Donald Hoffman

People think for emotional reasons and then justify with logic

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Today, I’d like to tell you the most mindblowing and unsettling idea I’ve been exposed to over the past six years… and how you can use the insight gained from this in copywriting and persuasion.

The idea comes from neuroscientist Donald Hoffman.

Hoffman studies vision and is convinced — based on all the research he’s done at his lab at UCI — that what we “see” in our minds is nothing at all like the world out there.

In other words, what you think of as reality is anything but. Schrodinger’s cat is neither dead nor alive. Instead, there is no cat.

This conclusion of Hoffman’s work is not a new idea. There are thousands of years of philosophy and about a century of hard science that say much the same thing.

But even with all the science and logic, most people still find this idea pretty hard to accept, or even absurd.

Hoffman knew this. And he knew that if he wrote his pop science book, The Case Against Reality, relying on science and logic, his message wouldn’t get through. So instead, he argued like this:

Imagine a blue rectangular file icon in the lower right corner of your computer desktop.

This icon allows you to interact with the file in a way that matters to you.

But does this mean the file itself is blue, rectangular, and lives in the lower right corner of your desktop? Of course not.

You can probably accept that the innards of your computer aren’t just slightly different from what you see on the screen.

​​Instead, the reality is completely different… immensely more complex… and pretty much unknowable if all you do is interact with the desktop interface.

But that’s just how it is with human consciousness, Hoffman argues.

The fact that you see letters on a screen right now doesn’t mean there are really letters on a screen in front of your eyes. What’s more, it doesn’t even mean that there are such things as a screen… or your eyes… anywhere, outside of your own consciousness. Your “reality” doesn’t “really” exist.

Like I said, I found this unsettling and yet mindblowing. Perhaps you do too. If so, let the feeling linger for a moment. And in the meantime, let me get to the copywriting and persuasion:

Thanks to a reader named Lester, I found out a cool new term, “guided apophenia.” It was coined by Reed Berkowitz, who is an augmented reality game designer.

Apophenia, by the way, is “the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.”

And guided apophenia is how Berkowitz described the similarity between augmented reality games and the phenomenon of QAnon.

This similarity is also not a new idea. But the following bit in Berkowitz’s article was new to me:

Recently, a report published in 2018 in the journal Human Brain Mapping found that Aha! moments also activate the brain’s reward systems.

Basically, that “A Ha!” moment when puzzle solving (even when incorrect) is extremely pleasurable and also may help encode what we learn in a new way.

In other words, solving puzzles is extremely rewarding from a biochemical standpoint and the thoughts we gain from them are special to us.

In case it’s not clear:

This is scientific proof for something I’ve believed for a while – that insight is a feeling, much like desire, fear, or curiosity. And the same way that desire, fear, or curiosity can put us in a trance and make us susceptible to suggestion… so can the feeling of insight.

This newish science is really all I wanted to tell you today.

But had I said just that, then like Donald Hoffman, I doubted my message would get through.

So instead, I tried to flood you with the feeling of insight, by telling you the most powerful analogy I could think of.

Because, like other feelings, insight is transferable. If you feel insight because you successfully connected two unrelated things in your mind — say, computer desktops and human consciousness — then that feeling rubs off on other things nearby.

In my email newsletter, I spelled out exactly what this means for copywriting and persuasion. But unfortunately, you missed out on that, because you’re not signed up for my email newsletter.

So let me make a suggestion:

Consider signing up. Your marketing savvy — and perhaps your consciousness — might open up as a result.

G is for Gavin mauled by a wild cat

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Once upon a time, there lived a human being named Gavin.

One day, Gavin was walking through the jungle. Suddenly he froze. His eyes got wide. His mouth hung open. Blood drained out of his face.

What was that in the bushes ahead? It looked like a tiger’s shifting green eyes.

But a moment later, Gavin relaxed. He realized what he was seeing. It was just berries, hanging from a branch.

A bit later, it happened again. Gavin stopped mid-step. He thought he saw tiger eyes in the shadows. But his own eyes and his brain were better adapted this time. It was more fruit. He chuckled at himself and kept walking.

And a few moments later, it happened yet again. Gavin thought he saw a tiger’s eyes in the bushes. But this time he just shook his head and didn’t even slow down. He walked right up to the bush where the tiger was hiding. Gavin died, age 13, victim of a tiger mauling, never having sired any children.

Today, I want to give you a design and branding and maybe copywriting tip.

It’s based on idea I got from cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman. Hoffman says our brains and eyes quickly get used to most stimuli. That’s why I often stand for ages in front of the fridge, trying to find the olive jar I know must be in there… which turns out to be right on the shelf in front of me, in full view.

This is a feature, not a bug. It makes no sense to keep noticing familiar things. Except…

There are some things we never get habituated to.

One of these is animals. Or even animal bits are enough.

An eye. A tail. A tooth.

Hoffman says our brains never get fully habituated to these stimuli. Well, in general that’s true. There were people like Gavin whose eyes and brains did get habituated to seeing animal bits… and we never heard from these people again.

So that’s the design and branding tip Hoffman gives.

If you want to design packaging or create a logo for your brand, find a subtle way to trick the eye. Make it think it might be seeing an animal hiding on the shelf or inside the computer screen.

However many times people see your design or you logo, they will notice it, yet again.

Because animals are hard-wired into our biology. And so are people. Which is my copywriting tip for you for today.

If you have something important — but abstract — to teach people, make sure you wrap it up in a person. For example, here’s how Edward Gorey helped kids learn their ABCs — and how you can too:

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs
B is for Basil assaulted by bears
C is for Clara who wasted away
D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh
E is for Ernest who choked on a peach
F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leech
…

Want more marketing ABCs, wrapped up in a person-sandwich? Then hold back your habituation to being pitched, and follow my lead here.

Channeling the coleslaw of attraction

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A few days ago I was talking to a friend when, like a snake in the grass, he sprang on me with a deadly question:

“What do you think of the law of attraction?”

Uff.

​​I told him two things. And if you want, I’ll tell you as well.

First, I think the law of attraction doesn’t have to be actually true, but if it makes you act like it’s true, then it will still help.

And two, even though I don’t actually believe the law of attraction to be real…

Sometimes I experience weird coincidences that make me say, what the hell do I know?

Because I read an interview several years ago, and it changed the way I see the world. The interview was with a cognitive scientist named Donald Hoffman, whose big thing is claiming that “reality” is not real.

Hoffman had all sorts of technical explanations for why this is true.

But all I remember is a powerful metaphor he used.

If you turn on your computer, said Hoffman, you’ve got a desktop.

On that desktop, there are likely to be some files lying around.

It’s a useful way of thinking about the computer and what it does.

Of course, it’s completely untrue. Those files are not on the desktop. In fact, there isn’t even any such thing as a file (the way you think of it). What you really have is a bunch of random electrical signals, cut up and spread around your hard drive, along with algorithms for how to piece this vibrating mess together and present it in a meaningful way.

It’s all a big mishmash and it’s way too complex to be useful to an end user.

And that’s why the little file icon, sitting pretty on your desktop and ready for you to double-click it, is so useful.

This desktop-and-file-icon idea is Hoffman’s metaphor for every mental concept.

And to me that includes the law of attraction.

Sure, it’s just a made up way of looking at the world.

But if the messy true nature of the world (the coleslaw of attraction?) is too complex for our limited minds to grasp…

Then why not choose the most helpful and useful file icons to help yourself manage it?

Anyways, that’s the way I look at it, after reading the Hoffman interview and discovering his desktop metaphor.

Anyways, that’s the way I look at it, after reading the Hoffman interview and discovering his desktop metaphor.

Maybe this will help you in case you too can be too rational and skeptical at times.

For less ethereal discussions, such as how to write advertorials that spawn clients out of the ether, channel your positive energy and direct it this way:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/