Being utterly novice or even a layman when it comes to these topics, but my heart is racing and I get overly enthusiastic about philosophical discussions and I linger in to the bafflement. I regret nothing. So glad for mind chat! Keep it up, as this content is priceless!
It doesn’t matter if Don is right or wrong or even mostly right or wrong. His hypothesis is worth investigating and if it gets us 10 percent closer to his ultimate ideas or concepts, we are calibrating our current ideas.
Sure. However, does that apply to literally all hypothesises or speculations from anyone and everyone? Surely there isn't enough time in the day to do so. So why should Hoffman's idealist speculations, which he ties to SOME theoretical physicists and their claims about "the death of spacetime", be given any preferential treatment?
I would've loved to have a hard-nosed philosopher about the existence of space-time like Tim Maudlin to be present and contribute to the conversation, i think he would've had lots of illuminating things to say about the supposed strong reasons Hoffman provides for rejecting the existence of space-time. Edit: i heard the part where he is discussing local realism, Tim Maudlin would also have a lot to say about that, Bohmian Mechanics is alive and well, and it's easily describes what exists locally (IE: the particles), it just adds a single non local entity to our ontology which is the universal wave function that guides the motion of all particles in the universe.....
hoffman doesn't reject the existence of spacetime. he's not even talking about his ideas, but about an emerging stance in the contemporary fundamental physics community, which is that we have very good reasons to think that spacetime and quantum physics are emergent, and not fundamental. this *does not mean that spacetime or quantum physics doesn't exist.* it only means that these theories will probably be recovered as limit cases of more fundamental theories, like how classical behaviour emerges, or how 'atoms' supervene on fundamental particles. there is also no reason from physics to think that there is a single fundamental level. that said, hearing tim maudlin, sean carroll, sabine hossenfelder, james ladyman... talk with don would be awesome!
There are two main reasons as to why Donald Hoffman has rejected spacetime: (1) He's an idealist, who's tied the "spacetime is doomed" idea to his idealism. (2) At present, his position is almost entirely dependent on the work of the theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed - specifically on his amplituhedron. However, there is no evidence at all - as far as I can see - that any professional mathematicians or theoretical physicists have actually engaged with Hoffman on his recent ideas, save the "independent" mathematician Chetan Prakash - who cowrites all of Hoffman's papers... As for Tim Maudlin, I strongly suspect that he'd have no time at all for Hoffman's idealism, or for Prakash's use of maths to advance idealism.
On the contrary, evolution has not hidden the quest to find Reality. Shamans thousands of years ago tapped into the deeper levels of Reality through the use of psychedelics. People developed chants, dances, and music as links to introspective realities beyond the immediate need for the fitness payoffs of spreading one's DNA. The ancient Egyptians spent huge amounts of time and resources in accommodating the dead. Such enterprises had no immediate fitness payoff but in the long run helped orient the trajectory of humanity into explorations of the Unknown.
1:19:12 There’s no Godelian phenomenon there. Hoffman brings it up just because it sounds fancy. Also, there’s no “Godel limit” of mathematical descriptions. Finally, there’s no theorem that consciousness “transcends” mathematics (whatever that statement is meant to say). Godel’s First Incompleteness Theorem is a precise metamathematical result that applies to a specific class of formal arithmetics. This is the only context where it makes sense to bring this result up.
I agree. When he gets to the part of the sentence where he should clarify what he means by "it has its Gödel limit" he just goes off and talks about something else. But Gödel's incompleteness theorem is already relevant for our understanding of the fundamental nature of reality, at least if one assumes that whatever our theory will be in the end, it will be a formal theory. Our currently best models you could argue we get from physics, which of course uses math, and so Gödel's incompleteness theorem applies there. Whether any *interesting* truths are unprovable is another matter, it might be that the limits from the incompleteness theorem are only theoretical limits that will never be relevant for understanding fundamental reality in practice. But the theorem does seem to point to something very fundamental about formal theories, and Hoffman seems to want to propose some kind of formal theory, so it's not surprising he thinks it's relevant.
Very politely done. You pointed out his strawmanning of reductionism (what is his theory of conscious agents purportedly explaining space time, particles, and scattering amplitudes if it isn't reductionist?), and that space time is not doomed even if it is explained as emergent from something else, but you could have gone harder on his evolutionary argument. The objective function that evolution is minimising to produce our perceptions is not identical to one which would create exact reality - it can obviously provide some useful fictions - but there's definitely a big overlap. Isn't it kind of obvious that piling useful fictions on top of each will eventually just fall in on itself like a house of cards? A much better picture is that our visual systems produce a roughly veridical picture of a slice of the real world which then gets a few surface tweaks in order to make it more useful. The same is surely true of all our perceptions. Also technological advance hasn't really shown us that we are wrongly perceiving our human sized slice of the universe, it's rather shown us additional things outside of the ranges of our experience.
You're exactly right. Donald Hoffman is a supreme reductionist. Yet Hoffman mentions reductionism negatively a fair few times - as in this RUclips interview. Like spacetime, he believes that reductionism is doomed too. So it’s odd that a person who criticises reductionism has carried out what can be seen as the most ultimate reduction imaginable. Hoffman believes that he's *reduced* (what people take to be) reality down to what he calls “conscious agents” and their “interactions”. Perhaps Hoffman believes that what he’s doing is not a case of reduction simply because he reduces objects, neurons, brains, reality, spacetime, human beings, etc. to non-physical - or even “spiritual” - conscious agents and their interactions. However, how does the non-physicality of these things stop it from being a reduction?
A very clear point that I too have difficulty with Hoffman on I mean it is a form of reductionism - I’m not even sure why the evolutionary fitness model he uses to presuppose that evolutionary guided adaptions are inaccurate to truth point absolutely and clearly to the fundamental truth that conscious is fundamental - why for instance isn’t consciousness just an evolutionary fitness adaptation and an illusion (as many naturalists and philosophers have preposed) Ie what is so fundamental about evolutionary science to his overall hierarchy of the universe as being “conscious agents=> networks of conscious agents => decorator permutations math model => vertices and volume of an infinitely complex multidimensional ploytope called amplitudehedron => leading to real universe scattering amplitude of particles => leading to quantum mechanics and spacetime => leading to material universe => leading to matter => leading to living beings => leading to evolutionary fitness obscuring all of this? Ok Anyway this is such a fascinating subject and I think it’s only when coupled to Nima’s physics theories and the math of networks of his conscious agents that it gets really interesting- Even if he’s wrong overall there is a lot to discover in all of this Also it seems to me if consciousness is emergent at the material scale only (ie Hoffman is totally wrong and it’s exists only for a short while and is rubbed out with the universe) it’s such a waste of time but if consciousness is fundamental than a lot more potential and meaningfulness in existence
Enjoyed it .. and mostly able to follow the discussion (not technical). One thing puzzled me, Don talked about one consciousness, and when Keith summarized that Don does not have position what our intuitive experience of consciousness… and this is the math leading us.. I am lost
The question of what is reality becomes especially interesting in civilized society because here we not only perceive but also create this reality ourselves. 7 days of creation from the Bible seem the most unscientific passage in the whole book, but you will instantly feel ashamed when you realize that it is not about creation of the Universe but about creating an artificial oasis in the semi-desert of Mesopotamia.
I don't yet fully understand all the details of scattering amplitudes, and I need to delve deeper into the Markovian dynamics of conscious agents. However, I'm genuinely intrigued by the ideas put forth by Donald Hoffman regarding BST entities and the precise mathematical modeling of consciousness. These ideas align with the concept of a symbiotic organism, and I believe that a deeper exploration of subjective experiences can provide answers to fundamental questions. The notion that reality remains uncertain until it's measured is fascinating. I appreciate the reference to Christopher A. Fuchs and plan to explore his work further. Regarding mathematical models, it's possible that some insights from Wolfram's physics could be valuable in this context. I'm particularly curious about how the concept of measurement relates to the experience of time. Does time become fixed in the same way as matter? For example, when a BST entity projects into the future, does it solidify the timeline, and does this apply universally? What remains in terms of free will after such a projection?
The fluctuations in the quantum field are actually nodes of the holographic network, collecting, preserving and disseminating information across the network using quantum states and entanglement to create reality, spacetime is an emergence of this .
Gödel’s incompleteness theorem can be used to dismiss the hard problem as proposed by Chalmers of the form why ‘red has the feel of red’. It is a given property of the world and would be illogical in scientific paradigmatic explanatory structures as it is a circular question. It in no way hinders normal scientific propositions of laws governing proper causal pathways as I’ve discussed previously
I’m simply drawing an analogy in terms of what ultimate reality scientific description takes as a given in order to build from it laws, so saying mathematical axioms can’t be proved as a starting point is a legitimate way of addressing the hard problem where we accept the observables we are trying to explain as impenetrable. Scientific rationale often transposes arguments across disciplines. In some sense one can regard why red has the feel and the quality of red an axiom in and of itself. Gödel’s argument can be used as a foil to speculation in neuroscience as irreducible quantities that lead to magical non transparent properties outside of scientific purview and the invention of intangible quantities like qualia or absurd propositions like panpsychism. It has reference all the same to why there is something rather than nothing as an argument against scientific description and as Gödel’s incompleteness theorem hasn’t impeded the success of mathematics or the existential question just raised isn’t an absolute barrier to physical descriptions of the universe, so the hard problem as a circular question is itself a kind of axiom even if Gödel had a mathematical formalism that was not strictly intended for other ethereal questions regarding the nature of reality.
One way to look at an axiom in scientific theory is whether a statement appears circular. There is a repetition in the premise of red having the appearance or feel of redness. As such it is logically impenetrable as there is no causal pathway to describe it, ie it is a ‘complete’ statement in itself (call it inverse Gödel’s incompleteness theorem) if you like. I might as well call it the circularity theorem of axiomatic statements
I don’t think the arguments change much by such a subtle distinction. Feel or sensation of red, why red looks red, quale of red they pose the same circular statement to physicalist explanations in a similar form to ‘why there is something instead of nothing’. All such propositions can themselves be reduced to why red is red or gravity is gravity. Science doesn’t explain the presence of such observations only laws that might govern them. To say an astronomical body exerts the force of gravity or reconceptualise this force as bending space time and have mathematical equations that describe this in no way explains why it should do so. This is where the idea of the circularity of the proposition of a hard problem stems from as scientifically non sensensical. Lets call all such statements as ones of circular observables or reducible to such.
When a cognitive psychologist is talking a lot about fundamental physics to make his argument, it makes me very skeptical. Hoffman repeatedly says "the physicists," but when he is asked, at 1:48:55, whether experts in the relevant fields agree or disagree with him, he admits that most experts disagree with him. Yet he says things like "the physicists are telling us that spacetime is doomed" to justify his views. It would be more honest to say "some physicists are telling us that spacetime is doomed." By the same token, he shouldn't say "the math tells us that ____" or "evolutionary game theory tells us that ____" if those claims are based only on his own work, and many relevant experts in the field of evolutionary game theory disagree that the work he has done there is correct. He should of course defend his work, but he shouldn't claim that "the math" tells us anything, instead he should say "my math" tells us something. His work on evolutionary game theory, and his understanding of the cutting edge of fundamental physics, may well be wrong, if so many experts disagree with him. From an outside perspective, which is the perspective of all of us listening to this, we should assume that the majority of experts is more likely to be correct, than Hoffman, about specific claims he makes within fields of scientific expertise. But I still find his overall view very interesting and worth taking seriously!
Great question that you put to Don. However I'm not sure Don was referring to physicists when he answered your question. Carlo Rovelli's books are good at explaining the illusion of /perception created spacetime. I believe that it's good to come up with out there ideas. Even if they turn out to be wrong, there might still be something useful to glean or learn from it
There is no "my math" vs. "your math." If you accept that math is universal, there is only "the math." If anything, Hoffman should simply cite the physicists or mathematicians he's talking about. However, there is a published paper that literally says "spacetime is doomed" in the abstract. So he's right about that.
@ArcadianGenesis the difference between my math and "the math" is that I could have done my math wrong. If experts in relevant fields don't mostly agree with Hoffman's math, his math might be wrong.
I'm glad someone else has picked up on this. In another RUclips interview (i.e., not this one), Donald Hoffman keeps on saying that “physicists” (i.e., in the plural) are saying this and saying that. (Hoffman also keeps on using the definite article - as in “the physicists”.) Hoffman often basically means one particular theoretical physicist - Nima Arkani-Hamed. (To be careful, perhaps Hoffman also has in mind a handful of other theoretical physicists who fully endorse what Arkani-Hamed has had to say on this highly-technical and abstract field of theoretical physics.) What’s more, even the small number of theoretical physicists who also believe that “spacetime is doomed” don’t do so in precisely the same way in which Arkani-Hamed does. So when Hoffman uses the word ”physicists” to back up his philosophical idealism, he basically means a small number - or even a single - theoretical physicist.
Hoffman uses Infinities of Infinities in his chain of Logic to explain his theory. He then says his theory is precisely Mathematical. One thing about Mathematics is that if you have Infinities then there is something wrong with your theory.
@@real_pattern Maybe. But I don't think any Physical thing including Space can be Infinite. I should have specified that when Scientists, not Mathematicians, get Infinities in their equations, they know there is something wrong.
The tables and chairs are user interface, sure, but their solidity (molecular bond) and shapes and colors (electromagnetic wavelenghts to which our eyes are sinsitive to) resulting from the underlying physics is not a user interface. The physics is about explaining how the user interface of tables and chairs is put together and works.
Everything in space-time according to Don's findings (including molecules, electromagnetic wavelengths etc) are part of the interface/desktop - icons as Don puts it, and are not fundamental. Everything within space-time and the entire Universe are projections of a more fundamental reality that is beyond space/time. We need to forget the whole notion that tables/ chairs/humans/planets erc are made up of tiny little fundamental particles.
@@DamienMcKinnon I know he says that. I do not find it convincing. To me it feels like "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", but of course that is not why I do not find it convincing. Like a kid asks , but why? we and science (in some sense) can always ask what is more fundamental than the current thing we assume to be fundamental. Sure. So in that sense space and time may not be fundamental and there may be something deeper ad-infinitum. But why would that be so called "projections" of something mental, I do not find convincing (idealism and solipsism etc). String theory may be more fundamental to bosons and fermions. Degree of entanglement may map to near and far notions of space. etc. See Sean Carrols recent videos on that. But Tables and Chairs make sense at their level. Electrons and quarks make sense at their level. Space and time make sense and are real at their level.
When they were discussing whether the fitness beats truth argument is self defeating, Donald Hoffman takes the position that evolution isn't true. Although this does avoid the charge of self defeat, it creates a whole new problem. If evolution isn't true, why should we believe that our perceptions are a user interface? After all, if evolution isn't true, it doesn't seem like there are any good reasons to believe our perceptions are tuned for fitness rather than truth. Moreover, it should be noted that denying evolution is perfectly compatible with realism.
@@AngelicaLWoods How can the "the math say" anything about "truth", or reality, etc? Maths can be *used* to advance various - even all - philosophical positions - from Hoffman's idealism, to materialism, panpsychism and any other position. However, maths on its own doesn't "say" anything about these things.
Hate to throw in such a dumb comment but if Dr Goff moved the microphone a bit away from his mouth it would make for a much more pleasant experience for headphones users. Other than that, fantastic discussion.
I suppose we'll just have to wait until academics catch up with the mystics. Most of these problems go away when we do. Mind you, then we have to get used to the idea that nothing really exists or ever really happens. .
Philip says that he has agreement with Donald in only the sense they do not seem to like space and time and physicalism/reductionism. But surely there has to be agreement on the basis of something more. No?
At around 12 minutes in Hoffman says that according to Mathematical Game Theory there is a probability of ZERO that our perceptions could be "homomorphic to structures in objective reality". When something has a probability of zero I think that means that there is no possible world in which that something can happen. So Hoffman saying that it is logically impossible that what I see has any structural correlation of any kind to whatever it is I think I am seeing? If I understand Hoffman correctly, he is denying even the POSSIBILITY of structural realism. That seems to me to be.....a rather perplexing claim!
Of course there are some competing theories at the cutting edge of understanding but that does not mean that a lot of well established science needs to be thrown out that easilly. A good read of Sean Carroll's something deeply hidden is on order.
@@SandipChitale although... cue the pessimistic meta-induction argument & the fact that we really have no idea what future physics might be, our present day theories may very well turn out to be trivial approximations, or outright false in the future, but i'd say that a significant portion of current fundamental physics researchers would say that we have very good reasons to think that ST&QT will turn out to be emergent theories.
I’m not sure he’s aware, but there are many cardinals much larger than any Aleph number. There are inaccessible cardinals, Woodin cardinals, Reinhardt cardinals ans so on. But I guess the One is larger than all of these.
If one is honest and believes in idealism, then one has to admit that they think other people are zombies. And this point was brushed aside, but it is a huge issue. This is similar to each religion claiming they are only true religion and others are not.
Idealism is a Philosophical proposition that goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Conscious Realism, by Donald Hoffman is a more recent proposition. The basic premise of both is that our Conscious Experiences are the only Real things in the Universe and that the External Physical World is created by these Conscious Experiences. So the Physical World does not really exist or is at least a secondary Epiphenomenon of Consciousness. This could be true but it is highly Incoherent when the facts of the Physical World are taken into account. I believe that the ancient Idealists realized our Conscious Experiences are separate from the Physical World but they made the mistake of thinking, that since Experiences were separate, the Physical World did not really exist. Idealism proposes this Incoherent and backwards causality of Consciousness creating the Physical World because their Science was not at a sophisticated enough level to properly explain the Physical World. It is inexplicable how a more modern Philosophy like Conscious Realism can promote the same backwards causality. Today it is clear that there is a causality trajectory from the Physical World to the Conscious World and not the other way around. Please, someone show me how Conscious Experience creates a Physical World, even a Virtual one?
The user interface metaphor is being used incorrectly. A computer or phone user interface has two sides, the user side and the programmer side. What we perceive is the user interface side of things. But physics and science is not on the user side of the user interface. It is on the programmer side of the user interface. Science seeks to explain like a user interface programmer, how the brain is generating the user interface that we perceive. Of course brain has to generate such user interface so that what was and is important for the survival of the organism is what is highlighted and brought forth to make the organism be able to deal with it. And in case of life on earth, the process of natural selection was the designer and programmer of such user interface. Now us, through the use of physics. chemistry, biology now increasingly computation and AI are reverse engineering how it all works. The proverbial look at the man behind the curtain.
If the general claim is that the science is not done yet and more work is needed to be done., then duh? of course. Noone has any objection to that. But if the claim is that all the science we know can qualitatively be replaced by something completely different then a lot of scientists and physicalists will have issue with that.
I his latest 2023 paper, 'Fusions of Consciousness', Hoffman attempts to show that maths can indeed "capture qualia". He uses a hell of a lot of maths to do so. I personally believe that it is gratuitous, pretentious, and a classic example of someone using maths to sell a bogus idea. The entire article is an attempt to blind readers with a monumental amount of maths. (Hoffman cowrites with the mathematician Chetan Prakash. I suspect that Prakash does nearly all the maths in Hoffman's papers.)
A+B+C=W (a whole) Simples, Compounds & wholes I can tell you how metaphysics solves the gap between physical and simple existants Goffs, I need you start referring to qualia as presence. Do this, or fail
@Patrick Campion I know his work. I have heard that some scientists think there may be more deeper concepts, but calling spacetime dead is like saying tables and chairs are dead because we found out they are made out of atoms and molecules, which is absurd.
@@SandipChitale dead/doomed is a metaphor.it does not deny its existence.It just says it ain't fundamental.How exactly is this related with Chopra when there are physicists that claim the above?
@@pythIV Well, I would not interpret the word dead to mean not fundamental. You may, it is a free world. People like Deepak Chopra are eager to dismiss physicalism by (intentionally or otherwise) misunderstanding some of the concepts in physics - especially quantum physics and then misrepresent that (mischievously) to undermine physicalism. I think some of that is at play in the discussion above and called it out. By the way woo woo crowd loves the word quantum. And I think Deepak Chopra is member of that crowd. Now we know that tables and chairs are made out of atoms and molecules. I.e. they are not fundamental. But we do not say tables and chairs are dead. Similarly GR superseded Newtons theory. of gravity, but we do not say Newton's theory is dead.
@@SandipChitale well...The question was how you relate chopra with hofmann. Like I said physicists use the word doomed. And Hofmann specifically said he is quoting their words. I assume you are not saying nima arkani-hamed is the equivalent of chopra. We are not talking about how useful a theory is or how good physicality and not physicalism is. We are talking about what is deeper than that. People like Chopra may be eager to dismiss physicalism but there are also people from the other side that are eager to dismiss idealism by mocking it.Someone may don't care , someone may do care. It is a free world indeed
Physicists are not "finding" these mathematical structures "beyond space-time" the same way someone finds a dollar note down the back of the sofa. They are inventing these structures, ironically by using diagrams that exist in an "abstract" space. Why should some theorist's abstract mathematical "space" be more real than the space that I move about in?
True. For one, if these structures are seen as "entities", then it would be clear that Hoffman is simply favouring one kind of reductionism - one that ends with these geometrical structures... In any case, non-physicists can view Nima Arkani-Hamed’s amplituhedron (which Hoffman extensively uses in his updated idealism - as of the 2023 paper, 'Fusions of Consciousness') as a geometrical tool which is used by theoretical physicists. It can also be seen as a pure abstraction. (The words “highly abstract” are often used about the amplituhedron.) In other words, amplituhedron theory provides physicists with a geometric model that is essentially abstract. Indeed, it’s abstract primarily because the geometrical space it offers theoretical physicists is not a (physical) spacetime. (In that limited sense, the amplituhedron is abstract in the same way that - at least on most readings - the wave function and Hilbert space are.) So how, exactly, can a geometrical tool which only simplifies the calculations of the interactions of particles be tied to Hoffman’s philosophical idealism? (Arkani-Hamed himself has stated that the amplituhedron helps simplify scattering-amplitude calculations.) Of course, some physicists (almost certainly very few - almost none) may well believe that amplituhedron theory does far more than merely simplify things. They may take it to be an ontological theory about the nature of reality… Donald Hoffman certainly does.
If the woo woo returns special relativity, quantum theory etc, basically returns Laws of physics which are just Laws of Mind as everything is experienced is through mind, then the "woo woo" cant be "woo woo", unless your dont undertsand it...
@@mairo0sanguineti I'm not sure if I've understood what you've said. But if you're saying that special relativity, quantum theory, etc can be deemed to be woo woo too, then perhaps you're right. However, Donald Hoffman may keep on mentioning quantum theory, Relativity, what physicists say, etc. - but he goes way beyond the physics. His theories are *philosophical*. His conscious realism, along with words on "conscious agents", qualia, etc., are all philosophical (perhaps also "spiritual") in nature. Most physicists would either reject them or be perplexed by how he combines stuff from physics with stuff from way outside physics.
@@paulaustinmurphy Personally, your off track in how you responded, out of date, Its time to give up the the narrative/position (physicalist or materialist narrative - don't know which it is, or what it is, or type of thinking you have!) , which is also responsible for state of human condition of suffering/depression and delusion. Woo Woo is only when you don't undertsand something that is against your conditioning, intuition, training, ideology or does not lend itself to mainstream narratives, or there is no theory with supporting evidence from a proposed model because its all anecdotal subjective experience, without a theory in place yet. Yet its very real experience, that you cannot deny. You Say, "Most physicists would either reject them or be perplexed by how he combines stuff from physics with stuff from way outside physics" what ? WTF? Are they the Gods of truth? Off course they would, because they have been brought up to think like you! So progress stagnates, epicycling trying fit square pegs into round holes! History is fall of it. Specifically in consciousness, and so called hard problem. DO you think Einstein's mathematical predictions in 1905 was treated as "Non Woo -Woo"? took decades before experimental evidence confirmed the mathematical modelling, and indeed everything he modelled was initially against intuition and pooed pooed on, , as is/was Quantum theory. (As Feynman famously said, if you not shocked about Quantum theory and don't have sleepless nights about it you have not understood it properly) Donald Hoffman has bravely gone where not many have ventured, and any one that proposes mathematical models, and is able to see the limits of the models, and make predictions from experimental evidence deserves positive support, and furthermore if they propose experimental evidence to support their theory further or debunk their mathematical modelling , They should be elevated even further. This is real Science, (not the 19th century twats like Philipp von Jolly advising Planck against going into physics, saying, "In this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few holes." Ye! most physicists are stuck in small corners of small area of space-time thinking there is only space-time. Poor Progress! Furthermore, I cannot stand the arrogance of 21st century physicists or people with voices, w or think they know, who poo poo on ideas, specifically spiritualty ,with lack of knowledge of history, on how for example the Vedas saw the nature of existence, 3,000-5,000 years, and now, in 21st century, somehow we seem to think they where the deluded ones, and we are now the Gods on what's woo woo and what's not. Crazy. At least be humble and say, "Dont know, but time will tell!" Donald Hoffman is certainly on the right track, I am 100% sure as experimental evidence starts to mount in decades to come. All inline with Bernardo Kastrup, Rupert Spira and so many others on the new "post Idealism" model of consciousness. AS history as shown........unfortunately,,, "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it" Max Planck
Don is too generous calling his reductionist colleagues "brilliant". When it comes to consciousness most of them can't put two coherent sentences together. Do they have a coherent explanation on why they personally exist in the first place? Do they understand the question: Why am I, I and you, you? If not their ontology is worthless.
At around 44 mins...the discussion on is it real is it not...just like to put something on the table from the non dual tradition of Sanatana Dharma. Brahman is real the world is 'mithya' says the tradition. This word mithya was wrongly translated as false or illusion. The best way to understand mithya is as appearance....something in flux...something changing...its both real and unreal. From the One Absolute Formless Consciousness, which is Brahman 'things' are unreal....they ARE BRAHMAN...and so we make a concession and say they are appearances only in Brahman. But from our everyday filter of perception via human consciousness things are accepted in the tradition as seemingly real. Yes headaches andxtables are real. So this word 'mithya', for us, clarifies this situation where you are trying to balance intellectual viewpoints. Till now Ive never heard a western equivalent of this term 'mithya'.
I've heard Prof Hoffman on a number of podcasts, and to date, this is easily the most interesting and illuminating. Well done, chaps! :)
thanks!
Being utterly novice or even a layman when it comes to these topics, but my heart is racing and I get overly enthusiastic about philosophical discussions and I linger in to the bafflement. I regret nothing.
So glad for mind chat! Keep it up, as this content is priceless!
THANK YOU DONALD HOFFMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It doesn’t matter if Don is right or wrong or even mostly right or wrong. His hypothesis is worth investigating and if it gets us 10 percent closer to his ultimate ideas or concepts, we are calibrating our current ideas.
Sure. However, does that apply to literally all hypothesises or speculations from anyone and everyone? Surely there isn't enough time in the day to do so. So why should Hoffman's idealist speculations, which he ties to SOME theoretical physicists and their claims about "the death of spacetime", be given any preferential treatment?
I would've loved to have a hard-nosed philosopher about the existence of space-time like Tim Maudlin to be present and contribute to the conversation, i think he would've had lots of illuminating things to say about the supposed strong reasons Hoffman provides for rejecting the existence of space-time.
Edit: i heard the part where he is discussing local realism, Tim Maudlin would also have a lot to say about that, Bohmian Mechanics is alive and well, and it's easily describes what exists locally (IE: the particles), it just adds a single non local entity to our ontology which is the universal wave function that guides the motion of all particles in the universe.....
hoffman doesn't reject the existence of spacetime. he's not even talking about his ideas, but about an emerging stance in the contemporary fundamental physics community, which is that we have very good reasons to think that spacetime and quantum physics are emergent, and not fundamental.
this *does not mean that spacetime or quantum physics doesn't exist.*
it only means that these theories will probably be recovered as limit cases of more fundamental theories, like how classical behaviour emerges, or how 'atoms' supervene on fundamental particles. there is also no reason from physics to think that there is a single fundamental level.
that said, hearing tim maudlin, sean carroll, sabine hossenfelder, james ladyman... talk with don would be awesome!
There are two main reasons as to why Donald Hoffman has rejected spacetime: (1) He's an idealist, who's tied the "spacetime is doomed" idea to his idealism. (2) At present, his position is almost entirely dependent on the work of the theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed - specifically on his amplituhedron. However, there is no evidence at all - as far as I can see - that any professional mathematicians or theoretical physicists have actually engaged with Hoffman on his recent ideas, save the "independent" mathematician Chetan Prakash - who cowrites all of Hoffman's papers... As for Tim Maudlin, I strongly suspect that he'd have no time at all for Hoffman's idealism, or for Prakash's use of maths to advance idealism.
Please get a Keith Frankish VS Bernardo Kastrup debate
On the contrary, evolution has not hidden the quest to find Reality. Shamans thousands of years ago tapped into the deeper levels of Reality through the use of psychedelics. People developed chants, dances, and music as links to introspective realities beyond the immediate need for the fitness payoffs of spreading one's DNA. The ancient Egyptians spent huge amounts of time and resources in accommodating the dead. Such enterprises had no immediate fitness payoff but in the long run helped orient the trajectory of humanity into explorations of the Unknown.
I listen to Hoffman podcast ever night to sleep so i can ponder on it. So daily i search within last month. Lol
1:19:12 There’s no Godelian phenomenon there. Hoffman brings it up just because it sounds fancy. Also, there’s no “Godel limit” of mathematical descriptions. Finally, there’s no theorem that consciousness “transcends” mathematics (whatever that statement is meant to say).
Godel’s First Incompleteness Theorem is a precise metamathematical result that applies to a specific class of formal arithmetics. This is the only context where it makes sense to bring this result up.
I agree. When he gets to the part of the sentence where he should clarify what he means by "it has its Gödel limit" he just goes off and talks about something else. But Gödel's incompleteness theorem is already relevant for our understanding of the fundamental nature of reality, at least if one assumes that whatever our theory will be in the end, it will be a formal theory. Our currently best models you could argue we get from physics, which of course uses math, and so Gödel's incompleteness theorem applies there. Whether any *interesting* truths are unprovable is another matter, it might be that the limits from the incompleteness theorem are only theoretical limits that will never be relevant for understanding fundamental reality in practice. But the theorem does seem to point to something very fundamental about formal theories, and Hoffman seems to want to propose some kind of formal theory, so it's not surprising he thinks it's relevant.
This is typical of Hoffman: grand claims and absolute statements sounding more like propaganda than science.
Very politely done. You pointed out his strawmanning of reductionism (what is his theory of conscious agents purportedly explaining space time, particles, and scattering amplitudes if it isn't reductionist?), and that space time is not doomed even if it is explained as emergent from something else, but you could have gone harder on his evolutionary argument.
The objective function that evolution is minimising to produce our perceptions is not identical to one which would create exact reality - it can obviously provide some useful fictions - but there's definitely a big overlap. Isn't it kind of obvious that piling useful fictions on top of each will eventually just fall in on itself like a house of cards? A much better picture is that our visual systems produce a roughly veridical picture of a slice of the real world which then gets a few surface tweaks in order to make it more useful. The same is surely true of all our perceptions. Also technological advance hasn't really shown us that we are wrongly perceiving our human sized slice of the universe, it's rather shown us additional things outside of the ranges of our experience.
You're exactly right. Donald Hoffman is a supreme reductionist. Yet Hoffman mentions reductionism negatively a fair few times - as in this RUclips interview. Like spacetime, he believes that reductionism is doomed too. So it’s odd that a person who criticises reductionism has carried out what can be seen as the most ultimate reduction imaginable. Hoffman believes that he's *reduced* (what people take to be) reality down to what he calls “conscious agents” and their “interactions”. Perhaps Hoffman believes that what he’s doing is not a case of reduction simply because he reduces objects, neurons, brains, reality, spacetime, human beings, etc. to non-physical - or even “spiritual” - conscious agents and their interactions. However, how does the non-physicality of these things stop it from being a reduction?
A very clear point that I too have difficulty with Hoffman on I mean it is a form of reductionism - I’m not even sure why the evolutionary fitness model he uses to presuppose that evolutionary guided adaptions are inaccurate to truth point absolutely and clearly to the fundamental truth that conscious is fundamental - why for instance isn’t consciousness just an evolutionary fitness adaptation and an illusion (as many naturalists and philosophers have preposed)
Ie what is so fundamental about evolutionary science to his overall hierarchy of the universe as being “conscious agents=> networks of conscious agents => decorator permutations math model => vertices and volume of an infinitely complex multidimensional ploytope called amplitudehedron => leading to real universe scattering amplitude of particles => leading to quantum mechanics and spacetime => leading to material universe => leading to matter => leading to living beings => leading to evolutionary fitness obscuring all of this? Ok
Anyway this is such a fascinating subject and I think it’s only when coupled to Nima’s physics theories and the math of networks of his conscious agents that it gets really interesting-
Even if he’s wrong overall there is a lot to discover in all of this
Also it seems to me if consciousness is emergent at the material scale only (ie Hoffman is totally wrong and it’s exists only for a short while and is rubbed out with the universe) it’s such a waste of time but if consciousness is fundamental than a lot more potential and meaningfulness in existence
Enjoyed it .. and mostly able to follow the discussion (not technical). One thing puzzled me, Don talked about one consciousness, and when Keith summarized that Don does not have position what our intuitive experience of consciousness… and this is the math leading us.. I am lost
There was one bright spot in the video when Goff admitted that there is Zero, and I mean Zero, Explanation for any Conscious Experience.
I love Don ! I must agree his view.
The question of what is reality becomes especially interesting in civilized society because here we not only perceive but also create this reality ourselves. 7 days of creation from the Bible seem the most unscientific passage in the whole book, but you will instantly feel ashamed when you realize that it is not about creation of the Universe but about creating an artificial oasis in the semi-desert of Mesopotamia.
I don't yet fully understand all the details of scattering amplitudes, and I need to delve deeper into the Markovian dynamics of conscious agents. However, I'm genuinely intrigued by the ideas put forth by Donald Hoffman regarding BST entities and the precise mathematical modeling of consciousness. These ideas align with the concept of a symbiotic organism, and I believe that a deeper exploration of subjective experiences can provide answers to fundamental questions.
The notion that reality remains uncertain until it's measured is fascinating. I appreciate the reference to Christopher A. Fuchs and plan to explore his work further. Regarding mathematical models, it's possible that some insights from Wolfram's physics could be valuable in this context.
I'm particularly curious about how the concept of measurement relates to the experience of time. Does time become fixed in the same way as matter? For example, when a BST entity projects into the future, does it solidify the timeline, and does this apply universally? What remains in terms of free will after such a projection?
Well, this is something else! Insanely radical theory. I don’t think I agree with any of it, but still very interesting.
The fluctuations in the quantum field are actually nodes of the holographic network, collecting, preserving and disseminating information across the network using quantum states and entanglement to create reality, spacetime is an emergence of this .
Great interview
Gödel’s incompleteness theorem can be used to dismiss the hard problem as proposed by Chalmers of the form why ‘red has the feel of red’. It is a given property of the world and would be illogical in scientific paradigmatic explanatory structures as it is a circular question. It in no way hinders normal scientific propositions of laws governing proper causal pathways as I’ve discussed previously
No it cannot. It has nothing to do with anything related to Philosophy of Mind.
I’m simply drawing an analogy in terms of what ultimate reality scientific description takes as a given in order to build from it laws, so saying mathematical axioms can’t be proved as a starting point is a legitimate way of addressing the hard problem where we accept the observables we are trying to explain as impenetrable. Scientific rationale often transposes arguments across disciplines. In some sense one can regard why red has the feel and the quality of red an axiom in and of itself. Gödel’s argument can be used as a foil to speculation in neuroscience as irreducible quantities that lead to magical non transparent properties outside of scientific purview and the invention of intangible quantities like qualia or absurd propositions like panpsychism. It has reference all the same to why there is something rather than nothing as an argument against scientific description and as Gödel’s incompleteness theorem hasn’t impeded the success of mathematics or the existential question just raised isn’t an absolute barrier to physical descriptions of the universe, so the hard problem as a circular question is itself a kind of axiom even if Gödel had a mathematical formalism that was not strictly intended for other ethereal questions regarding the nature of reality.
One way to look at an axiom in scientific theory is whether a statement appears circular. There is a repetition in the premise of red having the appearance or feel of redness. As such it is logically impenetrable as there is no causal pathway to describe it, ie it is a ‘complete’ statement in itself (call it inverse Gödel’s incompleteness theorem) if you like. I might as well call it the circularity theorem of axiomatic statements
The Hard Problem does not ask why ‘red has the feel of red,’ it asks why does some physical system have the feel or sensation of red?
I don’t think the arguments change much by such a subtle distinction. Feel or sensation of red, why red looks red, quale of red they pose the same circular statement to physicalist explanations in a similar form to ‘why there is something instead of nothing’. All such propositions can themselves be reduced to why red is red or gravity is gravity. Science doesn’t explain the presence of such observations only laws that might govern them. To say an astronomical body exerts the force of gravity or reconceptualise this force as bending space time and have mathematical equations that describe this in no way explains why it should do so. This is where the idea of the circularity of the proposition of a hard problem stems from as scientifically non sensensical. Lets call all such statements as ones of circular observables or reducible to such.
When a cognitive psychologist is talking a lot about fundamental physics to make his argument, it makes me very skeptical. Hoffman repeatedly says "the physicists," but when he is asked, at 1:48:55, whether experts in the relevant fields agree or disagree with him, he admits that most experts disagree with him. Yet he says things like "the physicists are telling us that spacetime is doomed" to justify his views. It would be more honest to say "some physicists are telling us that spacetime is doomed." By the same token, he shouldn't say "the math tells us that ____" or "evolutionary game theory tells us that ____" if those claims are based only on his own work, and many relevant experts in the field of evolutionary game theory disagree that the work he has done there is correct. He should of course defend his work, but he shouldn't claim that "the math" tells us anything, instead he should say "my math" tells us something. His work on evolutionary game theory, and his understanding of the cutting edge of fundamental physics, may well be wrong, if so many experts disagree with him. From an outside perspective, which is the perspective of all of us listening to this, we should assume that the majority of experts is more likely to be correct, than Hoffman, about specific claims he makes within fields of scientific expertise.
But I still find his overall view very interesting and worth taking seriously!
Great question that you put to Don. However I'm not sure Don was referring to physicists when he answered your question. Carlo Rovelli's books are good at explaining the illusion of /perception created spacetime. I believe that it's good to come up with out there ideas. Even if they turn out to be wrong, there might still be something useful to glean or learn from it
There is no "my math" vs. "your math." If you accept that math is universal, there is only "the math."
If anything, Hoffman should simply cite the physicists or mathematicians he's talking about. However, there is a published paper that literally says "spacetime is doomed" in the abstract. So he's right about that.
@ArcadianGenesis the difference between my math and "the math" is that I could have done my math wrong. If experts in relevant fields don't mostly agree with Hoffman's math, his math might be wrong.
@@_Louise__ agreed
I'm glad someone else has picked up on this. In another RUclips interview (i.e., not this one), Donald Hoffman keeps on saying that “physicists” (i.e., in the plural) are saying this and saying that. (Hoffman also keeps on using the definite article - as in “the physicists”.) Hoffman often basically means one particular theoretical physicist - Nima Arkani-Hamed. (To be careful, perhaps Hoffman also has in mind a handful of other theoretical physicists who fully endorse what Arkani-Hamed has had to say on this highly-technical and abstract field of theoretical physics.) What’s more, even the small number of theoretical physicists who also believe that “spacetime is doomed” don’t do so in precisely the same way in which Arkani-Hamed does.
So when Hoffman uses the word ”physicists” to back up his philosophical idealism, he basically means a small number - or even a single - theoretical physicist.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Hoffman uses Infinities of Infinities in his chain of Logic to explain his theory. He then says his theory is precisely Mathematical. One thing about Mathematics is that if you have Infinities then there is something wrong with your theory.
that's a controversial stance amongst mathematicians. the universe might be infinite, we can't currently say.
@@real_pattern Maybe. But I don't think any Physical thing including Space can be Infinite. I should have specified that when Scientists, not Mathematicians, get Infinities in their equations, they know there is something wrong.
The tables and chairs are user interface, sure, but their solidity (molecular bond) and shapes and colors (electromagnetic wavelenghts to which our eyes are sinsitive to) resulting from the underlying physics is not a user interface. The physics is about explaining how the user interface of tables and chairs is put together and works.
Everything in space-time according to Don's findings (including molecules, electromagnetic wavelengths etc) are part of the interface/desktop - icons as Don puts it, and are not fundamental. Everything within space-time and the entire Universe are projections of a more fundamental reality that is beyond space/time. We need to forget the whole notion that tables/ chairs/humans/planets erc are made up of tiny little fundamental particles.
@@DamienMcKinnon I know he says that. I do not find it convincing. To me it feels like "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", but of course that is not why I do not find it convincing. Like a kid asks , but why? we and science (in some sense) can always ask what is more fundamental than the current thing we assume to be fundamental. Sure. So in that sense space and time may not be fundamental and there may be something deeper ad-infinitum. But why would that be so called "projections" of something mental, I do not find convincing (idealism and solipsism etc). String theory may be more fundamental to bosons and fermions. Degree of entanglement may map to near and far notions of space. etc. See Sean Carrols recent videos on that. But Tables and Chairs make sense at their level. Electrons and quarks make sense at their level. Space and time make sense and are real at their level.
When they were discussing whether the fitness beats truth argument is self defeating, Donald Hoffman takes the position that evolution isn't true. Although this does avoid the charge of self defeat, it creates a whole new problem. If evolution isn't true, why should we believe that our perceptions are a user interface? After all, if evolution isn't true, it doesn't seem like there are any good reasons to believe our perceptions are tuned for fitness rather than truth. Moreover, it should be noted that denying evolution is perfectly compatible with realism.
@@AngelicaLWoods How can the "the math say" anything about "truth", or reality, etc? Maths can be *used* to advance various - even all - philosophical positions - from Hoffman's idealism, to materialism, panpsychism and any other position. However, maths on its own doesn't "say" anything about these things.
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Hate to throw in such a dumb comment but if Dr Goff moved the microphone a bit away from his mouth it would make for a much more pleasant experience for headphones users. Other than that, fantastic discussion.
Subscribing to your channel if you promise to bring Dr Donald Hoffman regularly on your podcast
I suppose we'll just have to wait until academics catch up with the mystics. Most of these problems go away when we do. Mind you, then we have to get used to the idea that nothing really exists or ever really happens. .
Swings and roundabouts, eh :)
Philip says that he has agreement with Donald in only the sense they do not seem to like space and time and physicalism/reductionism. But surely there has to be agreement on the basis of something more. No?
At around 12 minutes in Hoffman says that according to Mathematical Game Theory there is a probability of ZERO that our perceptions could be "homomorphic to structures in objective reality". When something has a probability of zero I think that means that there is no possible world in which that something can happen. So Hoffman saying that it is logically impossible that what I see has any structural correlation of any kind to whatever it is I think I am seeing? If I understand Hoffman correctly, he is denying even the POSSIBILITY of structural realism. That seems to me to be.....a rather perplexing claim!
Is Don's disappearing hand real?
I feel Don Hoffman is heading towards Proclus' One and the henads.
Did Don say declarative permutation?
Decorated.
The most interesting philosopher of mind today has yet to make an appearance for a debate on this show: Bernardo Kastrup!
Of course there are some competing theories at the cutting edge of understanding but that does not mean that a lot of well established science needs to be thrown out that easilly. A good read of Sean Carroll's something deeply hidden is on order.
current theories very likely won't be thrown out, only recovered as limit cases.
@@real_pattern exactly.
@@SandipChitale although... cue the pessimistic meta-induction argument & the fact that we really have no idea what future physics might be, our present day theories may very well turn out to be trivial approximations, or outright false in the future, but i'd say that a significant portion of current fundamental physics researchers would say that we have very good reasons to think that ST&QT will turn out to be emergent theories.
I’m not sure he’s aware, but there are many cardinals much larger than any Aleph number. There are inaccessible cardinals, Woodin cardinals, Reinhardt cardinals ans so on. But I guess the One is larger than all of these.
If one is honest and believes in idealism, then one has to admit that they think other people are zombies. And this point was brushed aside, but it is a huge issue. This is similar to each religion claiming they are only true religion and others are not.
Idealism is a Philosophical proposition that goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Conscious Realism, by Donald Hoffman is a more recent proposition. The basic premise of both is that our Conscious Experiences are the only Real things in the Universe and that the External Physical World is created by these Conscious Experiences. So the Physical World does not really exist or is at least a secondary Epiphenomenon of Consciousness. This could be true but it is highly Incoherent when the facts of the Physical World are taken into account. I believe that the ancient Idealists realized our Conscious Experiences are separate from the Physical World but they made the mistake of thinking, that since Experiences were separate, the Physical World did not really exist. Idealism proposes this Incoherent and backwards causality of Consciousness creating the Physical World because their Science was not at a sophisticated enough level to properly explain the Physical World. It is inexplicable how a more modern Philosophy like Conscious Realism can promote the same backwards causality. Today it is clear that there is a causality trajectory from the Physical World to the Conscious World and not the other way around. Please, someone show me how Conscious Experience creates a Physical World, even a Virtual one?
The user interface metaphor is being used incorrectly. A computer or phone user interface has two sides, the user side and the programmer side. What we perceive is the user interface side of things. But physics and science is not on the user side of the user interface. It is on the programmer side of the user interface. Science seeks to explain like a user interface programmer, how the brain is generating the user interface that we perceive.
Of course brain has to generate such user interface so that what was and is important for the survival of the organism is what is highlighted and brought forth to make the organism be able to deal with it. And in case of life on earth, the process of natural selection was the designer and programmer of such user interface. Now us, through the use of physics. chemistry, biology now increasingly computation and AI are reverse engineering how it all works. The proverbial look at the man behind the curtain.
If the general claim is that the science is not done yet and more work is needed to be done., then duh? of course. Noone has any objection to that. But if the claim is that all the science we know can qualitatively be replaced by something completely different then a lot of scientists and physicalists will have issue with that.
"it's all mathematics here" 1:54:23
😂 no qualia then
mathematics can't capture qualia
I his latest 2023 paper, 'Fusions of Consciousness', Hoffman attempts to show that maths can indeed "capture qualia". He uses a hell of a lot of maths to do so. I personally believe that it is gratuitous, pretentious, and a classic example of someone using maths to sell a bogus idea. The entire article is an attempt to blind readers with a monumental amount of maths. (Hoffman cowrites with the mathematician Chetan Prakash. I suspect that Prakash does nearly all the maths in Hoffman's papers.)
A+B+C=W (a whole)
Simples, Compounds & wholes
I can tell you how metaphysics solves the gap between physical and simple existants
Goffs, I need you start referring to qualia as presence.
Do this, or fail
My favorite book is "The Case Against Donald Hoffman" by Reality.
spacetime is dead? wow! channeling Deepak Chopra?
Look up physicist David Gross.
@Patrick Campion I know his work. I have heard that some scientists think there may be more deeper concepts, but calling spacetime dead is like saying tables and chairs are dead because we found out they are made out of atoms and molecules, which is absurd.
@@SandipChitale dead/doomed is a metaphor.it does not deny its existence.It just says it ain't fundamental.How exactly is this related with Chopra when there are physicists that claim the above?
@@pythIV Well, I would not interpret the word dead to mean not fundamental. You may, it is a free world. People like Deepak Chopra are eager to dismiss physicalism by (intentionally or otherwise) misunderstanding some of the concepts in physics - especially quantum physics and then misrepresent that (mischievously) to undermine physicalism. I think some of that is at play in the discussion above and called it out. By the way woo woo crowd loves the word quantum. And I think Deepak Chopra is member of that crowd.
Now we know that tables and chairs are made out of atoms and molecules. I.e. they are not fundamental. But we do not say tables and chairs are dead. Similarly GR superseded Newtons theory. of gravity, but we do not say Newton's theory is dead.
@@SandipChitale well...The question was how you relate chopra with hofmann. Like I said physicists use the word doomed. And Hofmann specifically said he is quoting their words. I assume you are not saying nima arkani-hamed is the equivalent of chopra. We are not talking about how useful a theory is or how good physicality and not physicalism is. We are talking about what is deeper than that. People like Chopra may be eager to dismiss physicalism but there are also people from the other side that are eager to dismiss idealism by mocking it.Someone may don't care , someone may do care. It is a free world indeed
The comments made by a host like "I just cant see how....", " I feel like..." do not belong in a discussion like this. Just sayin.
Huh? Reductionism is dead? Really?
Physicists are not "finding" these mathematical structures "beyond space-time" the same way someone finds a dollar note down the back of the sofa. They are inventing these structures, ironically by using diagrams that exist in an "abstract" space. Why should some theorist's abstract mathematical "space" be more real than the space that I move about in?
True. For one, if these structures are seen as "entities", then it would be clear that Hoffman is simply favouring one kind of reductionism - one that ends with these geometrical structures... In any case, non-physicists can view Nima Arkani-Hamed’s amplituhedron (which Hoffman extensively uses in his updated idealism - as of the 2023 paper, 'Fusions of Consciousness') as a geometrical tool which is used by theoretical physicists. It can also be seen as a pure abstraction. (The words “highly abstract” are often used about the amplituhedron.) In other words, amplituhedron theory provides physicists with a geometric model that is essentially abstract. Indeed, it’s abstract primarily because the geometrical space it offers theoretical physicists is not a (physical) spacetime. (In that limited sense, the amplituhedron is abstract in the same way that - at least on most readings - the wave function and Hilbert space are.) So how, exactly, can a geometrical tool which only simplifies the calculations of the interactions of particles be tied to Hoffman’s philosophical idealism? (Arkani-Hamed himself has stated that the amplituhedron helps simplify scattering-amplitude calculations.) Of course, some physicists (almost certainly very few - almost none) may well believe that amplituhedron theory does far more than merely simplify things. They may take it to be an ontological theory about the nature of reality… Donald Hoffman certainly does.
Love Don but it sounds like a lot of woo woo.
If the woo woo returns special relativity, quantum theory etc, basically returns Laws of physics which are just Laws of Mind as everything is experienced is through mind, then the "woo woo" cant be "woo woo", unless your dont undertsand it...
@@mairo0sanguineti uh what
@@mairo0sanguineti I'm not sure if I've understood what you've said. But if you're saying that special relativity, quantum theory, etc can be deemed to be woo woo too, then perhaps you're right. However, Donald Hoffman may keep on mentioning quantum theory, Relativity, what physicists say, etc. - but he goes way beyond the physics. His theories are *philosophical*. His conscious realism, along with words on "conscious agents", qualia, etc., are all philosophical (perhaps also "spiritual") in nature. Most physicists would either reject them or be perplexed by how he combines stuff from physics with stuff from way outside physics.
@@paulaustinmurphy Personally, your off track in how you responded, out of date, Its time to give up the the narrative/position (physicalist or materialist narrative - don't know which it is, or what it is, or type of thinking you have!) , which is also responsible for state of human condition of suffering/depression and delusion.
Woo Woo is only when you don't undertsand something that is against your conditioning, intuition, training, ideology or does not lend itself to mainstream narratives, or there is no theory with supporting evidence from a proposed model because its all anecdotal subjective experience, without a theory in place yet. Yet its very real experience, that you cannot deny.
You Say, "Most physicists would either reject them or be perplexed by how he combines stuff from physics with stuff from way outside physics" what ? WTF? Are they the Gods of truth?
Off course they would, because they have been brought up to think like you! So progress stagnates, epicycling trying fit square pegs into round holes! History is fall of it. Specifically in consciousness, and so called hard problem.
DO you think Einstein's mathematical predictions in 1905 was treated as "Non Woo -Woo"? took decades before experimental evidence confirmed the mathematical modelling, and indeed everything he modelled was initially against intuition and pooed pooed on, , as is/was Quantum theory. (As Feynman famously said, if you not shocked about Quantum theory and don't have sleepless nights about it you have not understood it properly)
Donald Hoffman has bravely gone where not many have ventured, and any one that proposes mathematical models, and is able to see the limits of the models, and make predictions from experimental evidence deserves positive support, and furthermore if they propose experimental evidence to support their theory further or debunk their mathematical modelling , They should be elevated even further. This is real Science, (not the 19th century twats like Philipp von Jolly advising Planck against going into physics, saying, "In this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few holes."
Ye! most physicists are stuck in small corners of small area of space-time thinking there is only space-time. Poor Progress!
Furthermore, I cannot stand the arrogance of 21st century physicists or people with voices, w or think they know, who poo poo on ideas, specifically spiritualty ,with lack of knowledge of history, on how for example the Vedas saw the nature of existence, 3,000-5,000 years, and now, in 21st century, somehow we seem to think they where the deluded ones, and we are now the Gods on what's woo woo and what's not. Crazy. At least be humble and say, "Dont know, but time will tell!"
Donald Hoffman is certainly on the right track, I am 100% sure as experimental evidence starts to mount in decades to come. All inline with Bernardo Kastrup, Rupert Spira and so many others on the new "post Idealism" model of consciousness.
AS history as shown........unfortunately,,,
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light,
but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it"
Max Planck
Don is too generous calling his reductionist colleagues "brilliant". When it comes to consciousness most of them can't put two coherent sentences together. Do they have a coherent explanation on why they personally exist in the first place? Do they understand the question: Why am I, I and you, you? If not their ontology is worthless.
At around 44 mins...the discussion on is it real is it not...just like to put something on the table from the non dual tradition of Sanatana Dharma. Brahman is real the world is 'mithya' says the tradition. This word mithya was wrongly translated as false or illusion. The best way to understand mithya is as appearance....something in flux...something changing...its both real and unreal. From the One Absolute Formless Consciousness, which is Brahman 'things' are unreal....they ARE BRAHMAN...and so we make a concession and say they are appearances only in Brahman. But from our everyday filter of perception via human consciousness things are accepted in the tradition as seemingly real. Yes headaches andxtables are real. So this word 'mithya', for us, clarifies this situation where you are trying to balance intellectual viewpoints. Till now Ive never heard a western equivalent of this term 'mithya'.