http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/09/06/492779594/what-if-evolution-bred-reality-out-of-us?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160906

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For decades, Hoffman, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, has been studying the links between evolution, perception and intelligence (both natural and machine). Based on that body of work, he thinks we've been missing something fundamental when it comes to fundamental reality.
Fundamentally, Hoffman argues, evolution and reality (the objective kind) have almost nothing to do with each other.
Hoffman's been making a lot of news in recent months with these claims. His March 2015 TED talk went viral, gaining more than 2 million views. After a friend sent me the video, I was keen to learn more. I called Dr. Hoffman, and he graciously set aside some time for us to talk. What followed was a delightful conversation with a guy who does, indeed, have a big radical idea. At the same time, Hoffman doesn't come off as someone with an ax to grind. He seems genuinely open and truly curious. At his core, Hoffman says, he's a scientist with a theory that must either live or die by data.
So, what exactly is Hoffman's big radical idea? He begins with a precisely formulated theorem:

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"Given an arbitrary world and arbitrary fitness functions, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but that is just tuned to fitness."

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So... idiocracy is possible? Just commenting on his theorem, will look at link later.

It's possible. Evolution's only goal is the propagation of the species, and if living in la-la land promotes that, then that will be selected for. That said, it seems unlikely without intrusions from the reality of "tiger eat face"

That was not what I expected when I clicked on this thread.

It's an interesting idea, but I'm not really sure what to make of it. I think his point is that our senses do not accurately depict reality, which is certainly true. After all, our vision only sees the spectrum of light that is most useful for our survival, and we don't see infrared, microwave, xray or any other range of the EM spectrum. Early in our species, a human that could perceive the entire spectrum might be at a disadvantage by not focusing on the most survival relevant wavelengths.

On the other hand, we have been able to use our intelligence to overcome this limitation. We have instruments that can perceive almost then entire range of the EM spectrum. We have discovered wavelengths outside the range of our perception, and we have learned the limitations of our perspective. So I would say his "theorem" should have an inverse: When intelligent creatures are under less survival pressure, they will overcome their evolutionary limitations to discover more of "reality."

Yea I don't buy it from a practical sense. The delusion would have to be remarkably consistent.

If instead of a big cat I saw a ghost and ran away or hid just like I would from the cat or whatever my survival rate would be equal. But if instead there was a hyena and my delusion didn't make it appear as a ghost I would be in trouble. With reality even if unfamiliar I see sharp teeth and a large body.

Conversely, if I saw a cow as a ghost and ran even if I didn't need to the delusion is inferior.

For any given scenario a delusion may be of equal fitness but I don't see how it matches the utility all around of real senses.

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he thinks we've been missing something fundamental when it comes to fundamental reality.

Fundamentally, Hoffman argues

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"Given an arbitrary world and arbitrary fitness functions, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but that is just tuned to fitness."

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Well we already know this is true don't we? When we perceive that we touch an object we actually do not come into contact with it. Things that appear to be solid object are actually made of atoms which are mostly empty space. Particles that make up atoms may be nothing more than vibrations in quantum geometry. We perceive none of this.

Many think that time is also an illusion and that our world is actually a many dimensional static universe that does not change. But since chemistry only works one way along the time axis we only remember the past from any point along the time axis, giving the illusion of the passage of time.

This is really just Plantinga's point in his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism being increasingly accepted as a legitimate issue, by the way.

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This is really just Plantinga's point in his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism being increasingly accepted as a legitimate issue, by the way.

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Seems to me to be more of an endorsement of Berrtrand Russell's argument to accept reality as we perceive it since there's no good reason not to.

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"Given an arbitrary world and arbitrary fitness functions, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but that is just tuned to fitness."

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Seriously though, the challenge has always been to come up with a single solid example where misperception would be a consistent evolutionary advantage. The environment presents too many complex novel challenges to organisms. Correctly perceiving it will always be at least equally advantageous, and over an evolutionary time scale will always be more so.

Further, this argument always ignores the most evolutionary successful organisms. In what scenario does a bacteria benefit from not correctly perceiving its environment?

That's....really interesting. I'm wondering if his theory were true would we be even capable of discerning the difference? All of our knowledge is built upon our perceptions. If those perceptions were universally flawed (across all species, even), we would have no control group, it would seem, to compare them to.

Quite the epistemological puzzle.

The only possible real world (or, as it may be, perceived world) example I could think of is the Pollyanna principle. I think there is definitely something to be said for his theory when applied specifically to conscience being and how they record and edit their own personal narrative.

Sugar and other endorphin triggers. That might be a better example?

We perceive sugar to be very beneficial, when in reality, at the quantities we now consume it, it's quite deadly. Could this be explained by the fact that we evolved our unrealistic appreciation for sugar at a time when it was only found in relatively small quantities attached to foods that were beneficial to us? But now that technology has allowed us to strip it from it's otherwise nutritional foods and snort that stuff down in it's pure white form, that incongruity between perception and reality is literally killing us.

The test for evolutionary success is producing viable offspring. So it's pretty inconsequential if you are dying of diabetes at age 70.

Further, the question is whether an incorrect belief would be more beneficial. Sure too much sugar is bad, but would individuals that perceived sugar to be poison be more fit? Now, there are many organisms that really on all manner of calorie rich compounds to live, but with our biochemistry it's hard to conceive of total avoidance of glucose as providing a survival benefit.

The point in the OP is more subtle than most examples that people come up with for this line of thought, but as evolution fundamentally is the interaction of individuals and the environment it is very hard to make the argument that not perceiving that environment accurately could be an advantage.

Yes our universe might be Platos cave, and we only interact with the environment within that cave. Still, I can't see an evolutionary advantage to be gained by not perceiving the environment in the cave as it is in reality.

I think I agree with you amercer. I am double minded about this, and have been for some time.

By the way, atheist philosopher Eliot Sober has argued that mutations being directed by God are consistent with mutations being random in the sense relevant to evolutionary biology. I've not read the paper, but I intent to do so.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.153.3505&rep=rep1&type=pdf

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That's....really interesting. I'm wondering if his theory were true would we be even capable of discerning the difference? All of our knowledge is built upon our perceptions. If those perceptions were universally flawed (across all species, even), we would have no control group, it would seem, to compare them to.

Quite the epistemological puzzle.

The only possible real world (or, as it may be, perceived world) example I could think of is the Pollyanna principle. I think there is definitely something to be said for his theory when applied specifically to conscience being and how they record and edit their own personal narrative.

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We now have sensors and computers to objectively perceive. Although one of the hard problems in computer science is to get computers to see as we do.

Really liked the first half of the article. The second half had way too much theoretical math for me.

Yeah, all good points. Although I suppose you could make the argument that populations with longer surviving olds are still more fit, if the olds can help bring about more efficient rearing of offspring.

Also, diseases can be a pretty big drain on society, requiring resources that could at least theoretically be devoted to the rearing of the young.

I'm largely in agreement with you, though. Theoretically his argument is sound, I just can't think of any super solid examples to support it.

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Have you tried "sudo see as we do"?

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Well played.

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We now have sensors and computers to objectively perceive. Although one of the hard problems in computer science is to get computers to see as we do.

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That's a fair point, however even in the case of computers, they all do what we tell them to do. A computer programmed by delusional programmers could still, at least in theory, be flawed.

It would seem, however, that the delusion would at least have to be mathematically consistent.

Only if mathematics isn't perception. Why should that be immune from our collective "blind spot"? Maybe math is our adaptive advantageous delusion.

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We now have sensors and computers to objectively perceive. Although one of the hard problems in computer science is to get computers to see as we do.

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That's a fair point, however even in the case of computers, they all do what we tell them to do. A computer programmed by delusional programmers could still, at least in theory, be flawed.

It would seem, however, that the delusion would at least have to be mathematically consistent.

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Here's a case of engineers trying to calibrate a camera for something no one has seen

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Have you tried "sudo see as we do"?

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lol nice

I'm not smart enough to keep up with this, but isn't this all addressed to some extent by Descartes/Kant/Hume/Hegel, etc?

The theory ignores societal impacts and innovation, does it not?

If young men are organized by older, more experienced men who have a better perception of reality, it is very possible that the young men who perceive reality are more likely to survive.

Why?

Because our understanding of reality will help us interact with the environment in new ways that will give us advantages over competitors. Like, for example, figuring out how to make gunpowder.

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I'm not smart enough to keep up with this, but isn't this all addressed to some extent by Descartes/Kant/Hume/Hegel, etc?

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Sure. Descartes took a view of supreme skepticism and eventually deduced that he existed, God existed, God is good, and thus his perception of reality must be accurate, for a good God would not deceive him (in a hyper-compressed nutshell).

Every philosopher since then who deals with epistemology or metaphysics has to address the question of perception and reality. This paper is new in that it posits evolutionary pressures can select against an objective reality.

Meli solves the problem of existence

and btw, this part is hilarious

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In other words, evolution couldn't care less if you perceive objective reality. It only wants you to have sex successfully. As a consequence, your apprehension of the world is tuned to whatever allows that to happen. Thus, your perceptions at the root level have nothing to do with some fundamental physics upon which the fundamental nature of objective independent reality is constructed.

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Somehow, the concept doesn't seem radical at all. Ants and plants answered the question a long time ago.

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I'm not smart enough to keep up with this, but isn't this all addressed to some extent by Descartes/Kant/Hume/Hegel, etc?

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Sure. Descartes took a view of supreme skepticism and eventually deduced that he existed, God existed, God is good, and thus his perception of reality must be accurate, for a good God would not deceive him (in a hyper-compressed nutshell).

Every philosopher since then who deals with epistemology or metaphysics has to address the question of perception and reality. This paper is new in that it posits evolutionary pressures can select against an objective reality.

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And my criticism continues to be that this hypothesis ignores social interaction and the fact that societies that understand reality are more likely to succeed against societies that do not, because the societies that understand reality and the natural world are more likely to innovate.

I would tend to agree, though the only way to prove your position would be a blind test in which you have a control group that you know perceives reality correctly and another group with a different adaptation. Would be interesting to see.