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

Hoffman, Donald D.

ISBN 10: 0241262623 / ISBN 13: 9780241262627

Published by Allen Lane, 2019

About this Item

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. An apparently unread copy in perfect condition. Dust cover is intact with no nicks or tears. Spine has no signs of creasing. Pages are clean and not marred by notes or folds of any kind.

Seller Inventory # rev8626912085

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241262623
• ISBN 13: 9780241262627
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Like New
• Weight: 500 grams

About this title

Synopsis

A groundbreaking examination of human perception, reality and the evolutionary schism between the two

Do we see the world as it truly is? In The Case Against Reality, pioneering cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman says no? we see what we need in order to survive. Our visual perceptions are not a window onto reality, Hoffman shows us, but instead are interfaces constructed by natural selection. The objects we see around us are not unlike the file icons on our computer desktops: while shaped like a small folder on our screens, the files themselves are made of a series of ones and zeros - too complex for most of us to understand. In a similar way, Hoffman argues, evolution has shaped our perceptions into simplistic illusions to help us navigate the world around us. Yet now these illusions can be manipulated by advertising and design.

Drawing on thirty years of Hoffman's own influential research, as well as evolutionary biology, game theory, neuroscience, and philosophy, The Case Against Reality makes the mind-bending yet utterly convincing case that the world is nothing like what we see through our eyes.