The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes

Many scholars, heretofore, have claimed that it is possible to get beyond ‘absolute reality’. Even the twentieth century author, Shirley Jackson, opined in the opening line of The Haunting of Hill House that, “no live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.” And it seems apparent that one must check all certainty of the ‘real’ at the door before venturing onward. Having just finished Donald Hoffman’s book, The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes, I don’t say this lightly, but I feel I am forever changed. His thesis, concise and erudite as it was left me in a strange, albeit unfamiliar, place. Hoffman suggested that there is something going on just beyond our perceptions; that our genes have dismissed absolute reality as it poses no considerable threat to our survival. But did they throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water? Perhaps, but finding a testable hypothesis as to just what the ‘baby’ was in this case has been largely difficult. Many of the ancient Philosophers, Plato forward, had questioned the extent of perceivable reality, but none went as far as Hegel. The Phenomenology of Spirit, The Philosophy of History, and The Science of Logic are the three books that I’ve been trying to crack for the better part of ten years. I was interested to see how Hegel’s theory of the dialectic, that is, the Hegelian Dialectic, Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis, was first encountered, understood, and how he applied his theory in The Philosophy of History. I was not let down. My curiosity in this idea of absolute reality led me to studies like Hoffman’s and, of course, to art, such as The Matrix film series. In each case the idea that we are living in a simulation, or a matrix, is actually true. But it’s not just one matrix, it’s billions. Our perceptions are simulations within simulations. And Hoffman exposes this in countless ways. Hoffman argued that Hegel did not go far enough (and I now tend to agree with him.) What is reality, Hoffman postulated, but pixels on a screen that our minds create and then deliver familiar structures to our perception that we easily recognize to be either a spoon, or a tree. The reality is that there is no spoon; no tree. Our perceptions create these three-dimensional structures from whatever is there (the cosmic dust, so to say), we create these structures to familiarize them for our utility; akin to an app icon on your phone, obviously the ‘F’ for Facebook isn’t the true source of this app, it is rather, simply a tool to visualize the entirety of the app. It may at first seem obvious, but when considered at depth, the magic starts to unfold. The theory of ‘absolute reality’ is thinking in three-dimensional constructs and thinking structures. In many cases the mind does this for us automatically, but the question is how? If it is pure perception; pure intention, or just pure intuition, I am still unclear. But I am convinced that the source of our soul is our intuition, and it is our soul that interfaces with reality. This body, holding my soul, is the vessel for which my soul exists in this fleeting moment of material or physical reality. However, I also have a hunch that what the ancients took for wisdom, and the modernists discarded as mysticism, was closer to absolute reality. The ability to ‘feel’ and ‘know’ and therefore ‘trust’ nature as it exists in and around all of us may be the key to unlocking more about ourselves than we ever could through technology, AI, or venturing into the cosmos.

This book is mind bending and arguably has become one of my favorite books! I've marked up this book and even sent it to friends. It's not an *easy* read, but its phenomenal content if you are interested in cutting edge theoretical physics.

I haven't started the book but reviewing the packaging and the shipping it was great, it arrived when promised and was very well packaged. it is a soft cover. From the first look, I can also say that the letter is a bit small.

Great editing and authorship makes this book easy to understand from an outside perspective. Author has a unique position to present an amalgamation of data from his and related fields. However, the claims being sold on his press tours are greatly embellished and exaggerated. Although the thesis is technically true, it is still compatible with many contemporary philosophical views of ontology and not nearly as solipsistic as it has been portrayed. Additionally, there seems to be a lot of filler lines and reiterations of the same points throughout this short book. Highly recommended for anyone interested in science in general.

I liked this purchase

Read it as an audiobook years ago after seeing Hoffman’s TED talk. Bought this paper copy later so I could take notes and use it to write my philosophy dissertation. Very intriguing ideas laid out clearly. Fun and engaging read, not too dense. Highly recommend

A good read but it didn't change my views about the universe or life.

He was pleased to have such a book.

Beautifully stimulating, provocative and yet confirming.

The book arrived with the edges completely bent. I send it back and it arrived again in the same status

What you see is not what you get, and anyone looking for spiritual insight can learn this from this reality-shattering book.

Read this and cease to exist (at least as you thought you did)

Albert Einstein famously said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” The only things I have managed to glean from the negative reviews of this book are : 1. many were admittedly written by people who didn’t even bother to get past the first chapter(s), and 2. that many readers simply have forgotten Einstein’s aforementioned maxim. To think outside of the box is what led to many of our greatest scientific discoveries. To re-imagine the ideas of others before you in novel ways is the very ethos of scientific thought! So many negative reviewers of this book bring their own bias and simply want confirmation of what they already think is true, or want some new scientific insight that makes sense to their intuitions. If there’s any lesson to be drawn from our most recent scientific discoveries, it is that they all seem counter-intuitive! Evolution works blindly to increase the chance of the respective organism passing on its genetic information. It does not equip even us with the ability to grasp the fundamental realities of existence because it is useless to its main objective, this is a primary reason why so many of our recent discoveries don’t square with our “common sense” way of viewing the world around us. Does Hoffman build on the work of a host of scientists and philosophers before him? ABSOLUTELY. Which scientist doesn’t? Which philosopher doesn’t? I’m reminded here of Alfred N Whitehead’s infamous quote that all European philosophy is simply a footnote to Plato. There is plenty drawn from others in (among other disciplines) evolutionary psychology, natural selection, neuroscience, quantum physics, subsets of AI research, and even a non-theistic version of 18th cent Irish philosopher George Berkeley’s theories, (sorry there is nothing Solipsistic in this work as some reader’s seem eager to conflate), but the erudite manner in which Hoffman proceeds with his multidisciplinary work is engaging, thrilling, and indeed original. While you may not draw the same conclusions as he does by his final chapter (almost solely focused on consciousness - which even the leading scientists working on consciousness admit they still don’t understand!), the journey to get to this destination is an absolute joy, and as non-intuitive as it feels sometimes, his argument is concise, clear, and profound. As someone who reads almost exclusively popular science books, “The Case Against Reality” is on the short list of the genre’s absolute best for its abundance of thought-provoking ideas. (This despite my reservations about Hoffman’s final conclusion, which to his credit he admits needs further research and attention) My biggest critique : placing the quote from Deepak Chopra on the back cover praising the book is the biggest disservice the publisher did: yes it will help sell copies, but Deepak’s new age pseudo-science is a far cry from Hoffman’s accomplishments here. In summary, if you are the type of person that relishes the journey more than the destination, this is a must read. Like all great works, you may not agree with it, but it will leave you thinking about its contents long after you’ve finished the final pages.