In the previous posts, I asked whether questions or observations can create reality, or whether they instead form an intersection where reality appears.
I now want to sharpen the issue.
Many discussions seem to assume that there is a fully formed, objective structure of reality “out there,” and observation merely reveals it.
But what if objectivity itself is not prior to observation, and instead emerges through repeated, shared intersections of perspectives?
In that case, observation would not be a causal force, nor a passive recording device, but a stabilizing process.
My question is simple but uncomfortable:
Can we meaningfully talk about a “purely objective structure” without already presupposing a standpoint from which it is identified as such?
I’m curious where others locate objectivity: before observation, after it, or nowhere at all.
If objectivity requires the removal of all standpoints, who or what is left to recognize it as “objective”?
I understand your position, and it makes sense to me. That there is a material world, and that our cognition gradually approaches a more accurate understanding of it.
What I find myself hesitating over, though, is this point: from where do we judge that our understanding is actually “getting closer” to the truth?
If we are always already within a self-recognized material world, what functions as the external reference that allows us to say that one stage of cognition is more accurate than another?
I’m not trying to deny the existence of the world. I’m wondering whether there is a distinction between a world that exists and a world that becomes stable as a world for us.
It seems to me that some relational process might sit between those two. I’m curious how you see this.
By our observations of the world, we form new understanding of the world, and test this through practice. Practice affirms or modifies existing understanding when the resuots conform or don’t to what we expect to happen.
Thank you for this — I think this is a very clear and thoughtful explanation. I strongly agree that through practice and experimentation, expectations can be challenged and our understanding revised.
What I find myself still wondering about is one step prior to that process: how certain differences come to be recognized as “discrepancies” in the first place, and which discrepancies count as meaningful enough to require revision.
Experimental results, after all, always appear as “results” within some theoretical or conceptual horizon of expectation. In that sense, practice does not seem to confront the world in a raw, unmediated way, but rather unfolds within a relation where the world and our understanding meet.
So my interest is not in denying that understanding can move closer to truth, but in asking where the reference points and stabilizing conditions for that movement reside. It seems to me that they may not be located solely within individual subjects, but in a more relational domain.
Practice can certainly lead to revision, but what do you see as grounding the claim that one revision is “more accurate” than another?
Objective results gathered from experimentation inform us. I’m not speaking of vulgar empiricism, but instead dialectical materialism.
The issue, then, is not whether material reality pushes back — I think it clearly does — but whether objectivity should be understood as something that exists fully formed prior to practice, or rather as something that emerges and stabilizes through practice itself.
What led me to take this question seriously was reading a paper that attempts to support precisely this kind of view not at the level of philosophy alone, but through scientific experimentation.
The way it approaches the relationship between observers and physical systems — not in terms of simple causation, but in terms of intersection and stabilization — had a strong impact on me.
To be honest, after reading that paper, I haven’t been able to let this question go. That’s why I keep returning to it here as well.
Reality, the material world, is constantly shifting and changing. It moves forward through contradiction, dialectically. It isn’t that practice creates reality, or affirms it, but instead that there is an all-encompassing system. Practice is material reality interacting with itself.
I understand the direction you’re pointing to, and I don’t feel that our positions are that far apart.
That said, there is one phrase I’d like to pause on: “an all-encompassing system.”
What exactly does that system refer to?
Because the moment we say that there is a system, we are no longer speaking only about material interactions as such, but about the conditions under which those interactions are intelligible as a whole.
This is the point that keeps catching my attention. If reality is nothing more than material reality interacting with itself, then where does the basis come from for those interactions to cohere as one system?
I’m not suggesting that practice stands outside reality. Rather, I’m asking whether the very coherence of an “all-encompassing system” already presupposes some point of unification that cannot be reduced to material interaction alone.
This is the question that keeps drawing me back to this issue.
I think I may be explaining myself poorly. The basis of the universe being composed of one whole is itself, interacting materially. I don’t see how something could stand beyond that.
Thank you for the clarification. I understand your position: that the basis for the universe being one whole lies in material interaction itself.
What I keep getting stuck on, though, is what allows interaction itself to count as a single whole.
There seems to be a non-trivial gap between saying that interactions occur and saying that they constitute one universe or one system.
If reality is nothing more than countless material interactions unfolding, then where does the basis come from for identifying that unfolding as one universe rather than mere dispersion?
I’m not trying to deny material interaction. Rather, I’m asking whether the very fact that interaction is intelligible as a whole already presupposes a point of integration that is not identical with interaction itself.
I’m not claiming this must be something “beyond” matter — only that the condition for saying “this is a whole” does not seem to follow automatically from the sum of interactions alone.
We like to think so, but in the end I can’t be certain of anything but my own existence. And you of yours.
The problem with these kinds of idealist notions is that they lead to absurd conclusions about how the world works, and work against trying to actively understand the world. Materialism (and by extension dialectical materialism) are useful because they help us better comprehend how the universe developed, why, and where it’s going, by understanding our own place within that process.
I didn’t say that there is no objective reality. I only said that we can’t be certain of it. That’s just an uncertainty that one must live with.
We get closer and closer to understanding reality as it exists the more we engage with it.
Ok a counterexample then: How do you know that the scientific method isn’t iterating towards the rules that govern the simulation we might technically be in, instead of actual reality? How do you know that you aren’t actually a Boltzmann brain blinking into existence for a brief instant with the memories of your life thus far and the experience of this moment here? You do not, because you can not know this. That’s the whole point of the Cogito argument. All you can actually know for certain is that you exist. We make assumptions about the world around us because they seem to work fine, and without them we wouldn’t be where we are now, but absolute certainty is reserved for that one statement only: I think, therefore I am.
And one more thing about iteration: Any iterative process only seeks towards some local maximum, which may or may not be the global maximum. This depends entirely on the starting parameters. If you think that you’ll reach the highest mountain of enlightenment by just constantly heading uphill, you may instead end up at the top of some smaller hill next to it.
You have it reversed, as an idealist. The real materialist statement is you are, therefore you think. We are a part of material reality, not independent from it as such.
I never said that I was an idealist. I believe an objective and purely physical world exists. Everything points in this direction and Occam’s razor is harsh on the alternatives. But I do not claim to know this for certain. That’s all that I have been saying here.