Donald Hoffman

Hoffman is one of those thinkers I could listen to for hours. A cognitive scientist studying consciousness, perception, and evolution through mathematics and psychophysics, he dares to argue that the reality we perceive may not be the truth at all, a genuinely vertiginous idea delivered with a straight face. I respect that he also writes for general audiences rather than hiding inside academia; opening difficult ideas to the public takes both clarity and courage. His Capricorn-like persistence in chasing questions almost no one else asks is exactly the intellectual adventurousness I value most. A real explorer of the mind.

Name (English)

Donald Hoffman

Name (Japanese)

ドナルド・ホフマン

Reading

どなるど・ほふまん

Born

December 29, 1955 (age 70)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Goat

Origin

San Antonio, Texas, United States

Occupation

cognitive scientist / popular science author

University

University of California, Los Angeles

Awards & achievements

• 1994 Troland Research Awards
• 1989 APA Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttps://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%89%E3%83%8A%E3%83%AB%E3%83%89%E3%83%BB%E3%83%9B%E3%83%95%E3%83%9E%E3%83%B3

Tags

• Texas
• cognitive scientist
• popular science author

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.