KARL JASPERS FORUM
TA62 (Mikes)
Commentary 8 (to C7 by Nixon)
BUILDING REALITY
by Herbert FJ Müller
27 September 2003, posted 21 October 2003
The first part of the question raised by Greg Nixon has been addressed in the early part of the 20th century by Jakob von Uexküll, who was concerned with the inside and outside worlds of animals.* (This is also somewhat reminiscent of Timo Järvilehto's theory, C1; see also TA22). It is safe to say, in my opinion, that animals too build up their world, except that they do not use language, and thus build no metaphysical notions in the human sense.
The second part of the question is about the communality of worlds of different individuals, human or animal. GN offers two possibilities : an already created (already structured) outside mind-independent reality, or else a universal dynamism which result in different worlds.
I would opt for the second one, specifically that each individual builds (or better : structures) his world. The dynamism results from the necessity for structure, which the individual has to satisfy. This allows for different worlds, between individuals, and even more between species. If the structures are reliable (and particularly if they are useful for more than one subject), he then can treat many of the created structures as-if they were in GN's first alternative : pre-constructed and mind-independent. This is useful as a shortcut, but one should remain aware of this as-if aspect, in order to avoid complications that may result from a naïve belief in mind-independent reality.
The as-if permits using the structures - on a make-shift basis - in a conventional sense (ontologically, i.e., as-if they were given in ready-made form) while also allowing for some difficulties of this world-view (e.g., that subjects or qualia are not pre-constructed). The resulting view is wholistic (or encompassing) : all structures are built within (one) experience.
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* vUexküll has mostly published in German (e.g., Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere, Berlin : Springer, 1921), but some translations are available, for instance "Theoretical Biology", London : Kegan Paul, 1928.
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Herbert FJ Müller
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