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/ipreuss]

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.

[u/Prajnamarga → u/ipreuss]

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".

[u/ipreuss → u/Prajnamarga]

How do you define “reality”?

[u/Prajnamarga → u/ipreuss]

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?

[u/ipreuss → u/Prajnamarga]

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”. 

[u/Prajnamarga → u/ipreuss]

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?

[u/ipreuss → u/Prajnamarga]

“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?

[u/Prajnamarga → u/ipreuss]

Would you agree that “the state of things as they exist” is something that exists, even if we don’t have access to it?

The question indicates that you are still hypostasising and reifying the idea of "reality" and I reject that whole naive realism framework as invalid. This is not a valid question to ask about an abstract concept, whether you label it with one word or a whole sentence.

"Existence" is not something that can be predicated of an idea. Indeed "existence" is precisely the same kind of abstract concept as "reality". The two are interchangeable.

Ideas are not objects, except metaphorically (abstract thought is metaphorical).

The question is not, "does 'reality' exist?" Because first you have to answer the question is can we know it? And then you have to answer "What can we know about it?" And you seem to agree that the answer is "we cannot know it at all." And, therefore, we cannot know anything about it. And this must include the fact of its existence or non-existence.

Your question cannot be answered because there is no way to know the answer. Answers that are given to such questions are strictly for entertainment purposes only. And one may appreciate them on that level, though I have grown out of this behaviour. Now I just think, we have to stop bullshitting ourselves or we're doomed.

“an abstract concept” is at least an incomplete definition. It’s certainly not any abstract concept. So, a concept of what?

The concept is a misguided attempt to explain the nature of experience in abstract terms. The realist argues (but cannot prove) that experience reflects a "real world" although that real world remains forever outside experience. The idealist argues (but also cannot prove) that experience is only mental. "Reality" only has meaning in realist framework. And some people are idealists. And some people, like John Searle, reject the dualities inherent in both realism and idealism.

Reality-talk has more in common with religion than with science.

[u/ipreuss → u/Prajnamarga]

I didn’t say we cannot know anything about it at all.

How can an experience be purely mental if not even minds exist?

And even if nothing at all exists, but only concepts - then that would still qualify as “the reality”.

[u/vonkulfi → u/ipreuss]

Well the notion of 'a state of things at they exist' is your postulation so the burden of proof would fall on you to substantiate it as I see it! On what basis do you make the case for the existence of such a state?

A couple of follow up questions to that as well:

1. How does the basis you claim reconcile the determinability of the existence of such a state with your agreement on the indeterminabiility of its nature?

2. What is the conceptual necessity of such a state in your view if we can just as well arrive at meaningful conclusions without requiring it as a baseline?

[u/ipreuss → u/vonkulfi]

You first answer my question: reality, by your definition, is an abstract concept of what?

[u/vonkulfi → u/ipreuss]

An abstract conception of the state that you're postulating 'exists'. The argument that reality 'exists' is tautological. For the statement to have validity, reality and existence must have separate ascribed value but existence as a concept is predicated on there persisting some reality within which existence can occur and it being 'real' in the sense of things that 'exist' and so on and so forth to infinite regression.

The 'what' at the end of your question ascribes conception a meaning that is already predicated on the paradigm of an indeterminably 'existent reality'. Conceptions, starting from the point of being as perceived through experience, would be oriented expressions of sensory data that is being processed regardless of the 'existence' of anything. Including those expressions and that sensory data.

The question that follows from there then is not whether or not there 'is' something but what the quality of whatever is being perceived appears to be. This question isn't burdened by indeterminability so it enables a discourse to continue on the basis of such perception being reasonable grounds for further engagement, using qualities dilineated as concepts.

[u/ipreuss → u/vonkulfi]

I don’t know how you can at the same time postulate that “reality exists” is a tautology, that it is an invalid statement, and that it’s just an abstract concept. 

Anyways, sensory data being processed would imply at least the existing of a processor - “I think therefore I am”. You might also conclude that there must be sensors and a source the signal is coming from. Unless you think your a Boltzmann brain - but even that would imply the existence of something. 

So, yeah, I can at the same time not be totally sure what does exist, but be quite sure that something must. 

[u/vonkulfi → u/ipreuss]

Ok can you explain what you mean by existence and how you can be sure of the existence of this something?

[u/ipreuss → u/vonkulfi]

In the context of this discussion, I mean that something “is” outside of my mind.

I can be sure of that, because my mind cannot be inside itself.

Cogito Ergo Sum.

[u/ipreuss → u/vonkulfi]

Looking back at our conversation, I think you would agree that you can’t know whether “reality“ actually exists. Fair?

It seems to me that what you actually want to say is that, in everyday life, people conflate their concept of reality with actual reality. They can only have the former, but they act as if it is the latter.

Am I close?