2. Consider that (according to science anyways) there is no central broadcaster of reality (it is at least plausible)
3. Consider each agent (often/usually) "knows" all of reality, or at least any point you query them about (for sure: all agents claim to know the unknowable, regularly; I have yet to encounter one who can stop a "powerful" invocation of #3 (or even try: the option seems literally unavailable), though minor ones can be overridden fairly trivially (I can think of two contrasting paths of interesting consideration based on this detail, one of them being extremely optimistic, and trivially plausible))
Simplified: what is known to be, is (locally).
4. Consider the possibility (or assume as a premise of a thought experiment) that reality and the universe are not exactly the very same thing ("it exists outside of spacetime"), though it may appear that they are (see #3)
Is it not fairly straightforward what is going on?
A big part of the problem is that #3 is ~inevitably[1] invoked if such things are analyzed, screwing up the analysis, thus rendering the theory necessarily "false" (it "is" false...though, it will typically not be asserted as such explicitly, and direct questions will be ignored/dodged).
[1] which is...weird (the inevitable part...like, it is as if consciousness is ~hardwired to disallow certain inspection (highly predictable evasive actions are invoked in response), something which can easily be tested/demonstrated).
in #2 you are claiming there is no objective reality or no 'broadcaster' of reality
We must assume some things as being objective such as a rational universe in order to make any claims at all.
-if you are saying in #3 that humans as conscious agents make subjective claims about reality but that those claims are in fact 'the reality' for that agent or person, that is a subjective claim. (I'm not saying that that subjective reality isn't true for that person)
Also, Hoffman doesn't make a 'supernatural' claim per se, his claim is simply that reality as 'we all see it' is NOT the whole story, and that it is in fact only the projection of a vast, infinitely complex network of conscious agents that creates what we perceive as the material universe and time. He starts with the idea that consciousness as a property is fundamental, existing outside of space and time and that if you apply reasoning and mathematics that networks of agents acting as UANs in a sense project that material universe into being, with that assumption, ie that it extrapolates to our entire universe.
I'm not sure I'm (or anyone for that matter) is really qualified to answer that claim..it's so big that it does verge on mysticism. that's why I said its such a wild idea, but I found the article above another interesting piece of evidence for Hoffman, because it talks about a general theory underlying such networks:
whose "repeated and recursive evolution of Universal Activation Networks (UANs). These networks consist of nodes (Universal Activators) that integrate weighted inputs from other units or environmental interactions and activate at a threshold, resulting in an action or an intentional broadcast"
ie this is very similar to Hoffmans system of Conscious Agents -which is an extreme theory of such networks that I described above
These are good questions, I am on mobile at the moment so won't be able to make a response that does them justice for 2 days or so.
I'd think my other post provides some relevant content though?
In the meantime it may help...an important axiom in my model/theory is that the universe exists independent of us, but reality is downstream of us. I think Donald's theory is based on Idealism maybe, where he disagrees and thinks reality is downstream of us, and the universe is downstream of reality? But that raises some very tricky paradoxes, more so than the one main paradox/problem that all models have (I think? Maybe not, maybe I just lack adequate imagination! And it doesn't make him necessarily wrong, but it puts it into the same category as God(s) imho: anything is possible, including the "impossible". Which is fine, but please acknowledge it explicitly, Donald.)
I'm not terribly hung up on which model one subscribes to (or has been subscribed to) in general, but I am extremely hung up on logical inconsistencies and paradoxes within them, that are not explicitly acknowledged in a non-dismissive manner...this is fundamentally important to my model, as mine has an opinionated ~ethical component (Utopianism), and an extremely strong dislike for "imposters" in this regard.
"knowledge" = belief (possibly true but not necessarily, but sincerely perceived as "true")
(I'm considering this from an abstract / autistic / "That's pedantic! [so stop doing it]" perspective, so I include quotation marks to note the technical distinction...in phenomenological analysis, perhaps they'd be left out, to better illustrate the local experience of reality, the true "is-ness" as it is. In normative discussions ("anything that good hackers would find interesting"), these things are generally rather taboo.)
There's lots of nuance I'm leaving out, but that's the general idea.
A popular though terminating description for the phenomenon is "that's just people expressing their opinion, everyone does it, that's what everything boils down to" (which can make it not only not obvious, but damn near invisible)...but consider the semantic differences of that with and without the inclusion of the word "just". (Also: watch out for #3, it's recursively self-referential, and has substantial cloaking / shape-shifting abilities. It is almost always and everywhere.)
An alternate perspective: consider what an uneducated person "sees" in "reality" (aka: what "is", and "is not") as they go about their day, compared to highly educated (as opposed to knowledgeable) people from very distinct disciplines.
1. Consider the base hardware of each agent:
http://neuropathologyblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/shannon-curra...
2. Consider that (according to science anyways) there is no central broadcaster of reality (it is at least plausible)
3. Consider each agent (often/usually) "knows" all of reality, or at least any point you query them about (for sure: all agents claim to know the unknowable, regularly; I have yet to encounter one who can stop a "powerful" invocation of #3 (or even try: the option seems literally unavailable), though minor ones can be overridden fairly trivially (I can think of two contrasting paths of interesting consideration based on this detail, one of them being extremely optimistic, and trivially plausible))
Simplified: what is known to be, is (locally).
4. Consider the possibility (or assume as a premise of a thought experiment) that reality and the universe are not exactly the very same thing ("it exists outside of spacetime"), though it may appear that they are (see #3)
Is it not fairly straightforward what is going on?
A big part of the problem is that #3 is ~inevitably[1] invoked if such things are analyzed, screwing up the analysis, thus rendering the theory necessarily "false" (it "is" false...though, it will typically not be asserted as such explicitly, and direct questions will be ignored/dodged).
[1] which is...weird (the inevitable part...like, it is as if consciousness is ~hardwired to disallow certain inspection (highly predictable evasive actions are invoked in response), something which can easily be tested/demonstrated).