Scientist Donald Hoffman Says Everything You Know Is a Lie—And Reality Isn’t Real (Fan Fav)

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Impact Theory

Education, News, News Commentary, Philosophy, Technology, Society & Culture, Business, Self-improvement

4.7 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2025

⏱️ 121 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is a fan fav episode. In this episode, Donald Hoffman returns and takes a deeper dive with Tom to discuss the complexities of consciousness perceived in and out of spacetime. Donald shares the possibilities of consciousness and the infinite nature of theories that exist outside of the virtual reality headset he uses to describe the version of reality you may still be experiencing. Take the plunge into this conversation and challenge the consciousness of what you call your true self. Order Donald’s latest book, ‘The Case Against Reality’: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Reality-Evolution-Truth/dp/0393254690⁠ Original air date: 4-1-21 SHOW NOTES: Consciousness | The theory of reality beyond the physical space and time [1:24] Spacetime | Donald relates Grand Theft Auto to understanding reality beyond space time [7:48] Testing Reality | Testable predictions of reality outside of space time and the fundamental nature of consciousness [10:40] Conscious Agents | Donald introduces conscious agents using the Twitter model [16:00] Conscious Illusion | How consciousness is not bound to the laws of physics and is created as needed in a simulation [22:00] Evolution | Why evolutionary theory only exists in space and time within the VR experience [26:34] The Unknown | The dark side of letting go to explore unknown concepts [33:40] Spacetime Simulator | Donald takes us through how consciousness is explored [37:33] Predicted Consciousness | Enjoying experience and predicting the realm of consciousness [49:57] Girdles Down | The Girdles theorem and why everything can not theoretically be known [54:46] A.I. Consciousness | How reductionism makes it possible to give rise to consciousness [1:03:54] Created Consciousness | Donald explains the creation of consciousness from portals [1:10:29] God Hypothesis | Donald’s hypothesis of science of God as agent of consciousness [1:15:05] Asymptotic behavior | Long term behaviors from far away that use spacetime theory [1:26:07] Alien Intelligence | Donald discusses alien intelligence and being in a simulator [1:31:22] Living vs NonLiving | Being unplugged from VR game and notion of self [1:33:53] Meditation | Donald shares how meditating to let go and have complete silence transforms his thoughts [1:46:20] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Sean has had some good ideas over the years, but using Canva was a really good one.
0:08.0	Sean designed some social posts to promote his friend's car boot sale.
0:13.0	They looked good, really, really good.
0:17.0	Next thing he knows, someone came and bought the loft, including the car.
0:24.5	Now Sean doesn't know how he's going to get home.
0:28.0	Thanks, Canva.
0:33.3	Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of conversations with Tom.
0:36.9	I am here for a second round with Donald Hoffman.
0:40.3	Welcome back.
0:41.3	Thank you very much, Tom. It's great to be here.
0:43.3	Dude, I am so excited to spend more time with you.
0:46.3	I was listening to the first interview that we did, which by the way, everybody, you're going
0:50.3	to want to watch that one to really understand everything that Donald's about.
0:54.6	We'll give you a quick primer here, but we're going to cover new ground in this.
0:58.1	But the reason that I'm so excited was, honestly, man, trying to wrap my head around your take on consciousness and the way that basically we're living in a constructed reality that we're essentially in the matrix, whether
1:11.5	we want to be or not.
1:12.6	And I get that and I was into it and I love it.
1:17.4	But some of the implications of that have only hit me now that I've had time to like, you
1:23.3	know, take a step back, really think about it, interact with other people dealing with
1:26.8	what they call the hard problem of consciousness.
1:29.3	So for us to be able to dive into that, though, give people the like three-minute primer on why your take is so different than everybody else who takes a really sort of physicality-based approach to consciousness.
1:43.7	Right. So most people who are looking at how consciousness is related to the physical world,
	...

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