To be honest, I never saw how it would be “self evident” that not only there is some “objective reality” out there but that we also have an accurate representation of it. How would we know our representation is accurate? We don’t have access to an objective observer, we don’t even have access to a non-human observer. Immanuel Kant said, back in the 18th century, that in truth, the “laws of nature” are “laws of human perception [of nature]”.
I recently wondered if the idea that our perception of reality is an accurate representation of the underlying objective reality was actually a commonly held idea around here. In Eliezer’s short story “Three Worlds Collide”, he has the characters say as much, because they assume that the periodic table and mathematics would be the same for every other species. But there is no reason to assume that is true.
To be honest, I never saw how it would be “self evident” that not only there is some “objective reality” out there but that we also have an accurate representation of it. How would we know our representation is accurate? We don’t have access to an objective observer, we don’t even have access to a non-human observer. Immanuel Kant said, back in the 18th century, that in truth, the “laws of nature” are “laws of human perception [of nature]”.
I recently wondered if the idea that our perception of reality is an accurate representation of the underlying objective reality was actually a commonly held idea around here. In Eliezer’s short story “Three Worlds Collide”, he has the characters say as much, because they assume that the periodic table and mathematics would be the same for every other species. But there is no reason to assume that is true.