Hegel, following Schelling, had a philosopher of nature. He believed the world was real, not a simulation. The real world comes from the spiritual Absolute but matter is matter for Hegel. If Hoffman is correct, then all of science has been refuted and so why follow science at all anymore? As far as I can see that is the conclusion.

This sounds like a misunderstanding of the theory, which might be my fault because I was trying to explain it. The theory is not that the world is a simulation, nor does it refute or attempt to refute science. Science is ontologically agnostic; it's a mistake to assume that a theory that attempts to replace physicalism is somehow attempting to supplant science.

Given the degree to which the teaching of science is uncritically grounded in physicalism, I can get how it seems that way. However, the worst the theory is saying vis-a-vis popular physicalist conceptions is that a lot of the entities of science are useful fictions. But this isn't anything new in science, physicalist or not. The "laws" of science are useful fictions. They are idealized mathematical representations of how observations behave. Cartwright uses the example of Newton's laws for this point. The laws don't actually describe how gravity works for classical objects, they describe how gravity works for two idealized objects, which is good enough for most purposes. Add another body into the mix and you get the "three body problem." A gene is an abstraction, a "fundamental unit" of heritability, but it it's not supposed to be an elementary object. It's a fiction, or maybe a better description is "a type of mental shorthand" for an idea that is useful for theories. The mistake, for Hoffman, is in assuming that these bits of mental shorthand are the fundamental objects of reality.

Nor does the theory say that matter isn't real. The theory is grounded in empiricism and we have plenty of observations of what we call matter. What it's doing is pivoting around the ontological baggage that is attached to the "idea of matter."

Well if everything has always been mental entities why cant a mental entity have storage capacity beyond it's form? Hoffman can't continue to apply his theory to his new world

Let me add that, because one set of scientific standards (Hoffman's case) leads to a change once the ontology changes (so that we do know the interfaces), then science does act differently in face of ontologies

Nor does the theory say that matter isn't real. The theory is grounded in empiricism and we have plenty of observations of what we call matter. What it's doing is pivoting around the ontological baggage that is attached to the "idea of matter." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Good summary but I wonder about this last bit. Is Hoffman all that clear about what the reality is in itself, outside of our 'desktop icons'? I thought he was pretty much with Kastrup that all is pure mentation experienced as matter.

My take is that he is fairly close to Kastrup in the final chapter of the book.

I think. Part of the problem is that you spend 90% of the book with the Hoffman who is still committed to an objective, mind independent world "out there," and then only get a short time with the idealist Hoffman. Most of what he's focusing on in that last chapter is how you can have an idealistic model that can be used in science, a model that makes empirical claims and predictions. So the ontology is a bit fuzzy.

Unlike Kastrup, who is fine leaving science mostly alone as a methodological system, Hoffman thinks ontological baggage from mainstream physicalism has bled into the sciences and is halting progress there. That makes his goal much different, he wants to find a way to radically shift our intuitions, but to do so in a way that can be modeled empirically and can directly inform science. I'm not sure if I agree that this makes sense. It seems like he is in danger of mixing the methods of science and ontology too much, the same thing he is accusing the mainstream of doing, but again, it's short, so I'm not sure.



I don't think I understand the objection here. Are you saying, "if mental entities are ontologically basic, why are they finite?" Why wouldn't they be?

If I am a thought and the tree is a thought, is the argument that the tree is infinitely complex and hence not comprehendable still intact? I think not. Otherwise we can't understand anything around us. But where does this leave arguments of information and storage if ontology doesn't change the science? The arguments work in one ontology and not the other, so ontology matters

Ha, so you were more correct about Hoffman than I. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hey, big of you to say so! You know that Hoffman is one of the academic advisors on the board of Kastrup's 'Essentia Foundation'?

In my view, they represent the mainstream of philosophy more than analytical philosophy in the English-speaking world. I've recently finished Kastrup's book on Schopenhauer, and shows there are many convergences between them.

It's a mathematical model that has finite conscious agents as its ontological primitive. — Count Timothy von Icarus

'Monadology' comes to mind here.

they're going to end up converting me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

'Through the looking glass', I call it. ;-)

the argument that the tree is infinitely complex and hence not comprehendable still intact?

I'm not sure what this is in reference to. I was talking about Donald Hoffman's book The Case Against Reality. Are we talking about the same thing?

His argument about being able to see reality "as it is," is about how natural selection will favor a sensory interface that represents fitness payoffs, not truth. Not that things are infinitely complex and thus not able to be represented accuracy. The starting point for the work looking at fitness versus truth theorem is that entities are finite.

Earlier on this thread you mentioned that humans can't process infinite information. I don't know why you brought that up if you didn't assume there is infinite information out there. Anyway, the simple answer to Hoffman is that we see things accurately, but incompletely. There is no way for him to prove our representations have no counterpart in nature. He doesn't know what the full reality of an object is, and he knows we get information from the object. So how is he going to prove that there is nothing in the perception that sees *something* about the object? You earlier said yourself that we might sense some of reality and that is all I'm saying. If I see a car I see it for real even though there is much we can't see. So maybe we are on the same page

Let me add for the reader that Hoffman has to admit that we see enough of reality (gene images, fossils, ect) in order to establish evolution (the basis of his data) in the first place. There is a philosophical difference in how you can interpret his data. Saying "we see incorrectly" could really be "we see incompletely but accurately". It depends on how you think about it. The book is entitled "the case *against* reality" but in reality, it may just establish that there is more to the world than meets the eye

I see now. My reference to information was simply that we assume that organisms are not infinite. It's not that objects in the enviornment contain infinite information, it's that organisms lack infinite capabilities for storing information, and thus face limits and tradeoffs vis-á-vis information storage and computation speed.

There is no way for him to prove our representations have no counterpart in nature. He doesn't know what the full reality of an object is, and he knows we get information from the object. So how is he going to prove that there is nothing in the perception that sees *something* about the object?

I covered this earlier in the thread. There is no logical necessity to have a complete definition of p to show what p cannot be true of p.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/716647

You earlier said yourself that we might sense some of reality and that is all I'm saying. If I see a car I see it for real even though there is much we can't see. So maybe we are on the same page.

I'm not totally convinced with his argument, so yes, I think we're somewhat on the same page. But I do agree with his point that the "car" does not exist outside our minds. The relative ratio of information in our conception of the "car" that comes from the "object itself," appears to be:

1. Very low.
2. An extremely small fraction of all information contained within the object.
3. Filled with semantic meaning, and filtered through concepts of space and objects that have no connection to reality.

The further issue is if thinking of objects "as they are themselves," is erroneous in the first place. In an informational analysis, the phenomena of the car only is as it interacts with the enviornment, and as its parts interact with each other.

If we can use evolution to say anything about the infinity or finity of an object, then we have contact with it. The only way to say that we have hardly any real knowledge is by comparing our knowledge to something. I have a philosophical problem with how Hoffman deals with data. He trusts his senses for evolution but only to over throw evolution and leave us... where?

Kastrup's arguments are interesting and sometimes useful. He does seem to me to vastly exaggerate issues pertaining to "alternative" personalities or selves, attributing these to the objects of experience.

We do not know enough about the self to say whether the extra-mental world is or is not compatible with things like selves, whatever they are.

On the other hand, what Kastrup mean by "materialism" is essentially a form of scientism, it seems to me. It need not mean that.

It seems to me that these metaphysical stances could be helpful, but also abused as can be seen with people who fall into Deekpak Chopra's nonsense.

Sounds reasonable.

The argument for natural selection as driving the creation of complex organisms isn't based on empirical findings in biology. He is using natural selection as a general theorem. The concept is applied in many ways outside of biology. For instance, we see the type of elements we see because elements above a certain size are selected against; they are unstable. Potentially, we see the type of universe we see because black holes generate new universes and so universes with physics that generate singularities are selected for (a speculative idea, for sure, but one that shows how wide natural selection can be used).

The argument for natural selection is merely that it is a theorem that describes how great amounts of complexity can arise without a designer. Consciousness is very complex. Consciousness arising from natural selection requires fewer entities than consciousness arising from an intentional designer (God). So, parsimony, Ockham's Razor, suggests natural selection as the driving force behind the complexity we see in consciousness.

As you can see, the theorizing comes down to deduction and observations of consciousness, not observations about the world as it is. I'll admit this reasoning seems a little weak, but since it is meant to convince people who don't agree with Hoffman's view on our relationship to the noumenal world "out there," I think it is strong enough. After all, if you reject Hoffman's reasoning here in favor of the idea that we do have solid knowledge of the noumenal world, then the arguments of fitness versus truth theorem still hold (indeed they seem grounded even better), and so you end up back in the same place.

Likewise, we don't need experience of external object to decide that our consciousness is finite. That comes from experience, but experience of consciousness itself. Same for our experience of what appear to be external objects. We know we get a finite amount of information from them because we can look at a poster from far away and not see a bunch of text in the lower left corner. When we get closer, we can now make out the text. This is an observation of incomplete information existing in consciousness; it applies even if you totally reject the external world. If you take the step of positing the external world, you're still going to have that observation that not all information about objects make it to experience, i.e. that our perceptions are finite and do not admit all information about those objects. But these points can all be proved by observations of consciousness itself, without any appeals to the external world.

But you're right, this whole model misses crucial details. Information theoretic approaches to cognitive science suggest a mechanism by which we can have perceptions that derive some of their content from "things-in-themselves." However, I think this doesn't necessarily kill the theory. Sure, some of the content of our perceptions is from those things, but if we lack a clear ability to define which information that is, if we can't track the morphisms that survive the long process from light waves bouncing off an object to our experience of sight, then I think his argument may still hold.

Thanks for the thoughts. Allow me to add that if we start out saying that the world is mental the same arguments seem to continue, in an infinite loop, that we see only for fitness. We don't have to know everything about something to reject it, but this is different from saying we observe objects first in order to even have an argument for fitness. So whether the world is mental or not, Hoffman's reasoning is lethal to any understanding of the phenomenal world. It would be an infinite regress.. But this is ok for me because those arguments loop back and from the finite canceling itself out we have the Absolute return in the form of the world. I don't know how someone can believe the world is in their minds. That doesn't have any meaning for me. What we do have is a world we experience without having to put it in a category. I accept the world as it appears and that is reality. What more is needed except that we experience material objects and ourselves as a physical individualized identity? There is the spiritual of course, but our world is a reality unto itself. In a sense Berkeley was right: to be perceived is to be. Noumena is all around.. What comes first is our understanding that we are part of a larger world. The risk of solipsism is too great otherwise