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I watched Hoffman’s Lex Fridman interview, it sounds like his idea is that our perceptions are like a user interface that abstracts reality so we don’t perceive

by choxi 3y ago

I watched Hoffman’s Lex Fridman interview, it sounds like his idea is that our perceptions are like a user interface that abstracts reality so we don’t perceive reality as it actually is. Isn’t that well accepted already? We know we don’t sense everything, and our brains give us a highly compressed version of the senses we do have. But none of that matters when we use tools like cameras or microphones because they’re not constrained the way our senses are. Is there anything more to his idea than that?

swader999 3y ago
Yes that's a fair take. He has done a lot of work to show that these perceptions couldn't have evolved to see the truth or see objective reality. He has a lot of rigorous math and simulation data on this angle. He goes further than this but has less proof so far. Says consciousness is fundamental, not physical reality, not quantum world. Says that these are projections that eminate from something more fundamental.
strogonoff 3y ago
I see little in common between Hoffman’s interface theory of consciousness and merely stating that our minds filter out (lossily compress, etc.) information about reality. Hoffman appears to effectively suggest Kantian idealism: by claiming that perceived time-space and phenomena in it are more like icons on a screen, a representation of some abstract network of conscious agents, he takes a stab at the hard problem and turns materialistic understanding of causality (“neurones fire, therefore I think”) on its head (“I think, and it manifests itself as neurones firing”). Rather than filtering information about some external reality, minds are reality, whereas perceived time-space is a product of them filtering/compressing information about themselves. Idealism of this sort is quite different from and has farther reaching implications than sticking to materialistic monism and likening our brains to meaty computers that have to filter out input about supposedly objectively existing space-time that they are a product of.
- aradox66 3y ago
  This is in line with some Buddhist perspectives (arguably dependent origination is about this) - awareness is more or less synonymous with ultimate reality, and that gets filtered and formed and abstracted and compressed to generate the everyday relative reality we take for granted

by choxi 3y ago

swader999 3y ago

Yes that's a fair take. He has done a lot of work to show that these perceptions couldn't have evolved to see the truth or see objective reality. He has a lot of rigorous math and simulation data on this angle. He goes further than this but has less proof so far. Says consciousness is fundamental, not physical reality, not quantum world. Says that these are projections that eminate from something more fundamental.

strogonoff 3y ago

I see little in common between Hoffman’s interface theory of consciousness and merely stating that our minds filter out (lossily compress, etc.) information about reality. Hoffman appears to effectively suggest Kantian idealism: by claiming that perceived time-space and phenomena in it are more like icons on a screen, a representation of some abstract network of conscious agents, he takes a stab at the hard problem and turns materialistic understanding of causality (“neurones fire, therefore I think”) on its head (“I think, and it manifests itself as neurones firing”). Rather than filtering information about some external reality, minds are reality, whereas perceived time-space is a product of them filtering/compressing information about themselves. Idealism of this sort is quite different from and has farther reaching implications than sticking to materialistic monism and likening our brains to meaty computers that have to filter out input about supposedly objectively existing space-time that they are a product of.

aradox66 3y ago
This is in line with some Buddhist perspectives (arguably dependent origination is about this) - awareness is more or less synonymous with ultimate reality, and that gets filtered and formed and abstracted and compressed to generate the everyday relative reality we take for granted