[Dprglist] seriously off topic rant about tonight's discussion

[Karim Virani]

pps. I don't expect David to respond to this - David was referring to the
papers that Donald Hoffman has produced. I looked at his CV last night and
he has plenty of the publish-or-perish normal scientific investigations
into human perception systems.  Somebody else posted the TED interview into
the chat from a google search. That interview is related to what I'd call
an alternative set of publications centered around his panpsychic
philosophy which seem to be a distinct thread in his output, but which I
would resist calling science. Anyhow, I found that particular interview to
be outlandish enough to warrant some hopefully entertaining intellectual
fisticuffs.

On Wed, Oct 27, 2021 at 3:15 AM Karim Virani <pondersome64 at gmail.com> wrote:

> First, the Nature special on bees was just fantastic. I went ahead and
> watched it after the conversation tonight.
> https://video.kera.org/video/my-garden-of-a-thousand-bees-trjhzt/
>
> And then ... there's the Donald Hoffman TED interview ...
>
> OMG David!!!
>
> You were totally fun'in us. You meant to provoke! DH is just a Deepak
> Chopra wannabe. I resist giving credence to these peddlers of soft-shoe
> quantum theory tincture in pursuit of monetizable wishful thinking.
>
> Granted this was only one interview on a platform that often caters to the
> intellectual mystics among us (I used to be a fan of TED talks), but this
> dude outed himself completely.
>
> First he completely mis-characterizes the field of modern cognitive
> science (if that's what he considers to be his colleagues) and paints it in
> the light of 70's era progress. As if he was the first to consider fitness
> as the basis for how evolutionary development works. Almost nobody thinks
> sensory evolution is driven to create accurate or truthful interpretations
> of reality. He can't claim that as his unique insight. It's like he's
> saying his peers all have a 5th grade understanding of evolution.
>
> But then he goes totally bonkers:
>
> 1. Consciousness is hard to describe and investigate - ok so far
> 2. So let's throw traditional "reality" out the window and assume the
> universe is fundamentally made up of a network of multi-level conscious
> entities
> 3. For those entities bundled up as humans, the network has decided to
> give them an "interface" that creates time, space, particles, neurons, etc.
> as a useful fiction. (ie. the software is real and the hardware is the
> story)
> 4. Oh, and I have some math, so it's not really BS
> 5. Oh, and I may or may not believe this, but I'm brave for going out on a
> limb and daring to shake up the field because hard problems need
> disruptions to solve. (this is my get out of jail free card, maybe)
>
> I agree with step 1, but step 2, that's a doozy. The rest is a sophomoric
> attempt to confound interesting modern explorations into the foundations of
> physics with 70s era pop quantum psychology like in the Dancing Wu Li
> Masters or the Tao of Physics. My bet, he'd point to those books as his
> influences. They were fun reads when I was a pup. But they are truly works
> of fiction. So is this dude.
>
> Now I'm going to tell you how I really feel...
> ... Oh, and I'm actually very open minded about this guy...
>
> David, thanks for riling my sensibilities - haven't had a good rant
> defending honest inquiry in ages.
>
> Again, this is effectively a slam of a single interview but if you wish to
> point to a place where he offers a shred of evidence toward his theory, or
> can correct my interpretation of this interview, well please share. We can
> continue the fun :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Karim
> ps. dear reader, this acerbic review is a choice in creative expression.
> If it offends your viewpoint or sensibilities, I'm sorry, it was not meant
> to do so
>
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