What If Evolution Bred Reality Out Of Us?

[vt]

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/201...lity-out-of-us

[jk]

Re: What If Evolution Bred Reality Out Of Us?

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/201...lity-out-of-us

scott adams pointed to the same thing today, saying it would blow people's minds. bs.

i read the article, watched the ted talk, and think it's an empty argument. of course a simulation will show superior survival for organisms that are DEFINED by being tuned to the fitness function of that simulation. duh. that's what a fitness function means. what is not analyzed is how much overlap there is between the arbitrarily defined fitness function and realistic perception. perhaps realistic perception might be part of what makes an organism fitter. that a bug can't tell the difference between a female bug and a beer bottle [in the ted talk], or a moose mistakes a statue for a female, doesn't mean their perception of reality is a myth. it just means their perceptual worlds are limited and sometimes inaccurate. right. and we can't see ultraviolet or infrared, and the world looks different to organisms than can see those parts of the spectrum. i don't think anyone has argued that humans are all-knowing, all-seeing and that thus their view of reality is a perfect mapping of the objective world. but it's a long way from that to the idea that all we see is a self-constructed "interface."

[dcarrigg]

Re: What If Evolution Bred Reality Out Of Us?

scott adams pointed to the same thing today, saying it would blow people's minds. bs.

i read the article, watched the ted talk, and think it's an empty argument. of course a simulation will show superior survival for organisms that are DEFINED by being tuned to the fitness function of that simulation. duh. that's what a fitness function means. what is not analyzed is how much overlap there is between the arbitrarily defined fitness function and realistic perception. perhaps realistic perception might be part of what makes an organism fitter. that a bug can't tell the difference between a female bug and a beer bottle [in the ted talk], or a moose mistakes a statue for a female, doesn't mean their perception of reality is a myth. it just means their perceptual worlds are limited and sometimes inaccurate. right. and we can't see ultraviolet or infrared, and the world looks different to organisms than can see those parts of the spectrum. i don't think anyone has argued that humans are all-knowing, all-seeing and that thus their view of reality is a perfect mapping of the objective world. but it's a long way from that to the idea that all we see is a self-constructed "interface."

Agreed...then there's this:

Hoffman's theorem says is the fitness-tuned critter will — almost always — win the evolution game.

This holds true if and only if the petri dish goes on forever...you hit the wall and run out of agar, and what tuned you to fitness before instantly becomes a liability.

[Jam]

Re: What If Evolution Bred Reality Out Of Us?

This holds true if and only if the petri dish goes on forever...you hit the wall and run out of agar, and what tuned you to fitness before instantly becomes a liability.

... and the species go the way of the dinosaurs.

For those who want the 'real research' (as opposed to the 'pop-sci interface' ), here is a link to one of the articles co-authored by Hoffman

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...cal_Perception

What struck me as I read it was how limited the investigated models were. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I would classify Hoffman's claim that "perception has nothing to do with reality"* as quite extraordinary. Yet, the 'evidence' produced in his original research paper(s) is quite limited.

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*The exact quote in the article is: "[...] 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."