DONALD D. HOFFMAN

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PHYSICS WORLD BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019'One of the deepest and most original thinkers of his generation of cognitive scientists. His startling argument has implications for philosophy, science, and how we understand the world around us' Steven Pinker 'Is reality virtual? It's a question made even more interesting by this book' Barbara Kiser, Nature Do we see the world as it truly is? In The Case Against Reality, pioneering cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman says no? we see what we need in order to survive. Our visual perceptions are not a window onto reality, Hoffman shows us, but instead are interfaces constructed by natural selection.

Hace ya mucho tiempo que conocemos la importancia del coeficiente intelectual. Y estamos también empezando a apreciar la de la inteligencia emocional. Sin embargo, existe otra dimensión fundamental de la inteligencia que ocupa aproximadamente la mitad de nuestra corteza cerebral y que en gran parte pasa desapercibida. Esta inteligencia visual viene a decirnos que el ojo, lejos de dedicarse solo al registro pasivo de un mundo preexistente, en el fondo es un instrumento privilegiado que se dedica a establecer un primer contacto con todos los aspectos de nuestra experiencia, desde la forma en que se mueven los animales hasta los matices de la luz al atardecer. A traves de un estilo informal y repleto de ejemplos, el cientifico cognitivo Donald Hoffman nos presenta incontestables evidencias del poder constructivo de la vision y, al hacerlo, nos desvela toda una gramatica de lo visible: un conjunto de reglas que rigen nuestra percepcion de las lineas, el color, la forma, la profundidad y el movimiento. Hoffman tambien describe la perdida de estos poderes constructivos en pacientes que han sufrido lesiones devastadoras: el pintor que ya no puede ver los colores ni siquiera en sueños, la mujer que ya no es capaz de cruzar la calle sola porque ha perdido su percepcion del movimiento... Y, en fin, explora igualmente las derivaciones practicas de la inteligencia visual en el campo de las artes y la tecnologia, desde la dinamica de los efectos especiales en el cine hasta los universos visuales de la realidad virtual.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PHYSICS WORLD BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019One of the deepest and most original thinkers of his generation of cognitive scientists. His startling argument has implications for philosophy, science, and how we understand the world around us Steven Pinker Is reality virtual? Its a question made even more interesting by this book Barbara Kiser, NatureDo we see the world as it truly is? In The Case Against Reality, pioneering cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman says no? we see what we need in order to survive. Our visual perceptions are not a window onto reality, Hoffman shows us, but instead are interfaces constructed by natural selection. The objects we see around us are not unlike the file icons on our computer desktops: while shaped like a small folder on our screens, the files themselves are made of a series of ones and zeros - too complex for most of us to understand. In a similar way, Hoffman argues, evolution has shaped our perceptions into simplistic illusions to help us navigate the world around us. Yet now these illusions can be manipulated by advertising and design.Drawing on thirty years of Hoffmans own influential research, as well as evolutionary biology, game theory, neuroscience, and philosophy, The Case Against Reality makes the mind-bending yet utterly convincing case that the world is nothing like what we see through our eyes.