Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Case Against Reality

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 114 posts

Re: The Case Against Reality

#91

Post by acqq »

JackFr wrote: post #62
acqq wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody can also check who this "scientist" really is. Those making such claims often represent themselves as much more qualified than they really are. The claims in the article are annoyingly unscientific.

You can too if you have access to a "web-browser". His PhD is from MIT, and he's been a full professor at UC Irvine for 25+ years, publishing pretty continuously. Lots of papers online.

I haven't had the time before. And I stand to my claims.

Searching for his CV didn't help: now I forced me through both his CV and this article. He didn't study physics but "Computational Psychology."(1)

And sadly it shows: Everything "quantum" he mentions in the article is simply invalid, easy to see for anybody with enough knowledge of physics. Quantum randomness occurs on different scales than where he tries to involve it.

Where he doesn't involve "quantum" the claims sound better.

The sad part is that he certainly had the chance to consult with the physicists. Why he haven't had, of if he had, why he ignored it, I don't know.

1) http://cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/media/pdf/donald-hoffman-vita....

Re: The Case Against Reality

#93

Post by semi-extrinsic »

selectron wrote: post #74
jackcosgrove wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your use of the word "very" is a giveaway that you're being snarky. I am definitely suspicious of scientists who act as the truth authority, and cast aspersions on lay people who don't understand their proofs. That attitude is antithetical to the spirit of science, which encourages skepticism and the democratization of thought.

Science is about reaching an expert consensus of the most probably explanation of the available evidence. It is not a democratization of thought - it is evidence that matters not majority opinion or vote of scientists. More generally, it takes a lifetime of study to truly understand even a small aspect of physics. How can you expect someone to explain a lifetime of study in an article for lay people without glossing…

I respectfully disagree: consensus is not an important building block of the scientific method.

Also: it is generally held that someone who has completed a PhD in physics is an expert in their small aspect of physics, and that they understand well a broader aspect of physics. Getting a PhD takes a lot less than a lifetime (fortunately).

Re: The Case Against Reality

#94

Post by evo_9 »

Reading the comment throughout this thread it's no wonder progress is so slow in this field. Anyone attempting to approach it from a new direction is a fraud, apparently.

I found it to be a very fascinating read.

Re: The Case Against Reality

#95

Post by abalashov »

"I can talk to you about my headache and believe that I am communicating effectively with you, because you’ve had your own headaches. The same thing is true as apples and the moon and the sun and the universe. Just like you have your own headache, you have your own moon. But I assume it’s relevantly similar to mine. That’s an assumption that could be false, but that’s the source of my communication, and that’s the best we can do in terms of public physical objects and objective science."

So, in other words, he drew the same conclusion that Wittgenstein did over half a century ago (approaching it from the vantage point of language), but dressed up in more up-to-date accoutrements in analytic philosophy?

Re: The Case Against Reality

#96

Post by cloudhead »

> A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

Actually the world -is- the world we experience through our senses. There's no "other" world. This article is full of shit. Whatever it is he calls "reality as it is" is the same reality we perceive through our cognitive functions, there is no other way to apprehend reality.

Re: The Case Against Reality

#97

Post by Houshalter »

colordrops wrote: post #73
maldusiecle wrote: post #23

I get really suspicious when I see quantum physics used in this way. It seems like a misdirection. Given the information in the article, it's impossible to evaluate his claims--we don't have access to the computer models he uses, or the expertise to evaluate his proofs. But there are a lot of gigantic red flags all throughout. Like when he says he's mathematically proved that "an organism that sees reality as it is w…

> crank Using labels and insults should almost always be avoided. Attack a person's arguments, not their personality. I'm sure you've heard it before, but this is called "ad hominem". Personal attacks and labels are a cheap and easy way to associate your target with a social stigma, immediately biasing others' opinions, whether deserved or not. "crank" isn't much better than "conspiracy theorist" or "libtard" or "mor…

That is not an ad hominem. An ad hominem is "this person is a crank, therefore their argument is wrong". What OP is saying is "their argument is wrong, therefore they are a crank", which is a valid argument.

Re: The Case Against Reality

#98

Post by acqq »

acqq wrote: post #91
JackFr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can too if you have access to a "web-browser". His PhD is from MIT, and he's been a full professor at UC Irvine for 25+ years, publishing pretty continuously. Lots of papers online.

I haven't had the time before. And I stand to my claims. Searching for his CV didn't help: now I forced me through both his CV and this article. He didn't study physics but "Computational Psychology."(1) And sadly it shows: Everything "quantum" he mentions in the article is simply invalid, easy to see for anybody with enough knowledge of physics. Quantum randomness occurs on different scales than where he tries to in…

Possible correlation: the last three grants he received were from the "Faggin Foundation" which among other things writes about "A Framework for the Union of Science and Spirituality."

http://www.fagginfoundation.org/articles-2/a-conceptual-fram...

Re: The Case Against Reality

#99

Post by colordrops »

Houshalter wrote: post #97
colordrops wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> crank Using labels and insults should almost always be avoided. Attack a person's arguments, not their personality. I'm sure you've heard it before, but this is called "ad hominem". Personal attacks and labels are a cheap and easy way to associate your target with a social stigma, immediately biasing others' opinions, whether deserved or not. "crank" isn't much better than "conspiracy theorist" or "libtard" or "mor…

That is not an ad hominem. An ad hominem is "this person is a crank, therefore their argument is wrong". What OP is saying is "their argument is wrong, therefore they are a crank", which is a valid argument.

Being wrong does not directly lead to being a "crank", whatever that means, and the poster did not demonstrate anything beyond that he thought the author was mistaken. Let's be honest - the poster called him a crank because the topic is one the the poster finds distasteful. There was no clear proof of him being a crank. Ironically, the poster is guilty of the same thing the author is being accused of, which is poor reasoning about a thesis.

Re: The Case Against Reality

#100

Post by anotherevan »

This reminded me of a fascinating TED talk[1] by Vilayanur Ramachandran where he talks about three unusual neurological conditions. In particular, a case of Capgras Syndrome where the person had an injury that severed the connection between the visual processing and emotional processing parts of the brain. When he saw a loved one, he would be convinced it was an imposter because of this.

What struck me was how complex our perception of the world around us is. How the way our brains perceive reality can be so different to each other, and to actual reality. Pretty amazing.

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_min...

Post reply on HN