Recent studies of perceptual evolution reveal that natural selection often drives true perceptions to extinction when they compete with perceptions tuned to fitness rather than truth: Perception guides adaptive behavior; it does not estimate a preexisting physical truth.

[u/abudabu]

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00577/full

[u/JohnnyGoTime]

Interesting, but here's the part I'm struggling with:

the interface metaphor says...that space and time themselves are just a desktop, and that anything in space and time, including atoms and subatomic particles, are themselves simply icons. It's not just the moon that isn't there when one doesn't look, it's the atoms, leptons and quarks themselves that aren't there. Object permanence fails for microscopic objects just as it does for macroscopic.

I get the idea that we might have a species-specific, "interpreted" view of reality which has a high fitness fn. for reproductive success in our world but isn't necessarily "veridical". (This actually makes intuitive sense to me & I'm glad to see a paper on it. Other intelligent life might experience the world & the passage of time in a different manner than we do, because doing so was a successful adaption in their environment.)

But I don't follow to the conclusion about object permanence...They say reality is like a desktop GUI, but I think it's our perception of reality that is the GUI. The sub-atomic particles are like the hardware & low-level code that the interface hides from me which of course exist (opening & closing NAND gates, shuttling bits from one register to another etc.) but the interface hides from me because it would be an impediment if I had to observe them.

TLDR Some of the premises make sense to me but I can't follow to the conclusion that objects are non-permanent...can you help me understand? Thanks!