https://www.skeptic.com/science-sal...eality-why-evolution-hid-truth-from-our-eyes/
Founder of Skeptic Magazine - Michael Shermer interviews Donald Hoffman about his idealist model.
Donald Hoffman is defending the position that consciousness is primordial to the Universe and that space-time and everything else emerged from it. He cites the
hard problem of consciousness as being one of the biggest problems for modern science. Hoffman's team has a proved mathematical theorem that states animals that see reality go extinct. Where as animals that only focus on rewards (mates, raising young, food, shelter) survive. He argues that consciousness is ultimate reality and space-time is like virtual reality googels or like a GUI interface on a computer that allows us to do what we need to do.
IE the icons on a computer screen showing an email aren't actually that. Programming languages, 01010101010's and circuits, elecricity and wires hide the truth of the computer program showing a icon and window. Hoffman argues that reality is the same way and consciousness is at the core of reality.
Shermer doesn't buy it. Shermer insist that there is no hard problem of consciousness and that consciousness is just what neurons do when brains get complex enough. IE an emergent property of matter and the by product of computation. Shermer points out that only a small minority of quantum physicist actually believe that consciousness collapses the wave function and Donald's main argument is a fringe interpretation. Shermer reminds Hoffman that even if quantum physics shows space-time is emergent that it would almost certainly have nothing to do with consciousness.
I am skeptical of Hoffman's model and idealism, but I fail to understand why Shermer doesn't agree a hard problem exist. It's almost like they are arrogant for denying consciousness can't be explained in the standard model. I'm most interested in learning why some scientist consider consciousness a part of the natural world that needs investigation and why others call it an illusion. Obviously most scientist aren't talking about consciousness, but the ones who are have these two distinctions.