Donald Hoffman: "Spacetime is doomed!"

[midniterider]

I dont think Hoffman has really asserted an idea about what he thinks reality is. For him it's more about what reality isn't. And it isnt what we see. Hoffman calls everyday physical reality a user interface, like a computer desktop. And the underlying guts of reality are more complicated and are something that we dont really need to know about.

 

Kastrup's idea is similar. In the videos I was watching he asserts that reality is an infinite ocean of consciousness, with no extension in time or space....and for whatever reason (boredom?), now and then part of that consciousness walls itself up so it can have an individual experience. If it were able to experience stuff outside its self-imposed boundaries then it wouldnt be able to pretend that it was a separate entity anymore and would just flow back into the infinite consciousness like a drop of water is absorbed into the rest of the ocean. 

 

The consciousness isn't higher, like a God, nor would we worship it (worship myself?) It's not a 'belief' anymore than it is a belief when a scientist wonders "what if this is how that thing works?" 

 

It doesnt matter to me if it's called science or metaphysics or philosophy, I find it an interesting possibility.

[midniterider]

2 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

Bernardo Kastrup also interviewed with Shermer about analytic Idealism, a related philosophical issue. And what it revealed is how little Shermer understands any of this. He just didn't know very much about idealism to begin with. Every objection were well known objections and already answered: 

 

Bernardo Kastrup on the Nature of Reality: Materialism, Idealism, or Skepticism - YouTube

 

I'm going through the Hoffman interview now.

 

Right away after 29:00 minutes it's made clear that Shermer doesn't understand Hoffman's position much at all - the same issue as with the interview I've linked above. Shermer is just altogether unfamiliar with the content. By 30:00 Hoffman is explaining to Shermer that he's a realist (conscious realism), agrees with most of Shermer's points, and the only real point of contention is that Hoffman doesn't think we're there yet - that we haven't arrived at truth.

 

And the implication of Shermer's arguments would lead to an untenable sense of thinking that we have truth now and do understand objectively reality, which, we clearly do not. They estimated that we have a zero percent chance of perceiving reality as it actually is through "fitness payoff's" of natural selection. It's not even possible that we have a grip on objective reality in the sense of truth right now. 

 

No one's even arguing that there is no objective reality. All parties agree that there is. The argument is to how well, if at all, we understand and perceive objective reality as it actually is. And an objective look into the problem (Hoffman and Kastrup) reveals that we do not. And that we can't currently. 

 

I'll go through the rest of your cited video and leave more comments later. 

 

 

 

Shermer hits Kastrup about 1:25:00 I think it is with an experiment where doctors stimulate an area of a woman's brain with a probe and she reports having a partial out of body experience. They stimulate another area and she reports a full OBE....Shermer's like , "How do you explain that?"

 

Kastrup says something like, "Everything we see is an illusion, the universe, the world, the doctors, the patient, the probe..."  So there is little import to the illusion of physical scientific experimentation that attempts to show that the illusory physical "brain did it." lol 

[midniterider]

Have a good trip, Pantheory. Stay safe. 

[Joshpantera]

So far Shermer seems like he's trying to understand the argument but time and again speaking up to then reveal that he's not getting it much at all. He's quoting things that are irrelevant to Hoffman's clearly stated position. Especially 1:14.  

 

One glaring reason for this, is that it just isn't easy to teach old dogs new tricks. 

 

Which leads into the next response where Hoffman suggests that the next generation will probably better understand all of this. Being that they're emersed in virtual reality technology and growing up with it. It shouldn't be a big step to take the headset off and see how our objective reality situation could be another type of user interface. A natural type of user interface brought to us by evolution by natural selection. 

 

After 1:20 going forward Hoffman circles around to try and explain this Shermer again. And by 1:40 Hoffman is trying to explain to Shermer how emotionally attached most people are to wanting to believe that we see reality as it actually is. But science has shown otherwise and forward movement in the sciences is going to have to take that into consideration. 

 

What does Shermer do? 

 

He comes back in with yet another statement that reveals his complete lack of comprehension of the subject matter. At no point during this interview did Shermer demonstrate that he gets what's being said. Shermer still had no clue that Hoffman is not promoting something that puts us "at the center of the show." And he keeps leaning back on irrelevant past interviews with Deepok that nothing at all to do with what Hoffman is saying. 

 

But Shermer ended the interview on a positive note and declared that he likes what Hoffman is trying to do. And the write up about the interview on his page seems like a pretty straightforward and positive one. Shermer has only delt with the consciousness issue from the likes of Deepok who isn't in any way representative of the scientific or philosophical arguments of Conscious Realism or Analytic Idealism - both of which differ with Deepok in many ways when you do understand the content. 

 

 

 

 

[Joshpantera]

On 2/17/2022 at 12:00 PM, pantheory said:

This is not a subject of knowledge, IMO, it is a subject of a belief in a higher consciousness of some kind, right?

 

No. It's neither about belief nor higher consciousness. It isn't religious in and of itself. And neither Hoffman nor Kastrup profess any spirituality. Which has caused a lot of negativities from some people in the spiritual communities. I've been arguing with some of them about it. Hoffman and Kastrup both profess not to be very spiritual people. Just philosopher's and scientists. And analytical and objective thinkers. 

 

The theorum is a way of explaining particle wave duality and the mysteries of QM in a way that involves reality as a vast system of conscious agents. Which are increasingly primitive as you scale down to the sub-atomic realm - not advanced as you deep dive in. For the purpose of starting with a different premise and seeing if it gives you back evolution by natural selection, relativity, and all that's explained in the OP and the Skeptic Magazine interview that you linked. And which could solve the hard problem of consciousness while doing it. 

[Joshpantera]

On 2/17/2022 at 12:39 PM, midniterider said:

I dont think Hoffman has really asserted an idea about what he thinks reality is. For him it's more about what reality isn't. And it isnt what we see. Hoffman calls everyday physical reality a user interface, like a computer desktop. And the underlying guts of reality are more complicated and are something that we dont really need to know about.

 

Kastrup's idea is similar. In the videos I was watching he asserts that reality is an infinite ocean of consciousness, with no extension in time or space....and for whatever reason (boredom?), now and then part of that consciousness walls itself up so it can have an individual experience. If it were able to experience stuff outside its self-imposed boundaries then it wouldnt be able to pretend that it was a separate entity anymore and would just flow back into the infinite consciousness like a drop of water is absorbed into the rest of the ocean. 

 

The consciousness isn't higher, like a God, nor would we worship it (worship myself?) It's not a 'belief' anymore than it is a belief when a scientist wonders "what if this is how that thing works?" 

 

It doesnt matter to me if it's called science or metaphysics or philosophy, I find it an interesting possibility.

 

Yes. This is pretty much what I'm seeing as well. Not to mention that Pan's video citation leads to all of the above too. It's all explained quite well by Hoffman in the Shermer interview. 

 

The problem is that if someone comes at this with a preconceived idea of what they think will be said and then remains closed off to every explanation, they have little chance of understanding the content. Shermer has done that in the interview. Sam Harris has done that with Kastrup. But all that demonstrates is that they don't understand the premise of what they're trying to critique.

 

It's not intellectually dishonest, it's more like intellectually ignorant of a given argument. They just don't understand it. That's fine, but then don't proceed as if you do understand what you're trying to critique if you clearly do not. 

 

You'd think they'd be a little more cautious than that. They're intelligent guys. It's not as if they're incapable of understanding the premise. But they have to at least try in order to get there. And if this keeps up, they will have to put more effort into trying because it will be a topic that keeps coming up again and again. Especially if a paradigm shift is already afoot. 

[midniterider]

15 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

Yes. This is pretty much what I'm seeing as well. Not to mention that Pan's citation leads to all of the above as well.

 

It's all explained quite well by Hoffman in the Shermer interview. 

 

The problem is that if someone comes with a preconceived idea of what they think will be said and then remained closed off to every explanation, they have little chance of understanding the content. Shermer has done that in the interview. Sam Harris has done that with Kastrup. But all that demonstrates is that they don't understand the premise of what they're trying to critique. 

 

You'd think they'd be a little more cautious than that. They're intelligent guys. It's not as if they're incapable of understanding the premise. But they have to at least try in order to get there. And if this keeps up, they will have to put more effort into trying because it will be a topic that keeps coming up again and again. Especially if a paradigm shift is already afoot. 

 

Professional Skeptics: Non-Innovators. 

[pantheory]

On 2/17/2022 at 8:35 PM, Joshpantera said:

 

No. It's neither about belief nor higher consciousness. It isn't religious in and of itself. And neither Hoffman nor Kastrup profess any spirituality. Which has caused a lot of negativities from some people in the spiritual communities. I've been arguing with some of them about it. Hoffman and Kastrup both profess not to be very spiritual people. Just philosopher's and scientists. And analytical and objective thinkers. 

 

The theorum is a way of explaining particle wave duality and the mysteries of QM in a way that involves reality as a vast system of conscious agents. Which are increasingly primitive as you scale down to the sub-atomic realm - not advanced as you deep dive in. For the purpose of starting with a different premise and seeing if it gives you back evolution by natural selection, relativity, and all that's explained in the OP and the Skeptic Magazine interview that you linked. And which could solve the hard problem of consciousness while doing it. 

 

Hi Josh,

 

Yes, I agree with you,  Using the word theorem to categorize these ideas is correct in the popular sense of the word theorem, but not in the scientific sense Such use equates to conjecture. In this case, such ideas relate to metaphysics IMO, a category of philosophy.

 

Again, in the scientific sense, all hypothesis and theories must be both testable and falsifiable. Philosophies require neither.