Donald Hoffman - Consciousness, Mysteries Beyond Spacetime, and Waking up from the Dream of Life

Professor Donald Hoffman is a cognitive neuroscientist and the author of more than 90 scientific papers and three books, including Visual Intelligence and The Case Against Reality.

He is best known for his theory of consciousness, which combines evolutionary theory with mathematics to make a compelling case that the reality we see every day is an illusion created by our minds.

In this conversation, we explore:

— The groundbreaking scientific research being conducted by physicists into the “structures” beyond spacetime

— Donald’s theory of conscious agents

— The implications his theory of consciousness has for our understanding of the purpose of life

And more.

You can follow Donald on Twitter @donalddhoffman - https://x.com/donalddhoffman

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Prof. Donald Hoffman, PhD received his PhD from MIT, and joined the faculty of the University of California, Irvine in 1983, where he is a Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences. He is an author of over 100 scientific papers and three books, including Visual Intelligence, and The Case Against Reality. He received a Distinguished Scientific Award from the American Psychological Association for early career research, the Rustum Roy Award of the Chopra Foundation, and the Troland Research Award of the US National Academy of Sciences. His writing has appeared in Edge, New Scientist, LA Review of Books, and Scientific American and his work has been featured in Wired, Quanta, The Atlantic, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. You can watch his TED Talk titled “Do we see reality as it is?” and you can follow him on Twitter @donalddhoffman.

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Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro
01:39 - Perception, Reality, and Consciousness
21:18 - The Cognitive Dissonance of Perception
29:19 - The Limits of Perception
36:30 - Navigating Consciousness
42:48 - Exploring Reality Beyond Space-Time
54:42 - Consciousness and Reality
01:00:16 - Prof Hoffman’s Resources

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Interview Links:

— Prof Hoffman’s profile: http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff

— Prof Hoffman’s book: https://bit.ly/3SCwTTA