Fit to Live

Philosophy

What If Evolution Bred Reality Out Of Us?



September 6, 20166:24 AM ET

Commentary

Adam Frank

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Look around you. What do you see?

Other people going about their business? Rooms with tables and chairs? Nature with its sky, grass and trees?

All that stuff, it’s really there, right? Even if you were to disappear right now — poof! — the rest of the world would still exist in all forms you’re seeing now, right?

Or would it?

This kind of metaphysical question is something you’d expect in a good philosophy class — or maybe even a discussion of quantum physics. But most of us wouldn’t expect an argument denying the reality of the objective world to come out of evolutionary biology. After all, doesn’t evolution tell us we’ve been tuned to reality by billions of years of natural selection? It makes sense that creatures that can’t tell a poisonous snake from a stick shouldn’t last long and, therefore, shouldn’t pass their genes on to the next generation.

That is certainly how the standard argument goes. But Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist, isn’t buying it.

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