Books, peer-reviewed papers, and public articles from the Institute's researchers. The institutional bibliography is still being assembled; what follows is a curated entry point into the work that informs Trace Logic.
Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
Hoffman dismantles our most basic assumptions about perception. Drawing on evolutionary game theory and the Interface Theory of Perception, he argues that the world we experience is a useful fiction, not the truth. The book sets the stage for the research program now pursued at the Institute.
Find the bookHow We Create What We See
An exploration of the constructive nature of visual perception. Hoffman argues that the visual system does not passively record reality but actively builds it, following formal rules of inference that the book lays out in detail.
Find the bookLong-form pieces written for general audiences, where the science is laid out in its own language.
A live index of Trace Institute preprints and peer-reviewed publications is being assembled. For now, the most complete record of Donald Hoffman's published work — including the papers that ground the conscious-agents framework and the Interface Theory of Perception — lives at: