PsyArXiv
May 27, 2026
Andrew Robert Gallimore, Niffe Hermansson, Donald D Hoffman
preprint
Encounters with apparently autonomous and intelligent non-human entities are a striking and recurrent feature of high-dose N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) experi-ences. Such encounters are typically interpreted as complex hallucinations derived from internally generated brain activity, although many features of the DMT state remain a challenge to explain within the standard neuroscientific...
Frontiers in Psychology
2024
Robert Prentner, Donald D Hoffman
5 citations
The current stage of consciousness science has reached an impasse. We blame the physicalist worldview for this and propose a new perspective to make progress on the problems of consciousness. Our perspective is rooted in the theory of conscious agents. We thereby stress the fundamentality of consciousness outside of spacetime, the importance of agency, and the mathematical character of the...
Entropy (Basel, Switzerland)
January 9, 2023
Donald D Hoffman, Chetan Prakash, Robert Prentner
What are conscious experiences? Can they combine to form new experiences? What are conscious subjects? Can they combine to form new subjects? Most attempts to answer these questions assume that spacetime, and some of its particles, are fundamental. However, physicists tell us that spacetime cannot be fundamental. Spacetime, they say, is doomed. We heed the physicists, and drop the assumption...
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
December 1, 2019
Steve Paulson, Donald D Hoffman, Suzanne O'Sullivan
The prevalent view in cognitive science is that we construct our perception of reality in real time. But could we be misinterpreting the content of our perceptual experiences? Does what we perceive with our brain and senses reflect the true nature of reality? Might evolution have shaped our perceptions to guide adaptive behavior, without enabling us to see reality as it actually is? In a...
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
December 1, 2015
Donald D Hoffman, Manish Singh, Chetan Prakash
We propose that selection favors nonveridical perceptions that are tuned to fitness. Current textbooks assert, to the contrary, that perception is useful because, in the normal case, it is veridical. Intuition, both lay and expert, clearly sides with the textbooks. We thus expected that some commentators would reject our proposal and provide counterarguments that could stimulate a productive...