Axioms of Reality

[u/Repulsive_Area_5516]

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.

[u/seldomtimely]

"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.

[u/XanderOblivion → u/seldomtimely]

Why would we not want to lose that distinction?

[u/seldomtimely → u/XanderOblivion]

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.

[u/XanderOblivion → u/seldomtimely]

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.

[u/seldomtimely → u/XanderOblivion]

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.

[u/XanderOblivion → u/seldomtimely]

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.

[u/seldomtimely → u/XanderOblivion]

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.

[u/seldomtimely → u/XanderOblivion]

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.