Don Hoffman – Spacetime's Doomed, Quantum Mechanics Falls Short and Reality's Not What it Seems

43 thoughts on “Don Hoffman – Spacetime's Doomed, Quantum Mechanics Falls Short and Reality's Not What it Seems”

1. Thank you for posting. Great interview.

2. Would you tell Don Hoffman to move the camera closer to his bookshelf? I can't read the titles of his books. Thanks. : D

3. In a Near Death Experience, Consciousness is absent from the body, yet and still the individual is able to "see" our physical reality, so what is processesing and creating that information since there is no use of Eyes or a Brain🤔 ask Dave for me… oh, and I have couple more questions😲

4. He's demanding precise mathematical description of a taste of vanilla. Let's start with something easier. Go look at AlphaZero chess program, and show in a precise mathematical description where we can find the concept of 'king safety'. We know it's in there somewhere, since the program clearly handles the concept. The problem is that it's not independent, not localized, and cannot be described in neat and abstract mathematics. Now the brain is millions of times bigger and more complicated, so it's hopeless to go in there and find the 'taste of vanilla'.

5. So ..if a tree falls in a woods and there is no one there…it does not make a sound.

6. Paul Stamets cured of stuttering due to a psilocybin trip. The first time he was on Joe Rogan he explains the trip in great detail, it's excellent

7. But the equation is there it is exponential to the observance of the measurer so there is no same answer . This creates free will.

8. The MINUTE one says "I can't get on board with that", or "agree to disagree" is the minute one dons blinders, restricts possibilities, his chances of seeing the truth and it's the minute I zone out. Bye

9. ​@UC_OxbFQJrlsD9HbkiEBhWHw hey man honestly you make more sense than Mr Hoffman. At 45:50 you rationalize his theory to be more aligned with the experience of Human. What he refers to as "fitness payoffs" is more accurately put by your explanation that we have developed a hireachy system of triggers in our life as self aware entities which by default have shaped our survival and rationalization of the world.

   There's ABSOLUTELY no need for us to analyse an innate wall in a room, but there is an AUTOMATIC and SUBCONSCIOUS (the deeply aware observer) to both analyse and act accordingly to the facial expression and body expressions of other life forms in that room. Prioritizing HUMAN as first and then other life forms such as dogs and cats. That's the social element of our species…

   However, should a RAGING BULL come crashing through the wall (that was before meaningless and innate) suddenly the physical mass of that bull crashing through that wall has NOW TRIGGERED the priority of SURVIVAL… and a wall that once was of no interest or concern, has now become the focus of all self aware entities. It doesn't even take understanding of that physicality to know it's HIGHLY VOLATILE and has potential to disrupt our existence.

   WE don't see the truth until it has impact on our existence.
   For that, his twitter example is really floating two different concepts.
   As a USER (observer) it is not at all logical to have to know every tweet.
   Yet to know every tweet doesn't automatically mean you arrived at the truth.
   You still haven't factored in the TRUTH that those tweets are CREATIONS of entities outside of the system. So to know TRUTH one needs to then know INTENTION from every single entity which contributed to the system. So he is mixing USER (observer) with GODLY KNOWLEDGE of the system as a whole. Consciousness then cannot exist as the two. To KNOW ABSOLUTE TRUTH is to know every single parameter of a system… But as an OBSERVER, we only ever, ALWAYS (for survival) need to be aware of the relevant TRUTH. The rest is noise which as he says.. will only confuse us.

   We see a sliver of the EMS because we are NOT lifeforms that utilize the rest. There are those lifeforms though, because through evolution, they have gained that ability as it favored THEIR SURVIVAL. It's completely flawed to think that there is only one position which makes sense. A sea urchin for instance doesn't see shit… it senses it's NEAR environment and cares little for the environment that extends beyond it's "FEEL". On the other hand, an octopus has gone beyond the natural requirement. To the point that it DOES SEE TRUTH in the environment and has mastered it to the extent that ITSELF can become that environment. The complexity of that is WAY BEYOND the theory of "fitness payoffs". A peacock again is another life form that has gone beyond the "keep it simple" theory. It has an elaborate tail feather display that clearly puts it in a vulnerable position in terms of avoiding predators.. Yet it continues to exist still. Either because it prioritizes courtship or possibly has understanding of THE TRUTH beyond the simplified spectrum of visible light which we as Human are limited to.

   Science will need to do what Mr Hoffman outlines though.
   Throw away the books and forget what was learned. OPEN YOUR MIND.
   Thinking that there's a single formula or that somehow empirical evidence of consciousness exists is highly flawed.

   Consciousness exists OUTSIDE OF THE SYSTEM. We have ability to utilize it but a more accurate way to look at consciousness is TIME TRAVEL. We literally travel back in time to the experience of ourselves through the ability that memory grants us. What we recollect is based on the level of ability of each individual… but one thing which I always refer to when I present that theory is that EMOTION is that thing which EXIST TIMELESS… and thus that thing which gives clue that we literally TIME TRAVEL.. IN MIND OF COURSE (The VIRTUAL…. The Ocean of INFORMATION… the only REAL Thing of Reality).
   EMOTION is that thing which makes the experience of recollecting a memory so undoubtedly physical. A first date, a first time hearing a song, a loss of a loved one, an achievement… etc… all have that attachment which when we reflect "back in time" we literally FEEL what the experience had us feel the first time. There's IMMENSE POWER in that experience… and it was induced by our self aware existing outside of the system.

   So for that I see myself and all life forms with conscious ability (regardless of intelligence) as a TORUS. Experiencing Existence.. collecting DATA as information of it's experiences. We the Human have mastered that ability to recollect the experience due to our understanding of data. In essence our experiences are attached to our Torus is a virtual field. Ready to be called upon by our ability to know that we are experiencing, therefore have ability to pick an experience of the past as MEMORY. We then have ability to IMAGINE.. FUTURE, with greater freedom but with less accuracy for TRUTH. Unless of course we understand the parameters so well that we can then actually make PREDICTIONS. Ability to exist outside of the system, grants us all those abilities. Thus CONSCIOUSNESS IS VIRTUAL EXISTENCE. Physical existence merely maintenance of the biological system which exists for two purposes only. ATTAINMENT OF FUEL and REPRODUCTION.

10. Basically if agent see's truth he dies thus the game keep moving forward. The goal of agents is to bread and not discover that they are being programmed. Seems reasonable from outer perspective.

11. It would be great to see the religions lose their hold for good. Their concepts are written in dogmatic stone, they have no true curiosity and they were created to keep the masses in line via guilt as if they are children. I hope science eventually finds enough of the answers.

12. Not trying to be mean, but this guy isn't really equipped to explore Hoffman's ideas. Like at all, really. I suggest you check out "The Case Against Reality" interview with this man. Goes over some of the same territory but i guarantee it will blow your mind.

13. Try to get Bernardo Kastrup on…

14. man I love the internet! Lets smash that default mode we all operate on – time to hack it and stop living in the realm of "mind forged manacles" – latter was by William Blake.

15. i'm not saying you should try psychedelics, but if you're seeking info to nature of consciousness and reality … you should probably try psychedelics. In a comfortable, safe environment with someone who cares about you 🙂 .

16. THE EGYPTIANS INVENTED THE COLOR BLUE. The Blue Pill is fake and never existed

17. It's not Whoo-Whoo, it's cutting edge.

18. you will never get it until you take in to account a source of unconditional love is a frequency in true sound in scared geometry show in full color

19. 1:13:00 – Might be a long shot but this sort of fits with a lot of what Jonathan Haidt would say about confirmation bias, tribalism, and how human beings use logic and reason – or why as well the university system needs institutional dis-confirmation in order to function as we intend it to.

20. It makes sense that natural selection would only favor organisms seeing reality up to the point where they're satisfying the conditions of their existence and past that the added complexity stops yielding any return, rather it simply becomes overhead with no added value.

21. Consciousness created Science.
    So how could you expect Science to explain the thing that created it?

22. David Hoffman is likely too advanced for most normies to accept. However, come back in 75 years and this will be mainstream. Hard to give up materialism as it appears to be real albeit a likely primitive concept.

23. If I spent 100 years by a black hole and came back

24. 100 billion Earths

25. I understand why but your a no)ion years off hommie

26. What your saying is your trying to make so alive?

27. The host isn't doing that well here. Just a bit ignorant, a bit rude, a bit to much of what he "thinks". Hoffman is an expert in this field. This is not a discussion. It is an interview. At least it should be done like one.

28. 49:58 that is exactly what Buddhism says about consciousness

29. DEAR DON
    THE HUMAN NATURE IS MORE THAN A SIMULATION. COME BACK AND START FROM THIS POINT: THE HUMAN NATURE IS AN EXPERIMENT. TRY AND YOU WILL SEE THAT ALL FLOWS NATURELY. BUT REMEMBER: MATHS, PHYSICS AND SO ON ARE ONLY THINGS THAT ARE ALLOWED TO HUMANS. YOU WILL NEED OTHER TOOLS. THINK IF THEY WILL ALLOW YOU. GEORGE FROM BRAZIL.

30. Carlo Rovelli (whom I greatly admire, not that my opinion is particularly relevant) and before him Einstein's remarks on the illusory nature of time may have influenced Don Hoffman's thinking about the illusory nature of human perception.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23BKwgBdt6E

31. All students today, especially of the physical and life sciences, would benefit from the mind expansion of a psychadelic trip, but many are resistant to such loss of control. The simple, elegant truth that emerges is always the same, and science needs to find a way to express it: time and space, and everything they contain – including ourselves -, are illusions being created by an unnameable force to experience itself. When science releases its aversion to religion and realizes that it has backed itself into a very narrow corner with a focus on material "reality", we join the wisdom of the ages and awaken collectively.

32. Am I the only one who thinks there’s no « hard problem » of consciousness ? Now that we know about neuron clusters and synapse arrays, we can follow our thoughts, and know how we think. And we can trace it all back to evolution and survival. The scientists keep trying to put it into equations and formulas, but how can they get into the subconscious ? I do like what Hoffman says about confirmation bias, and how it’s connected to survival. He’s right on.

33. Great video. Amazing explanations given by Don Hoffman. I feel that this conversation about the existence of a deeper reality seems similar to 'Brahman' – a key concept found in the Vedas.

34. Sounds like the eternal world of order and the temporal world of chaos that it supports. Adam and Eve. Inside the garden, outside of the garden.

35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-H-3cJGDp0

36. As an enghlighted being i feel compelled to chime in….This issue will never be fully understood. God source itself is trying to understand facits of itself through our individual units of consiosnessnesses like you and me and EVERY LIVING creature in existence past present and future! Its all happing NOW. Lol. We are INFINITY. ENJOY LIFE. Beware of ego and ALWAYS STAY CURIOUS! Love and compassion is who we TRULY ARE!

37. 11:30 – I think the same is true of the illustrations of gravity. I've dropped it a few times around here of late, might as well do it again…
    The gravity well image of the large planetary body warping space time in downward fashion? Like hanging in a hammock? It's almost quaint in it's colloquial ignorance.

    I'm a big fan of Dr Hoffman. I think he is really on point here. I'm starting to believe that much of physics is exploring our interpretation of reality, and is like explaining the actions of the email program within the computer through highly detailed pixel analysis and even noting the large glass sheet the pixels seem to reside in. They know what kind of chemicals the glass sheet is made from through spectral analysis. So the email program operates via pixel manipulation and glass containment. Pay no attention to the big box way over there in the corner. That shit is pseudo-science – no tenured profs believe that…

    Alring, moving on…

38. It just hit me! Hoffman is talking about what Phillip K. Dick called V.A.L.I.S.=V.N.C.A.

39. I'm beginning to think anyone who hasn't had a taste of eternity, or the relative infinity of space, will not be able to understand Hoffman's basic take on the unreality of space-time.

40. Fascinating! Thank you for posting this interview. It’s all frameworks for dealing with what is beyond our understanding. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying. Some day, through the effort, we will undoubtedly evolve to a brain that can grasp the truth.

41. ''the strange glitzy bug in the wiring''=SOUL? vile luciferian thinking here. the truth he calls false anything false he calls true. as usual theyre trying to kill God. in fact they already by incessant and monstrously cruel experiments have torn up the brains of living men..they know at the top the same as we know at the bottom. consciousness isn't in the brain. its in the universe. the fact that he either doesn't know or is lying shows he is an evil thing and part of this theosophical movement to capture spirit ..and make it their slave.

42. Seems to me, the hard problem of consciousness derives directly from the lack of a definition. If it had a definition we would know what it is. It would be what the definition says it is (if the definition captured the reality of it). Wouldn't the best possible starting point be to come up with a statement of definition? Is language evolved sufficiently to permit of a definition? (analogous: did History exist before Herodotus invented the concept).

    Isn't it possible, in principle, to translate any mathematical statement into an English language equivalent? Aren't English language statements more or less crystallizations of thoughts? Aren't thoughts the sole constituents of the conscious? Isn't there an ineradicable uncrossable chasm between thoughts and 'reality', solipsism aside? Thus with the encoded messages from the sense organs what does it matter if the atoms in the nerves are desktop icons or not, the messages are the same, abstract and immaterial. The words entering the ears are meta-encodings impressed on the frequencies generated by the cells at the bases of the cochlear cilia desktop icons, only extra abstract and immaterial. All of these abstract immaterial messages flow in massive parallel waves through the pattern recognizing memory circuits, the relevance to self circuits, the action synthesizers and all the myriad parallel goings on in the brain desktop icon such that one can eventually suppose that some extraordinarily complex subset of all this activity is what we call conscious and all of it "lives" in and on the desktop. And it's all metaphor. Why would we expect to find anything 'behind' the desktop that isn't metaphor and behind that more metaphor so that it's metaphor all the way down?
    Or am I missing some key concept that will allow me to escape from my metaphorical materialist flavored prison?

43. the trees also have to make the apples look attractive to us, in order for us to pick the apple and eat it, and thus spreading the seed in order for the tree to reproduce, so it's a two way thing.

Comments are closed.