“Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away… “
from Antigonish by Hughes Mearns
Last month, I looked at the utility of using reductionist methods to explain consciousness. This month, we are going off the philosophical deep end and looking at the notion that our consciousness creates our universe.
Donald D. Hoffman, a psychologist, has studied “consciousness, visual perception, and evolutionary psychology using mathematical models and psychophysical experiments.” (Wikipedia). He has raised some interesting and controversial questions. “Why has the hard problem of consciousness remained intractable for centuries despite determined efforts by brilliant scientists? I think the culprit is our assumption that our perceptions reveal a reality that exists even if unperceived. We see neurons when we peer through microscopes. We assume this means that neurons exist even if we don’t peer. … So, instead of proposing that particles in spacetime are fundamental, and somehow create consciousness when they form neurons and brains, I propose the reverse: consciousness is fundamental, and it creates spacetime and objects.” (Hoffman, 2019)
This is a difficult conclusion to accept. I am perfectly content to live my life based on the assumption the universe exists regardless of me. There are many religious philosophies that agree with Hoffman to the extent that life is an illusion and true reality is elusive. Still religion, while very useful for dealing with the vicissitudes of life, does not trump physics. No matter what, the stars are there.
There is something nagging between the lines here. The crux lies in perception. When I look at something, what I see in my mind is not a literal image of what is there, but an abstract construct created in my brain from the light data gathered by my eyes. What my brain constructs, according to Hoffman, is conditioned by how my brain has been trained and what humans deem important. So, if my brain does not attach importance to some of the light data, that data is not used in the final image. Hoffman also posits that for some data our mind substitutes a simpler image than the data would allow. This simpler image, or icon, makes for faster processing. Hence, what I see is not what is; at least not to some extent.
Attention too plays a role in perception. If I am making a left turn in my car and I quickly scan left and right but I’m also changing stations on the radio, the car on my left may not be there in the image of my mind. I’m not paying attention to it. When that car collides with me, I truly never saw it.
So, in the end there is something very subtle about consciousness. My consciousness appears to exist outside of the physical world. It is easy to feel that my consciousness has in some spiritual sense always existed and the universe came later and, as a temporary thing, will pass away.
Still the stars exist.
My columns are always meant to stimulate reflection. Today, I wander onto slippery slopes. I would love to learn your thoughts in the comments.
Resources
- Antigonish, Hughes Mearns, Poem-a-Day.
- Donald D. Hoffman, Wikipedia.
- Imitation and Extinction: The Case Against Reality, Donald D. Hoffman, Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly Journal: Imitation, No. 23, August 2019.
- Objects of consciousness, Donald D. Hoffman and Chetan Prakash, Frontiers in Psychology, June 2014.
- Hoffman’s Conscious Realism: A Critical Review, Leslie Allen, Rational Realm, 2022.
- Do We See Icons or Reality? A Review of Donald Hoffman’s The Case Against Reality, Brian Martin, Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2019.
- Life’s Illusions: A Common Theme Across All Religions, Universal Enlightenment & Flourishing, Medium, October 2022.
- Photograph: Deep space image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Imagine looking back at the birth of the universe via ancient light.
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