Have you ever wondered what it would be like to stumble on a major secret of reality?
It happened to cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman and it rocked his world.
In this three hour interview with Lex Fridman he said: "It was in 1986 that was the first time I realised we are not seeing the truth and it hit me like a ton of bricks"
His theory and revelation still troubles him.
He said: "I spend a couple of hours a day meditating on this and rebelling against these ideas. It scares the hell out of me. Something inside says I'm crazy"
What he and many other scientific minds find hard to take is, as he puts it: "You are the author of space/time. You're not a little entity in space/time - you're the cause of space/time"
He says the reductionist concept of space/time "is doomed. But beyond this is a deeper reality. We don't know what this reality is, but it's not what you see".
His best selling book The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes suggests that humanity has evolved to view just the world we need for survival but not true reality. It argues that consciousness may be fundamental and creates matter rather than the other way round.
He often uses an analogy that what we see can be likened to the symbols on a computer desktop - they are just a symbolic representation, not reality.
No UFOs mentioned in this marathon interview but he does suggest that travel to the stars may be possible "if we move beyond space/time".
He said: "A century from now they will be laughing at us for being so dumb. The text books are going to look silly in sixty years"
Donald nearly died in the recent Covid epidemic.
He said he sent a goodbye 'I love you' text to his wife from the emergency room.
Asked at end of the interview about the meaning of life, he said "All I can guess is that consciousness wakes up to itself by knowing what it's not. It needs to know what you are."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reYdQYZ9Rj4 Here Researcher Chad Wik Speculates About Beings Who May Exist in a Primary Reality Beyond Space and Time With the framework of Hoffman’s Conscious Realism, the reality we live in is basically a VR simulation, except instead of being powered by computers it’s powered by our own consciousness in a giant neural network comprising all conscious beings. It’s a collective agreement.
Beneath this conscious reality is a primary reality which may be outside of the bounds of space time. The world we have created is basically a shortcut to allow us to exist within it using only the senses we have evolved with, and the necessary components for life to flourish.
One can easily imagine that beings exist in this primary reality. Maybe they even facilitated the entire thing, creating the initial Conscious Agents required to kickstart reality. Either way, a separate space exists. You could even call it another dimension.
These beings have the ability to interact with us, but it’s much easier for them to do so if they follow the rules of the simulation. So they manifest bodies. They manifest craft. Using consciousness, they manifest whatever they want. And they can interact with us.
But doing so is hard work, because it can’t disrupt the shared conscious agreement or it might bring the whole thing crashing down. Think of them as modders, tweaking the game just enough to do what they want without causing it to break. They can easily make minor tweaks.
Doing so on a larger scale requires tweaking the structure, basically a rewrite of the rules created by consciousness. So what do they do? They interact with the individual conscious agents to get them to agree on the tweaks. Then they’re not tweaks anymore, they’re rules.
In this fashion, the beings that exist in the primary reality can facilitate larger and more impactful interactions with our conscious reality. But they have to start small: Synchronicities. Precognitive visions. A glimpse out of the corner of the eye. It can’t be disruptive.
But as a conscious agent becomes more accepting that reality isn’t real, They can make more dramatic intrusions. And They encourage the agent to spread the word: “Go tell others what you’ve seen.” Because by doing so, more conscious agents agree on what is -allowed- to happen.
The more the conscious agents know, and believe, the more the Others in primary reality can interact in increasingly dramatic ways—first individually, then collectively.
This is how things change. This is why they abduct. This is why paranormal events occur. Miracles even.
Disclosure won’t ultimately be just about UAPs. It’ll be about allowing the Others to fully engage in our reality. Maybe it will even allow us to interact in theirs. (I think primary reality is where we go when we die, but that’s another story.)