[mordocai]

I do believe he is in fact claiming what you call "a pedestrian claim about the disparity between our sense impressions and reality dressed up in very provacative, but ultimately content-free, dressing".

How I read it, but using your words, was that he is saying that the "transform function" you mention could throw out a large amount of data about the "real world" as being unimportant, so the only things we notice are those things that evolution has deemed important enough to allow through the "transform function". Hence, our perception of reality does not match reality.

As far as gaining anything from it, I think it is an interesting thought exercise and if it could be proven that'd be cool(and his math about observation actually seems quite interesting) but I don't think any of it is likely to change human behavior in any significant way.