Is Life a Grand Illusion

Perhaps it is, according to Donald D. Hoffman, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California.

Hoffman has spent the past three decades studying perception, artificial intelligence, evolutionary game theory and the brain, and his conclusion is a dramatic one: The world presented to us by our perceptions is nothing like reality.

...Experiment after experiment has shown—defying common sense—that if we assume that the particles that make up ordinary objects have an objective, observer-independent existence, we get the wrong answers. The central lesson of quantum physics is clear: There are no public objects sitting out there in some preexisting space. As the physicist John Wheeler put it, “Useful as it is under ordinary circumstances to say that the world exists ‘out there’ independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld.”

The Case Against Reality - The Atlantic

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I read just about every science and philosophy book on the nature of reality that I can get my hands on. It is definitely an obsession of mine. While I don't pretend to know what is going on, I certainly feel as though reality isn't anything like what it seems to be.

BrewerBob said:

I read just about every science and philosophy book on the nature of reality that I can get my hands on. It is definitely an obsession of mine. While I don't pretend to know what is going on, I certainly feel as though reality isn't anything like what it seems to be.

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I'm intrigued by this quote.

Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. They guide adaptive behaviors. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be. If you had to spend all that time figuring it out, the tiger would eat you.

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...mostly because it is something I believed all along.

Good line here: "Objective reality is just conscious agents, just points of view."

I guess, as mentioned above, this fits my thought process perfectly. I am aware that no two people experience the same event the exact same way. To simplify with a metaphor: I may see grass which is greener than someone who is depressed and maybe sees it taking on a gray hew. A manic person, OTOH, may see that same grass shimmering with rainbow colors as the light dances off its moisture. Everything is relative. There is no hard reality.

Everything is mathematics.

Hard to really tell, and just how much of that statement, would, logically, be and illusion? It compounds the more you think about it.

However, the Styx album of that same name was pretty good. But maybe that is an illusion as well. :lamo

So its kind of illustrative of the whole paradigm. Used to argue using Styx as a representative band. My brother, a musician, used to say they were lousy, bubblegumish, that they were one of the sell out types, not to be listened to or respected for their music. They were promoted by music companies driven by profit.

My argument was that many truly enjoyed their music, at whatever level of music appreciation was their current station, that people are allowed their own preferences.

He was a music nazi back then, has since mellowed somewhat... so who really, in the end, truly knows?

Gaugingcatenate said:

Hard to really tell, and just how much of that statement, would, logically, be and illusion? It compounds the more you think about it.

However, the Styx album of that same name was pretty good. But maybe that is an illusion as well. :lamo

So its kind of illustrative of the whole paradigm. Used to argue using Styx as a representative band. My brother, a musician, used to say they were lousy, bubblegumish, that they were one of the sell out types, not to be listened to or respected for their music. They were promoted by music companies driven by profit.

My argument was that many truly enjoyed their music, at whatever level of music appreciation was their current station, that people are allowed their own preferences.

He was a music nazi back then, has since mellowed somewhat... so who really, in the end, truly knows?

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He ends the question-answer session by giving probably the only answer possible.

As a conscious realist, I am postulating conscious experiences as ontological primitives, the most basic ingredients of the world. I’m claiming that experiences are the real coin of the realm. The experiences of everyday life—my real feeling of a headache, my real taste of chocolate—that really is the ultimate nature of reality.

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rhinefire said:

Everything is mathematics.

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That reminds me, I have a math problem to solve.

BrewerBob said:

I read just about every science and philosophy book on the nature of reality that I can get my hands on. It is definitely an obsession of mine. While I don't pretend to know what is going on, I certainly feel as though reality isn't anything like what it seems to be.

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Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. Albert Einstein

There is hard reality. Our inability to agree on it doesn't mean it isn't there. It just means no single human being is perfectly equipped to observe it objectively. There is no reason to conclude that we observe things into being just because we are not able to observe thing perfectly objectively.

This topic reminds me of Michael Talbot's book The Holographic Universe.

Our current understanding of "reality" is rather limited, IMO.

Thanks for the link from The Atlantic.

devildavid said:

There is hard reality. Our inability to agree on it doesn't mean it isn't there. It just means no single human being is perfectly equipped to observe it objectively. There is no reason to conclude that we observe things into being just because we are not able to observe thing perfectly objectively.

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My take on it is rather pedestrian. Does a snake exist in reality? Sure, what we call a snake definitely exists. Does the snake look and act exactly how we see it? No, of course not. But, what we see and interpret as a snake is close enough to what a snake really is that we can avoid being bitten by it.

Thoreau72 said:

This topic reminds me of Michael Talbot's book The Holographic Universe.

Our current understanding of "reality" is rather limited, IMO.

Thanks for the link from The Atlantic.

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If we could see everything going on around us without a natural filter, we'd probably go insane. I like how the author ties evolution into his argument, because it is very likely that natural selection determined what we see and what we filter out.

Didn't we all learn in Kindergarten that life is but a dream?

calamity said:

Perhaps it is, according to Donald D. Hoffman, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California.

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I've read stuff like it and I think that might actually be one of the one's I've read. Everything like that snippet makes some fundamental errors I don't understand given that some of these people do have a physics background:

1. Quantum physics, particularly the portion described - that elementary particles are not objectively particles when not observed, are probability wave-functions, and only have a distinct existence as a particle at the moment they are observed because of the act of observation* - applies only to elementary particles. It does not scale.

2. #1 is conflated with an age-old philosophical point that cannot be denied. Simply put, the only evidence of an external world comes through our sense organs. Yet, the existence of our sense organs can only be proved by information which our sense organs tell us comes through our sense organs. That is, you only know a tree exists because you can touch, feel, smell, etc, it. But you only know you are touching it because your 'sense organs', which could be an illusion, tell you that touching is an objectively real thing. Therefore, as a stoned person might have said in the college bong circle, all of reality might be in the head of the person listening to the alleged stone person's discourse.



Well, these are rather different things. Quantum Physics absolutely does not say that an apple exists as an apple only when you, a human, is looking at it. It says that the electrons surrounding the proton(s)/neutrons(s) in one atom constituting that apple exist as probabilities of matter and energy being in a certain states around the protons and neutrons, but that if you "observe" them with any detection method, they suddenly occupy one specific place and time.

But this doesn't scale. Large systems like an apple exist regardless of observation, according to quantum physics. Further, contrary to what some of these arguments rely on, the fact that what I call "red" may or may not be utterly different what any other person or creature with visual sense organs calls "red" simply doesn't have anything to do with any of these points.





So here's the thing: this prof is absolutely correct in his general points. For example, that we agree to call something "red" because that resulted from deaths and lives over time. If we agree to call the same thing "red" and we live, but people disagree die, then over time we will of course tend to survive. He's right that my red isn't your red (or might be, we just can't measure). But he is utterly wrong to the extent that he tries to tie in quantum mechanics to this kind of macro-observation, especially where the "observation" in quantum mechanics but the type we talk about with redness is subjective.

There is a specific frequency of light that corresponds to what we agree is red. That doesn't change regardless of our perception.





Basically, he's right that objective reality is incomprehensible and utterly unlike anything we sense or could imagine. BUT, the conclusions he tries to draw from that are simply wrong. There IS an objective reality there and it IS observer-independent on the macro scale.

But because he's right on the general point - that it's silly to worry about it - it's not a big deal.



Unnnnnlllleeeesssssssss .... whatever ultimate grand theory unites quantum mechanics and standard theory (and more) says something bigger and more astounding. Fingers crossed. I love me some uncertainty.


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* "Observed" generally means bouncing an electron off them or some such act. Not looking at them with a human eyeball.



Disclaimer: I did in fact read the linked article, but it was not in days. I've worked off my memory. Hopefully I didn't misconstrue it, but if I did, then just read this as a general response to anyone who thinks the things I'm criticizing make sense.

CrabCake said:

Didn't we all learn in Kindergarten that life is but a dream?

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Yes.

But the people who believed it decided to sit in the middle of the road at night with their eyes closed. Cars disabused them of the notion, but they may not have woken up to realize the fact.





( I know you were just kidding )

Thoreau72 said:

This topic reminds me of Michael Talbot's book The Holographic Universe.

Our current understanding of "reality" is rather limited, IMO.

Thanks for the link from The Atlantic.

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I'm not familiar with that book, but I have read some things about the X-dimensional possibility that we're basically a self-experiencing shadow on someone else's wall ("The Holographic Universe").



Of course, the problem with the many versions of string theory is that the math isn't nearly worked out and that which is predicts that there are a number of propositions that, on the theory's own terms, cannot be tested as they would require observation below the Planck Length.

That's not possible. Unless, of course, there's more.





I wish mathematics didn't come as such a pain to me. This is what I'd really want to spend my life doing. Such grand mind-bending concepts. Such uncertainty. Such perspective on how utterly miniscule we are, yet also, how we strive....

Mr Person said:

Yes.

But the people who believed it decided to sit in the middle of the road at night with their eyes closed. Cars disabused them of the notion, but they may not have woken up to realize the fact.





( I know you were just kidding )

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Your response is untrue, doesn't accurately represent anyone's position, isn't funny, and was a response to a joke. I really don't get why you posted it.

CrabCake said:

Your response is untrue, doesn't accurately represent anyone's position, isn't funny, and was a response to a joke. I really don't get why you posted it.

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Cranky at 5 am are we?

If someone posts a lame joke in response to your lame joke, you probably shouldn't ***** about it.






Have a....... day

devildavid said:

.. no single human being* is perfectly equipped to observe it objectively.

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or infinite collective of human beings

Mr Person said:

I'm not familiar with that book, but I have read some things about the X-dimensional possibility that we're basically a self-experiencing shadow on someone else's wall ("The Holographic Universe").



Of course, the problem with the many versions of string theory is that the math isn't nearly worked out and that which is predicts that there are a number of propositions that, on the theory's own terms, cannot be tested as they would require observation below the Planck Length.

That's not possible. Unless, of course, there's more.





I wish mathematics didn't come as such a pain to me. This is what I'd really want to spend my life doing. Such grand mind-bending concepts. Such uncertainty. Such perspective on how utterly miniscule we are, yet also, how we strive....

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I read somewhere that in order to explore string theory we would need a linear accelerator the length of the solar system.

A jerk goes to school and gets a rag to hang on his wall and he writes or says something. I have rags, paper and a towel on my wall in my bathroom therefore I am his/her equal.