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Zero Worlds · source record · paper

Fitness Beats Truth in the Evolution of Perception

Prakash, C.; Stephens, K. D.; Hoffman, D. D.; Singh, M.; Fields, C. · 2021

AI-verified citationSRC-PRAKASH-2021
identifier / locator
Acta Biotheoretica 69(3): 319–341. DOI: 10.1007/s10441-020-09400-0
url
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10441-020-09400-0
verification note
Bibliographic record confirmed 2026-08-22 via Springer listing, PubMed (33231784), and PhilPapers.
reliability notes
  • A real theorem inside a specified evolutionary-game model. Its authors' own framing: it bears on the epistemology of perception; conscious realism is a separate hypothesis.

Evidence drawn from this source

Supports· moderateZW-E011

The FBT theorem: fitness-only perception generically beats truth-tracking

what the source states
Formalizing perceptual evolution in evolutionary game theory and Bayesian decision theory, the authors state and prove the "Fitness-Beats-Truth (FBT) Theorem": under the model's assumptions, a strategy maximizing expected-fitness payoff consistently outcompetes one tuned to the true structure of the objective world.
what we infer
Supports precisely the interface half of Hoffman's position — that perception need not be veridical — and nothing beyond it. The chain "selection need not favor truth, therefore consciousness is fundamental, therefore quantum mechanics" adds two non-sequiturs to one theorem; the case keeps the theorem and prices the additions separately.
limitations
  • A theorem inside a specified game-theoretic model; how far its payoff structures describe actual perceptual evolution is an empirical question the paper does not settle.