Recently I listened to Donald Hoffman explain that the world we see isn’t the world as it is. And honestly, I wasn’t shocked. A little uneasy, sure. But surprised? Not really.
Evolution, he says, didn’t wire us for truth—it wired us for survival. What we see isn’t reality; it’s a user interface. Like icons on a desktop. You don’t open up your laptop expecting the trash can icon to contain a physical pile of crumpled papers. You just click it because you’ve learned what it does.
Same goes for the apple on your counter. You see red, you smell sweet, your brain says “food.” But what’s actually there? Something that triggers those reactions. Something you’ll probably never know firsthand. Hoffman calls it the “fitness-beats-truth” theorem. The idea that seeing reality as it actually is might get you killed. Better to see what keeps you alive, even if it’s a lie.
That part I could nod along with. I’ve misread plenty of situations in my life and survived just fine.
But then came the harder part.
Hoffman takes it further. He says space and time aren’t fundamental. That even neurons—the biological pieces we assume make up our minds—aren’t real in the way we think they are. Not because science is wrong, but because we’ve mistaken the map for the territory. Our models work, but that doesn’t mean they describe the truth.
Here’s where I started to squint. Because I like reality. I like having a couch to sit on, gravity to depend on, and a body that mostly stays where I left it. But I also get what he means. Every time I dream, I’m reminded that perception is fragile. Easy to fool. My brain can create entire worlds, vivid and immersive, without opening my eyes.
Still, it’s hard not to flinch when someone tells you consciousness doesn’t emerge from the brain—it’s the other way around. That everything we call “physical” might just be the shared hallucination of interacting minds. Not a metaphor. Actual minds. Like yours. Like mine. Like something else’s.
I’m not saying I buy it. I’m saying I can’t ignore it.
Because there’s a moment, after enough late-night walks or silent stares into the space around, where even the solid things start to wobble. Not physically. Just in their meaning. Your job. Your car. Your routine. They hold together because we keep pointing to them and saying, “Yes, that’s real.” But if reality is a kind of shared agreement, what happens when we start to disagree?
I don’t have an answer. Hoffman doesn’t either, not really. He just keeps asking the question: what if consciousness is fundamental, and space-time is a tool? Not a thing to believe, but a lens to try on.
So I’ve been trying it on.
Nothing big has changed. I still do the dishes and walk the dog. Still answer emails. Still get annoyed when my neighbor torches a blunt outside my bedroom window at 9 p.m. But there’s a small shift. A tilt.
Like maybe I’m not in the world. Maybe I’m rendering it. One icon at a time.
And maybe—just maybe—that’s enough to start asking better questions.
Not “What’s real?” but “What am I assuming?”
Not “Is this true?” but “Does this help?”
And when the icons stop responding, maybe that’s the system nudging us. Time to upgrade the interface.