Donald Hoffman: What if Consciousness Isn't a Product of Evolution?

  Donald D. Hoffman is Professor of Cognitive Science, University of California, Irvine and author of Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See and coauthor of Observer Mechanics: A Formal Theory Of Perception.

Donald Hoffman: ..."So I don’t take our perceptions of space and time as literally true. I take them as a desktop. (4:19)

To solve the mind–body problem I’ve tried to say, let’s take consciousness as fundamental. So what’s behind the interface is consciousness, right, just like in the example of the computer. what’s behind the screen are all those diodes and resistors and so forth. Yeah, I’m saying what’s behind space and time and physical objects for us is a world of what I call conscious agents or consciousness. (4:41)

The nice thing about that theory is, I’m conscious, you’re conscious. I’m proposing that the objective reality behind this interface is not utterly alien to who I am. There is a chance for me to begin to understand that objective reality behind the interface because I’m not utterly separated from it so it’s a different situation than what’s behind the computer screen so anyway." (5:07)

Robert Lawrence Kuhn: "Yeah, but are you saying that consciousness was there before the process of evolution began? (6:13)

Donald Hoffman: "That’s right. I, you know, I say that with a tremor in my voice. Absolutely so. For me to be entirely consistent, if I’m going to actually say that consciousness is fundamental, then I’m saying that the Big Bang itself is something that has to be understood from within a framework in which consciousness is fundamental. The standard view — and I understand that this is completely non-standard, what I’m saying — the standard view is that the Big Bang happened 13.7 billion years ago. Eventually, consciousness kind of arose accidentally here on Earth and maybe other places and totally accidentally, that’s right? So my story is completely different. "(6:54)

Robert Lawrence Kuhn: "So when I asked the question, how did consciousness emerge through an evolutionary process, your answer is it didn’t. "(6:59)

Donald Hoffman: "That’s right. Consciousness didn’t emerge from a prior physical process of evolution. Consciousness is fundamental and so we have to rethink the whole history of the universe actually from this point of view, from The Big Bang up through evolution. We have to rethink it in terms of how to rewrite that story, consistent with all of our current science but understanding that it’s … consciousness is fundamental, not the physical universe (7:23)

And, you know, one thing that comes out of this as well is, no one has been able to give a reason for why consciousness would evolve. What is it for? And so my attitude is, it didn’t evolve. It’s the ground from which evolution occurs. "(7:38)>


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4Y1kvpjO9Q&t=460s

see also https://mindmatters.ai/2023/01/neuroscientist-consciousness-didnt-evolve-it-creates-evolution/

https://mindmatters.ai/2023/01/neuroscientist-consciousness-didnt-evolve-it-creates-evolution/