Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman is trying to answer a big question: do we experience the world as it really is ... or as we need it to be? In this ever so lightly, mind blowing talk, he ponders how our mind constructs reality for us. 

We experience the world as we need it to be. No doubt in my mind.

Here's the money quote:

"We do not see reality as it is. Evolution has given us an interface that guides reality." ~Donald Hoffman, on perception

Yes! That's the money quote

I did really dig that quote. Makes me want to watch the TED Talk again!

Here's a fun comment from Reddit:

Recently this very interesting TED talk was released, talking about how the reality we perceive is different from the 'real' reality, which is the actual informational makeup of the universe. I must warn that it's not exactly a complete theory about glitches in the matrix, but after watching it it does seem like reality glitches make more sense, since we only see a translated version of reality and are not equipped to understand its true nature, hence we don't understand 'glitches'.

More Reddit comments:

https://reddit.com/r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/39qfd0/theory_ted_talk_by_donald_hoffman_do_we_see/

Interesting thread. Plato's Allegory of the Cave is mentioned. It is going to be difficult to quantify reality. 

Perhaps reality cannot be quantified. Plato did not quantify it in the Allegory of the Cave.

Plato did not quantify reality in the Allegory of the Cave. I was saying the best we may get is anecdotal. Quantifying could be too hard to do. 

Quantifying is definitely too hard to do or someone would already have done it!