Hi, I'm Miami-allet. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to part two of our conversation with cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman. In the first part of our conversation with Dr. Hoffman, he talked a little bit about what it means to go outside of the framework of space time as we know it and how reality is essentially a headset that we wear, at least our perception of it. In part two, we're going to talk about evolutionary theory. We're going to talk about how Darwin's theory does not explain everything that we're experiencing in this space time continuum. We're also going to talk about the current research that Dr. Hoffman is participating in. He's been working on this for nearly 40 years. And for the last year and a half, he's gotten very close to an understanding of what we would describe as a collective consciousness. We're going to talk about the places that spirituality and religious tradition intersect with mathematical theories in this part of our conversation with Dr. Hoffman. We cannot wait for you to hear part two. We touch on the possibility for time travel, the ability to visit galaxies other than our own. What it means to unlock such a powerful technology and the risks and potential improvements to our lives that come with us and what it means for us to better understand intuition, telepathy and sci-abilities. Here is part two of our conversation with Dr. Donald Hoffman. Can you describe why it is maybe evolutionarily that more people haven't had access to this? Because what we've seen from near-death experience, what we know from psilocybin and other psychedelics, what we know from deep meditation is that it used to be believed that the brain actually had to work harder to perceive more, but really what's happening is the brain has to quiet down to perceive more of quote unquote reality. Can you explain why it is that maybe more people have been on a path to survive versus experience what is outside of space and time? Yes, it is interesting that when you take these drugs, often it's sort of relaxing certain things of the brain as opposed to. So it's almost like the brain is shielding you away from some aspects of reality, even if it's cutting it down somehow, which is an interesting point of view. And that does fit with the, you know, I claim that, you know, it's just a headset. The headset is in some sense a way of taking something that's really complicated and putting it, right, for example, in the Grand Theft Auto game. You're dealing with some computer that what you're really doing is toggling millions of voltages at a precise order in a very, very quick time to turn your steering wheel and hit the gas and so forth. That's what you're really doing in this analogy. If you had to actually toggle those voltages, good luck. That's too much reality. So all you want to see is a little steering wheel and a dashboard and a red Mustang. You don't want to toggle the millions of volts. So in some sense, yeah, space time is something that sort of filtering out most of reality. And so when you take a drug that starts to break down the filter, you might get little glimpses out of, so it does make sense in that framework, absolutely. Talk a little bit about human evolution in terms of why, you know, obviously we are wired for all sorts of experiences. And when we learn what we can learn from indigenous communities who in many cases remain very, very linked to the earth, to the seasons, to our place in the universe. There's a real leaning into that, but by and large, what we see is this tendency away from that for survival, for a selection of mates, for a propagation of the species. Can you talk about why evolution favors not being in touch all the time with this level of, you know, spiritual consciousness outside of this reality and where it fits in. So now I'm going to talk, I'll be very explicit about the context of which I'm going to talk. So now I'm going to be inside space time, I'm going to assume Darwin's theory, evolution by natural selection, right? So that's my framework now. I'm going to talk about that theory in tails. Now, it's a brilliant theory, and in inside space time, if you want to talk about organisms and their behaviors, there is no better theory than Darwin's. So I first want to give kudos to Darwin's theory and especially evolutionary game theoretic descriptions of it there So it's wonderful. I've used it also in consulting with companies for marketing and advertising it works. It's very very powerful theory Now most people think Darwin's Theory is going to entail that you know it's survival of theest, and of course the fittest are those who see the truth, right?

If you don't see the truth, you're not going to be very fit. So, so of course we've been we've evolved to to know reality or at least the parts of reality that we need, maybe not all of reality, but we need to see some parts of reality accurately to to survive and compete. And when you look at Darwin's theory carefully in evolutionary game theory,

you find, and by the way, Stephen Pinker has a wonderful paper in 2005 titles. So how does the mind work? I think it's the title of the paper. I highly recommend it. Steve gives several reasons for us to understand how evolution could lead us away from a vertical understanding of the world. So I recommend people to read Steve's paper on that. So I'll just say the work that I've done with my colleagues that sort of really puts the nail on the coffin here is we look at the mathematics of evolutionary games and there's something called a fitness payoff, right? So, so a payoff is suppose I'm hungry, and I want to eat, and I'm a human being. If I eat a piece of broccoli or I eat an egg, that's very, very good. If I eat a poisonous mushroom, that's bad news. So there's what we call a fitness payoff. There's a human being with an action I want to eat. And in a context like that, I have a nasty mushroom that could kill me or I have a piece of broccoli that would be helpful to me. I'm going to get a payoff if I choose the mushroom versus the broccoli. So that's what fitness payoffs are. They're sort of you pick an organism like Hoffman an action like eating and a context. You know, like there's a mushroom poison, so forth. So you can look at these fitness payoffs and what we did, what we showed was, payoff functions do not have any information about the structure of the world. That's the key point about faith. There's nothing in evolutionary theory that requires payoff functions to have to code any structure of the world. For example, metric structure or partial order structures, any kind of mathematical structures. Any payoff, when you look at evolutionary game theory, it puts no limits on the payoff functions. any pick your pick your pay off your payoff function doesn't say this is the class of payoff functions that are allowed in evolutionary theory. No, it just says there's some payoff function. So wait, can you can you say this in normal people terms, meaning like if I eat the broccoli, it's good for me. There's not a limit to how much broccoli I can eat nor is there a limit to how much the broccoli can be good for me. Am I heading in the right direction? Yes, but this is a little bit subtler in the sense that it's saying that the payoff functions don't necessarily have to know anything about the true nature of the world at all. You know, what I instantly thought of was like, you know, the pigeon getting a reward in an experiment, right?

Right. Right. Or actually we I know more about these with rats. So, you know, if you give a rat,

you know, an opioid or cocaine, it will keep taking it. The rat will keep doing that until it dies, right?

Like it will keep doing that until it has a little rat aneurysm. The payoff itself does not know. This is enough for the rat. That's enough methamphetamine for you, experimental rat. There's no larger consciousness of what this particular payoff means for that rat. Exactly. In some sense, you found a little problem in the whole design of the rat because that's the reward system. And so you keep giving positive stuff to the reward system and says, oh, I'll keep doing that until it falls apart. Right. And the universe doesn't have a larger wisdom of like, or even if you think about food, you know, I studied Prada Willy syndrome, right? People with Prada Willy syndrome lack a satiety mechanism, so they will keep consuming, right? And that means that whatever system we are existing in does not know, well, this person has a deletion on that chromosome and it's not going to allow them. It's also been described that we have been programmed fundamentally to reproduce and to survive and that the nature of reality is something

unimportant to us up until this point. But perhaps there is a transition moment in either the larger consciousness system, if one believes in that, or humans at evolution, the state of of evil that we find ourselves in, that now is is somehow different that we are looking behind the veil, looking behind the headset, trying to better understand what that means. And this would lead to your work, but also to the question of why now in human evolution is it important for us to look behind the veil and see more about the reality?

Perhaps it is that it is important for our survival as the species to know more.

It's quite possible.

If I try to stay within the context of evolutionary theory, though, for just a moment, just to look

at its implications, because I think what you're going there is going to require a broader

framework to go that direction. a lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim-lim more calories you have to eat. So you're trying to do things as cheaply as possible. I love this example of the jewel beetle. This is a concrete example. So the jewel beetle is dimpled, glossy and brown. The males fly, the females are flightless. And the males go around searching for females, you know, flying around looking for me. And if they find an eligible female, they allite and mate. And these are out in the outback of Australia. And for a while there, some guys in Australia had these beer bottles called stubbies that were also dimpled, glossy and brown, just like the beetles are. And they were tossing their empty beer bottles out into the desert. And what happened was that these beer bottles are what we call a super normal stimulus. The meal were just flying to the bottles and alliding on them and then trying to mate. And so the jubile meal mails were just, they would swarm all over these stubbies and they had full body contact. And they still couldn't figure out that they were not on a real female. So here's the case, you know, the male. I'm, I've had so many jokes in my 14 year old brain that are like roaming around. I will save all of them for you later, Jonathan. I know that's right, but here's the case. This is how much insight males have into the females, right? The mistake mistaken. That's not the girl for you, says your mother. Yeah, that bottle is the girl for you. So you might go, well, wait a minute. I mean, the male beetles had successfully made it with females for who the millennia. And all you need is to throw a beer bottle out of the desert and the whole game could be over. So those those males had no insight into what a real female was, literally no insight. A bottle will do a big and turn out the bigger the better, apparently. So it was all sorts of jokes here. So so that gives you an insight as to what evolution does. It gives what we call satisfying solutions. They're good enough to keep you alive.

So. jokes here. So that gives you an insight as to what evolution does. It gives what we call satisfying solutions. They're good enough to keep you alive. So instead of, so, satisfying means they're not perfect, but they're good enough to keep you alive. And, you know, all you need to know about a female apparently is, is she dimpled? Is she glossy? Is she brown? Go for it. And if she's big, hey, the bigger the better. And beer bottles do that. So there you go. So they didn't learn the truth. They got a little hack. They're going through. And that's what evolution does. It gives us these little simplified hacks, not the truth. But some of them might say, well, that's just, I mean, for example, my advisor, David Mar at MIT, was well aware that probably flies only had hacks. But he said, but humans have, we have bigger brains and we've evolved to see the true shapes of surfaces around us. And so, and I love David. He was an incredible advisor and he's a brilliant man. On this point, I respectfully disagree with him. My Mbox breakdown is supported by optimizers. You know, I struggled to get good quality sleep and I just assumed it was stress. But as I learned, during paramanopause and menopause, your hormones shift in a way that affect your magnesium levels. And low magnesium, it makes everything harder, not just sleep, focus, mood, your tolerance for stress. That's why I have added magnesium breakthrough by by optimizers to my nightly routine. It's a blend of seven different forms of magnesium, designed to support relaxation and overall sleep quality. Try it, see if you wake up more arrested and refreshed. You've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Bi optimizers offers a 365 day. No questions asked money back guarantee. Magnesium breakthrough is a huge breakthrough to improve hormonal balance, to help with focus, decrease brain fog, improve sleep hygiene overall. Bi optimizers makes it very easy. Jonathan, what do they get when they go to bioptimizers.com slash breaker and use the code breaker? You get 15% off your entire order and a free bottle of massimes by optimizers best selling digestive enzyme. That'll be added to your order automatically when you use our exclusive code. That's a $20 product free on top of your discount already. This is a limited time offer and while supplies last, you can't get it on Amazon, you can't get it in stores. This offer exists in one place. Our link, our code, that's it. So maybe you were already thinking about it, this is the sign. Go to buyoptimizers.com slash breaker. Use the code breaker, grab it before it's gone. Make 2026 the year. You finally start sleeping again. My MbAlex breakdown is supported by optimizers. I struggled to get good quality sleep, and I just thought, like, oh, it's stress. But I learned during perimenopause and menopause, your hormones shift, and it affects your magnesium levels. Low magnesium makes everything harder, not just sleep, but focus, mood, stress tolerance. That's why we added magnesium breakthrough by bi-optimizers to our routine. It's a blend of seven different forms of magnesium designed to support relaxation and overall sleep quality. Try it, see if you wake up more rested and refreshed, you've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Bioptimizers offers a 365 day, no questions asked, money back guarantee. Magnesium breakthrough is a fantastic way to improve that hormonal imbalance that especially happens with magnesium. And then you have better focus, you have better sleep hygiene in general. Bi optimizers makes it so easy. Here's what you get when you go to bioptimizers.com slash breaker and use the code breaker 15% off your entire order and a free bottle of mass signs. That's by optimizers.

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Go to bioptimizers.com slash breaker, use the code breaker, grab it before it's gone. Make 2026. The year you finally start sleeping again. I want you to keep walking this through in terms of Jonathan's evolutionary question, because a lot of people would say, well, we're humans and we're very, very special. You know, more special than other primates. We speak and we have all of this amazing thing and we can create devices to examine our own consciousness and we can create grand theft auto. We can create all of these amazing worlds that those Beatles never have to live in. We can if we want to, right? We can create corporate financial structures surrounding God, and that makes us more powerful than God, right? However, there is this other consciousness, which I believe is truth with a capital T. How do we get from this evolutionary way of thinking to an understanding that guess what, as your book talks about, this is all a very, very beautiful, interesting, complicated illusion of our own perception. For those who say that we, you know, humans have all this advanced, you know, sophisticated abilities, I say, we do. And let's use them right now in our evolutionary arguments. So let's use those advanced abilities to understand Darwin's theory. And the mathematics of Darwin's theory says, there are these, you know, payoff functions. And they shape your sensory systems. They shape your behavior, they shape the structure of your sensory systems. If you want to claim that our sensory systems have been shaped by evolution to see the truth, then the payoff functions must have information about that truth. They must be what we, this is a technochrome, they must be homomorphisms of the structure of the world. So whatever truth structures there are in the world, they have to be not lost by the payoff functions, because the payoff functions are the things that are guiding the evolution of our senses. And when you just look at current evolutionary theory, and you ask it, so what restrictions do you put on these payoff functions? And there's none. There's no part of the theory that says, this is the class of payoff functions that you must use. They just say there is some payoff function to figure it out whatever it might be in your context. Given that, I have to consider the set of all possible payoff functions. And so we do that. And we publish a couple papers. This is with Chaiton per cache or a mathematician.

This mathematics, I can have ideas in this area, but I can't prove them, but Chaiton can.

And what we published with some other co-authors is proof that essentially the probability is zero

that a randomly chosen payoff function will have any information about the structure of reality. So this is why I'm being very, very careful. I'm saying, look at Darwin's theory and his current framework. Darwin's theory and his current formulation, evolutionary game theory, puts no restriction on the payoff functions. Okay. When I look at the payoff functions, I ask what percentage of them could tell me about the truth? 0%. 0% of the payoff functions could shape me to see the truth. So I conclude on current Darwin's theory, the probability is zero that any sensory system has ever been shaped to see the truth. Now you might say, well, we should change the theory. Please do. Good luck. It's not easy to change Darwin's theory. And what you'd have to do is give us a principle reason why you pick this set of payoff functions. What set of payoff functions are you going to choose? What's the principle reason for it? When you think about symbiotic relationships and when you think about what it means to be part of a community, which a lot of people would say, oh, religion helps you be part of a community and then you do good and then you get, I mean, not my particular religion, but then you get redeemed and you get saved. That's our way of trying to place kind of a truth, right, on a payoff function. So, and, you know, this is true of every organized religion, as my teenager was reminding me this holiday season, you know, anytime someone's passing a basket, right? In your church, in your synagogue, right? You're being, you're engaging in a social experiment of what does it cost, right, to be part of a system that tells you we have the truth. So what is the other side of this? So if this is the Darwinian way and this sort of evolutionary game theory way of saying, no, the sensory systems did not evolve for us to have any understanding about truth, what would you say about, especially traditions that are thousands of years old that say, oh God has been talking to us this whole time, we just have forgotten how to listen, right? Because we're so consumed with buildings and cars and things like that. Is that possible that there was a time or am I just romanticizing, you know, am I Margaret meeting it? Am I just sort of romanticizing the time when, oh, life was simpler, and then everybody was spiritual, and it was all just like Kumbaya all the time. Is that a possibility for evolution that technology then has interfered with? I think, again, Stephen Pinker has done some research on this that's quite interesting. And he's got some books where he looks at this and the idea that the noble savage kind of idea, but he's done a really good job to make the point that in some sense with the evolution of modern societies, the actual per capita homicide rates have gone down. And so we're actually, we look at World War I and II with horror and so forth, but when you look at the big picture, Pinker points out that in fact, with modern societies, the enlightenment values that have really led to modern society and a great lessening of human suffering and so forth. So, so yeah, I don't... Now there could of course be individuals in the past, I mean the Jesus and Pruda and perhaps Muhammad and so forth that were, you know, individual examples of wonderful lifestyles. But if you look at the history of religion itself, it's not that great, right? There's lots of wars have been done in the name of religion. Galileo was imprisoned, you know, wrongly. So we have to be very, very careful. That's why I want science and religion to work. Yeah, I'm talking sort of pre, let's go before 1000. You know what I mean? Like I'm talking like very old school. Right. My guess is that if you look back there, you're going to find all sorts of evidence of pretty nasty behavior of humans. Yeah, no. And I wasn't trying to sort of candy coat that. I'm just saying that it's interesting that conversations about truth that we're having in modern times about stepping outside of a scientific framework and stepping into a more spiritual kind of opening. That is in the literature of many religious traditions for thousands of years.

And, you know, I come from the Jewish tradition,

you know, the cobalists were very, very dialed into many things that the Greeks were also dialed into in terms of pre-death practices and meditative states. And really like tripping outside of this consciousness, even some of the meditation that was done that we know about from thousands of years ago, it was literally, it was practicing ego death. It was practicing leaving your body, right? Yeah, no, I think there there has been a lot of that and a lot of it, I think, was very insightful. And there were individuals, you'll probably, at the foundations of various religions, who really in some says had taken off the headset more than most everybody had, and they were seeing beyond. And then the followers hadn't taken off their headset and you get the thing devolving, right? So that seems to be the pattern. You have a Buddha and things are great for a while, and then it devolves. You have Jesus and things devolving. It's always the publicists and the managers who make the trouble. Yeah, it's up to each of us to take off our own headset. Now, you know, and so I think that it has been done in the past and but when you look at the history, I see individuals that took off the headset and learned, love your neighbor as yourself. Really is the deepest thing that you could do because your neighbor is yourself. The headset illusion that I'm separate from you is the fundamental illusion. I'm not separate from you. There's a deep consciousness that's looking at itself through a Hoffman avatar and Jonathan Avatar and my avatar and so forth. Can you talk a little bit about what collective consciousness is is one of these phrases that gets thrown about in a lot of, as you call it, the hand-wavy communities? But can you talk about what it might be like to picture exactly what you said in a practical and very grounded way? What does it mean to say that part of the reality that we construct is that we are separate from one another. Right. So this gets into the theory I'm working on right now. And the context, one context for it is I'll go back to physics a little bit. Physicists know that they don't have a theory of the observer. They know that observations are really critical. They're central and physics, right? You do experiment to give information to an observer. That's why you do experiments is so that observers will have information. And without experiments and observations, there's no foundation to your science. But if you look, Newton didn't have a theory of the observer. He just assumed the observer effectively didn't affect anything. Einstein talks about observers, but they're just coordinates and clocks. The best all observer. Quantum mechanics, now the observer is front and center because you have one evolution when there's no observer and then a different evolution of collapse when there is an observer. But quantum theory is very, very clear that they don't have a theory of the observer. That's really a big, big open thing. That in Frank Wilcheck, for example, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, said, we need a theory of the observer. That's what we absolutely have to have a theory of the observer.

And you might say, well, this little technical aside, decoherence will do it. And I'll just say, no, it won't. It gives you, it gets rid of the complex amplitudes, but it only gives you real probabilities, but doesn't give you a unique answer. We need a unique outcome, and you can't get a unique outcome from the Schrodinger evolution or decoherence.

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