Darren Lorente-Bull

Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist from the University of California, states that our perceptions are not a direct reflection of the objective world but rather a user interface designed by evolution. In his " Interface Theory of Perception" Hoffman argues that the reality we believe to perceive is not the objective "real" reality but an interface created by our brains to facilitate our existence by simplifying the scope of our perceptions, this is to say, an interface created for practical reasons since, the implication being, pure or total reality - whatever it might be- is impractical and poses in some  unknown  way a direct threat to our survival. Hoffman compares this  interface to a computer desktop, where the icons on the screen represent files and programs but are not the actual files or programs themselves.  It's a bit like Magritte's famous painting "The Treachery  of Images" or, to go straight  to the point, we are back to ...

The Allegory of the Cave is a story told by Plato in his book "The Republic." It is probably the best known piece by Plato and contains with in it  the basis of his "Theory of Ideas", the most important of his philosophical proposals and one that has endured in Western Philosophical and influenced philosophy as a whole.  Bertrand Russell suggested that the whole of Western philosophy is nothing more than a series of footnotes to Plato's philosophy.  Even Marx's idea of the Superstructure owes its existence to Plato's philosophy.  The Allegory or Myth of the Cave as it is also known, describes people who have lived their entire lives in a cave, facing a wall watching shadows that are cast by objects passing in front of a fire that is lit behind them. These people believe that the shadows are the only reality that exists even though in fact, they are just a distorted version of reality. When one of the people is freed and sees the outside world...