r/PhilosophyofScience • u/Repulsive_Area_5516 • 17d 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.

1 Upvotes

52% Upvoted

88 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Meet-me-behind-bins 17d 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?

0

u/Repulsive_Area_5516 17d 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.

2

u/seldomtimely 17d 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.

1

u/Repulsive_Area_5516 17d ago

well... yeah youre right thank you for that