The Case Against Reality

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1. alastairJan 2026
   Also check out The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman
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2. ptrhvnsJul 2024
   "The Case Against Reality" by Donald D. Hoffman

   I can't even ...

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3. spacetimeuser5Jun 2024
   In parallel with Darwin also try more recent advancements,like Don Hoffman's "The case against reality", where they prove that the probability that evolution will equip an organism to see the true reality is Zero.
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4. ptrhvnsJan 2023
   This is incorrect. It’s not hypothetical, is fully possible, and is very much in the scientific arena. Evolutionary game theory, among other tools, has been used to demonstrate that it's highly probably that human beings do not perceive objective reality as it truly is. See “The Case Against Reality” by Donald Hoffman.

   Edit: more precise language.

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5. Sol2SolSep 2021
   Far and away the most interesting theory on this topic for me is from Hoffman. I recent read his fascinating book The Case Against Reality - mind blown pretty much sums up my experience of the book. In short he advocates that consciousness is fundamental and that what we experience as the material world...people, objects, atoms is the product of our consciousness and not the other way around. Space time he argues is not fundamental.
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6. jrsdavJan 2020
   I think it's more about the approach taken for researching the hard problem of consciousness (what you basically pointed out; what explains the phenomenon of subjective experience for conscious entities?).

   Most researchers are doing exactly what you said, looking at it from the angle of "what arrangement of matter" gives rise to consciousness?. This model follows our intuitions and should definitely be explored; I don't think anyone is arguing the contrary.

   But there are others, like the cognitive psychologist Donald D. Hoffman, who are doing research from the complete opposite side of this problem: what if consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe? He explains this far better than I can (pre-caffeinated) in his book The Case Against Reality[1], which I'd recommend you read if you're interested in this topic (he's also done quite a few interviews which can be found on youtube et al[2]).

   Perhaps similar to you, I (a materialist) used to have what I can only call a "gut reaction" to this idea - panpsychism just seemed like "new age bullshit" that was impossibly wrong. But I'm becoming more open, and honestly the science being done is really fascinating[3].

   [1] https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Reality-Evolution-Truth/... [2] https://youtu.be/4HFFr0-ybg0 [3] http://cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/Chapter17Hoffman.pdf

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