Thank you.
I've heard of him, but to refresh my memory, I referenced this article in Quanta;
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality-20160421/
While I agree with much of what he is saying, I'll try expanding on it through a minor contradiction he makes;
"I can take two conscious agents and have them interact, and the mathematical structure of that interaction also satisfies the definition of a conscious agent. This mathematics is telling me something. I can take two minds, and they can generate a new, unified single mind."
Versus;
"I can talk to you about my headache and believe that I am communicating effectively with you, because you’ve had your own headaches. The same thing is true as apples and the moon and the sun and the universe. Just like you have your own headache, you have your own moon. But I assume it’s relevantly similar to mine. That’s an assumption that could be false, but that’s the source of my communication, and that’s the best we can do in terms of public physical objects and objective science."
On the surface, these are obviously contradictory, so tying them back together;
For one thing, if you add anything together, you get one of something larger, or you haven't added them together!
Ingredients of a cake? One cake.
Actually what 1+1=2 really means is that if you add two sets of one, you have one set of two.
The problem is that when we do get into that hive mind state, it can lead to great advancements in civilization. Or the complete opposite. Aka, the Mob.
Because the second point is also true. We do feedback with and alter our environment, rather than there being an objective reality.
Which facilitates our success and progress.
Consider that the conscious state is not in direct control of our immediate motor reponses, or they would be too slow. Unlike many creatures, we are often not very situationally aware and connected to/one with our environment. Consider the response times of a fly.
We are constantly processing extraneous information, aka, day dreaming. Considering alternative possibilities, planning, etc. Basically learning and guessing, so future responses are better informed.
The difference between the awake state and actual dreaming is that we have to constantly reset to new information when we are awake and those bubbles of imagination pop. While when we are dreaming, the mind is just following those little streams of imagination around, in its own space.
Yet when we get in that hive mind state, there is a strong tendency to stick to those internal feedback loops and reject outside interference. Echo chambers.
Religions, political parties, various of the more humanities based academic fields, as opposed to some of the stem fields, which do have to acknowledge input, but even they get into some very traditionalist mind sets. For instance, don't try arguing that time is an effect of activity, turning future to past, as opposed to a linear dimension in which the present is a subjective experience, or you will be ignored, if not banned, in any math or theoretical physics discussions.
Consequently groups tend to ignore what is inconvenient and do all sorts of silly things, that individuals and outsiders can sense are going to end badly.
So, yes, reality is very much a mental construct and we need to better learn the advantages and disadvantages of that.
Which is to say, I fully agree with him, but feel he is only scratching the surface.
