Why our best theories of perception and physics undermine realism
Realism about objects proposes an isomorphism between the objects of the external world and the corresponding mental representations. A candle on a table leads to the percept of this candle. Ontologically, realism locates objects between the entities of fundamental physics and the perceiver. Here, we show that under the assumption of a mind independent world of physical particles there is no space for a mind independent world of objects. The mental representations partition the physical world into classes of states, each class corresponding to one mental representation. Since there are many more physical states than representations, the mapping is not unique. Hence, different perceivers may maintain different partitions of the physical world, leading to different mind dependent representations and objects. In general, we show that if there is one fundamental ontology (fundamental physics), one cannot have any other ontology (objects) in addition. Furthermore, we show that realism is not even a desirable goal of perception. These considerations by no means favor dualism or solipsism. These ontological considerations are presented in part II. Based on neuroscience results, we show in part I that realism is not an epistemologically tenable position either.