b. 1955 · A portrait
A cognitive scientist whose early work on vision became textbook science now argues, from evolutionary game theory, that perception evolved for fitness, not truth — closer to a desktop icon than to reality itself.
The line above is how his claims were received — by the scientists whose job was to doubt them. It rises as a claim is tested and accepted, and the room brightens with it. It is not a verdict on truth: some accepted ideas are later overturned, and some rejected ones come back. A hollow point is a claim still open.
With Whitman Richards he published the 'minima rule,' showing the visual system divides three-dimensional shapes into parts at negative minima of contour curvature — a finding later confirmed experimentally and now a standard account in vision-science texts.
Hoffman began arguing, from evolutionary game-theory simulations, that natural selection tunes perception for fitness payoff rather than accuracy, so that objects, space and time function as a simplified interface rather than a true readout of the world.
Philosopher Jonathan Cohen argued, in a published commentary, that the case against accurate perception rests on a misunderstanding of what perceptual accuracy means, and that the simulations give no reason to abandon the standard view that perception represents the world.
The interface theory remains a minority position in cognitive science; critics call the evolutionary models oversimplified 'toy worlds' that leave out coevolving predators and prey. The minima-rule work stands on its own, apart from the dispute.