Anthropic Relativism — Part 2

I had described in the first part of my epistemology [1] that through the specific transformation of the world, each entity creates its own world in its own modality. I would like to clarify this approach in contrast to two authors who have developed a similar epistemology. Curiously, both use almost identical terminology (fields of meaning, unicorn world), but differ in focus. While the Romanian philosopher Gabriel Vacariu [2] focuses on physics and the philosophy of mind, Markus Gabriel [3] focuses on philosophical topics.

If we assume that each entity, by virtue of its existential modality, creates its own specific relationship to the world, that is, if it is instantiated in the world in this way, then it exists precisely in this bubble. This includes all perceptions, or more generally, all processes of exchange with the world. When Vacariu argues that quantum physics is a world of its own, he breaks with his logic. Quantum mechanics is just as much a part of the epistemic realm of our world as classical physics. Our inability to explain them results from the fact that we, as mesoscopic beings, cannot develop an ontology for the microscale.

The same problem arises with other issues, such as the mind-body problem. While Vacariu thinks it is caused by the epistemically different worlds [4], I argue that it is a linguistic and methodological problem that is part of our world 2 and needs to be solved here [5].

Likewise, Markus Gabriel blurs the epistemic levels when he does not separate epistemic and metaepistemic.

Both theories are inconsistent, interpreting other worlds into our world, which should not be possible according to their own logic. Because if it were possible, there would be no epistemic diversity.

Markus Gabriel’s view that materialism cannot fully explain the world also contains an epistemic inconsistency, or at least a category error. If you want to take a non-dualistic point of view, then there is only matter, for example, and from this arises what we call mind. We just don’t have a material or physical concept of mind. But to deny the material basis of mind is wrong.

Both authors develop their theory ex nihilo by merely asserting that the world is epistemically different. My argument begins with a logical sentence that says that every entity transforms the world. This results in a separate epistemic world for each entity, which I have referred to as World 2. World 1 exists only as a virtual auxiliary construction, which is only conceivable from a virtual meta-perspective, but as such does not exist in reality.

Our world 2 can, of course, be influenced by the effects of other epistemic worlds, but they only have epistemological influence, since the material influence is part of our reality. That is, we may not recognize things even though they should exist. On the other hand, when we know things, we know they exist, but we may not be able to explain them because we don’t have ontological access to them, as in quantum physics, for example.

We can break down anthropic or epistemic relativism down to the individual, because the epistemic transformation is entity- or species-specific, but it is concretized for each individual. This is shown by the fact that I can’t feel my neighbor’s pain, not even by means of imaginary wiring between the two of us. It’s definitely impossible. Thus, each person lives in his own epistemic world, and that includes sensations. This also applies to groups and cultures. The ethical consequence of this is a cultural relativism without any epistemic and cultural colonialism.

If you take a virtual metaepistemic point of view, you see an infinite number of worlds. We can interact with those that are perceptible to us without being able to and without having to understand them.

All of our logical arguments relate to our world 2. Every initial argument always ends in a conclusion that is necessarily epistemically predetermined. Every argument is, metaepistemically, a tautology.

There is an instrumentalism in our epistemic bubble, mindful of the fact that we can never leave this bubble.

So there are three levels of cognition. On the one hand, there is the operational level, where everyday, technical and scientific knowledge is located. The next level is about methodology, i.e. the question of how we can gain knowledge about the world in our world 2. This could be about the question of whether a neutral physical language is possible that can integrate the findings of classical and quantum physics.

Finally, the metaepistemic level serves the insight that there is no objective reality that can be approached by science. This is important with regard to transcendent ideas such as religion or the idea that one can discover or know objective truths. It teaches us a relativistic worldview.

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[1] Stegemann, W., Epistemology — Anthropic Relativism, https://medium.com/neo-cybernetics/epistemology-anthropic-relativism-2773dc8c77b7

[2] Vacariu, G., Illusions of Human ThinkingOn Concepts of Mind, Reality, and Universe in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Physics, 2016.

[3] Gabriel, M., Why the World Does Not Exist, 2015[

4] Vacariu, G., The Mind-Body Problem Today, 2011

[5] Stegemann, W., Mind-body problem — solved, https://medium.com/@drwolfgangstegemann/leib-seele-problem-gel%C3%B6st-83898b480000