Donald D. Hoffman is a Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes. His research on perception, evolution, and consciousness received the Troland Award of the US National Academy of Sciences, the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution of the American Psychological Association, the Rustum Roy Award of the Chopra Foundation, and is the subject of his TED Talk, titled “Do we see reality as it is?”

"In some sense, kids don't have words early on. So they're just seeing without a filter of words. And I even have memories myself as a young child of just the wonder. I remember walking to kindergarten and seeing this bush with all sorts of flowers on it, and all these monarch butterflies on it. And I was complete ...