Q: If snakes aren’t snakes and trains aren’t trains, what are they?

A: Snakes and trains, like the particles of physics, have no objective, observer-independent features. The snake I see is a description created by my sensory system to inform me of the fitness consequences of my actions. Evolution shapes acceptable solutions, not optimal ones. A snake is an acceptable solution to the problem of telling me how to act in a situation. My snakes and trains are my mental representations; your snakes and trains are your mental representations.

My snakes and trains are my mental representations; your snakes and trains are your mental representations.

The question I would have for Donald Hoffman is why is his theory not a product of the same evolutionarily-conditioned process that our perception of everything else is? — Wayfarer

Whatever that means. — Tom Storm

The question I would have for Donald Hoffman is why is his theory not a product of the same evolutionarily-conditioned process that our perception of everything else is? What faculty is it that is capable of arriving at the judgement that he is making? I'm sure he must have considered this, or that it has been asked of him, but I'd like to see the answer. — Wayfarer

But we can and do talk about the very same snakes and trains.
Hence his conclusion is wrong, and there is an error somewhere in his theory. — Banno

So what do you think the "materialism" Hoffman is arguing against is? — Banno

. Evolution has conditioned our perceptions of the physical world to see icons rather than truth, but that doesn't necessarily imply our logical faculties have been conditioned the same way. — Art48

He addresses this in the YouTube clip when he points out everyone in the audience sees the same illusion of the cube. — Art48

the ultimate reality of objects in spacetime — Art48

He is arguing against the ultimate reality of objects in spacetime — Art48

Ties in rather neatly with the argument from reason. I'll continue to look for where he addresses this, though. — Wayfarer

Our penchant to misread our perceptions, as philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out to his fellow philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, stems in part from an uncritical attitude toward our perceptions, toward what we mean by "it looks as if. Anscombe says of Wittgenstein that, "He once greeted me with the question: 'Why do people say that it was natural to think that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth turned on its axis?' I replied. 'I suppose, because it looked as if the sun went round the earth! "Well, he asked, what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth turned on its axis?' The question brought it out that I had hitherto given no relevant meaning to 'it looks as if in 'it looks as if the sun goes around the earth. "1 Wittgenstein's point is germane any time we wish to claim that reality matches or mismatches our perceptions. There is, as we shall see, a way to give precise meaning to this claim using the tools of evolutionary game theory: we can prove that if our perceptions were shaped by natural selection then they almost surely evolved to hide reality. They just report fitness. — The Case Against Realiy, p19

Do you think it might be a possible that just as Kant argued that space and time were essentially part of the human cognitive apparatus which help us make sense of our world, that perhaps reason - e.g., identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle, might not have similar source? In which case, reason is not true as such - or located outside of the human domain - it is rather a condition of human experience and an unavoidable product of our perspective. — Tom Storm

What exactly makes snakes and trains not real? — Banno

The constructions we invent may not be literally true, but still, he says of his own, “I’ve evolved these symbols to keep me alive, so I have to take them seriously. But it’s a logical flaw to think that if we have to take it seriously, we also have to take it literally.” Of what he identifies as a snake or a train, he says, “Snakes and trains, like the particles of physics, have no objective, observer-independent features. The snake I see is a description created by my sensory system to inform me of the fitness consequences of my actions.”

It’s worth pointing out that if there can be no “public” objects that aren’t personal constructions, science has a problem: “The idea that what we’re doing is measuring publicly accessible objects, the idea that objectivity results from the fact that you and I can measure the same object in the exact same situation and get the same results — it’s very clear from quantum mechanics that that idea has to go. Physics tells us that there are no public physical objects.” After all, “My snakes and trains are my mental representations; your snakes and trains are your mental representations.”

It’s not that Hoffman considers our constructed personal realities therefore worthless. In fact, they’re all we’ve got, and being real to us is a way of being true, after all. “I’m claiming that experiences are the real coin of the realm. The experiences of everyday life—my real feeling of a headache, my real taste of chocolate—that really is the ultimate nature of reality.” — Donald Hoffman

QBism would say, it’s not that the world is built up from stuff on “the outside” as the Greeks would have had it. Nor is it built up from stuff on “the inside” as the idealists...would have it. Rather, the stuff of the world is in the character of what each of us encounters every living moment — stuff that is neither inside nor outside, but prior to the very notion of a cut between the two at all. — Chris Fuchs

Ultimate or not, being bitten by a snake or run over by a train is a strong argument for what appears real. — jgill

Hoffman is on record saying 'natural selection favours perception which hide truth and guide useful action.' It's not far from CS Lewis. Let us know when you find how he grounds his own truth seeking. — Tom Storm

What exactly makes snakes and trains not real? — Banno

The icon for a Word document is really on the screen but it is not the Word document itself, so in that sense is somewhat unreal. The reality of the Word document is computer bits. Janus and Wayfarer make a similar point — Art48

And what are computer bits an icon for? — Joshs

In the metaphor, the icon represent the objects we see and the bits represent the deeper reality.
So, the bits are not an icon but reality (or, at least, a deeper reality — Art48

The question I would have for Donald Hoffman is why is his theory not a product of the same evolutionarily-conditioned process that our perception of everything else is? What faculty is it that is capable of arriving at the judgement that he is making? I'm sure he must have considered this, or that it has been asked of him, but I'd like to see the answer. — Wayfarer

Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as if there were only quantum wave functions?

Why could it not be that snakes and trains are just what quantum wave functions look like, viewed by an evolved organism?

What exactly makes snakes and trains not real? — Banno

I think Raymond Tallis put it best when he said that if Hoffman really believes we didn't evolve for truth, but only for survival, then why should he trust his experiments which rely on evolutionary arguments being true as a necessary condition for how own view? — Manuel

if it as was done by Locke and Hume, I don't see it as a trap, but then it is also misleading to call it a "veil". — Manuel

I have seen it and it does not address the issue. It goes against what he is saying, if he is giving evidence that our senses mislead us, why trust the evidence? It too is misleading. — Manuel

we see appearance not the reality of transistors — Art48