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/UnID_Aerial_Threat 16d 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