Donald Hoffman: Reality is an Illusion - How Evolution Hid the Truth | Lex Fridman Podcast #293

We ow you so much Lex. Thank you.

I don't agree to the guest

Welcome to Vedanta!

Very intetesting...he did a TED TALK, briefer I recommnd.👍👍👍👍

I can’t agree space is far more objective than time. A dog perceives time at a much higher rate due to the frames per second they perceive

Geometric forms are what consciousness truly appreciates. Because its s construct of Hue-Mans reality. Once you see an hear the hue of reality, you can truly effectively and efficiently create.

It's so rewarding when Lex chuckles to himself!

Certain psychedelics are strong enough they can completely shatter the paradigm of an individual. It can give access to very deep thoughts/experiences. But based on my own experiences, I personally can't equate them to the spontaneours non-dual experiences I had later. The clarity is unparalleled with spontaneous non-dual experiences. My 5-MEO DMT experience also didn't reach the level of Reality of which absolutely nothing can be said. Although very primordial in nature, 5 MEO DMT was still based on concepts like "I as a separate consciousness". The sense of oneness did come in the form of "I am" and "God is" are exactly the same kind of beings, but the understanding of oneness between my being and God's being was not at all at the depth or the simplicity of understanding it during my later non-dual experiences.

That is all I can add. Maybe there are people who had clear experiences of oneness with psychedelics, but unless the experience goes as deep as understanding "there is nothing I can say about this essence of Reality", there is not finality in understanding. So to repeat and this is very similar to stories of people having had a near-death experience. They also often speak of the oneness with other beings, but to me this is not the final sign of showing one has had a final experience. It for sure is a very important experience, but it sees oneness but lacks the inexplainableness of absolutely everything seen. That is why I end with something that I tried to not say but when you truly reach the level of Reality, there is as much understanding of it as there is absolutely no understanding of it.

Reality is so simple yet remains so inexplainable in that as soon as one attempts to explain it, one immediately is struck with the sense of "whatever I say about it, is going to be so wrong or so partial" that is just futile to attempt to explain Reality. Which is also why religious expressions of Reality are quite good examples, like e.g. if you want to see God, be God or you have to be God. All expressions of Reality are not Reality. There are mere attempts, merely pointers at Reality. To see it, you have to be it.

That is my last post on this entire video. Kudos and enjoy the search towards your true self.

"If there is being, then why are all the forms created?" Hoffman ponders. Answer, if all wortwhile is achieved IN being, all being could do is to conceive a worthless play. Worthless in the sense that it will never add "quality" to beingness, it will also never diminish beingness. Beingness is an eternal constant, while the characters and the matter inside the illusory play will continue to shapeshift forever.

There is always this balance or paradox or opposite qualities to absolutely everything, in the illusion of the universe and also beyond it. There is hot vs cold in the illusion of the universe and this extends all the way up to the very level of being vs non-being/play/unreal-characters-in-an-unreal-space-time-universe.

This is not a depiction of some theory or some philosophy. It is based on direct experience, direct seeing, direct knowing. It is known in a state (of being) that has nothing in common with the typical state of being A PERSON. That state of being is inside all of us and even inside all matter. There is absolutely nothing that this beingness is not (pretending to be in form and thought).

So really, there is really only one thing: beingness, Reality, consciousness, ... the name doesn't matter because words and concepts have never revealed it. And this fact also applies to everyday words, they really don't explain anything whatsoever. Words are merely conventions for forms and concepts we truly do not understand (at the most fundamental level). We just pretend to have some understanding while all understanding shows its ignorance when questioned further.

Roy: A life well lived

The confusion is already in the title.

Reality is real and unconfused, while the Universe is meant to confuse.

Don’t equate the universe with reality. That would be a step forward.

I have seen so many interviews where very intellectual people also confuse consciousness with the content or the observations made by their consciousness.

Separate Reality from the (illusory) universe.
Separate Consciousness from what is experienced (in/by consciousness).

These are all signs of the mind’s grip and dictation of what Reality is or is represented by.

The universe is NOT a representation of Reality and it never will. The illusion that is the universe will go on forever and ever, it will remain a play of forms and thoughts forever never reaching or revealing Reality.

Reality is a finished (no)thing and that happened an eternity ago, outside time is a better description. The universe in its eternal future, together with its eternal past will never reach the level of finality and originality that Reality already is. The universe is the eternal unimportant play.

What would you do if you found out you were Perfect beyond description?

Do you think there would be anything important left to do? Grasp the question fully. Think of Absolute Perfection and ask yourself the question: is anything that is happening amounting to something better (or worse)?

No should be your answer. You are merely forming opinions on such a limited set of experiences and such a limited set of theories/beliefs that perpetuate forming opinion after opinion, belief after belief, in a so called self-delusional certainty that you are correct/wrong/doubt what should be better or worse.

It is thought after thought after thought, …. . What is thought? Are thoughts real?

Aren’t all thoughts related to this physical surrounding you find yourself in?

So if you get a sense of the fact that thoughts aren’t truly real, then this also applies to the physical surroundings.

If that is hard to accept, see what doesn’t allow you to accept these words: it is just more thoughts.

Thoughts are like forciful experiences that acts like a dictatorship over the silent Truth. One typically believes thoughts have this objective and/or subjective quality that supposed to be an objective or subjective truth.

Which brings me to: explain to me whether any experience (mental or physical) is real?

What is real?

Would you accept a definition of “real” as ‘That which is always the same, which never changes”?

But are elementary particles real by that definition of “real”? Of course they are not real, they emerge and they vanish.
Energy shifts from one “excitation” to another. Also energy is not the same and cannot be real either according to that definition.

But the good news is that you will one day/one life find the Real, the Absolute Real and it will erase all doubts and it will also erase all the convincing beliefs you never questioned (enough).

The mind can and shall come to the understanding that it knows absolutely nothing (valuable and down to the fundamental level).
But that realization won’t ever stop the eternal illusion that IS the universe to go on. There is no need to stop an illusion. Stopping an illusion is part of the illusion.

The Real is truly Liberation of the bounds of mind beliefs, from the mental prison of the mind. And when the mind completely crumbles, the illusion of the body will also become apparent. The mind, your mind and seeing its falseness is the key to Liberation and Truth/Reality.

No mumbo jumbo :-), but direct instructions of what you can start doing from now on: negate the mind and its ideas and see what remains if you rid yourself of body and mind (thoughts) IDENTIFICATION. Don’t identify with the body and the mind. That is the first and the last step to Realization/Liberation. There is only one problem to solve: the mind is the problem.

Ramana Maharshi called the mind a disease.
Nisargadatta Maharaj called the mind “that which can only tell you what is not [truth]”.

How is this blah blah tron not a form?

If space time is not true how can higher dimensional forms be true.

Space, hyperspace, there is no difference whatsoever. Both are illusory physics and mathematical illusory constructs

The mind as the intellect is going to strangle itself for an eternity in ever more complex jargon and ever more complex models, all the time remaining riddled about what Reality truly is.

The mind is part of the Play. Play means to have fun, to do something unnecessary (to find truth definitely).

A silent mind will receive the truth. A mind that re-cognizes the silent (witnessing) merges back into Reality and becomes quiet and this reveals the Truth by being the Silent Truth

Reality is omnipotent in its illusory capacity and single and indescribable in its essence.

Maybe this is quite frustrating to many who read this, but have faith in the fact that that is what makes Reality so free, so blissful, so peaceful.

The mind is just an kneejurk reaction that tries to force its truth on Truth and all minds will forever be frustrated, will never reach Truth.

But the REAL YOU is Truth, here and now. Just look past all the bodily and mind experiences. Who or What is looking?
Understand that it is not your eyes, your brain that sees. Finding the eyes or the brain link to explain seeing is NOT seeing the whole picture: you are something beyond the eyes, the brain. That is really Seeing. But the understanding of this is NOT Intellectually.

Intellectual understanding is the first step of this inquiry. I would phrase it as the following: you need to see yourself function directly and through the understanding that everything you see is merely an experience. A thought, a sensation in the body, something happening outside the body, are just experiences. Can you truly find an experienced IF YOU LOOK WITHOUT THE PREJUDICE OF YOUR MIND’S BELIEFS?

There is NO ONE/NO PERSON seeing. Seeing is something impersonal. Reality is impersonal but it can play/pretend/picture/create-an-illusion that it is a person or multiple persons. Reality is omnipotent in illusory expressions while itself remains totally non-illusory, because it is NOT a form, NOT a thought, NOT a theory (which are thoughts).

Find that in you that is completely indescribable and you are AT IT/REALITY. But IT/REALITY will fully reveal itself if you have stabilized in that state of “being IT/REALITY/EXISTENCE”.

The way to Truth starts intellectually, one day it may become experientially and finally it will empty itself. When the emptying is complete, you have returned - without ever leaving ! - your TRUE STATE, Reality itself.

There is no object nearer to you then your-self. Research that and you will find. The truth is not far away in the universe or in concepts outside of like math, physics, religion, philosophy, … You have to find the Truth in You.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication [Da Vinci]

See the paradox of that quote of Da Vinci.

Reality is the simplest of all simplicity. The mind works FROM that simplicity, losing itself in its own self-inflicted complexity (of parts and concepts).

The mind is like a foolish reaction that first complicates matter into parts and then tries to reach the level of simplicity again, like a theory of everything, harmonizing all forces of nature e.g.

It is a contradiction for a mindful person to find enough faith/trust in the thesis that to silence the mind leads to Truth. The mind just simply won’t stop believing it is on the right track to Truth.

But one day/one life the moment (in the mind!) arrives when the mind has ripened enough to the see the fallacy of all scientific/religious/philosophical truth seeking. That all is based on beliefs or hope, purely misguiding the person one thinks it is.

One day the mind will really be ripe to face the Truth that itself and no one else will find ever find the Truth through intellectual reasoning or reasoning through causality.

All minds show their madness :-)
But on the positive side and which is inevitable:
“The fool who persists in his folly will become wise (and throws away very willingly all his beliefs)”

For people that are mathematically inclined: What if “1 + 1 = 2” is an illusion?

What if “1 + 1 remains 1”, would all the other math still be valid?

What if “in Reality (so not in the illusion!)” all remains 1 and the same essence?
We are all imagining there to be different 1’s, so math applies to the illusion only of separate 1’s.

We imagine so many things built out of separate different parts. It is just NOT so. There is only one essence in Reality. Only that essence is Real. With that essence illusory forms that come and go are formed. The essence is indescribable and indestructible and ONE (no)thing. So math deals only with illusory counting that isn’t REALLY Real.

Reality is so near, it is so simple that is so difficult for a mind that believes in forms and thoughts to look beyond itself.

A thought is not seeing thoughts. Something beyond thoughts knows thoughts. That is the way to the Real/Truth.

That is all that can be said about Truth. It is NOT This and NOT That. It is beyond words/thoughts with you here and now.

Space and time is just there to have a “screen” on which a picture or form can be presented. Space determines the size of a form while Time offers a duration for that form to be pictured and seen.

Our consciousness is formless. It has nothing to do with the body or the brain. Nothing whatsoever. That Consciousness has nothing to do with the brain is not disproven by brain damage not allowing consciousness to exhibit itself through a body/mind person. There will never be a research that can proof that consciousness arises from a complex organic structure. It will remain forever a belief.

One might think that is also true for the antithesis, but I am not here to proof anything. I am here to tell you 1) how all concepts and theories are baseless assumptions made of a lot of jargon (made up words that are based on an illusion) and 2) you will one day/one life really know Truth/Reality and you will see it is beyond all the mind’s efforts. The mind is a part of the illusion. And the mind cannot go beyond itself. Even this theory of Hoffman is not going beyond the mind, because his theory can only reveal we are living in an illusion. We can only talk of what is illusory, part of the pictures and the forms on the screen. Only a true no-body can “Know” the illusory screen and the Real Reality.


By investigating all the rules of a game, one will never reveal the potentiality of the game-maker. But the universe is without a Maker. This is no advocacy for a God either. As Rumi said: “I looked for God and found only myself. I looked for myself and I found only God”. God is not meant as a person concept. God is merely a word like Reality or Consciousness. It is the original and the final Truth concept, because we have to talk in words about it

The universe is indeed an illusion. But even if it is reached intellectual, this is not the end (or the beginning). Self-realization is an experience beyond words that shows the universe is an unreal projection, a play like a movie.
Self-Realization shows in an indescribable way that Reality is truly/truthfully indescribable. An unnamable essence that is forever beyond description, beyond all forms and thoughts. It is like a nothing that does/pictures/imagines all forms and all thoughts.

All forms and thoughts come and go, which is the definition of an illusion.

Our thoughts make us believe we can convert unknowing into knowing by inventing words for what we had a sense of “I don’t know”.
See the idiocy of that thought mechanism fooling you into believing words or language reveal some truth.

All science is baseless (without fundamental understanding) thought-word acrobatics. The same is true for religion or philosophy.

But the truth is with you now, as that sense of “I exist” (without words, without identification with any body or any thought).

Depending on your current state of mind, it will take weeks, months, years, life times to penetrate and realize again what you truly are.

I hope Donald Hoffman gets a chance to sit down with Elkhart Tolle sometime soon.

blood letting was a common practice back in those days.

SAME ..SAME..SAME...'HE' STILL OWNS ALL GOVERNMENTS, SCOOLS & CHURCHES!

It's amazing to what lengths people go to in an attempt to avoid reality

What a brutal way to have to try to explain that size doesn’t matter… haha

Wuu. Why can’t we alter reality completely with thought? Why can’t you turn into a flying pig now? If there’s objective reality, why reject space time as representing it? Why would 2 people looking inside a closed box report finding the same things? It’s fundamentally on scientific because it undermines the concept of third person repeatable experiment observation. His concept doesn’t resolve any unknowns. Space time can be fundamental and we also have consciousness. Removing space time doesn’t help explain consciousness. One doesn’t need to reject space time to be less ego driven.

This was the best

fokus beond spice/time . . .

Thought about "job security" for scientists? Could it not be better understood as? "LIBERATION to dance across the playground DISCOVERING" like a child, rather than "DECIDING" like a sad adult?

A consciousness that is MORE fundamental than space/time is a "God/god".... a consciousness without space time would have NO time to even realize it was conscious. SPACE allows for there to be a place for our brains/neurons to exist... while TIME is needed for us to be consciously aware of our existence.

I don’t know if this guy is brilliant or crazy. Either way my pea Brain is having trouble understanding this.

I want this linked talk to get to Hoffman. It may seem profoundly unrelated, but I don't think it is

Can you invite Swami Sarvapriyananda ?

Absolutely brilliant discussion where Donald Hoffman rises to the occasion and honestly opens up and shares his insight in to the nature of Reality. Beautiful and mesmerizing.

This guy reminds me of Neil deGrasse Tyson. He says things that sound good but is nonsense. IYKYK

"Questioning the foundation of reality can lead you to madness or truth, and the funny thing is you won't know which is which." FREAKING BRILLIANT!

I never could understand space time anyway so this changes nothing for me.

Thank you for this
Podcast
Lex you have the best intellectual understanding off this
Great questions and thanks for confirming the Math side off things
This is the path to Liberation and then Enlightenment with the teachings off the Heart sutra

If dont know our history we'll be doomed to repeat it but here we're repeating it regardless I thought to mention it here I just he'd that that while watching this video I thought of a new religion based on don't kiss an tell everyone persons thoughts are there own don't question them and don't push them on to others and mothers teaching kids and the better they they job the higher the the pay and death penalty to home wreckers both male and female to the one who those the wrecking and a lovely scar on the others face this will put incentive do you want to get married or not if your for the streets then stay in the streets but iv noticed the street people go out there to find people and ruin there Lifes little by little and it all comes down to if they have money how can it be mine oh yes ill have his kid but now youll have a pretty scar on your face to let people know were you stand a wreck less knowing the consequences an still took the risk of the death sentence to one and a scar on the other thats not just a silly mistake no the mistake is giving women the kid and monye for just having the kid but not caring for it as mother to child and just using as tool to hurt that man these women are evil children stuck in a full grown body its the way theyer being raised these children need both there parents that's why it's not death penalty for both of them and it sounds bad but could be any worse than now if anything it would only be harsh the first couple years while people adjust to not fuck everything that moves if your going to fuck it ask if there married they could lie tho ok come and stay for three days if they say im busy right now they have a family ok next idea out law porn it should not be a business just because you have a camera and recorded it does not make it art you could still make it but it's for personal use only hell still sell it but only in your community you'll be real famous memes famuse like you always wanted idk i could keep going but i imagine people will say its crazy and all i could say well its not crazyer than killing unborn children and you all love that so much you someone should creat a time machine and unbirth you since it so humane

He is trying so hard not to talk about the simulation while talking about it

I love Lex I’m this interview. So freaking smart. And he’s not letting his guest confuse him or wow him with science and math tricks that make absolutely no sense.

I'm not saying that conscoiusness doesn't adhere to rules of neruons or humanity, actually I am saying that.

A proton may have a consciousness.

Get Bernardo Kastrup on here!

Humans have a great, deep magination.

Sensational stuff guys. Interesting and terrifying at the same time. Because how dull and boring the other side must be? If we jack into this horrific place for 16 hours a day...

Astha chodo

Daya kari