“The Evolutionary Argument against Reality”

This is, umm, really difficult stuff to wrap one’s head around.  I’m going to have to think about it quite a bit:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160421-the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality/

Two initial reactions, though:

1.

Charles Darwin used to worry, from what I’ve read, about whether it was plausible to assume that the brain of essentially a glorified ape, which had evolved to cope with the challenges of surviving and reproducing on the African savannah, was even remotely qualified to think about and recognize the nature of the universe or to do science.

Curiously, in a way, Donald Hoffman seems to be demonstrating that Darwin was right to be worried.  But, if Darwin’s concern was justified, how much stock should we put in Hoffman’s (or anybody else’s) theory?

It’s rather like the self-referential paradox of the famous proposition This sentence is false.  One grows dizzy.

2.

I like Professor Hoffman’s conviction that mind is primary.  At least, I like it at first glance.  Again, I need to think about it.  Quite a lot.