A Preview of Cc's "Hoffman playing Basketball in zero-gravity" a critical review of his "Case Against Reality"

I've put together this 9 page preview of my "Hoffman playing basketball in zero-gravity" critique in order to send a hard copy to scientists and others who's work I've featured during this project, maybe even get a little feedback.  

I'm sharing because during the year I worked on this project my homework has evolved into a rich student resource, with copious links, references and insights for the young critical thinker writing a paper or report.  Especially those that want to dig into Donald Hoffman's Case Against Reality, for themselves, this is a goldmine. 

That's also why I'm taking the opportunity to post this online and send hard copies to some others.  You see, I'm trying to find out if this resonates with anyone out there in the world beyond my rural Colorado cabin.  If the following does resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you.  Serious feedback, critique, suggestions, networking is invited.  

Thank you for your time, 

Peter Miesler (aka Citizenschallenge)

citizenschallenge at gmail

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 A preview of Cc’s “Hoffman playing basketball in zerogravity”

a critical review of “The Case Against Reality”

(5.01)    With a summary, explaining why I've pursued this project. 

These days science is under multiple attacks, much of it built upon malicious, deliberately fabricated falsehoods concocted by ruthless special self-interests, with bottomless bank accounts and control of screaming social media machines.  

But some is self-inflicted because in these modern times ‘provocative' gets more adulation than simple learning and constructively building upon understood fundamentals and exercising critical thinking skills.

An excellent example of this malaise is Donald Hoffman’s “Case Against Reality, why evolution hid the truth from our eyes,” with its insistence that science needs meta-physical thinking to comprehend human consciousness.  The book’s content, suggested to me, plain old Abrahamic dualism wrapped up in scientific pretense.  This has gotten me to wondering about how much of modern thinking, such as Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” of consciousness is intractable simply because they are still trapped within a bubble of Abrahamic inspired dualistic mindset, with its unrealistic divisions, impossible expectations, along with its superlative self-centeredness.

My project, Hoffman Playing Basketball in Zero-gravity Review is intended to identify the book's red flags and to offer solid critique, backed by information and sources that will provide students with the facts they need to see through Hoffman’s smokescreen for themselves.

Food for thought you could say. I'm specifically targeting those curious students already concerned with American’s descent into delusional anti-science thinking, students who are hungry for ideas on how to constructively confront today’s rising tide of belligerent willful ignorance. 

Steven Koonin lecturing climate scientists: Delusional Thinking 101 at Lawrence Livermore Nat'l Lab. Seriously? Why?

It is simply untrue that Prof. Steven Koonin is confronting climate scientists with unpleasant facts they ignored or failed to understand.   Atmospheric Scientist, Ben Santer PhD

I haven't done much on the climate science denial front lately, since it's gotten too depressing, especially for those of us who pay attention to the increasing imbalance and the ongoing and unsustainable degradation of our Earth's biosphere.  

Besides, seems to me it's not a problem with climate sciences, or the scientists who do it, we have achieved a plenty good at understanding the mechanisms unfolding within our global heat and moisture distribution engine and biosphere.  (Just need to be willing to do your homework and honestly learn about it.)

The problem is with the delusional thinking people love to wrap themselves within.  

Which is why I've move on a bit and why I undertook: Donald Hoffman Playing Basketball In Zero-gravity, my book review and student resource building project.

Interestingly, lately I've been thinking about Ben Santer and how he's been doing these days - since his case, seemed to me, one of the first where climate science denialists showed their complete willingness to engage in no holds barred, malicious, ruthless misrepresentations, character assassinations, and dirty tricks.  Then I read the following and figured why not give it a little more web presence, it's worth reading and thinking about.  

This is why I'm sharing this important PSA that I read at SkepticalScience.com.  For more on Ben Santer: My Climate Story - Ben Santer, also:

IPCC: the dirty tricks climate scientists faced in three decades since first report

August 27, 2020 - TheConversation.com

The Relentless Attack on Climate Scientist Ben Santer

May 16, 2014 - BillMoyers.com

The consensus-building process of the IPCC

February 12, 2012 - SkepticalScience.com

Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind

February 24, 2010 - RealClimate.org

Dr. Ben Santer: 'Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory'

Posted on 25 May 2021 by Guest Author, Ben Santer

This is a repost of Dr. Santer's statement via the Union of Concerned Scientists blog and we thank UCS for this permission.   (As I thank Skeptical Science and Union of Concerned Scientists for making my reposting possible!  Cc)

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has invited Professor Steven Koonin to give a seminar on May 27, 2021. Professor Koonin’s seminar will cover material contained in a book he published on May 4. His book is entitled “Unsettled”. Its basic thesis is that climate science is not trustworthy.

Professor Koonin is not a climate scientist. I am. I have worked at LLNL since 1992. My primary job is to evaluate computer models of the climate system. I also seek to improve understanding of human and natural influences on climate.

In collaboration with scientific colleagues around the world, our research group at LLNL has identified human “fingerprints” in temperature changes at Earth’s surface, in the atmosphere, and in the oceans. We have also found human fingerprints in rainfall and moisture. LLNL’s fingerprint research is one small part of a large body of evidence that contributed to scientific findings of a “discernible human influence on global climate”.

I have interacted with Professor Koonin since late 2013. Back then, he argued that uncertainties in climate science were large and were not fully acknowledged by climatescientists. In his view, climate science was not sufficiently “mature” to be useful to policymakers. Similar claims are advanced in his new book.

It is simply untrue that Prof. Koonin is confronting climate scientists with unpleasant facts they ignored or failed to understand. 

Zygmunt Pizlo, Philosophizing cannot substitute for experimentation: comment on Hoffman, Singh & Prakash (2014)

 Zygmunt Pizlo:  “I am an “expert” on 3D shape perception, so I will confine my comments about veridicality to shape. Unlike Hoffman et al., I do not have the temerity required to discuss veridicality in vision in general, as well as in smell, taste, touch and hearing in such varied species as humans, bees, and spiders.”

“… Any contemporary use of a Motor Theory of Perception, and this includes Hoffman et al.’s explanation of 3D shape perception, can be viewed as a legacy of psychology’s Dark Age called “Radical Behaviorism”. This is precisely what Hoffman et al. are offering us. As for me, “no, thank you very much.”

Zygmunt Pizlo’s paper does a wonderfully concise job of bringing Hoffman’s “veridicality” challenge back down to Earth and our three dimensional world.  This paper was 1200 words long and I whittled to 500 some odd.  Please visit the complete article for all the details. 

Philosophizing cannot substitute for experimentation: comment on Hoffman, Singh & Prakash (2014)

• Zygmunt Pizlo, September 18, 2015 

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

volume 22, pages 1546–1547 (2015)

Abstract  

The perception of a 3D shape must be excluded from Hoffman et al.’s “interface theory” primarily because shape is characterized by its symmetries. When these symmetries are used as a priori constraints, 3D shapes are always recovered from 2D retinal images veridically. 

These facts make it clear that 3D shape perception is completely different from, as well as more important than, all other perceptions because the veridicality of our perception of 3D shapes (and 3D scenes) accounts for our successful adaptation to the natural environment.

… when we talk about veridical 3D perception, we are referring to our natural visual space, that is, a space with natural, symmetrical objects residing, as they naturally do, on a common ground because of gravity. 

The concept of an “empty” visual space, used in laboratories, that contains only a few isolated points of light in total darkness, or a few objects floating in the air, no matter how attractive mathematically, is actually empty from an empirical, as well as from a computational, point of view. …

Jacob Feldman, Bayesian inference and “truth”: a comment on Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash.

   

Jacob Feldman:  “On that narrow question, it seems to me that Hoffman et al.’s position cannot be disputed: evolution favors fitness, not truth, beauty, or anything else except insofar as it is correlated with fitness. 

This is literally tautological in the context of Darwinian evolution, as it is essentially a restatement of what is meant by “fitness”—that which is favored by adaptive pressure. …”

Jacob Feldman,  Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Rutgers, focuses on Hoffman's “truth,” and it sure seems like he's agreeing with my layperson assessment that Hoffman's "truth" in ITP is a deception.  I encourage you to see if you agree with my assessment of Feldman's short paper “Bayesian inference and “truth”: a comment on Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash,” the original comes in at 1800 words, and here I’ve trimmed it to 500 words worth of highlights that I hope encourage you to read Professor Heldman's entire paper.

Bayesian inference and “truth”: a comment on Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash

• Jacob Feldman,  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

volume 22, pages 1523–1525 (2015),  September 18, 2015

Abstract

Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash (in press) argue that veridicality is neither required nor achieved by the visual system, and propose a new framework in which the literal truth of perceptual inferences plays no role. In this brief comment, I concur with and advocate their basic position, though I go on to argue that Bayesian inference already embodies a similar epistemological stance.

That “vision usually provides us with a veridical representation of the world” is a cliche so hoary that we vision scientists hardly stop to think about whether it is actually true. 

Hoffman et al. (in press) ask us to consider it a bit more carefully. Could such a truism actually be wrong?

It’s worse than wrong—it’s meaningless.

… Certainly, as Hoffman et al. would agree, the visual system does an exemplary job at resolving the ambiguity. But does it do so by giving us something true, or simply something useful? Or is this a distinction without a difference?

Shimon Edelman, Varieties of perceptual truth, possible evolutionary roots.

At one point in my critique I mentioned that Hoffman’s “veridicality” arguments were a smoke screen.    

Shimon Edelman promises to lend learned support to my position, but the paper is behind a paywall, and I’m focused on catching up with Hoffman’s list, so I’ll simply give it a mention and move along.  

I’m sure, if a student where interested enough to send him an email and request one, that Professor Edelman would be happy to send you a free reprint.  At least in my experience scientists have been helpful with responses and surprisingly generous with sharing theirs papers that are behind a paywall.  (Let him know Cc sent you.)

Varieties of perceptual truth and their possible evolutionary roots

• Shimon Edelman 

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

volume 22, pages 1519–1522(2015).  October 11, 2014

Abstract

Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash (2014) observe that perception evolves to serve as an interface between the perceiver and the world and proceed to reason that percepts need not, or even cannot, resemble their objects. 

I accept their premise, but argue that there are interesting ways in which perception can be truthful, with regard not to “objects” but to relations, 

and that evolutionary pressure is expected to favor rather than rule out such veridicality.

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Index

Cc’s Students’ Study Guide for The Case Against Reality. 

A critical review of, The Case Against Reality:  Why Evolution Hid The Truth From Our Eyes, by Donald Hoffman, ©2019, W.W.Norton Company

I intend to be a witness for a fact based DeepTime, 

Evolutionary perspective on our Human Mind ~ Physical Reality interface.

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(Titles are linked)

(1.01)  The Prelude, Prof Donald Hoffman Playing Basketball In Zero-Gravity

(1.02)  Chapter 10a, Community: Network of Conscious Agents (1/3)

(1.03)  Chapter 10b, Community: Network of Conscious Agents (2/3)

(1.04)  Chapter 10c, Community: Network of Hoffmanian Conscious Agents (3/3)

(1.05)  Chapter 1, Mystery: The Scalpel That Split Consciousness

(1.06)  Chapter 2, Beauty: Siren of the Gene

(1.07)  Chapter 3, Reality: Capers of the Unseen Sun

(1.08)  Chapter 4, Sensory: Fitness beats Truth

(1.09)  Chapter 5, Illusory: The Bluff of the Desktop

(1.10)  Chapter 6, Gravity: Spacetime is Doomed

(1.11)  Chapter 7, Virtuality: Inflating a Holoworld

(1.12)  Chapter 8, Polychromy: Mutations of an Interface

(1.13)  Chapter 9, Scrutiny: You Get What You Need, in Both Life and Business

(1.14)  Appendix,  Precisely: The Right to Be (Foolish)

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Hoffman/Prakash’s Objects of Consciousness, Objections and Replies

Frontiers in Psychology - June 17, 2014

(2.01)  4/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness,  (conclusion)

(2.02)  1/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness, questions + replies (1-12)

(2.03)  2/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness, questions + replies (13-17)

(2.04)  3/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness, questions + replies (18-21)

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(3.01)  Diary - But, wait!  There's more.  Ten Learned Responses:

“Probing the interface theory of perception: Reply to commentaries, by Donald D. Hoffman, Manish Singh & Chetan Prakash" 

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. volume 22, pages1551–1576(2015)

Abstract

We propose that selection favors nonveridical perceptions that are tuned to fitness. Current textbooks assert, to the contrary, that perception is useful because, in the normal case, it is veridical. Intuition, both lay and expert, clearly sides with the textbooks. We thus expected that some commentators would reject our proposal and provide counterarguments that could stimulate a productive debate. … (HSP)

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(3.02)  Barton Anderson - Where does fitness fit in theories of perception? 

doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0748-5

(3.03)  Jonathan Cohen - Perceptual representation, veridicality, and the interface theory of perception. 

doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0782-3

(3.04)  Shimon Edelman - Varieties of perceptual truth and their possible evolutionary roots. 

doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0741-z

(3.05)  Jacob Feldman - Bayesian inference and “truth”: a comment on Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash. 

doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0795-y

(3.06)  Chris Fields -Reverse engineering the world: a commentary on Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash, “The interface theory of perception”. 

doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0742-y

(3.07)  Jan Koenderink - Esse est Percipi & Verum est Factum. 

doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0754-7

(3.08)  Rainer Mausfeld - Notions such as “truth” or “correspondence to the objective world” play no role in explanatory accounts of perception. 

doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0763-6

(3.09)  Brian P. McLaughlin and E. J. Green - Are icons sense data? 

doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0780-5

(3.10)  Zygmunt Pizlo - Philosophizing cannot substitute for experimentation: comment on Hoffman, Singh & Prakash. 

doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0760-9

(3.11)  Matthew Schlesinger - Interface theory of perception leaves me hungry for more. 

doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0776-

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Student Resources - Background info:

(4.01)  Rainer Mausfeld: ‘Truth’ has no role in explanatory accounts of perception.

(4.02)  Paul Mealing: considers Hoffman's "Objects of Consciousness.”

(4.03)  The Case For Reality: Because Apparently Someone Needs to Make One

(4.04)  Sabine Hossenfelder: in Defense of Scientific Realism and Physical Reality

(4.05)  "Emergence" - A Handy Summary and Resources

(4.06)  Physical Origins of Mind: Dr. Siegel, Allen Institute Brain Science, Tononi, Koch.

(4.07)  Can you trust Frontiers in Psychology research papers?  Student Resource

(4.08)  Critical Thinking Skills - In Defense of Reality - A Student Resource

(4.09)  Philo+Sophia - Love of Wisdom - A Student Resource

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(5.01)    Summary, 

explaining why I've pursued this project.

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Dr. Mark Solms deftly demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” of Consciousness, while incidentally highlighting why Hoffman’s “Conscious Agents” are luftgeschäft. 

(6.01)  Dr. Mark Solms demystifies Chalmers' "Hard Problem" of Consciousness.

(6.02)  The Other Side of Mark Solms PhD, farmer, vintner, humanitarian.

(6.03)  Students’ Resource: A representative cross-section of Dr. Mark Solms' scientific publications.

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My homemade philosophical underpinnings.

(7.01)    An Alternative Philosophical Perspective - “Earth Centrism”

(7.02)   Appreciating the Physical Reality ~ Human Mindscape divide

(7.03)   Being an element in Earth’s Pageant of Evolution

(7.04)   It’s not a “Body-Mind problem” it’s an “Ego-God problem.”

Feel free to copy and share

confrontingsciencecontrarians.blogspot.com

Email: citizenschallenge  gmail  com

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