Donald Hoffman performed thousands of experiments examining the evolutionary roots of perception. He created a simulated world and populated it with organisms that accurately perceive the world, and organisms that only perceive fitness payoffs.
Fitness always beats truth. Organisms that perceive objective reality always go extinct. That includes our distant primordial ancestors. Perceiving objective reality is a waste of resources, it’s inefficient. That’s why we don’t. Like Hoffman’s fitness perceiving organisms, we perceive fitness payoffs, not objective reality. Things like objects, spacetime, colour, see just artefacts of our simplified perceptual interface. They’re not objective reality.
No, My subjective reality isn’t the same as yours. They share some features, such as the internet. But they’re very different in other respects. For example, I respect otherkin. Otherkin are those whose species identity is different than human. It comes down to a difference in the brain, same as being trans. Since I’m an antirealist who values respect for identity over the social construct of species, I choose to perceive otherkin as they wish to be perceived. I spent time training Myself to be able to rewrite My perceptions so that I could perceive people as they wish to be perceived with less effort.
Let Me ask a question, and I think this question will help you understand what I’m talking about. If you met a monkey-kin at an ice cream social, having initially perceived them to have a human body, would you upon being properly introduced, hypnotise yourself into seeing a monkey tail behind them?
I do do everything I can to see that monkey tail. Like I said, I value that person’s identity over the social construct of species.
I’ve never met a monkey-kin either. It’s actually a super rare kintype. I think that’s because monkeys are so closely related to humans, that all the monkeys out there don’t tend to notice their species dysphoria. It’s too subtle.
But I’m dating a shark I met online. Its name is Ivy. Ivy’s come to visit Australia, and while it was here, I put in the effort to perceive its tail. It really likes getting its tail stroked, so I did that. There was no physical contact in consensus reality, but Ivy really liked it.
If Ivy heard you say that it’s objectively a human, Ivy would be sad. That’s not the way Ivy sees it. Ivy doesn’t want to be a human. Ivy’s a shark. It doesn’t believe in species the same way you believe in species. Neither do I. Neither of us thinks species is so important that it should be held above people’s identities.
Thank you for trying to respect Ivy. But I hope you won’t mind if I think what you’re saying is ironic. See, you’re treating Ivy like a human in order to protect it from the consequences of your realism.
Sharks can’t talk. That’s a fact most people can agree is objective. But if you treat sharks as a social construct and consider Ivy a shark, then suddenly there’s a talking shark! It’s Ivy!
That’s what antirealists call magic. I just took responsibility over My beliefs about reality, and changed them in a way that brought talking sharks into the world. I cast a spell of prestidigitation to create a talking shark. And it’s a simple parlor trick, but I hope it demonstrates the function of antirealist magick nearly.
Now, if Ivy is a talking shark who can’t breathe water, can you see how it’s possible to respect Ivy’s identity and treat its dysphoria without abusing it?
Donald Hoffman performed thousands of experiments examining the evolutionary roots of perception. He created a simulated world and populated it with organisms that accurately perceive the world, and organisms that only perceive fitness payoffs.
Fitness always beats truth. Organisms that perceive objective reality always go extinct. That includes our distant primordial ancestors. Perceiving objective reality is a waste of resources, it’s inefficient. That’s why we don’t. Like Hoffman’s fitness perceiving organisms, we perceive fitness payoffs, not objective reality. Things like objects, spacetime, colour, see just artefacts of our simplified perceptual interface. They’re not objective reality.
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No, My subjective reality isn’t the same as yours. They share some features, such as the internet. But they’re very different in other respects. For example, I respect otherkin. Otherkin are those whose species identity is different than human. It comes down to a difference in the brain, same as being trans. Since I’m an antirealist who values respect for identity over the social construct of species, I choose to perceive otherkin as they wish to be perceived. I spent time training Myself to be able to rewrite My perceptions so that I could perceive people as they wish to be perceived with less effort.
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Let Me ask a question, and I think this question will help you understand what I’m talking about. If you met a monkey-kin at an ice cream social, having initially perceived them to have a human body, would you upon being properly introduced, hypnotise yourself into seeing a monkey tail behind them?
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I do do everything I can to see that monkey tail. Like I said, I value that person’s identity over the social construct of species.
I’ve never met a monkey-kin either. It’s actually a super rare kintype. I think that’s because monkeys are so closely related to humans, that all the monkeys out there don’t tend to notice their species dysphoria. It’s too subtle.
But I’m dating a shark I met online. Its name is Ivy. Ivy’s come to visit Australia, and while it was here, I put in the effort to perceive its tail. It really likes getting its tail stroked, so I did that. There was no physical contact in consensus reality, but Ivy really liked it.
If Ivy heard you say that it’s objectively a human, Ivy would be sad. That’s not the way Ivy sees it. Ivy doesn’t want to be a human. Ivy’s a shark. It doesn’t believe in species the same way you believe in species. Neither do I. Neither of us thinks species is so important that it should be held above people’s identities.
(deleted content)
Thank you for trying to respect Ivy. But I hope you won’t mind if I think what you’re saying is ironic. See, you’re treating Ivy like a human in order to protect it from the consequences of your realism.
Sharks can’t talk. That’s a fact most people can agree is objective. But if you treat sharks as a social construct and consider Ivy a shark, then suddenly there’s a talking shark! It’s Ivy!
That’s what antirealists call magic. I just took responsibility over My beliefs about reality, and changed them in a way that brought talking sharks into the world. I cast a spell of prestidigitation to create a talking shark. And it’s a simple parlor trick, but I hope it demonstrates the function of antirealist magick nearly.
Now, if Ivy is a talking shark who can’t breathe water, can you see how it’s possible to respect Ivy’s identity and treat its dysphoria without abusing it?