The selection of experiences is determined by what cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman calls “fitness” to our lives:
Snakes and trains, like the particles of physics, have no objective, observer-independent features. The snake I see is a description created by my sensory system to inform me of the fitness consequences of my actions. Evolution shapes acceptable solutions, not optimal ones. A snake is an acceptable solution to the problem of telling me how to act in a situation. My snakes and trains are my mental representations; your snakes and trains are your mental representations.
Don Hoffman’s full explanation is in the video below.
In another video, Robert Lawrence Kuhn interviews two scholars involved in studying consciousness explaining that science has no explanation for how a brain could create a conscious mind. The two are John Searle, PhD, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley; and David Chalmers, professor of philosophy and neural science and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University. View the vide
