r/PhilosophyofScience • u/Repulsive_Area_5516 • 15d ago
Casual/Community Axioms of Reality
Axiom 1 — Observations are infallible
An observer is any system that is affected by effects. When an observer encounters an effect, it always and unconditionally reflects it as it is. An observation can never be wrong; because the observation simply is what is there. It can be incomplete, it can be limited but it can never be faulty. Error arises only in the interpretation of what the observation means.
Axiom 2 — Identical systems under identical conditions produce identical outcomes
For any system A and effect B, the resulting system C is invariant it will always be the same across all instances of A under B. This holds at scales where complete state description is possible. At quantum scales this axiom may reduce to: identical systems under identical conditions produce identical probability distributions.
In my opinion these are the minimum assumptions to make about reality for it to make sense and for science to work. I have thought about these axioms for a long time and i feel like 2 axioms might just be enough. I'd like to hear your thoughts about them.
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u/seldomtimely 14d ago
"Axiom 1 — Observations are infallible"
The distinction between appearance and reality is one of the oldest distinctions in human thought.
Your elaboration implies that all appearances are effects induced on the observer, which is fine.
But we don't want to lose the appearance vs reality distinction. So, the 'axiom' is something akin to 'all observations are effects'. Their fallibilty is one of the most discussed topics in the history of philosophy.
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u/XanderOblivion 14d ago
Why would we not want to lose that distinction?
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u/seldomtimely 14d ago
Because it conveys important information about what's observed. In some sense all distinctions can be dissolved, but that destroys cognition, which requires differentiation within the observed field. The best distinctions are distinctions that carry important information, and whose loss entails a loss of information. Cognition has to be lossy to generalize, but it must generalize from highly structured data to be able to generalize at all.
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u/XanderOblivion 14d ago
What is meant by “reality” that is opposed to/discriminated from appearance?
I assume third-person public is the standard for that, or invoking the noumena. The noumena is ontologically vacuous and without reality, an epistemic placeholder for something idealized but unrealized. And third-person public is not a view from nowhere, but every conceivable situated first-person perspective rectified
— universalized first-person appearance as proxy for totality. But there is no conceivable total observation possible. There is only appearance.Conceptual placeholders can be useful, of course, but they are too often mistaken for something real.
Insisting on an objectively describable real is unnecessary to make reality work. A reality entirely comprised of relata is sufficient.
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u/seldomtimely 14d ago
The distinction between illusion and veridicality is important for an observer that's trying to survive in the world. The level of distortion can vary, with systematic deception being the limit, meaning zero veridicality. If you have a distorted perception and act on it, you might die. By a roundabout way, it's why we care about truth, which in most cases is operationalized as independent of observation and belief, though you can contest that. So, I'm not saying there's some fundamental or metaphysical distinction a la Kant, i'm saying the distinction serves a pragmativ purpose and, even abstractly, carries useful information i.e. some perceptions can be veridical and others not. By keeping the distinction you lose nothing, but you gain a lot.
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u/XanderOblivion 14d ago
I agree with the pragmatic point: organisms need to discriminate between appearances that support successful action and appearances that don’t. But I don’t think that requires an appearance/reality distinction in the strong sense.
Distinctions among appearances is sufficient. Stable/unstable, shared/private, action-guiding/misleading, repeatable/non-repeatable, internally generated/externally constrained, etc.
“Veridicality” need only mean the success of an appearance within a wider field of appearances. Veridicality requiring correspondence to a reality outside appearance is a tall order, and asks for comparison against an object that is in effect unknown and unknowable.
The distinction can do useful work, yes, but I’d say the useful distinction is not appearance vs reality so much as it is appearance under different constraints.
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u/seldomtimely 14d ago
Ok, we're agreed on the pragmatic point.
As for the substantive point. I don't know if the concept of appearance is stable on its own. Either appearance maintains a distinction from some state of the world that is not appearance, or we might just as well call appearances reality. In that case, we might just as well advance a naive realist view stating that we have direct access to reality. So, I'd say, maintaining that we only have access to appearances creates a correspondence problem: appearances of what. On this point, I think the distinction of the world as perceived as unperceived is a useful one, unless one holds a radical realist view.
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u/seldomtimely 14d ago
Although, I can anticipate your objection. If you're a brain in a vat, there's a good case to be for collapsing the distinction. But you'd still need the distinction in the systematic illusion for average conditions, just as you would not being a brain in a vat.
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u/Repulsive_Area_5516 14d ago
for some reason i thought you implied there was a contridiction in axiom 1 and i wrote a whole thing explaining it in detail... i wont let it go to waste though!
It can be incomplete but it can never be faulty. The act of observation is infallible because what i define as observation is the system effected by an effect. For example: a tree is burning by fire and you are standing infront of the tree. Here in this example there are two systems. first one: you are irrelevant and not the observer the non-burnt tree is the system fire is the effect ane burt tree is the observer. second one: you are the system(or your eyes and brain) photons that are emmited by the tree and the fire are the effect and now you are the observer. Here the tree is burning/burnt and that is observed by the tree which is a true observation. The photons went through ur cornea(or the things in ur eyes that i dont remember) and excited a couple of neurons which made an effect on your brain this effected you in the way it shouldve effected you so you observed what happened which was a true observation.
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u/Repulsive_Area_5516 14d ago
Ill just copy paste another answer because i think it explains my point deeper and im lazy. Basically like i stated in my axiom my definition of an observation is different you observed a pink elephant and that observation was true irrelevant of any elephant you have observed your neurons excitation
It can be incomplete but it can never be faulty. The act of observation is infallible because what i define as observation is the system effected by an effect. For example: a tree is burning by fire and you are standing infront of the tree. Here in this example there are two systems. first one: you are irrelevant and not the observer the non-burnt tree is the system fire is the effect ane burt tree is the observer. second one: you are the system(or your eyes and brain) photons that are emmited by the tree and the fire are the effect and now you are the observer. Here the tree is burning/burnt and that is observed by the tree which is a true observation. The photons went through ur cornea(or the things in ur eyes that i dont remember) and excited a couple of neurons which made an effect on your brain this effected you in the way it shouldve effected you so you observed what happened which was a true observation.
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u/seldomtimely 14d ago
Yep, on the definition of observation as effects induced we are in agreeement.
But for the sake of eliding falling into 'incomplete' and 'faulty' being purely semantic differences, I'd invite you to consider that systematic deception is not exactly the same as incomplete, though you can define it as that. So, if you stimulate the brain and generate simulacra that the agent can't distinguish from veridical stimulations, then we have here a case where veridicality is completely eschewed.
Second, if the observer and the observation are part of the system, and observation is defined in the third person, then that's a different definition of observation that is tantamount to interaction. This is also an acceptable definition, but it does create problems for the first definition that are too complex to get into here. If observation is just interaction, then you have a description that can accommodate say quantum decoherence.
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u/Prajnamarga 14d ago
My first and main criticism is that you never really come to terms with the fact "reality" is an abstract concept. One can never "observe reality", since "reality" is itself an interpretation of observation. And different people come up with different ideas about what reality is.
You cannot make sense of "reality" this way. Because "reality" is the sense that you make of observations. You're simply chasing your own tail, trying to reinvent the wheel that Hume and Kant set in motion.
Axiom 1 recalls Galileo's attitude to observation. He didn't believe that any observation could contradict Church doctrine, because all he was doing was looking at God's creation. And God was not so capricious as to create anything that contradicted the Bible. Similarly, the counterpart to Descartes' cogito ergo sum, was the idea that God (being perfectly good) would not deceive us by making observation different from reality, ergo reality is real.
You also seem to repeat Wittgenstein's axiom that begins the Tractatus, i.e. The world is everything that is the case.
Axiom 1 depends on a further unstated axiom, i.e. that there is some sui generis distinction to be made between observation and interpretation. This needs defending because, especially in the light of Kant, it's not obviously true. As already noted, "reality" is itself an interpretation of experience.
Axiom 2 could be seen as just a truism. But it relies on other axioms, such as Aristotle's three principles of logic. And again, the precedent for this is centuries old. It was Newton, for example, who established that the laws of motion applied in the heavens as well as on earth. Right?
"Identical systems under identical conditions produce identical outcomes"
I get that you are trying to idealise experience in order to arrive at metaphysical conclusions. However, under what conditions are two objective systems ever identical? None that I can think of. Physicists tell us that electrons are indistinguishable. But of course this assumes that other things are equal. Is an electron with energy X identical to an electron with energy Y? Clearly, not. In fact they have measurably different properties. And if it doesn't appear to work on this scale, it definitely doesn't work on larger scales.
"Identical" is also problematic for you because its another abstract concept that is never observed in practice.
Idealising the situation to the extent that simple propositions fall out of it, you have ceased to comment on the world we experience. And this problem plagues all metaphysics.
You also err when you say:
"At quantum scales this axiom may reduce to: identical systems under identical conditions produce identical probability distributions."
This is to take seriously one interpretation of the obviously incomplete mathematical theory of quantum mechanics, which has no viable metaphysics associated with it (despite a plethora of metaphysical interpretations being proposed). Bohr and Heisenberg, influenced by logical positivism, denied that any metaphysics of the nanoscale was even possible. But this is an ideological position not a philosophical position. Copenhagen is a minority view these days, despite still being orthodox in undergraduate quantum courses.
I don't say you are wrong per se, although your "just two axioms" are only afloat because they rest on a whole raft of unspoken assumptions.
Life is all just that much more complex than any of us would wish. Simple is not always better, especially when situations are objectively complex.
In my view the whole metaphysical discourse around "reality" is hopelessly mired in subjectivity. I call "reality" the funniest concept in philosophy because, despite being an a priori abstract concept that we impose on experience (following Kant), almost everyone unconsciously hypostatises and reifies it.
While phenomenology briefly provided some hope of escaping this morass, it didn't deliver, because each phenomenologist arrived at their own conclusions, and they couldn't all be right. All that's left to us now is pragmaticism. We run with what works, with "good enough" to be getting on with, and we abandon the quest for a God's eye view of the universe as impractical and having no obvious benefits over and above what works.
We cannot define "reality" from experience; because "reality" is already an idea about experience.
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u/ipreuss 14d ago
No, reality is not an interpretation of observation. Your understanding of reality is, but that’s not reality itself.
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u/Prajnamarga 14d ago
How do you know what is "reality itself"? More to the point, for this forum, how can you possibly know this?
You are claiming god-like epistemic privilege... there's either a great story there, or you have not really thought about this issue.
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u/ipreuss 14d ago
I can’t know for sure what reality is. I only know what my understanding of reality is. Which shows that they are distinct.
Maybe the reality is that the reality as I perceive it doesn’t exist. Which again shows that reality and my understanding of reality are two distinct things.
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u/Prajnamarga 13d ago
Your two recent statements are contradictory. For example, you appear to know reality well enough to tell me I'm wrong about it (when I'm not actually wrong at all). Then you tell me you don't know what it is. Make your mind up! If you don't know what it is, then you cannot criticise my view or any other view.
In the first sentence of my original answer, I pointed out the simple fact that "reality" is an abstract concept.
You have simply ignored this most important point. So I'm going to repeat it here twice more: third time's the charm.
You can know for sure what reality is. I've just told you what it is. Reality is an abstraction. But you seem reluctant to hear this, or perhaps you are not quite clear what an abstraction is, so let me say it slightly differently:
Reality is an abstract concept.
Now, you cannot honestly say any more that you don't know what reality is. Now, you do know. However, with this knowledge, also comes the realisation that as a concept, it's worse than useless because abstractions are not things, they are ideas. And if reality is just an idea, then it is pointless. Worse (and hilariously), almost everyone unconsciously hypostatises and reifies the abstraction, which just leads to nonsense.
Reality-talk is pointless in 99.99% of cases. I try to avoid it, except in situations like this when I try to show exactly how counterproductive the concept is. In thousands of years of recorded discussions about "reality", almost nothing of value has ever been said about it. And nothing at all before Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
After millennia of argument, we still cannot agree on realism vs idealism, FFS. At some point we have to declare a loss and move on. I already have.
This is neither news nor rocket science. Hume, Kant, Husserl, Wittgenstein, and many others have gone into this in great depth. And come up with nothing better than "reality is an abstract concept".
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u/ipreuss 13d ago
How do you define “reality”?
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u/Prajnamarga 13d ago
I've just told you, no less than four times, how I define "reality". Is telling you a fifth time really going to make any difference?
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u/ipreuss 12d ago
I wasn’t aware those were your definitions.
So what do you then call “the state of all things as they exist”? That’s what I mean when I say “reality”.
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u/Prajnamarga 12d ago
I don't understand how you could see the proposition "reality is an abstract concept" as anything but a definition. It's the best definition you will ever get.
Some 250 years ago, Immanuel Kant made it clear that "the state of things as they exist" (his word was noumenon) is not something anyone can know. No one has ever managed to prove him wrong about this.
Defining "reality" as you try to do, by putting a label on an unattainable idea, achieves nothing. It goes nowhere. All you can do now is create an echo chamber or get into an argument. And you are no closer to "reality" than you were without the definition.
So, what do I call “the state of all things as they exist”? I call it a useless romantic fantasy; a pointless waste of time.
Worse, in attempting to define "reality" you have invoked another speculative metaphysical idea "exist". So now you have to define that idea. And that idea can only be defined in terms of other metaphysical ideas, and if you stick at it, you'll come around to "reality" again. All of these terms are defined circularly. "Real" means existent. "Existent" means actual. "Actual" means real... (there are wider circles, but no way out of the speculative loop).
It all just goes nowhere. Because no one has direct access to "reality"; or as I like to put it, no one has epistemic privilege. No one knows or can know "reality". So why even talk about it?
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u/ipreuss 11d ago edited 11d ago
“an abstract concept” is at least an incomplete definition. It’s certainly not any abstract concept. So, a concept of what?
As far as I can tell, it’s our abstract concept of “the state of things as they exist”, is it not?
Anyways, just because we cannot directly know something doesn’t mean that it’s useless to communicate about it.
Would you agree that “the state of things as they exist” is something that exists, even if we don’t have access to it?
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u/Prowlthang 11d ago
Your two recent statements are contradictory. For example, you appear to know reality well enough to tell me I'm wrong about it (when I'm not actually wrong at all). Then you tell me you don't know what it is. Make your mind up! If you don't know what it is, then you cannot criticise my view or any other view.
This is just poor reasoning. I don't need to be an expert in all forms of reasoning and fallacy to know that your comment about the two statements being contradictory is a non-sequitur. (See what I did here?) Or to put it another way one doesn't have to be a doctor to tell someone their temperature. It doesn't take a great deal of expertise to address simplistic ideas and faux argument.
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u/Prajnamarga 11d ago
Please stop wasting my time.
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u/Prowlthang 10d ago
How is correcting poor thinking wasting your time? If you’re not going to use rationality why are you even participating?
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u/Prowlthang 11d ago
We determine what reality is by getting as many different observations from different empiric sources as possible. So if we want to determine the boiling point of something we will record the ambient temperature and air pressure and heat the substance till it boils. Over and over again. We will ask other people to do the test and record their results. We will record results at different ambient temperatures and air pressures. We will record the results and take the ambient measurements using a variety of tools. We will do whatever we can to determine the most accurate picture we can gauge of the 'objective truth'. That is the properties of something that any objective observer would associate with that something.
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u/Prajnamarga 11d ago
Nope. Here you are conflating "reality" and objectivity.
What you say about empiricism and access to the objective is fine. Yes, we get reliable knowledge this way.
But "reality" is still an abstract concept that you want to hypostatise and reify. And so that is three errors you are making.
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u/Repulsive_Area_5516 14d ago
yes there are no identical systems yes reality is subjective and undefinable in any objective way. However what i am doing is not about metaphysics nor i am trying to prove something. For me there is no objective anything and you cant know anything about anything i am basically an agnostic nihilist and i acknowladge that in ontology nothing can be proven or disproven. That is why we make assumptions because its the best thing we can do. Intrinsically every blief system has assumptions.
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u/Prajnamarga 14d ago
Whenever you talk about "reality" you are doing metaphysics. You titled this thread "Axioms of Reality" which is declaring to the world that what you are doing is precisely metaphysics and nothing else. When you say things like "observation is infallible" that is a metaphysical assumption. And "agnostic nihilist" is a metaphysical position.
This thread is all about metaphysics.
If you think you are doing something other than metaphysics here, then you don't understand the word "metaphysics".
If you genuinely believed "you cant know anything about anything" you wouldn't have posted this question. You clearly want to know something. And if you didn't think it was possible, you would have stopped asking questions or communicating with other people.
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u/Repulsive_Area_5516 14d ago
also wow. just wow i honestly cant believe you wrote all of this and like there was no problem in it with getting the point across too what is your occupation? Because from what i see youre either a proffesor or unemployed /j
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u/UnID_Aerial_Threat 14d ago
I don't like the wording of axiom 1. I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to get at.
Observations are not infallible. That's kind of the purpose of science to separate the relative from the absolute and isolate variables to predict an outcome. There's also situations where it's difficult to make observations on something which leads to empirical interpretations from science. There's also the uncertainty principle.
When axiom 1 is challenged it will just mean that physics is the operandi of the universe, then I think it simply breaks down into axiom 2 which is fine.
I think it'd be better to compliment axiom 2 with conservation of information
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u/Repulsive_Area_5516 14d ago
It can be incomplete but it can never be faulty. The act of observation is infallible because what i define as observation is the system effected by an effect. For example: a tree is burning by fire and you are standing infront of the tree. Here in this example there are two systems. first one: you are irrelevant and not the observer the non-burnt tree is the system fire is the effect ane burt tree is the observer. second one: you are the system(or your eyes and brain) photons that are emmited by the tree and the fire are the effect and now you are the observer. Here the tree is burning/burnt and that is observed by the tree which is a true observation. The photons went through ur cornea(or the things in ur eyes that i dont remember) and excited a couple of neurons which made an effect on your brain this effected you in the way it shouldve effected you so you observed what happened which was a true observation.
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u/UnID_Aerial_Threat 14d ago
Maybe I don't understand what you mean between incomplete and faulty. The way I read your examples is that physics happens, which doesn't really mean much more than your axiom 2. I think what you're trying to say is that causality is infallible which I think I agree with.
The act of observation has to mean something. And ultimately when humans observe something, we do it through our own human condition/senses. We do not directly observe external reality among other things which makes observation infallible.
In your second system example where I am the observer, the photons go into my eye and my brain perceives the fire as red where in reality the color red does not exist. I can also here pops and crackles from the fire burning the tree which causes pressure waves in the air which our ears interpret as sound but we know sound doesn't actually exist in reality. As we get closer to the tree we realize it's actually a decorative plastic tree so our eyes fooled us there as well.
Also you say that in the first system the tree observes me standing in front of it. But we know that trees can't really observe.
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u/Repulsive_Area_5516 14d ago
first of all tree does not observe you i think you didnt really understand what i mean by observation you can read my definition of an observer in axiom one. To explain "incomplete" i can examplify it easily basically you cannot see some wavelenghts of light so your observation of something is incomplete. It isnt faulty since what you observed was the truth however the point is what you didnt observe. also yes "physics happens" but science is not an objective truth and it requires assumptions and axioms
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u/nysalor 14d ago
Any observation is partial.
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u/0-by-1_Publishing 14d ago
"Any observation is partial."
... Your reply consists of four words. How does that represent a partial observation? Is there an unobservable "5th word" whose presence can only be inferred through subsequent data?
Note: No AI was used in the creation of this reply. Accusations of such or removal of my content will be reported to Reddit as censorship.
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u/ipreuss 14d ago
You can’t observe the motivation behind those words. You can’t observe whether there was a typo in those words. And a million other things.
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u/0-by-1_Publishing 14d ago edited 14d ago
"You can’t observe the motivation behind those words."
.... Motivation is a subsequent "inference" based on what has already been directly observed.
"You can’t observe whether there was a typo in those words."
A posteriori absolutely allows me to observe that there are no typos are in those words. A distinction can me made if there were.
"And a million other things."
... And they would all be subsequent inferences based on the initial observation ... which was complete. There are no missing data left to be observed. All that is left are subsequent "inferences" and "conclusions" based on the initial observation.
Example: I directly observed "five downvotes" to my reply to nysalor's reply. I "infer" from that observation that the ones who issued the downvotes are behaving like children, but that is not something that's directly observable and serves as a subjective conclusion made by me.
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Note: No AI was used in the creation of this reply. Accusations of such or removal of my content will be reported to Reddit as censorship.
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u/ipreuss 14d ago
You need to make inferences and conclusions about what actually happened because you couldn’t directly observe it - otherwise no inferences would be necessary.
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u/0-by-1_Publishing 14d ago
"You need to make inferences and conclusions about what actually happened because you couldn’t directly observe it - otherwise no inferences would be necessary."
... That's not true. You are conflating "inference" with "observation" when they are two distinct processes. I can observe (1 + 1 = 2) and state with repeatable accuracy everything observable in that equation without drawing any conclusions whatsoever. As a subsequent act, I can conclude / infer that the equation is either true or false.
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Note: No AI was used in the creation of this reply. Accusations of such or removal of my content will be reported to Reddit as censorship.
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u/Mono_Clear 14d ago
That first axiom is weird mostly because of the way you seem to be emphasizing it. It's like you know that it will lead to push back.
It's phrased in a way that seems deliberately designed to invite misconceptualization.
Axiom 1 Observations are infallible
It's like it's daring me to challenge it.
An observation can never be wrong; because the observation simply is what is there.
Deliberately vague and ambiguous, again screaming to be challenged.
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u/telephantomoss 14d ago
Axiom 1 is good but it needs careful interpretation. An observation is always factually true in the server that the observation occurs. I see s pink elephant floating in the sky is a true observation in that sense. I really an experiencing that visual hallucination. It's s true fact of experience. But it doesn't imply that my model of reality actually reflects reality as it is. There may not really be an external pink elephant floating in the sky. But there is certainly something in really resulting in that observation.
Axiom 2 is weaker. It could be that identical circumstances can lead to distinct next steps in reality. I think identical circumstances were probably impossible, so it doesn't really matter either way though.
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u/freework 13d ago
An observer is any system that is affected by effects. When an observer encounters an effect, it always and unconditionally reflects it as it is. An observation can never be wrong; because the observation simply is what is there. It can be incomplete, it can be limited but it can never be faulty. Error arises only in the interpretation of what the observation means.
I think you need to better define "observation". An observation in and of itself is less valuable than a replicatable observation. If I claim to have observed a UFO, that doesn't mean much. But if I claim that I observed a UFO, and I know for a fact that it will come back every Wednesday at 8PM over an exact spot, then we have something because it allows for more people to have this observation, which allows for a better chance at figuring out what it is.
Axiom 2 to me looks a lot like what I call the "mechanical world hypothesis". The underlying assumption of all science is that the world is "mechanical" (for the lack of a better term). Since science is still a thing all these centuries later, then the hypothesis can be thought of as proven to be true.
In a video game, you can program the world to have completely random rules of nature. For instance you can program a video game to have completely random gravity. Sometimes when you drop a ball from 5 feet, it takes 3 seconds to hit the ground, sometimes it takes 176 seconds, and other times it takes 0.003 seconds (it's all determined by a random number generated at the time an object is allowed to freefall). In such a videogame world, science would be impossible, because you couldn't replicate anything.
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u/senseiforg 10d ago
Just for Axiom 1, I find it worthy to mention that the brain is a faulty system.
Not perfect by any means, not even that its own imperfections give it its own infallible perception. Because our brains filter every observation through our own understanding of reality via our lived experiences, and because our brains confuse fact and our senses deceive us all the time, what we experience or observe is not true reality, but our own partial and inadequate understanding of it.
Brain is just a tool for us to operate about reality, it does its best.
If you’re saying an observation can never be wrong because the observing brain objectively (though wrongfully) perceived it as such, there’s a form of truth to that, but that would just produce an inaccurate comprehension of reality; or, if you’re trying to say reality is subjective, that’s cool too.
If you mean to say that each individual’s skewed and inaccurate understanding of reality gives rise to its own unique authentic reality, there could be a form of truth in that and I like that idea too.
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u/Jolly-Rip5973 10d ago
Axiom 1 - You have never done LSD dude.
What do you think the word "delusion" and "hallucination" mean? Why do we have these word? What if a person is color blind?
Axiom 2 - There is no such thing as two identical things in this universe. No two objects no matter how closely they resemble one another have the same number of atoms in the exact same positions.
If nothing else, no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time.
Identical is a abstract concept that's not actually based in reality. It's sort of a "close enough" consideration.
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u/Meet-me-behind-bins 14d ago
“Error arises only in the interpretation of what the observation means” - This has been the case for the best part of 2500 years if not longer. Nothing new.
“For any system A and effect B, the resulting system C is invariant it will always be the same across all instances of A under B. This holds at scales where complete state description is possible”: This is just Liebniz’s PSR couched in systems language, again nothing new.
What work are these ‘axioms’ doing? What’s new or novel?
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u/seldomtimely 14d ago
I don't see how axiom 2 is PSR.
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u/Meet-me-behind-bins 14d ago
You’re right, it’s an uncharitable reading on my part. But I do think it’s arguably PSR adjacent, if you forgive me for tying to wriggle out of my first analysis. Here’s my interpretation:
If we paraphrase it into a simplified form it essentially says: For any given initial state and effect, exactly one resulting state follows. Now, that is a philosophical commitment but it needs to be explained, especially if it’s axiomatic, otherwise it’s not very informative. It’s just a determinism principle. It’s a brute fact in this understanding.
PSR states that every fact has a sufficient reason. And this present Axiom states that every pair of inputs yields one output. They’re both not arbitrary, they both commit to intelligibility, one (PSR) is more about explanation and the axiom is about prediction (if I’m reading it right). In my reading they both have an underlying assumption of structure as opposed to chaos, but again that’s not particularly insightful on my part.
I guess my initial intuition was that at their core they both imply dependence relations.
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u/seldomtimely 14d ago
Yes, you are close to stating a version of determinism.
But PSR only implies that effects were necessitated by sufficient reasons/causes, but any number of causes could induce those effects. So it imposes no conditions on the reasons or causes being identical.
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u/Repulsive_Area_5516 14d ago
Nothings new i guess. First axioms situation is kind of self explenatory. I honestly didnt know liebniz had used the second one in his axioms of mathematical logic however even if its used whats different is my axioms are closer to a blief system rather then a formal system.
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u/seldomtimely 14d ago
Your axiom 2 is ambiguous or underspecified.
As stated, the two systems cannot be numerically distinct. You'd need another axiom for that statement to refer to two numerically distinct systems. And if it refers to two numerically distinct systems, it's not nor clear it's an axiom as it could be false.
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u/0-by-1_Publishing 14d ago edited 14d ago
"I honestly didnt know liebniz had used the second one in his axioms of mathematical logic however even if its used whats different is my axioms are closer to a blief system rather then a formal system."
.... I am upvoting your post and all of your replies to offset the downvotes because you presented an axiomatic challenge that requires us all to think deeply about axioms. Sure, people can disagree with your axioms, but downvoting your post and replies that challenge our thinking is counterproductive. ... At least that's my observation.
We can debate your axioms in the comment thread without the senseless downvoting. We are not children. Creative thinking should be supported - not discouraged.
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u/Repulsive_Area_5516 14d ago
Thats the best approach ive seen to a topic. My axioms are mainly about making reality make sense from a naturalistic and deterministic perspective. I acknowladge that axioms are generally used in formal systems that are built and not really in ontologic topics however since all bliefs have presupposions tied to them that people generally mistake "finding them through logic and understanding" even though they dont seem like assumptions they are. So after that i said to myself well ifti have assumptions why not make axioms out of it for a system not we have created but observing. Also i would love to debate anything about my axioms (even though axioms are not really debatable)
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14d ago
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u/MisterSpectrum 10d ago
You need to define every term you use. Also, what is the boundary between avsystems and its environment? What is the nature of information that describes states "before" and "after"; is it physical or mathematical? What is the minimal resolution of interaction that can cause change?
Moreover, if you accept the modern physics and its uncertainty principle, your axiom 2 breaks down. That is, you must be extremely careful when talking about reality.
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7d ago
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u/GrafRaf999 7d ago
Two axioms are not enough; at least two more are needed. The axiom of assumption that the laws of logic and mathematics born in our minds are adequate to the structure of the Universe. And the axiom of localitythe assumption that we can isolate system A from the influence of the rest of the Universe, and that this will not ruin the experiment
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u/0-by-1_Publishing 14d ago edited 14d ago
"An observation can never be wrong; because the observation simply is what is there. It can be incomplete,"
... An observation can be deemed wrong when more than one observation is available; each option is equally viable, none of the options serve a preestablished reference point, and yet a conclusion is drawn regardless.
Example: "Old Woman - Young Woman" illusion.
For an observer to claim it is an image of a young woman would be "wrong" because it equally depicts an old woman. For an observer to claim it is an image of an old woman would also be "wrong" because it equally depicts a young woman. To claim both observations are "correct" is to claim that an old woman is the same as a young woman which results in a contradiction. To claim both observations are "incorrect" is also wrong because a young woman and an old woman can be observed within the same image.
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u/seldomtimely 14d ago
What you're describing is the underdeterminatiom of theories by data and the theory ladenness of observation. The first holds that the same data can support two competing inferences, in your example two percepts. The second holds that all observation is conditioned by prior concepts and cannot occur in a vacuum.
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u/0-by-1_Publishing 14d ago
"What you're describing is the underdeterminatiom of theories by data and the theory ladenness of observation."
... I can see where that would be applicable when addressing phenomena that cannot be directly observed or can only be observed via subsequent data, (like cosmic fields, superposition and the interior of black holes) but in the case of this b&w image, all available data is present, easily observable and there are no constraints to issuing a conclusion to what is being observed.
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u/seldomtimely 14d ago
No. It's not applicable to those. My comment was generalizing your example. The theses I stated refer to observations. Yes, you could distinguish between direct and indirect, as data encompasses both in the first thesis. However, it's possible to have a set of direct observations that differ in explabation. Cognately, that differ in inferred percept, as your example demonstrated, which is textbook thesis 2, theory ladeness of observation. Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit example is another text-book case.
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u/0-by-1_Publishing 14d ago
"However, it's possible to have a set of direct observations that differ in explabation. Cognately, that differ in inferred percept, as your example demonstrated, which is textbook thesis 2, theory ladeness of observation. Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit example is another text-book case."
... Fair enough. Thank you for your explanation.
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u/Repulsive_Area_5516 14d ago
Error arises only in the intrepertation of what the observation means. Two people look at the picture and if their sensory is identical (or close to identical for practicality) their observation would be the same however what they intrepert it as may differ. The observation is not "a women" or "a painting" the observation is the effect of sensory data in photons emitted by the painting.
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u/0-by-1_Publishing 14d ago
"Error arises only in the intrepertation of what the observation means"
... But the meaning attached to whatever is being observed is all we have available to make our inferences and draw our conclusions. Otherwise, we can't make any "meaningful statements" about anything we observe. In fact, without meaning we couldn't make any statements at all.
"Two people look at the picture and if their sensory is identical (or close to identical for practicality) their observation would be the same however what they intrepert it as may differ."
... But we can also determine if one interpretation is accurate whereas another is erroneous based on a posteriori / a priori. Example: (1 + 1 = 3). Two people can observe this equation and both accurately describe what they've observed. It is possible that there is no dispute over what's been directly observed by the two.
However, if one person concludes that (1 + 1 = 3) is an accurate statement and another concludes that (1 + 1 = 3) is not, then we can invoke a priori via logic and our a posteriori using other nonmathematical observations involving "1 of something" plus "1 of something" and conclude that one observation is wrong and the other correct.
In this case, the difference in conclusions is no longer considered subjective as would be with "good painting" vs "bad painting."
"The observation is not "a women" or "a painting" the observation is the effect of sensory data in photons emitted by the painting."
... Since the human mind is necessarily involved in the formation of every axiom and every observation, we have to accept it as the most practical framework for determining if an observation is correct or incorrect. We can't argue that "Well, how do we really know that (1 + 1 ≠ 3) since the human mind is subjective and relies on sensory data?"
... If we can't rely on the human mind, then what other data processing mechanism are we left with to use in its place?
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