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<p>Howdy,</p>
<p>I don't disagree. Once the topic moves from the roboty
implications of a perhaps new neural understanding of how human
vision works to conjectures about the nature of "conciousness"
itself, we are all adrift!</p>
<p>cheers</p>
<p>David</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/27/21 1:28 PM, Carl Ott via
DPRGlist wrote:<br>
</div>
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<div><br>
</div>
OK - I confess to fueling (hopefully entertaining) intellectual
fisticuffs - Sorry - I was aiming more to include representative
fodder for the chat records versus a fringe representation...
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Now I'm even more intrigued than before to understand what
this bru ha ha is all about ;-)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Oct 27, 2021 at 12:38
PM Karim Virani via DPRGlist <<a
href="mailto:dprglist@lists.dprg.org" moz-do-not-send="true">dprglist@lists.dprg.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
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<div dir="ltr">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.</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Oct 27, 2021 at
3:15 AM Karim Virani <<a
href="mailto:pondersome64@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">pondersome64@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
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rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<div>First, the Nature special on bees was just
fantastic. I went ahead and watched it after the
conversation tonight. <a
href="https://secure-web.cisco.com/1Lm2J6Ce1g3H5QzXCZxnx3xCB0tmEnEcBuYCIskB3yK7Hz9CRDVJlZqCbNLUN2zBKQXUWX298newtFEHinx6AthimWo8G6QWabAfPdj_zUkcMak7KsqQE54jcC33xOIAssc_Xk9CN6R6fTptE0Qy9eMffAlSEAQ-SSjCOTzbQauA-XWDo76-Hj8YQoMPsB7ob7XE7vA9khrjTYHv8_VtHwBiSskPgWJ9cq69BIZyXrY7UUCA8IH4TO7p_Ze40NkOEU6_79Bpw2-wU29s90vkcp1mOmIGaVZfyO43FkMTA7hs/https%3A%2F%2Fvideo.kera.org%2Fvideo%2Fmy-garden-of-a-thousand-bees-trjhzt%2F"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://video.kera.org/video/my-garden-of-a-thousand-bees-trjhzt/</a></div>
<div><br>
And then ... there's the Donald Hoffman TED interview
...<br>
<br>
OMG David!!!<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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.<br>
<br>
But then he goes totally bonkers:
<div><br>
1. Consciousness is hard to describe and investigate -
ok so far<br>
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<br>
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)<br>
4. Oh, and I have some math, so it's not really BS<br>
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)<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Now I'm going to tell you how I really feel...<br>
... Oh, and I'm actually very open minded about this
guy...<br>
<br>
David, thanks for riling my sensibilities - haven't
had a good rant defending honest inquiry in ages.<br>
<br>
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 :)</div>
<div><br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
Karim<br>
</div>
<div>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</div>
</div>
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