Imagine slipping into a multiplayer VR version of Grand Theft Auto, racing cars against players scattered across the world. You see a red Corvette speeding beside you. You immediately grip the steering wheel of your matte-black Porsche 911, slam the virtual gas pedal, and tear through the glowing digital streets of Los Santos chasing after it. How dare the Corvette come for your crown? Now, if someone logically asked you, after taking off the headset, whether the rival car was true reality, you’d likely laugh and say no. You can grasp, even faintly, that what you experienced existed as millions of bits being toggled in precise sequences at blinding speed somewhere inside a supercomputer. There is no actual Corvette inside that machine. For Donald Hoffman, PhD, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, Irvine, this may be the best metaphor for reality itself. “We’re playing a multiplayer game,” he says. “My body is just an avatar in a VR game. It’s not the truth.”
In Hoffman’s “interface theory” of perception, evolution shaped us not to perceive objective reality directly, but to experience a simplified survival interface. Just as a VR game hides the incomprehensible complexity of the underlying code, Hoffman argues that space-time may function more like a navigational dashboard than objective reality itself. In such an interface, our senses evolved not to reveal the truth, but simply to help us play the game of life. And after a while, the game becomes so immersive that we lose ourselves inside it, thinking our avatars are all there is.
Hoffman arrived at the theory through an unusual reading of Darwinian evolution. If natural selection rewards survival rather than truth, he wondered, why assume humans evolved to perceive “raw” reality accurately at all? Then he turned to evolutionary game theory, which is a mathematical framework for modeling survival and competition.
In these mathematical models, organisms survive not by discovering objective truth, but by maximizing what scientists call “payoff functions,” which are strategies that increase the odds of survival and reproduction. A hungry lion chasing a gazelle, for example, receives a high evolutionary payoff. A hungry lion trying to eat a rock receives almost none, Hoffman says. Over time, evolution preserves the sensory systems associated with successful payoffs, not necessarily the ones that perceive reality accurately.
That realization led him to what he considers the theory’s most radical implication. Mathematically, Hoffman says, the question becomes whether the sensory shortcuts favored by evolution preserve the true structure of reality itself. Using evolutionary game theory models, he argues they do not. “What’s the probability that, you know, I see a rock because there really is a rock? I see the tree because there really is a tree?” he asks. “The answer is 0 percent. Exactly 0 percent.”
Natural selection, he says, never shaped organisms to perceive objective reality accurately, but simply to survive long enough to reproduce. It made us competent enough to navigate the world through simplified survival shortcuts—a user interface optimized for fitness rather than truth.
“Most of us think that means we’ve been shaped to see reality, because of course seeing reality would make you more fit,” Hoffman says. “And the answer is no. Period… When you do the math, the probability that seeing the truth will help you reproduce is zero.”
But if the body is merely an avatar inside the interface, where exactly is the “real” self, the consciousness? This is a question we shouldn’t even be asking, according to Hoffman. Because the true self is “nowhere in the game.”
“The very notion of being in the game is just wrong for who you really are,” Hoffman says. Questions like “Where am I? When am I?” assume that we are thinking in terms of space and time coordinates. But this returns us back into the VR headset—the trap of space-time itself. “Whatever you really are transcends the very notions of where and when,” he says. In other words, the very interface that allows us to navigate reality may also prevent us from perceiving what we truly are beyond it.
That idea, strange as it sounds, partially overlaps with a growing crisis in modern physics. Many high-energy physicists increasingly suspect that the fabric of space and time may not be fundamental reality after all. At the smallest scales of the universe—the Planck scale—the equations underlying modern physics appear to break down mathematically. This dilemma is pushing researchers to search for deeper structures beyond both conventional quantum theory and our ordinary understanding of the cosmos. Case in point: physicist John Wheeler of Princeton, who famously proposed “It from Bit,” the idea that physical reality may ultimately emerge from underlying information rather than matter itself.
“Space-time is doomed,” believes Hoffman. “It’s not just a cognitive scientist crying wolf about spacetime. The physicists themselves are saying we need to look beyond,” he continues. But if space-time is not fundamental reality, then what is?
Theoretical physicists have long struggled to reconcile quantum mechanics with gravity, and many of the equations of modern physics begin to break down at the Planck scale. So in 2013, some researchers began stepping outside of space-time itself. What they found were enormous geometric structures with strange properties—including giant diamond-shaped objects later dubbed amplituhedrons—that could predict particle interactions without relying on conventional notions of space and time at all.
These so-called “positive geometries” are exotic mathematical structures that attempt to derive the behavior of the physical universe directly from geometry itself rather than conventional space-time equations. They are the next clue outside of the space-time headset, Hoffman says. They may not yet represent the final truth, he quickly adds, but perhaps a crucial clue pointing toward it.
However, given the relatively young age of these “magical” structures in scientific research, Hoffman says: “Nobody yet knows what they really are.”
Still, the broader possibility that humans may not perceive reality directly is increasingly spreading to fields other than theoretical physics. Mona Sobhani, PhD—a cognitive neuroscientist and author who studies consciousness and anomalous experiences—says Hoffman’s theory at least aligns with one uncomfortable implication of evolution itself: Survival and truth may not be the same thing.
“Seems like a reasonable theory that is in line with the idea of evolution,” Sobhani says. “I think we are finding more scientists open to the idea, especially younger ones, although I’d say the mainstream explanations still sway toward the physicalist,” meaning theories that still treat matter and the physical universe as fundamental.
Critics are much more skeptical, however. While evolution may simplify perception, they argue, that doesn’t necessarily mean space-time itself is merely an interface or illusion. Some philosophers have also questioned whether Hoffman’s argument becomes self-defeating: If evolution shaped human cognition for survival rather than truth, why trust the conclusions produced by that cognition in the first place? A 2021 critique of Hoffman’s interface theory further argued that under more realistic environmental conditions, organisms disconnected from objective reality would actually be pushed closer to extinction rather than survival.
Still, such criticisms have not deterred a growing number of scientists from describing perception as a heavily filtered construction—a kind of shared hallucination even. Meanwhile, theorists such as Wheeler explored whether the physical world ultimately arises from deeper informational structures beneath space-time itself. Likewise, Stephen Wolfram, PhD, of the University of Illinois has argued that reality itself may emerge from hidden computational rules.
So, what if we ditched the headset altogether, directly dug into the deeper machinery of reality itself, and confronted the truth head-on?
“If you were smart enough, you could go into the supercomputer and toggle the millions of bits really, really quickly, and that would also be a way to play the game,” says Hoffman. Almost instantaneously, he circles back to evolution and what Darwinian payoffs have taught us, though not before wishing those who attempt it “good luck.”
For the interface of reality is essentially rigged against the searcher. Take Grand Theft Auto. The winner is rarely the player who stops to wonder why the Corvette is red, the Porsche black, or who designed Los Santos. The winner is the one who plays. For Hoffman, evolution clearly favors organisms that successfully navigate the game, not those that spend their time trying to understand the code running underneath it.
“Searchers will always lose to someone who can simply turn the steering wheel and hit the fake gas pedal inside the VR headset we call reality,” Hoffman says.
February / March 2026
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Featuring:
➡ Archaeologists Found a Skeleton Wearing a Silver Amulet. The Discovery Is Rewriting the History of Christianity.
➡ The Stray Dogs of Chernobyl Are Rapidly Mutating. Scientists Are Still Trying to Figure Out What It Means.
➡ New Evidence Could Upend What We Know About the Charles Lindbergh Baby Murder
➡ Police Found Mysterious Notes in a Dead Man's Pocket. They Turned Out to Be Codes That Not Even the FBI Can Break.
December 2025 / January 2026
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Featuring:
➡ An Angel of Death Preyed on Hospital Patients for Years.
➡ How America's Most Advanced Lab Brought the Killer to Justice.
➡ A 3,000-Ton Locomotive Was Loose, Unstoppable, and Filled With Toxic Cargo
➡ An Underwater Cave Promised Adventure and Glory. No One Expected It to Become a Tomb.
➡ Your Consciousness Can Predict the Future, Some Scientists Say
October / November 2025
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Featuring:
➡ Inside the Secret Island Where Death Is Optional
➡ A Legendary Ship Sank Without Warning. Fifty Years Later, Science Could Finally Solve the Mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
➡ This Tech Rebel Threw Away $900 Million in a Municipal Dump. Can Robots Find His Lost Fortune?
➡ Sex Workers, LSD, and Mind Control: What Happened in the CIA's Lab of Nightmares at 225 Chestnut Street
August / September 2025
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Featuring:
➡ The Worst Air Disaster in American History Happened in Broad Daylight. Will More Mistakes Keep Happening?
➡ NASA Has a Plan to Save Earth from Planet-Destroying Asteroids. It Sounds Even Wilder than Science Fiction.
➡ A Naval Officer Says Underwater UFOs Are Legitimate Threats. The Evidence Is Hard to Ignore.
➡ When You Die, a Psychedelic Molecule Shapes Your Final Moments of Consciousness, a New Theory Reveals.
June/July 2025
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Featuring:
➡ This Undersea Explorer Found America's Greatest Sunken Treasure. Then Things Got Really Weird.
➡ Is Bigfoot Hiding in the Swamps of Florida? This Group Says It Has Proof.
➡ Scientists May Have Gotten the Global-Warming Timeline Seriously Wrong.
➡ A Third State Now Exists Between Life and Death, Some Scientists Now Believe
April/May 2025
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Featuring:
➡ Scientists Successfully Revive a Dead Brain, Redefining the Boundary Between Life and Death
➡ Fingerprints Keep Leading to Wrongful Convictions. Why Do Courts Still Rely on Them?
➡ For 80 Years, the North Sea Held a Deadly Killer. Now Scientists Are Racing to Defuse the Threat.
➡ They Built the Quietest Room in the World. Why Is Everyone So Afraid to Step Inside It?
February/March 2025
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Featuring:
➡ This Guy Says He Knows the Truth About UFOs. Should We Believe Him?
➡ Scientists Are Now One Step Away From Solving Nuclear Fusion—And Unlocking Unlimited Energy.
➡ A Million-Dollar Heist Rocked the Art World— Then Amateur Sleuths Cracked the Case
➡ A New Era of Missile Warfare Has Begun—and the U.S. Isn’t Ready
December/January 2025
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Featuring:
➡ A Clue Hidden in a 400-Year-Old Map Might Have Just Solved One of America's Greatest Mysteries
➡ Inside the Deranged Plot to Smuggle Cocaine With an Armed Soviet-Era Submarine
➡ This Brilliant Engineer Helped Build the B2 Bomber—Then He Sold America's Stealth Secrets to China
➡ Your Consciousness Can Connect With the Whole Universe
October/November 2024
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Featuring:
➡Untold Secrets Reveal How the Castle Bravo Test Became America’s Worst Nuclear Disaster
➡ This Body Was Found Preserved on a Block of Ice in a Colorado Shed. It Had Been There for 30 Years.
➡ It Was Supposed to Be America's Greatest Victory in Space—Then It Became NASA’s Worst Nightmare
➡ The Sidewinder Missile Ruled the Air—Then the Soviets Stole the Design
August/September 2024
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Featuring:
➡This Man Knows the Truth About Amelia Earhart. Why Doesn't Anyone Believe Him?
➡ The Army's Machine Gun Is No Match for Cheap Chinese Body Armor. So It's Making a New One.
➡ Russia Built a Stunning Rival to the Supersonic Concorde—and Then It Fell From the Sky
➡ A Navy Admiral Says Underwater UFOs Are a Threat—and the Pentagon is Withholding Secrets
June / July 2024
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Featuring:
➡4 Black Eggs Have Surfaced From the Depths of the Ocean— and the Mysterious Creatures Inside Are Baffling Science
➡ A $2 Million Treasure Appeared in a Kentucky Cornfield. No One Knows Where It Came From.
➡ A Million-Dollar Heist Rocked the Art World— Then Amateur Sleuths Cracked the Case
➡ A New Era of Missile Warfare Has Begun—and the U.S. Isn’t Ready
April May / 2024
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Featuring:
➡The Man Who Knows Too Much About Area 51
➡ How the FBI Took Down the Internet's Most Dangerous Website
➡ A Staggering New Clue Emerges in the D.B. Cooper Hijacking Mystery
➡ The Wildest Prison Break in U.S. History
➡ The Secret to a Perfect Lawn Lies in One of These 10 Electric Lawnmowers
February / March 2024
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Featuring:
➡The Incredible Mystery of NASA’s Missing Moondust
➡ Inside the Final Fiery Minutes of the East Palestine Train Wreck
➡ Scientists Believe They’ve Unlocked Consciousness—and It Connects to the Entire Universe
➡ Why This Unstoppable Stealth Bomber Will Rule the Skies
➡ America Is Developing a New Nuclear Bomb—But Can’t Test Whether It Works
➡ The 8 Best, Expert-Recommended Solar-Powered Generators
Special Issue: Nukes
➡ How Deadly Nuclear Waste Is Menacing This St. Louis Neighborhood
➡ The Terrifying History of Russia's Nuclear Submarine Graveyard
➡ Strange Mutations in Stray Dogs Near Chernobyl Suggest They Are Rapidly Evolving
➡ America Dumped 56 Million Gallons of Radioactive Material Along the Columbia River—Then It Started to Leak
December 2023 / January 2024
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Featuring:
➡ A New Clue In Amelia Earhart's Disappearance Emerges From the Ocean
➡ How an Alleged Water Bandit Stole $25 Million in Water from Thirsty California Farms
➡ A Coal Mine Exploded and 300 Miners Died. What Went Wrong?
➡ China Just Built a Terrifying New Aircraft Carrier and May Soon Dominate the Seas
October / November 2023
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Featuring:
➡ How Rats Took Over Our Cities—And Why We Can't Stop Them
➡ This Language Is on the Verge of Extinction. Can It Be Saved?
➡ America's Deadliest Warplane Returns in a New Doomsday Role
➡ This Amateur Diving Group Kept Solving Cold Cases. Then Its Own Skeletons Surfaced.
➡ The Scientific Breakthrough That Could Put an End to Gray Hair.
August/September 2023
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Featuring:
➡ Immortality Is in Reach. But It’s Not What We Imagined.
➡ Your Next iPhone (and Nuclear Subs) Will Be Powered By Space Metal
➡Scientists Now Think We Can Build a Warp Drive
➡ China and Russia Have Cracked the Stealth Code. Can the U.S. Regain Air Dominance?
June/July 2023
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Featuring:
➡ The CIA’s Secret Plan to Build a Laser Beam Powered by the Human Mind
➡ The 747 Ruled the Skies—Then One Slammed Into a Mountain
➡The Race to Contain AI Before Singularity
➡ These Florida Homes Aren’t Just Hurricane-Proof—They’re Blueprints for the Future
April/May 2023
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Featuring:
➡ AI Is on the Cusp of Taking Control—This Is How It May All Go Wrong
➡ There’s No Weapon Russia Fears More Than the HIMARS Rocket Launcher
➡The Nuclear-Submarine Arms Race Is Getting Intense, and the U.S. Just Took a Massive Leap Forward
➡ Iran Is Becoming a Drone Superpower—By Stealing American Technology
February/March 2023
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Featuring:
➡ The Greatest Treasure Hunt in American History Ended—and Then Things Got Weird
➡ These Are the High-Powered Weapons Ukraine Needs to Send Russia Running
➡ The Secret War to Take Out Iran’s Fleet of F-14 Jets
➡ Russia Is Trying to Intimidate the U.S. with Hypersonic Missiles and Big, Scary Nukes—And It's More Than a Threat
December 2022/January 2023
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Featuring:
➡ Is Death Real?
➡ China and Russia Are Dominating the Hypersonic Arms Race—And It’s Not Even Close
➡ When the South Fork Dam Broke, a Pennsylvania City Washed Away. Which Town Is Next?
➡ The Navy’s New $13 Billion Aircraft Carrier Is Already Obsolete. This Weapon Can Save It.
October/November 2022
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Featuring:
➡ Can America's M1 Abrams Still Compete With China's and Russia's Latest Battle Tanks?
➡ Inside the Final Minutes of the Concorde Disaster—and How It Doomed Supersonic Travel for Decades
➡ How the Massive Cargo Ship Felicity Ace Sank, Taking $400 Million Worth of Exotic Supercars With It
➡ I Turned My Old Gas-Guzzler Into a Zippy EV for $15,000
August/September 2022
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Featuring:
➡ Cosmic Secrets of the 17 Most Powerful Mega-Telescopes on Earth—and Beyond
➡ Can the Air Force's Secret, Hypersonic Jet Reclaim the Skies From Russia and China?
➡ For 50 Years, the Zodiac Killer's 340 Cipher Stumped the FBI—Then Three Amateurs Cracked the Code
➡ America's Most Fearsome Howitzer Has Entered the War in Ukraine
June/July 2022
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Featuring:
➡ Every Single Drone Fighting in the Skies Over Ukraine
➡ How to Buy a New Car in 2022 Without Getting Fleeced
➡ This Megastructure Could Keep Us Alive Forever
➡ The Race to Revolutionize EV Batteries
Stav Dimitropoulos is a Gold and Community Anthem Award–winning journalist, and writes about consciousness, science, and culture for Popular Mechanics, Nature, and the BBC. Her work often explores mind-stretching angles where science meets philosophy. Her debut nonfiction book, Slow, Lazy, Gluttons (Greystone Books, 2026) asks: What if the traits society shames — laziness, darkness, nostalgia, and more — are actually survival superpowers?
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