Copyright note: All rights reserved. Hyperlinks to this document's original location at http://kaiwitte.org/articles/realitychain.txt are allowed as well as giving that URL to anyone. Any other way of copying, redistribution or printing requires my explicit permission. author: Kai Witte 1. The problem of epistemology and constructivism This is just a general summary of the problem. 1.1 Common belief Many people believe a whole bunch of things: That they exist, that other people exist, that they live on a planet called earth, that there are cars, houses and other objects, that they have a body, most of the time with arms and legs, and that the lifting force of an object in a fluid in a gravity field equals the force which the gravity field exercises on the displaced fluid. 1.2 Problems with common belief Common belief includes many things that don't match up (you may pick one and skip the rest): 1.2.1 According to common belief, one perceives the world around him through his senses. The information is changed and filtered before it reaches the conciousness, and besides it is the image of the thing itself that projects in the conciousness, not the thing itself. So even if the outer world would exist, as common belief states, it would not be as one perceives it. More confusing, this whole idea about the senses has been perceived through the senses, so even this concept alone questions itself. See [Kant1783], [Kant1787] for further information about the "thing itself". 1.2.2 Modern science, which is part of common belief, does not have a well-defined basis. Many sciences like physics and chemistry don't even try to make a proper basis and just base their definition on elements perceived by the naive observer. Mathematics, which is used in many other sciences, has fundamental problems with its basis, and those other sciences inherit those problems as well. See [Wittgenstein2001], [Hilbert1926], [Kline1982]. 1.2.3 According to common belief there is time and history and present. In the past most people were absolutely sure about a certain things which later turned out to be wrong. According to the logic which is used in common belief it can be concluded that what we believe in now is just another step, and that much of it will be considered "wrong" by "more advanced" societies in the future. 1.2.4 This entire text is not what I mean by "common belief", but it has basically the same problems: It uses things like words, syntax, letters, ideas, logic, concepts and so on without a proper basis. It is important for the understanding of this text that I do recognise that I am basically on the same, futile way as the "common belief"-people! Everything so far and everything that follows is just as volatile as the "common belief" or an arbitrary religion. Even that statement itself and this one. 1.3 What we should do about it So we have this bunch of things, each of which may appear right, which contains some "false" concepts. We don't know what exactly is "false", only that not all of it can be true. (Actually, we don't even know that, but more about that later.) Thus we cannot work by kicking out the things that appear to be "false". Let's try to assume nothing and get a basis for a proper reality. The objective is to find out something, anything. For example that I exist, or that frogs are green ... anything will do. 2. Common views and their problems So most things we believe in are questionable, without a basis. Let's find out the things we know for sure and see how we can build on them. We can't assume anything, because nothing has been proven yet. 2.1 and 2.2 each discuss a common approach to do so. 2.1 We do know something for sure ... 2.1.1 What I know for sure I might say that I know one thing for sure: I exist, and I am currently writing something. Even an intelligent, open mind could draw this conclusion and believe that it is true for his entire life. 2.1.2 Ways to rebut that But I might also find one of the many ways to question this conclusion (you may pick one and skip the rest): 1. This could be a dream, the most realistic one ever. Even if the chance for this were only 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 %, I'd still have to admit that I am only 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 % sure about what I just claimed. 2. If I apply the view of modern science, which is not entirely unreasonable, I perceive the entire world around me with my senses. But my senses may "betray" me, and what I perceive is filtered and changed before a small fraction of it reaches my conciousness. (Which is a very problematic view, because if this would be right, then this information would have been perceived through the senses as well, and thus it invalidates itself.) There are many other ways to question the conclusion in point 2.1.1 by using a logic that is not clearly "inferior". 2.1.3 What I REALLY know for sure So apparently I just know that I exist in some form (whatever I am) and that I somehow get the impression that I am writing. (See the "Meditations" of Descartes, who goes the same way up to this point more thoroughly than I do [Descartes1641]. From now on our ways part.) This is an objective, unquestionable truth. 2.1.4 Why I am wrong again Again, there are many ways to rebut the conclusion in 2.1.3. Let's just pick some arbitrary ones. 1. In 2.1.1 I have made a mistake, and it could have happened even to an open and intelligent mind that I would not have found out why I was wrong. Maybe the same thing has happened now in 2.1.3, and I just don't happen to find the reasons why it is wrong. 2.1.1 is NOT "false" because I FOUND the reasons why it is "false"! It is "false (or at least: could be considered false) because the reasons "are there". Even if I would not have found those reasons I still would have been "wrong" in 2.1.1. The same thing could have happened now, only that I don't see the reasons this time! 2. Beyond the perceptions which are bound to senses like seeing, hearing and so on, similar logic could be applied to anything that is perceived by "me". That includes the concious thoughts, which could be considered external, depending on how "me" is defined. After all, I might not get the impression that I am writing, but I only get the impression that I get the impression that I am writing. Or the impression that I get the impression that I get the impression that I am writing. And so on. 2.1.5 Drawing the balance to this point Currently we still don't know anything, don't have any basis for anything at all. (Sidenote: A very common mistake of epistemologists is to assume that they exist.) 2.1.6 Why this (chapter 2) is all futile The objective was to find something which we know for sure, without using or assuming anything that is not proven already (and nothing was proven so far). But this chapter is full of concepts like truth and right and wrong and senses, and it uses words, and logic, and many more things. 2.2 The theory of independent realities Many people respond to the unsolved problems of epistemology and constructivism with the theory of independent realities (does it have a proper name? Please contact me!). According to this theory, there is no objective reality, only the subjective ones which are in the individual minds. 2.2.1 Problems with the theory of independent realities 2.2.1.1. It assumes countless, arbitrary things, although we did not find anything which we know for sure yet: That there is (more than) one mind / conciousness, that anyone is perceiving any reality at all and so on. 2.1.1.2. It is a reality / truth / view in itself. So it states about itself that it is just a subjective view, not "better" or "more true" than believing in an arbitrary religion or something similar. In order to fix this flaw, a variation of this theory states that there is EXACTLY ONE objective reality, which is the theory of independent realities. But that again is just an arbitrary belief, not fundamentally different from an arbitrary religion. Literature: [Descartes1641] Meditationes de prima philosophia, "René Descartes", 1641 [Wittgenstein2001] "Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics", L. Wittgenstein, 2001 [Hilbert1926] "Über das Unendliche", D. Hilbert, 1926 [Kline1982] "Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty", M. Kline, 1982 [Kant1783] "Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können", I. Kant, 1783 http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/germanica/Chronologie/18Jh/Kant/kan_pr00.html [Kant1787] "Critik der reinen Vernunft", I. Kant, 1787 http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/kant/krvb/krvb.htm