I have decided to try to write here more often, so for the three to 300 people that read this blog, hopefully you come back and take a look.
I am now a tenured associate prof (Virgina Commonwealth University) and felt the urge to discuss a bit about Donald Hoffman (UC-Irvine). Hoffman champions the fitness-beats-truth theory (FBT), which, to be frank, is extremely compelling and perhaps equally alarming. Thinking the world is just a construction of the observer has been an idea championed by some of the greatest thinkers (Locke, Berkeley for two) and the hardcore version of this is called solipsism (only our minds likely exist). One immediate problem with this idea for me is how could, based on this thinking, our minds exist if we perceive them (i.e. look at neurons under a microscope). But I digress.
Most people who think about whether objects really exist do not think solipsism is correct-- mostly because it is so counter-intuitive (e.g. stand in a room with another person and a chair, close your eyes, and you still bump into the chair, and, furthermore, with your eyes close, the other person can still see that chair). However, this does not by any means prove any object like the one we perceive as a chair exists. It may mean we need to take it seriously (like we need to for we perceive as a venomous snake), as our senses certainly sense it to exist. But that says nothing at all about what actually exists in that space we perceive a chair. Again, while it is very intuitive that the sun and your television exist, there is no evidence that what we perceive are veridical. Hence, why thinkers come down on both side of the fence (if it exists) on this.
FBT is a scientifically compelling conclusion we unfortunately (i suppose, depending on what you believe) must accept. Evolutionary game theory for one has all but proven FBT to be true. That is, if one accepts evolutionary theory to be true (like I do) and since we evolved to have grandkids and not to see things are they truly are- evolutionary game theory has demonstrated practically without a shadow of doubt that truth would have not co-evolved with fitness. Hoffman's latest book, The case against reality: How Evolution hid the truth from our eyes, uses examples of game theory to demonstrate how this is so, and i won't get into it here.
Anyone that owns a dog knows what coprophagia can look like- some animals and even plants, thrive off eating poop from (mostly) other animals. We can see the divergence in people- not only is this disgusting to us, it would make us extremely sick. Since it is not good for us (decreases our fitness), our senses have developed accordingly, to react viscerally to it. On the other hand, coprophagous animals have no such reactions. Of course, since it helps them survive (increases their fitness), they likely derive pleasure from it. We may think of it was a matter of taste but that would be missing the point; besides, there are real tastes perceived from mind-- we use words like "bitter" and "sweet"- that would be almost certainly discordant with how coprophagous animals detect the taste.
How is it that there could be such diverging sensual responses to something, to us, and many plants and animals, to something as disgusting as that? How about thermophiles that think 120 degrees is a bit breezy? Or maggots that feel at home in a deer carcass?
The answer simply is different organisms have evolved to perceive things that happen to correspond to how they evolved to give them the most fitness points. Although painstakingly counter-intuitive, there is no good reason whatsoever (and on the contrast, almost mathematically certain) that we have evolved with very little true information about how the external world objectively is.
Now, I have no idea what Hoffman's worldviews are, and, as these are metaphysical in nature, don't belong in a science book of any sort.
But of course, thinkers like Lewis and Plantinga have made metaphysical leaps here based on similar but less severe (and less scientific) accusations. Essentially they argue, if our brains evolved over time through natural selection there is no good reason to suspect they have true perceptions and perceive things as they truly and objectively are, nor can evolving brains be relied on to understand, say, where that matter came from in the first place. While this may seem like a similar conclusion one could draw metaphysically from FBT, I would disagree. If FBT was accepted, I suppose if this was 1962, Lewis could go much further to support his metaphysical claims. Namely, it seems to me FBT could move the argument from "no good reason to suspect" to "is not possible".
Then what now? How could a naturalist dig his heels in here? I have to admit this: the ramifications of FBT alone would seem daunting to me if I had a naturalistic worldview.
