Is Reality an Illusion? | Dr. Donald Hoffman | EP 387

I loved listening to Dr. Hoffman, and I think this is one interview that Jordan should have listened more than spoke.

More than once in the past ideas such as those of Dr. Hoffman crossed my mind. I am a neurologist and psychiatrist. Although my background and my readings have been significant primers, I still felt slapped in the face by the powerful and concise presentation of Dr. Hoffman. Like he felt when becoming aware of the significance of his findings. I wouldn't be surprised if others watching him felt slapped in the face. I consider myself fortunate for watching this video.

Donald Hoffman is phenomenal ❤

You need to get Bernardo Kastrup on the podcast. He’s the leading idealist philosopher (also a computer scientist). You can discuss pretty much anything with him, but the major points of interest could be idealism, artificial intelligence, Carl Jung and Christianity.

I genuinely think Hoffman dropped the coldest statement I've ever heard in the closing segment, when he said that we are just multiple projections of the consciousness looking at each other I felt chills down my spine, something I've never felt before.

This conversation most definitely requires a part 2! You stopped at the very moment that it was getting most interesting!

I've listened to pretty much every podcast you've done, Jordan, but this was the first one that broke my mind. Thank you so much. Wonderful, humbling, thought-provoking stuff.

I love a JP podcast where I only understand 0.1% of it because it shows me how much room there is to grow.

I'm 24 minutes in and the theories brought up are so complex and mind blowing I need a break to think about them before moving forward

For the first half of this conversation, it was interesting how Dr. Peterson and Dr. Hoffman were approaching the topic on different levels. Practical psychotherapy vs. computational psychology. Very challenging but enthralling.

Donald Hoffman is a very patient man.

We need part 2 immediately. Thank you both, or to that which we are, for such a meeting of minds, & to the dedication of such endeavors.

Oh wow. After listening to more of this, I realise this is the thought I had when I was very small and young, like 4. I had these ideas. I was playing hide and go seek at night with a torch, but I was staring at the spotlight on the wall. I saw where the light was and where it wasn’t. When I moved the torch, I saw new terrain but lost the original position. I felt that the light represent things we learned and understood. The darkness around it represent that which we didn’t know. So I dreamed up an inifinitely large spotlight, but the problem was it had an infinitely expanding circumference of darkness to follow it. I realised that God or whatever this thing was I was thinking about represented the forever unknowable thing. The more you learn, the more you don’t know. That’s God. And we pursue the explanse of improvement or knowledge and it can go infinitely.

You can tell Donald Hoffman meditates nearly 50% of his waking day. His patience is amazing and easy to undertand, and his conclusions are basically non-dualist, but mathematical precise.. The patience to listen to Jordan is a real challenge and times I feel he could simplify his conclusion, in less words. Reminds me at times we spend too much time in thoughts, too much time analyzing and thinking in our heads, rarely spending time in stillness being a witeness to our thoughts.

I love conversations like this. Wandering through reality and attempting to make sense of it and pinpoint things. Even if it's futile, the journey is still so much fun.

Bernardo Kastrup would be a great add-on in this conversation. He has a different, but great analogy on this concept of reality that would help make it more clear: Bernardo talks about the panels, dials and instruments in a cockpit to fly a plane. So imagine that reality is what is outside the windshield of the airplane. But flying through clouds forces the pilots to rely on their instruments in the cockpit. The instruments represent and correlate with reality. They show where the plane is in relation to the ground, speed and so on. But the instruments are NOT reality. They are just the interface. Our perceptions are the dashboard of dials and instruments. It correlates with reality, or else we would not be able to survive. But it isn't reality in itself. With current science we often mistake the dashboard of dials with reality. And we often and only study the dashboard. Not reality in itself. So we can only state things about the dashboard, but not reality itself. I really like that analogy. Dr. Hoffman is great. Though I think Bernardo's conceptualization and explanation of it all is much clearer for lay-people (like myself) to comprehend. I would recommend to anybody that likes this topic to check him out.

Please continue these conversations!!!! I beg you! I find this to be one of the most enlightening and stimulating conversations I have had the great pleasure of sharing in. Thank you both with the most sincere of hearts.

This is the sort of interview where Jordan's tendancy to interject really does the topic a disservice. I've seen many interviews with Donald Hoffman handled much better. He's really on the frontier and intersection of cognitive science, neuroscience, computer science, and philosophy, and Jordan ends up needlessly muddying the waters with his tangents and detours. I can tell Jordan meant well and was genuinely interested in his ideas, but if anyone is interested in understanding Hoffman's work (and the incredible implications that arise out of it), I'd recommend pretty much any other podcast he's done.

Intellectual giants of our time. Thank you so much for your work and for showing it publicly. It is awe inspiring.

Always fun to listen to Dr. Peterson interview himself.