#585: Professor Donald Hoffman — The Case Against Reality, Beyond Spacetime, Rethinking Death, Panpsychism, QBism, and More

Brought to you by FreshBooks cloud-based small business accounting software, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and JuneShine organic hard kombucha for a brighter buzz. Donald Hoffman ( @donalddhoffman) received a PhD in computational psychology from MIT and is a Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He is an author of over 120 scientific papers and three books, including The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Award of the American Psychological Association and the Troland Research Award of the US National Academy of Sciences. His writing has appeared in Scientific American, New Scientist, LA Review of Books, and Edge, and his work has been featured in Wired, Quanta, The Atlantic, Ars Technica, National Public Radio, Discover Magazine, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. His TED Talk, titled “Do We See Reality as It Is?,” has almost 4M views. Please enjoy! This episode is brought to you by JuneShine! You don’t know it yet, but JuneShine’s going to be your new go-to happy-hour drink. Consistent with their tagline, “organic hard kombucha for a brighter buzz,” I do get a nice buzz, as it sports a hefty 6% ABV (alcohol by volume), but 1–2 drinks doesn’t punish me with a nasty hangover. I enjoy grabbing a can of JuneShine in the late afternoon after a workday or when hanging with friends on the weekend. You’ve also heard me drinking JuneShine in a few Random Show episodes with Kevin Rose. Grapefruit Paloma might be my personal favorite flavor, but I usually grab a Sampler Pack and rotate. ​JuneShine is made with organic ingredients, and it is naturally gluten-free. As a listener of The Tim Ferriss Show, you can get an exclusive discount: receive 20% off your first purchase, plus free shipping on any orders over $75. Simply use code TIM at checkout. Taste what all the buzz is about and grab a Sampler Pack here: JuneShine.com/Tim. * This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.  Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product. * This episode is also brought to you by FreshBooks. I’ve been talking about FreshBooks—an all-in-one invoicing + payments + accounting solution—for years now. Many entrepreneurs, as well as the contractors and freelancers that I work with, use it all the time. FreshBooks makes it super easy to track things like expenses, project time, and client info and then merge it all into great-looking invoices. FreshBooks can save users up to 200 hours a year on accounting and bookkeeping tasks. Right now FreshBooks is offering my listeners a free 30-day trial, and no credit card is required. Go to FreshBooks.com/Tim and claim your free trial today! * What was the Helmholtz Club, and how did it spark a scientific exploration into the meaning of consciousness? [06:19] What is consciousness? [11:24] How should we understand our perceptions and their relationship to reality? David walks us through the desktop interface metaphor as presented in his 2015 TED Talk, and explains why it’s unlikely (with a probability of zero) that human beings evolved to behold the naked entirety of reality. [14:08] Why does Donald, as a cognitive neuroscientist, find this era of physicists exploring consciousness and the nature of an underlying reality we haven’t evolved to see so exciting? Also: is spacetime doomed? [20:31] Will science ever arrive at a theory of everything? [33:00] What is the holographic model of the universe? [37:13] What might things look like in the next decade or two as we begin to fundamentally revise how we think of reality, matter, and the interplay of consciousness? [43:09] How does Donald scientifically explore the concept of conscious agents? [49:48] Is consciousness localized, or does the brain “receive” it from elsewhere? [53:20] How does Donald think about death? [58:55] What are Markovian dynamics? [1:05:27] Supplementary information that might help someone who’s struggling to understand parts of this conversation. [1:07:14] What is panpsychism, and who are some of the most influential panpsychists? [1:08:38] Which aspects of the way we interface with reality give us effective portals into life or consciousness? [1:12:11] Probing the deeper reality suggested by the amplituhedron, associahedron, and cosmological polytope. [1:14:51] At which hallowed institutions are these explorations of consciousness and the nature of a deeper reality being researched, and who is leading the charge? [1:20:18] Donald’s thoughts on the use of hallucinogenic drugs to tap into deeper reality and interact with conscious agents. [1:21:22] Exploring a theory involving portals and morphogenesis. [1:23:18] It’s worth considering ethnobotanical and ethnographical studies that may give us more focused insight into consciousness through a non-Western lens and even have us questioning if plants can be considered a sentient part of this consciousness. [1:27:20] On Chris Fuchs and the outer fringes of Quantum Bayesian — aka QBism. [1:35:38] The experiments Donald would conduct in his research with unlimited funding over the next 10 years, and with whom he would choose to work. [1:40:31] What is Donald reading these days? [1:42:43] Donald names some of his long-time collaborators who pair mathematics with spiritual practice, and describes how he reconciles the two in his own work. [1:47:34] How much pushback has Donald suffered for bringing spirituality into his scientific endeavors? Has any of it been constructive? [2:00:51] How does fitness payoff function work in evolutionary theory, and how does this support the probability of zero that humans evolved to see reality in full? [2:03:27] Parting thoughts. [2:05:46] * For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast. For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors. Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday. 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