Blowing Your Mind – as Promised (Dilbert Strikes Again!)

Scott Adams' Blog ^ | 9/23/16 | Scott Adams

[Garth Tater]

To support his contention that we see is not reality but only what evolution has designed us to see Scott Adams links us to an article where cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman (I'm using the term scientist loosely here) says:

"Given an arbitrary world and arbitrary fitness functions, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but that is just tuned to fitness."

the article then states:

To test this idea, Hoffman and collaborators have run evolutionary simulations with different kinds of fitness functions — some of those tuned to reality and some having nothing to do with reality. The non-reality functions almost always win.

All they have done here is created computer models to "show" that their non-reality based "fitness functions" are as good as or better than reality based functions. But this is not the case. Hoffman starts by saying "Given an arbitrary world and arbitrary fitness functions" and then he goes on to create SPECIFIC functions that he can use in his computer models to "prove" his hypothesis - that reality based perception is not the best way to reproduce your genes. There is no way that ARBITRARY functions would as Hoffman states, "almost always win" over reality based fitness functions but I'm sure you could CHERRY PICK some functions that would out perform the reality based function in the computer model the YOU DESIGNED to prove your hypothesis. Science? Not so much.

Just like the global warming models - design the model that will show your desired outcome using your cherry picked data.

I think Hugh the Scot has it exactly right:
Reality: That which continues to grind your face into the concrete, even after you stop believing in it.

[dangerdoc]

I was referring to his other blog posts, but I read that article also.

[ckilmer]

The point of the author is that senses are designed & optimized so that their owners can have babies.

[kiryandil]

The author believes he’s unique, and can see a reality that no one else has perceived.

Actually, he says that everyone is playing their own private movie in their head.

As long as your movies don't conflict (i.e. - Musloid head movies), everyone gets along.

He doesn't believe he's unique. He just says his training allowed him to recognize what the Trump patterns were all about, and to be able to somewhat predict the ensuing events.

I read the attached article by Donald Hoffman, cognitive scientist. I will have to go more deeply into it, but on the surface, Hoffman appears to be describing what I call the "framework" that everyone lays over reality in order to function in the world.

Enlightment and its manifestions occur when you successfully remove the framework.

[kiryandil]

Maybe he actually thinks writing this article will get him laid.. Then it all makes sense.

He says Kristina is too young for him, and besides - he already has a girlfriend...

[ckilmer]

While Adams is a secularist — his work does point directly to the early 19th century english philospher Charles Barkley —who did believe in God.

[Mr. K]

” Smart, well-informed people disagree on nearly all major issues. So being smart and well-informed doesn’t help you grasp reality as much as you would hope. If it did, all of the smart, well-informed people would agree. They don’t”

Damn... that’s good

[HiTech RedNeck]

This is an incomplete view, however, unless we include what is purposed for the babies as well. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, people have and still do sacrifice children to evil.

[ckilmer]

What is purposed for the babies is that they should someday make babies as well.

I have seen atheists who did a very good job of managing their lives — mostly because they lived on fumes of their bible believing parents. However the atheist children are prone to divorce and all kinds of screw ups that typically come from a want of wisdom.

[HiTech RedNeck]

There certainly are wisdom issues. If you make enough babies you can spare some for Moloch, but what kind of life is that?