My guest today is cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman, author of the book "The Case Against Reality". Don has been making waves lately in a range of scientific fields with a theory of reality that splinters all of our preconceived notions. What if everything we thought was real -- the physical world around us and the notion of time -- are not reality but a vast surface-level operating system designed to guide our behaviors for evolutionary survival. What if understanding true objective reality were in fact counter to evolutionary success, and therefore the truth has been obscured from us. Don Hoffman is a cognitive scientist at the University of California, Irvine. In our conversation today we explore the nature of reality and of consciousness. Then over the next week I'm going to release a shorter episode, as a stand-alone addendum, on Don's process for moving beyond conventional wisdom and to generate truly original thinking -- plus a look into the secret club of brain scientists he was a part of for nearly two decades with some of the most brilliant minds in cognitive science. That mini-episode will follow shortly. Subscribe to the MIND & MACHINE future-tech newsletter: http://news.mindandmachine.io "The Case Against Reality" (Book) is at https://is.gd/thecaseagainstreality More on Donald Hoffman: Website: http://cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/donalddhoffman __________ More at: https://www.MindAndMachine.io