The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes - Hardcover

Hoffman, Donald

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9780393254693: The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0393254690 ISBN 13: 9780393254693
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019

Synopsis

Can we trust our senses to tell us the truth?

Challenging leading scientific theories that claim that our senses report back objective reality, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that while we should take our perceptions seriously, we should not take them literally. How can it be possible that the world we see is not objective reality? And how can our senses be useful if they are not communicating the truth? Hoffman grapples with these questions and more over the course of this eye-opening work.

Ever since Homo sapiens has walked the earth, natural selection has favored perception that hides the truth and guides us toward useful action, shaping our senses to keep us alive and reproducing. We observe a speeding car and do not walk in front of it; we see mold growing on bread and do not eat it. These impressions, though, are not objective reality. Just like a file icon on a desktop screen is a useful symbol rather than a genuine representation of what a computer file looks like, the objects we see every day are merely icons, allowing us to navigate the world safely and with ease.

The real-world implications for this discovery are huge. From examining why fashion designers create clothes that give the illusion of a more “attractive” body shape to studying how companies use color to elicit specific emotions in consumers, and even dismantling the very notion that spacetime is objective reality, The Case Against Reality dares us to question everything we thought we knew about the world we see.

40 illustrations; 8 pages of color illustrations

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About the Author

Donald Hoffman is professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine. His writing has appeared in Scientific American and Edge, and his work has been featured in the Atlantic, Wired, and Quanta. He resides in Irvine, California.

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Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date
2019
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0393254690
ISBN 13 
9780393254693
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
272
Rating
  • 3.87 out of 5 stars
    3,900 ratings by Goodreads

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780393541489: The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0393541487 ISBN 13:  9780393541489
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2022
Softcover