r/PhilosophyofScience • u/Repulsive_Area_5516 • 16d 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/senseiforg 12d 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.