Donald Hoffman is a cognitive scientist who uses the mathematical theory of evolution to show that perceptions that portray reality accurately always lose to perceptions that maximize evolutionary fitness.
Hoffman also posits a “consciousness first” theory of reality. Instead of starting with elementary physics and trying to deduce consciousness from that, Hoffman starts with a mathematical model of networks of interacting conscious agents, and deduces quantum physics from this instead.
Basically he’s going: consciousness → quantum physics, instead of the other way around which is more common.
Pretty hard to sum up these ideas, but they are beautifully explained in the video below.
Agreed, in particular, it makes me think of AN 4.49:
“Monks, there are these four perversions of perception, perversions of mind, perversions of view. Which four? ‘Constant’ with regard to the inconstant is a perversion of perception, a perversion of mind, a perversion of view. ‘Pleasant’ with regard to the stressful… ‘Self’ with regard to not-self… ‘Attractive’ with regard to the unattractive is a perversion of perception, a perversion of mind, a perversion of view. These are the four perversions of perception, perversions of mind, perversions of view.
Thinking that you are this personal entity with a stake in a constant world, filled with attractive bodies, makes a lot of the sense from a fitness perspective; it does seem to create a lot of babies.
And it seems to be the same on the big scale; only the beings who are ignorant “procreate” by taking up rebirth, while the wise get weeded out by “dependent evolution”
