Donald D. Hoffman - The Case Against Reality (Allen Lane, 2019) **

 I am usually open to any new ideas that scientists come up with, as long as they are substantiated and demonstrated, but Donald D. Hoffman goes a step further, presenting a theory that is almost impossible to understand. 

His theory is simple: reality as we know it does not exist. What is 'out there' is nothing more than imagery that our mind creates in order to navigate our lives. Hoffman formally denies solipsism, the notion that only I exist and all the rest is a figment of my imagination, but he denies that anything exists as we know it when we close our eyes. 

Hoffman throws in a lot of arguments to substantiate his hypothesis, including correspondence with Francis Crick, explanation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity and quantum physics. 

He uses the analogy of people thinking that a folder on their computer screen actually exists as a folder, when it is just an icon without real content, made up of only "zeros and ones". So are all the forms and shapes and movements we observe icons that our mind creates in order to be able to deal with reality. 

Hoffman throws in many names, from philosophers over physicists to cognitive scientists, very often in a very defensive mode, as if his hypothesis is already under attack, trying to counter the arguments people might have against his views. In my opinion this weakens his statement. 

The crucial question that if many people who do not know each other see and measure and photograph and otherwise observe the same thing across cultures and across time, and all agree that this is the same thing with the same proportions and shape, how can this then be a figment of the imagination? Or how is it possible that scientific observations counter the prevailing culturally accepted false perceptions? Is it not the case that science counters and corrects the false beliefs of our imagination, such as determined by culture, religion, ideology? Or even more simply, how is it possible to play tennis, when two people may be seeing different realities? How do I know that the ball that I hit to your backhand will not be countered by a forehand hit by you (of course except for the value judgment whether the ball was on the line or out)? 

His arguments are many, but his evidence is limited to analogies, metaphors and a set of perceptual tests that in my opinion do not support his hypothesis. It is not because many tests demonstrate that subjects do not see reality as it is, and create their own reality in their minds, as a result of the many flaws of our perceptual system, that reality does not exist. 

Nevertheless, it is fun to read about far-fetched ideas.