The Case Against Reality
When the male Australian Jewel Beetle searches for a female it follows a few very simple rules. "Look for something brown, shiny and dimpled". It so happened that discarded beer bottles, of a certain type, had these characteristics. The species almost went extinct (before the design of the bottled was altered) as males ignored females and swarmed on the bottles - they were bigger after all! Back when the beetle's perception system evolved there was nothing else in the environment that that had these characteristics, so additional rules such as 'look for something beetle shaped' were unnecessary. Donald Hoffman in his book The Case Against Reality argues that our perceptions, are like this. Do we see the world as it truly is? Hoffman says no. We see what we need in order to survive. Our perceptions are not a window onto reality, but instead are interfaces constructed by natural selection. Just as an email icon, on our computer desktop, tells us next to nothin...