2:48:06 Shared qualia: seeing the same red?2:51:31 Paradox of pursuing truth that is inimical to fitness2:56:44 Deepak Chopra’s excesses and Jesus’s claim “I am the truth / the way / the life”SPONSORS:- Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal- Crypto: https://tinyurl.com/cryptoTOE- PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt- Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs- iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/better-left-unsaid-with-curt-jaimungal/id1521758802- Pandora: https://pdora.co/33b9lfP- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e- Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/theoriesofeverything- Merch: https://tinyurl.com/TOEmerchRESOURCES:- YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/CmieNQH7Q4w Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal features long-form, technically detailed interviews with leading researchers in physics, mathematics, consciousness, and philosophy, exploring topics at the level of active research. For academics, graduate students, and anyone seeking depth beyond popular science. SPONSOR: I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE FOLLOW: Substack | Spotify | YouTube | Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Kurt Jaimungal from Theories of Everything.
0:03.0	Last week we released a theolocation with Donald Hoffman and John Verveki on consciousness, God, meaning, purpose, as well as reality and fundamentality.
0:13.0	People have asked for some of the mathematical interworking of Don's theories, and many weren't aware that Don and I have conducted a behemoth, massive analysis, technical analysis over three hours long about two years ago.
0:25.5	So we are re-releasing this here for you to enjoy. Enjoy.
0:29.7	I mean, you're asking the right questions for anybody that really knows their math and science, and it must be hard to know us about it.
0:35.5	You're asking exactly the right questions.
0:37.1	Some of the deepest questions I've gotten, so I really appreciate it. How's it going, man? Great. How about you, Kurt? It's going well. How's the weather been like in Irvine? Oh, well, it's probably the best weather you could have in the world. I mean, it's almost like we have a thermostatist. It's just gorgeous year, year-round, so I have no complaints. It's warm-huff. You've been...
0:58.3	With all the quarantine and lockdowns, are you okay? Is it all right in your mental health? Do you
1:04.1	prefer it? I'm okay. It's, for me, it's great in the sense that I'm enjoying less distraction and I'm able to focus on studying some mathematics and physics that I'm interested in studying.
1:16.9	So it's good.
1:18.0	It's, of course, very, very sad to see the millions infected and hundreds of thousands, 140,000 at this point that are dead.
1:26.2	So, yeah, that's, that's that's horrific and you know the threat
1:29.5	of the pandemic expanding and so forth is you know not much fun. So and I got family and
1:37.3	relatives and so forth that I'm concerned about. So yeah. Yeah. I'm similar in that I'm
1:42.4	ambivalent about it. I like it because it removes any distractions.
1:46.5	And I too am studying math and physics on the side. And this whole situation has been salutary for me, but it's obviously not for everyone.
1:55.0	Has it changed your views? Has COVID given you, given you any insight or any different ideas with regards to your theories, which we'll get into?
2:03.9	It just confirms what we learned from evolutionary psychology about human nature and in groups and outgroups.
2:11.3	And the reasons we evolved, logic and reason, it wasn't in pursuit of truth, but to support ideas that we
2:18.7	already believe. So we just see this being played out in the big debates about masks and so forth
2:24.8	that are going on. And, you know, the, you know, we see human nature being played out in a big way,
2:31.1	and we see the results in terms of, you know, a big failure in our
	...

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