The persistence of objects and shared experiences doesn't prove an objective reality exists. Instead, it suggests a deeper system, analogous to a game server in a multiplayer game, coordinates what each individual observer renders in their personal perceptual "headset," creating a coherent, shared world.
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Within the consciousness-as-fundamental model, dark matter and energy aren't mysterious substances. They are the observable effects inside our space-time "headset" caused by countless other conscious agent interactions and qualia states that are "dark" to us—they influence our reality but are not projected into it.
If reality is a shared virtual experience, then physical death is analogous to a player taking off their VR headset. Their avatar in the game becomes inert, but the player—the conscious agent—is not dead. They have simply disconnected from that specific simulation. This re-frames mortality as a change in interface, not annihilation.
Hoffman's theory posits that our perceived world is not a persistent, objective reality but a simulation that is rendered only when an observer looks at it. According to this model, when you look away from an object, it ceases to exist and is only re-rendered upon observation.
Evolution by natural selection is not a theory of how consciousness arose from matter. Instead, it's a theory that explains *why our interface is the way it is*. Our perceptions were shaped by fitness payoffs to help us survive *within the simulation*, not to perceive truth outside of it. The theory is valid, but its domain is the interface.
Physicists are finding structures beyond spacetime (e.g., amplituhedra) defined by permutations. Hoffman's theory posits these structures are the statistical, long-term behavior of a vast network of conscious agents. Physics and consciousness research are unknowingly meeting in the middle, describing the same underlying reality from opposite directions.
Science's incredible breakthroughs have been about understanding the rules of our virtual reality (spacetime). Being a "wizard" at the Grand Theft Auto game (mastering physics) doesn't mean you understand the underlying circuits and software (objective reality). The next scientific frontier is to use these tools to venture outside the headset.
The process of an AI like Stable Diffusion creating a coherent image by finding patterns within a vast possibility space of random noise serves as a powerful analogy. It illustrates how consciousness might render a structured reality by selecting and solidifying possibilities from an infinite field of potential experiences.
The reason we don't see aliens (the Fermi Paradox) is not because they are distant, but because our spacetime interface is designed to filter out the overwhelming reality of other conscious agents. The "headset" hides most of reality to make it manageable, meaning the search for physical extraterrestrial life is fundamentally limited.
Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that spacetime and physical objects are a "headset" or VR game, like Grand Theft Auto. This interface evolved to help us survive by hiding overwhelming complexity, not to show us objective truth. Our scientific theories have only studied this interface, not reality itself.
Hoffman's model proposes that consciousness is not a product of the physical brain within space-time. Instead, consciousness is the fundamental building block of all existence, and space-time itself is an emergent phenomenon—a "headset" or user interface—that is created by and within consciousness.