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Donald Hoffman is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, where he has also held professorships in Computer Science and Philosophy since 1983. He earned his PhD in Computational Psychology from MIT in 1983 under advisors David Marr and Whitman Richards, with whom he co-authored publications such as "Parts of recognition." Hoffman is known for his Interface Theory of Perception, which posits that our perceptions do not reflect objective reality.
Public Discourse
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Mixed reception
Hoffman's Interface Theory is formally distinct from the simulation hypothesis because it addresses perception, not ontology, and treating the two as convergent requires an imperfect analogy
Source: Research summary synthesis across multiple agents
Quick Facts
Affiliations
Spent sabbatical at the Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Forschung during the 1995-1996 academic year.