Prolegomena to any kind of knowledge
Alexander Khomiakov

This book criticizes the realist paradigm, proposing interactive constructivism as an alternative. It explores issues about the limits of human knowledge, the creation and construction of knowledge, and the functioning of perception, thinking, and intelligence in understanding the world beyond our representations. Beginning with the fundamental functions of intelligence, such as predicativity and analogy, the book explains how models of situations and scientific theories are formed.

Translator Anton Borisov

© Alexander Khomiakov, 2025

© Anton Borisov, translation, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0067-5045-6

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

This book criticizes the realist paradigm, proposing interactive constructivism as an alternative. It explores issues about the limits of human knowledge, the creation and construction of knowledge, and the functioning of perception, thinking, and intelligence in understanding the world beyond our representations. Beginning with the fundamental functions of intelligence, such as predicativity and analogy, the book explains how models of situations and scientific theories are formed. The author introduces the concept of consciousness as the highest function of intelligence and explores its role in the evolution of society and the reason, to which the author suggests a novel definition. The presented concept of intelligence offers a new perspective on issues such as the consciousness – body problem, subjectivism versus objectivism, etc.

Only possible experience can give reality to our concepts; without it, any concept is only an idea, devoid of truth and relation to the subject.

I. Kant

1. Introduction

1.1.1 This book sets out to give the answer to the first question of epistemology: what can be known about that which we call reality, how we construct our conceptions of it. This book is about how any knowledge we possess about anything is organized, and why we know about it, that is, how we recognize our knowledge. To answer this question, a new theory of intelligence, based on research in cognitive psychology, is outlined. The presentation of the theory of intelligence forms the content of Chapters 3, 4, and 5.

1.1.2. The book starts from a critique of the objective knowledge paradigm, which leads to a dead end in cognition. The reason for this is the objectification of our representations of the world as knowledge directly derived from it, which the author calls the objectification of representations. Arguments will be made further against outdated concepts of information flow, truth, and objectivity. Modern science builds illusions about the objectivity of knowledge, although it is obvious that no knowledge without our representation can directly reflect what is beyond it. To remove such an obstacle, to overcome the old epistemology, a new paradigm, called interactive constructivism, is outlined and justified here, which is presented in Chapter 2.

1.1.3. A growing contradiction has emerged within the scientific community between the advancements in cognitive- and neuropsychology and the paradigm, in which the scientists reason about their discoveries in natural sciences. For example, scientists acknowledge that representations are subjective and belong to us, yet they posit that their laws, which are devised to explain experimental data, are objective. Much of this contradiction motivates the author’s research as expressed in the concept of interactive constructivism outlined in the book.

1.1.4. Neuropsychology has convincingly demonstrated that all our image of the world is within us, originating from the operation of intrinsic brain structures. For example, in the case of specific dysfunctions within certain cortical areas of the brain, we can see circles and sticks but not identify them as bicycles or glasses. This is only possible if the model of glasses and bicycles as a particular combination of circles and sticks is already present in our mind. However, this has not persuaded objectivists studying nature, since the question of “how representation is formed and what is objective about it” remains so far unanswered.

1.1.5. Constructivism as a solution to the issue of cognoscibility has not been widely accepted because it is counterintuitive to our perception of “things that are before us”. And until then, the question of how our subjective constructions are consistent with what enables us to act in the world has not been answered. This book provides the answer to the question of how our representations are consistent with what we call “reality”. A key distinction of interactive constructivism is that these are multivariate constructions (models) in which the choice of option is not made by the will of the subject, but by what is independent of him. The choice is made through perception, which belongs to the model but is in touch with the world.

1.1.6. One of the objectives of this book is to finish the debate about the status of “reality” in our cognition by establishing a method of obtaining a representation of it as that, which is unattainable by us in the identity of representation but is applicable in experience with it. The author shows that our representations are arranged in such a way as to enable us to operate in reality without having an actual representation of it. The author argues that we do not act on the basis of a model identical to the world, but because of the consistency of the model with changes possible in the world. This is the paradigm of interactive constructivism.

1.1.7. Unlike other authors of constructivism, in this book it is not only stated that our perception is constructive, but it will be shown how constructs are built, how they change, how they correspond to the goals of the subject, how they allow discovering new things in the world, and how consciousness emerged based on them. Interactive constructivism changes the idea of everything because it changes the idea of what is the knowledge of anything in general. This is a new paradigm that involves a redefinition, a different interpretation of common knowledge, but does not reject it.

1.1.8. The theory of intelligence and cognition being presented is revealed on the constructive ability of language. It will be shown how the naming of actions has allowed a human to rend away from the “here and now” and create imagination, in which a human learned to construct imaginary models and create artifacts based on them by means of conscious speech.

1.1.9. The basis of intelligence is the multivariate predicate as a way of capturing changes in the environment through perceptual systems. For example, the predicate “to have a color” implies all the variants of colors we know. This makes it possible to recognize any color of anything and to capture its change. And the difference of human intelligence, having consciousness, is that we can create new distinction predicates ourselves. This is the main thesis of the book, which will be explored further on.

1.1.10. The basis of intelligence in the presented theory is the method of constructing schemas and models as a set of schemas, which are used for organizing activity in the world for pragmatic purposes of the organism, rather than for contemplative cognition of the world. The key element of intelligence is the predicate as a method of detecting changes. It is shown how analogy is created on the basis of predicates and how all known ways of thinking – from syllogisms to ontologies – are built on its basis. Imagination, memory, perception, and thinking are one and the same – a step by step constructed representation subordinated to a certain goal of the subject’s activity. We can see different things in the same perception (for example, in a double illusion). Only the schema determines what we see.

1.1.11. The author proposes a new criterion for building a cognitive theory based on the combination of different types of models, namely, abstract, subject, and instrumental. It is only when all components are present that the theory becomes verifiable in experiment, fallibilistic, and useful. Such a hierarchy of models allows relating arbitrary constructs of intelligence to the world and to act with pragmatic goals.

1.1.12. It will be shown how social speech that is, directed to each other, as well as depicted in writing gave rise to social consciousness, and how social consciousness became individual consciousness through the interiorization of self-directed speech. This allowed the human to become conscious of their representations and created what we call subjectivity. Consciousness has allowed us to gain knowledge of what we know. A definition of consciousness and its functional formula will be presented further in the book.

1.1.13. The book defines the concept of mind as the ability of the intelligence to change and to perfect itself. Besides, a new concept of “submatter” as a new form of existence based on self-organizing matter is introduced. This is a new substance, which will be inevitably generated by biological mankind and will continue the path of mind in the universe.

1.2.1 The book outlines short theses because what is important is their mutual conditioning, linking them into a coherent theory, rather than the validity of each thesis individually. Some of the thoughts may seem familiar; however, they are important to the theory being constructed as pieces of a puzzle, without which the general picture will be incomplete.

1.2.2. Here the reader will not find references to the works of other authors, because in the constructivist paradigm, to which the book is devoted, there can be many different explanations of the same phenomenon, including intelligence. It is always possible to find certain confirmation of any explanation. It is not necessary for those who recognized the citations from renowned authors to be reminded of their names, while those who have not recognized them will not gain anything by mentioning their names for understanding the theory being presented.

1.2.3 The only author mentioned in the book is Immanuel Kant, whose thoughts are continued by the author’s modest work. In particular, the book provides the answer of how “phenomenon-for-me” is related to “thing-in-itself”. This is exactly the basic question of all epistemology. And the answer to this question is the interactive constructivism outlined in this book.

1.2.4 The best way to confirm a hypothesis is to apply it. Anyone who takes the time to read, comprehend, and model the proposed concept can attempt to verify it. The method described in Chapter 3 for deriving analogies and schemas as basic functional of entire intelligence has received experimental evidence, described in other articles by the author [1]¹. This lends credence to the usefulness of the ideas presented in the book.

1.3.1. At the time of writing this book, what is called artificial intelligence in fact is not what it is called. It is merely a computational simulation based on a vast amount of data covering all the topics the average person might inquire about, with a small approximation between the examples. However, even such a simulation cannot draw a horse with five limbs, something that even a six-year-old child can do. This is because there are not enough variations of composition in such amounts of data for artificial intelligence to be capable of it. Neural networks do not have a theory of knowledge at their core.

1.3.2 The operation error at neural network approach is that it is built on the paradigm of information processing from the input layer, originally presented in perceptron. This explains why the neural network’s response is so dependent on the input sequence. The book will show that intelligence actively constructs input information from available schemas by selecting the best-matching model, rather than just processes input information.

1.3.3. The error of the symbolic approach is that it proceeded from a superficial sequence of symbols, only implying but not explicating, not unfolding their meaning as relations of symbols to schemas of its meaning, connecting into an overall multivariate model of the situation, which the superficial sequence only indicates, and which is much broader than that expressed in the sequence of symbols.

1.3.4. The difference of symbolic approach is that it attempts to describe all structured knowledge by supplementing it with inference rules, which proved to be insufficient. The neural network approach differs in that it provides a large amount of unstructured data so that the model itself could structure it into knowledge. In constructivism, the extraction of predicates and their statistics is the only important thing. Schemas then emerge on their basis as structured knowledge, which are used to extract new knowledge through the combination of schemas by analogy. This book presents a theory of intelligence that avoids the mentioned errors of previous approaches and builds a completely new foundation for its implementation.

1.4.1 Even if the reader does not agree with what is written here, after reading this book, they will no longer be able to think about the world and our knowledge of it the same way.

2. Criticism of realism and constructivism
as a new paradigm of cognition

2.1.1. Representatives of empiricism and realism demonstrate pralogic thinking. The proponents of this view assert that they possess objective knowledge, although they acknowledge that we can only see what our brain shows us, i.e. representation. The question thus arises as to how this representation of the world can be considered objective? This can be met only if it is the “screen” of indeed a complete and “objective” display of information regarding reality, transmitted undistorted directly from the sensory organs to the brain. However, this is an even more absurd assumption, since it assumes that knowledge about the trajectories of stars is contained directly in the stars and this knowledge is transferred to us with light. If this had been the case, then as early as the ancient Greeks would have discovered the true structure of the solar system. However, it was not until much later that Copernicus constructed a mathematical model that was simpler and better suited to the observed facts. Thus, the situation is just opposite.

2.1.2. The paradox is that many people agree that we are only given our representations. Yet, they continue to attribute knowledge about the world, i.e. these representations of it, to the world itself, as if the world were such. They even do not notice the contradictory nature of these views. Obviously, we construct our representations about the world rather than receive them from outside because our knowledge changes while the world remains the same. From this, we can conclude that one cannot say: “That’s how the world works”. We can say only that this is how we imagine it to be.

2.1.3. The main reason for the persistence of the old paradigm of knowledge is hypostasizing our representations into the world, the objectification of representations, and the natural attitude of “seeing in front of us”. Its influence is so powerful that even the presence of paradoxes does not convince us that all insights into the world are formed within us, even though it seems that they exist outwards.

2.1.4. We give too much credence to our own assertions, attributing imagined entities to the outside world. Although we introduce new concepts only to simplify their operation, we begin to believe in their existence outside of us as phenomena of the world. But this would mean that the thing implied by the concept appears in the world at the same moment we invented it, which is also pralogic. There are no delicious apples, tender love, or probability outside of our thinking. These are all mental constructs that we hypostatize into the world. The world itself is our fantasy of something existing beyond our representation. They are just our representations. However, our habitual way of thinking – that what we see is outside of us – causes us to attribute invented entities to the real world. Sometimes, though, these entities disappear simply because we have begun to think differently, as was the case with the thermogen and the aether.

2.1.5. Let’s consider the example with an apple. On the one hand, it is a delicious fruit; on the other hand, it is a conglomerate of molecules. Does this mean there are different apples? Then, reality appears to be multiple, which is an obvious contradiction. A lens cannot transform one reality into another. Only our model of representation changes due to the change in scale and configuration of the same colors and lines in perception. Any attitude that implies realism to some degree can be characterized as pralogic.

2.1.6. Any form of realism presupposes a “God’s view” that allows us to see the real world as it is. However, this is impossible in principle because we construct a representation of reality rather than perceive it directly. “God’s view” would imply the existence of unchanging representations from the very beginning, which contradicts the history of science.

2.1.7 There are no illusions – this word is not appropriate for explaining something. Illusion implies that there is an illusory, i.e., incorrect perception, and an objective perception, but they are both subjective. In reality they are just two representations of a single perception like a double illusion, where one is recognized as incorrect only from a pragmatic standpoint. One cannot find water in the mirage of an oasis in the desert.

2.1.8. Realists use the following argument to prove objectivity: the fact that different people draw a flower similarly testifies to its objective existence in a given form. Since we are morphologically similar and have similar visual representations in our occipital cortex, we perceive flowers similarly. However, this is merely a similarity in representation within a single, morphologically similar biological species. All bats have a similar echolocation representation, but it is different from ours. Obviously, they would “draw” a different flower because they have a different representation of a flower. However, our representations of abstract concepts may differ significantly due to the absence of a shared perceptual basis. This is why abstract concepts are often controversial. Agreement on these concepts is achieved through social consensus formed through shared practice.

2.1.9. Everyone who sees a red flower perceives its image formed in the brain, rather than the flower itself, which exists outside the brain. Because our physiology is similar, the images are likely to be similar as well. However, the meanings that people attach to these images may vary widely since everyone has different experiences associated with them. Consequently, people who perceive a flower are not arguing about the fact of its existence; rather, they may have disagreements about its meaning.

2.1.10. Empiricists often cite scientific instruments as an argument. They claim that instruments provide objective measurement data, independent of the researcher’s subjectivity. However, instruments are created based on a generally accepted model of the phenomenon being measured. This model is the result of a convention of measurement methods and can mislead scientists who argue for objectivity based on instrument readings.

2.1.11. Scientists attribute the existence of the world to the mathematical laws of physics. Otherwise, they cannot explain how formulas describing the motion of cosmic bodies can predict and subsequently discover phenomena that have not been observed before. The “predictive power” of laws leads scientists to believe that we understand the world because of the objectivity of its laws. However, a simpler explanation exists: we find thought patterns, including mathematical ones that align well with empirical data. A model of a phenomenon is suitable for describing the phenomena it is matched to. Certainly, reasoning according to the schema leads to “hitting” an empirical fact into the selected schema. This alone explains the “unfathomable efficiency” of the “laws of the world” that we have created.

2.1.12. However, this does not mean that a model of a phenomenon is identical to the phenomenon itself. We define the facts of a phenomenon through the concepts related to the model. The facts themselves are hidden from us behind our concepts, and they may be quite other. As will be shown later, we can only say that changes in our representations correspond to changes “out there” behind them. However, their form is not identical to the form of the model of the phenomenon, which follows at least from the fact that it may be different! Throughout the history of science, we have seen that explanations of the same events can change despite the events themselves not changing. Therefore, it is more logical to assume a second explanation for the “incomprehensible efficiency” of mathematics as a cognitive schema rather than as the laws of the Universe’s structure, which we comprehend through a telescope.

2.1.13. Why do we believe that reality is singular rather than multiple? Could different representations of the same thing indicate different worlds existing simultaneously? Since we cannot reliably know anything about the reality implicit in our representations, it is impossible to answer this question unequivocally. However, assuming that reality is multifaceted would make it impossible to work together or develop common concepts. Everyone would develop their own theories and practices, and it would be impossible to reach an agreement. Thus, the assumption of the singularity of reality is based on the necessity of social practice rather than on establishing the fact of its singularity.

2.1.14. In science, hypotheses are often based on probability, regarded as a scientific fact. Nevertheless, probability is not a phenomenon in the world, but rather a speculative representation, an accommodation to that which is impermanent. The probability is applicable as a quantitative value exclusively in the context of a series of experiments (statistics), rather than in the context of a single case. We cannot accurately predict an isolated fact by probability because of the difficulty of accounting for all random factors. Probability is one of the concepts we have developed to overcome the complexity which misleads us. And the probability of an event tells us nothing about its causes, just as randomness does. However, using probability as a weight when transiting to models such as Markov chains, we artificially make it a constant. And these errors are the result of the objectification of our representations.

2.1.15. All of our visual representations consist of boundaries and colors. It is evident that no singular representation or knowledge exists that visually consists of anything else. It is evident that both color and boundaries are representations of our own rather than manifestations of the real world. Why different representations formed based on the same colors and boundaries can be so different in ontological terms?

2.1.16. Realists posit the following argument: “I can pick up an apple with my hand and therefore it exists outside of me”. However, when one encounters an apple in a virtual reality helmet, the question of its location becomes salient. The image displayed on the internal screen is synchronized with the movements of the hand. The hand itself and the sensations of touch are also given to us as representations, supported by the sense of movement (proprioceptive sense). Furthermore, virtual reality helmets are equipped with sensors capable of detecting hands and subsequently rendering them on the screen.

2.1.17. But what does it say for reality to exist? I took the pen and let it go. It fell, not flew, even though I wanted it to fly. This is a possible development option in space, and I would like that option now. However, another option has been chosen. My mental models are the hand and the pen, but I did not choose the model variant, although I can imagine another variant. This tells us that there is some “reality” behind our representations that makes the choice of representational option for us.

2.1.18. Realists may offer a different argument. They would argue that the process of seeing and constructing images can be described as an objective, third-person process. However, this description is itself a representation of lines and colors. It says more about how we think differently about the world than what it actually looks like. Otherwise, vitalism would have to be recognized as objectively existing simply because it is present in third-person explanations.

2.1.19. There is no such thing as a third-person view because no one owns it. It is a fiction created by realists in an attempt to represent a gaze independent of the subject. There are only two views: the first-person view, which is me, and the second-person view, which is the person with whom I am discussing it.

2.1.20. When we try to find the basis of any property or object, we fall into a void. For example, an apple is made up of molecules, which are made up of atoms, which are made up of elementary particles, which are made up of quarks, whose nature we do not know. This is not a property of “reality,” but rather a property of our explanation of it and our ability to constructively divide everything into discrete parts.

2.1.21. Complex numbers cannot be seen anywhere; they are purely a mental construct that helps us build reasoning and create new ideal models. These models justify themselves not as reflections of reality, but as ways of thinking and building models of reality. We invented uses for them, yet some have claimed that the things to which we applied them are the source of the representation of complex numbers. This ignores the obvious fact that we invented them before we could apply them to describe physical phenomena.

2.1.22. Does the concept of the “average” exist in the world as a phenomenon? We may find an object or phenomenon in the data whose value corresponds to an average relative to all perceived ones. But this is not the average as some special entity, but as an instance of a set with such a particular value. By analogy, we can conclude that concepts such as probability, randomness, infinity, and the past have no direct correspondence in reality. They are merely convenient constructs of the mind that allow us to create schemas for operating the entities of the same mind and instruments in experiments. The average and probability help to deal with the complexity of values in a series by replacing them with a single number that is easier to work with.

2.1.23. Physicists reason about time as follows: we perceive events in time, so time is a characteristic of events (rather than how we perceive them). And even if they agree that these are all representations of sequence as a construct of the mind, they say “but what is behind these representations must also have some kind of sequence”. This is an example of the hypostatizing error – physicists tend to attribute phenomena to the world they investigate than to themselves. Hence, the paradoxes of time arise. Below it will be convincingly shown that time is an artifact resulted from emergence of individual consciousness, while sequence is just one of the abstract schemas of representation.

2.1.24. Physicists are still making discoveries about motion back and forth in time, which suggests that the paradigm of realism, expressed by hypostatizing time as an entity in the world, is not obsolete. Despite more than 300 years of subjective idealism pointing out the illusory nature of our representations, the human psyche still tends to view the world as external. This prevents us from recognizing that our entire imagined world exists only within us.

2.1.25. We use our representations to interact with an assumed world that exists outside our representations, evaluating the results of these actions also based on representations of possible consequences, which forms an endless circle. We are beings, with mentality which goes round in a circle. All that is available to us is the verification of our representations through experience, provided there is a choice of the representation option at the perceptual level which is independent of our will.

2.1.26. Objectivism generates both explanations and contradictions. The wave function describes well the passage of an electron through slits, but it also creates contradictions for our own thinking with the notions of singularity of particles. However, there are no contradictions in the real world (reality). Here is another example. Quantum entanglement contradicts causality as the foundation of our thinking, because causality exists only for us and is necessary just for us, but not for nature, for the capability of prediction. Any theory corresponds only to our experience.

2.1.27. Concepts do not exist beyond us, they are our own constructs. Nothing in the world will change because we invented a new concept. The assertion that concepts exist objectively is as naïve as the claim that fairy tale characters exist in reality. Only children believe in that.

2.2.1. Dualism arises because of the hypostatization of different human representations of the self, such as feelings and physiological processes, as different substances existing in the external world, although both are only internal representations of the same phenomenon, but in different forms. This is the reason for the difficulty of solving the mind – body problem and the existence of an explanatory gap. In constructivism there are different, often incompatible representations of the same thing (and below it will be shown why they are incompatible), but all of them are human representations, constructs of the mind, between which there can be no causal relations as between physical objects, because they mean the same thing, just in a different representation. It is illogical to regard ultrasound of brain and its MRT as discrete entities and to attempt to establish causal relationships between the structures revealed by these methods.

2.2.2 The explanatory gap in the mind – body problem, as the impossibility to deduce from one representation the other, follows from the fact that the two different explanations are based on different basic concepts. Pain and nerve cells, heat and joules, light and photons are not qualitatively deduced from each other either; they are only compared to each other in experience. Pain is defined as a feeling, while the nerve cells that cause it are regarded as microorganisms, light is defined as a sensation, while photons – as physical objects. The explanatory gap occurs wherever different ontologies exist.

2.2.3 For example, sound. It can be generated by means of a circuit constructed by the interconnection of radio parts with a speaker. Sound definitely exists, and we can hear it, but this is a dynamic process that cannot be separated from the radio circuit. On the other hand, you will never find anything resembling sound in the radio circuit itself. There are transistors and capacitors there, but there is nothing that we define as sound. Even a speaker is just a coil and a cone. An explanatory gap exists wherever something is described by different models on different perceptual bases.

2.2.4. One can’t say that there is an objective, and one does not need to try to explain how the subjective is derived from objective. According to constructivism, everything is a representation. One should say that there is the subjective and should explain what we consider intersubjective in it, i.e. concerted and the same for all. For the first humans, the natural attitude meant that everything exists beyond them, and therefore, objectively, even their fantasies about dragons. It was only over time that human realized that dragons were his imagination. Now it is necessary to recognize that everything is our imagination controlled by perception, not just dragon images. And most people share common concepts, which are interpreted as intersubjective.

2.2.5. There is nothing objective, that is, nothing independent of the perceiver. Everything we know takes place in someone’s mind. Without an observer there is no representation. Without a representation, there is no knowledge. And if we agreed with someone to call something so-and-so, then when it happens, it is intersubjective (collective subjective) which is called “objective”. Even a blind man can agree with a sighted man on the color of things he has never seen. The world as implied by representations is an agreement with others about its existence. However, it must be remembered that it exists only in the representations of each. These representations are agreed through common practice. While, subjective is the representation, which is realized as belonging to me.

2.2.6. The objective is the collective subjective. It is given to us in no other way than through the belief that what I see can be seen by others. It is our accepted agreement that we are talking about the same thing. It is what others see and call the same thing. Here is a red apple in front of me. It is an objective image, on the one hand, it is seen by others, it can be eaten. But, on the other hand, there is no “red” in the world, it is a subjective representation. It follows that I see both subjective and objective at the same time. This is the paradox that creates dualism. Realism has no answer to this paradox.

2.2.7. Even in the nature of living there are different representations of the same thing. The senses cannot all be in the same modality because they cannot convey information simultaneously. These modalities complement each other – the sound of breaking branches in a forest tells us as much about danger as the sight of the large animal that caused these sound. With insufficient information we would lose a lot to prediction and confidence – when I can’t see, I can hear and predict the yet unseen. But that is why they are incompatible – one can’t convey sound with color so it doesn’t interfere with it. And signs of certain modality are related by certain pattern, such as color or tone. By means of speech we construct many more different representations and models, than nature does.

2.2.8 Objectivists agree that representations belong to us; however, their structure and meaning reflect the external world, as in the laws of physics. However, this is paradoxical thinking because the meanings of the numbers that make up the laws of physics do not exist in the world. You cannot point to them by finger.

2.2.9. The thesis that all our representations are subjective constructs can be substantiated by the following mental experiment. Imagine that my skull was opened and I was provided with a mirror to observe my own brain. The image of the brain scientists would consider objective. It’s what the doctors around me see as well. But let’s take an electrode and insert it into the area of the visual cortex which is responsible for color perception. I can see where it is stuck in my brain. And suppose the doctors hit just the red perception neuron in a certain visual field. What happens? A red spot will appear in front of my eyes, and I will be aware of the red qualia. This subjective redness will overlap the objective picture of the brain that caused it. However, doctors will not be able to discern this redness; however, they may possess their own “overlaps”. What inferences can be drawn from this phenomenon? This phenomenon signifies that the redness is primary in our perception. It is primary, which is only later related by us to what we call objective or subjective according to completely different criteria (belonging to everyone or belonging only to ourselves).

2.2.10. I see a picture in front of me, and I know how my eye is organized so that I can see it. However, the construction of the eye does not give the sensation of seeing. This is the difference between the process itself and a model of the process. One cannot get the vision in the model. From the vision one cannot see the process itself, which gives the effect of seeing. Therefore, one can feel and observe only by being part of the process, being within the process. One can study and analyze the process itself only from the outside. This is the only reason in differentiating between objective and subjective approaches. However, these are not different substances, these are different models of the same process with different data – how it is felt from the inside and how it is seen from the outside. And to know about the process from the inside allows only consciousness as a process carried out after the realized process, which will be written about further.

2.2.11. Anyone who has been fond of radio circuits knows that it is impossible to create a color music which would response in the tact of the melody we hear, because the radio circuit responses only to the frequency and amplitude of the flow of sound waves. The concept of “phrases” and “moves” in music, that is, musical patterns, is recognized by humans, rather than by radio circuitry. This is due to the human ability to recognize the correspondence of information to any of our subjective models, rather than input information.

2.3.1. There is an opinion that all information programs and devices are based on the processing of input information. However, this can also be interpreted as the transformation of an input signal into another signal. This transformation does not contain “information” in the sense of knowledge; rather, it is our interpretation of the transformation. For example, filtering can be seen as a form of the signal classification. If there is a classification, then the classifier must contain a model of the class, whether passive or constructive, such as a filter or resonator in a radio circuit. The input signal is merely an entity that undergoes selection in the classifier. If the signal “passes” the filter, it is interpreted as receiving “information”. This is just a signal processing as a series of transformations of the input signal. The information is actually contained within the filter or resonator as a model of what we call information. We only determine whether the input signal falls within this model or not.

2.3.2. How much information is in one megabyte? It’s a silly question because it could be one megabyte of noise. The amount of information we can obtain depends not on the source but on the models by which we perceive this megabyte as meaningful information. Reading a text requires not only the words in the book but also knowledge of their meaning.

2.3.3. Information theory is incorrect. What is information? From a constructivist standpoint, there is no flow of information from objects to subject. This notion is absurd because it assumes that knowledge depends only on the object and is outside the subject, and to see this, one has only to take a closer look. But how can one read without knowing the meaning of words? How can one learn about an object without first having a model to represent it? If we were to perceive the world directly as it is, education would not be necessary. For example, reading would not depend on knowledge of a primer. A text can be written in the sand, on a blackboard, or on a sheet of paper. This would be the same text, although the information is quite different. If all knowledge is contained in space, nature, or the book pages, why couldn’t we transform it into knowledge as early as in the times of ancient China? Still, it’s clear that in order to read a book, one must first learn letters and words, i.e., acquire a language model. The information flow carries something else, rather than information about the object itself. It carries changes that transform our internal model into one of its possible states. This process is called “information acquisition” and will be explained in the following chapters.

2.3.4. The information processing metaphor is incorrect. This metaphor originated with the transmission of a scroll containing text. We still believe that we obtain all information from objects that transmit the scroll to us in the form of photons and other physical impacts. But then people back in ancient Greece would have perceived all the knowledge about the stars and planets that we have only learned from Copernicus. In response, it is said that information from objects is processed, or encoded; that is, individual pieces of information are linked into images and concepts. Actually, we all know that to read books, the books themselves are not enough; one needs to know a primer and the meaning of words. But what is a primer? It’s not just individual letters; it’s a way of linking them into words so that we can read them. It is only because of this pattern that we can read a text. Therefore, it is logical to assume that new knowledge is not determined by the information flow from the subject, but rather by the schema itself, which determines the possible letter combinations in a text sequence.

2.3.5. The fewer letters are available, the fewer possible words there are. This does not depend on the object of perception, i.e. a book. If the words are written with letters you don’t know, you won’t be able to read them and won’t receive any information. In other words, the amount of information you can potentially obtain from an object depends solely on the schema of this object and its resolving power, which is determined by the number of possible combinations in the schema. Due to such potential combinations a schema as a model, contains all possible words in advance. This is a combinatorial set of m by n variants because the length of words is limited by our pronunciation and memory abilities.

2.3.6. When we transmit information through speech or text, we alter the state of interlocutor’s model. Each spoken word is a selection from among all possible word choices that the interlocutor can expect from us. We perceive the choice of a model variant as receiving information.

2.3.7. Traditional information theory is not a theory of value transfer; rather, it is a theory of the transfer of changes in the form of switches between model variants (their density, speed, and loss). Therefore, white noise is the most “informative” transmission because it does not fit any model and has the largest number of differences between pixels, even though it itself carries no information.

2.3.8. Is a bit a unit of information? No, a bit is merely a 0—1 trigger for anything. A bit itself does not carry information because it cannot be decoded without interpretation within a model. It could be information about an elephant or Mars.

2.3.9 The amount of information depends more on the discriminating power of the models the subject has than on the information flow from the object. We can increase the amount of information about an object simply by adjusting the resolution of the model as a device. It is the model that allows us to distinguish between different variants of an object. The name of an object is a generalization of its possible variants, some of which we have even not seen yet, as will be discussed later.

2.3.10. Systems built on the “information processing” paradigm which are completely dependent on input, cannot recognize noisy, distorted, or modified models, such as a syllogism. These systems have difficulty computing them from the interrelation of the seme input values. Constructivism, instead of a processing paradigm, involves finding a model or combination of models that fit a set of input features through similar semes. In fact, no information processing system can identify inputs without explicitly incorporating a model of what it is supposed to recognize into its design. This applies to everything, be it a radio receiver or a computer. Neural networks learn the models themselves, but only through large-scale simulation without the possibility of learning, that is, only by recognizing the input pattern without the possibility of creating new models during use. Therefore, such systems cannot recognize anything beyond what is embedded in them in advance. They can perform only minimal smoothing. Systems based on the constructive approach can create models and recognize a set of input features based on the principles described in this book.

2.3.11. According to information processing theory, information enters the brain and is encoded into sensations. However, this encoding poses a problem when trying to explain how objective information transforms into subjective sensation. This is an unsolvable mind – body problem in the information paradigm. A simpler explanation is that there is no recoding; rather, the brain generates sensations as prediction models, while perception serving only to confirm it.

2.3.12. Motion perception is also prediction rather than information processing. Otherwise, how could one fail to perceive an approaching car when input information is clearly present on the retina at every moment? A person cannot perceive motion in rare cases, such as when a car approaches him unexpectedly on the road. In other words, he does not expect to see the car in front of him the next moment after seeing it in the distance. A sense of motion is a time-based prediction of a new position at the next moment, verified through perception. When the prediction is incorrect, the change in position becomes unexpected.

2.3.13. Now, we know that color perception is not so much the processing of a wavelength, but the generation of a color of a point in relation to its surroundings on a color wheel. Information processing theory could not explain why despite different wavelengths illuminating and reflecting from different parts of the picture, we see colors as permanent. An explanation is possible only if we accept that color is a relationship between neighboring colors according to the schema of opponent colors. Without neighboring colors, any color strip under any illumination will appear gray to us.

2.4.1. The reference theory is incorrect. We are not comparing signs, meanings, and referents, but rather signs as pointers and nominations of subjects and meanings as the relations of these signs to other signs in the model of the subject in the same or another modality. There is nothing more here than the indicated relationship of signs in the model of the subject, because the subject is not a sign, but an interrelation of signs describing the subject in one way or another. The sign of the subject merely serves to concisely express it, but description as meaning is always implied when pronouncing the name of the subject.

2.4.2. When describing what we see or hear using words, we describe in the modality of words what we see in the modality of colors and lines. Colors are just as much “words” as regular words in the modality of speech. They make up the “text” of a picture. One can only talk about relating one description to another. Speech is universal as a way of description – it can be used to name and describe both color and sound, but not vice versa. It is this capability of speech that distinguishes people from those who do not command speech. One cannot separate a fact and its description as something objective that has happened from its explanation and description.

2.4.3. The notion of truth became obsolete. A sentence cannot always be true because its meaning lies in its interpretation, which can differ for different people, in different models, and thus cannot be unambiguous as truth is supposed to be. This is possible only in a strictly formalized system where the variables in formulas have an unambiguous interpretation. In this case, it is possible to have coherent truth within this formalism. In all other cases, it is impossible to speak of any truth as the “God’s viewpoint” seeing the only true state of affairs. All facts of the world are subjective because they constitute the content of our consciousness rather than objective reality.

2.5.1. What is constructivism in simple terms? It is the idea that we do not perceive the world as it is through our eyes and other senses, but rather, we actively construct it in our representations, which we then verify through experience. It is the concept that we cannot have direct access to the world without the mediation of our own representations of it. There is simple evidence for this: our eyes only give us a clear, colored picture in a small focal area. The rest of the picture is blurry and less colorful. Yet, we see everything in color. This is because our brain generates a full-color image so that we can see everything in color and make more informed decisions about how to proceed in a given situation.

2.5.2. Our perception of the world depends entirely on the schemas by which we construct our representation of it. This concept is well exemplified by the dual illusion. Depending on what you are willing to see, you will first notice one of the two images, even though only one image is in front of you. Furthermore, it may take you a very long time to see the second image. But it is worthwhile to give you a pointer of the schema, that is, to tell you what image is still there, and you will immediately notice what you did not see in the same image at point-blank range. The schema of representation will suddenly turn on like a light! This means that the schema completely determines what you see. This also applies to physics, which “sees” through the mathematical schemas. If you don’t have a schema for a process, you can’t build an experiment to measure a phenomenon. The schema defines only what you can observe rather than the object itself. The schema serves as the “optics” of our cognition.

2.5.3 Anyone who has seen a child who fears you as if you were a Barmaléan or an elephant cannot say that the child is merely processing information from the outside.

2.5.4 Even to find a red pencil, we must first visualize what it looks like and notice its distinguishing features, even if only a small part of it is sticking out from under the notebook.

2.5.5. In front of you is a chair. It is white. You can’t see the red chair because the model’s triggers (eyes) are active. Close your eyes and you will be able easily visualize a red chair because your triggers do not prevent you from changing the color of the chair in your representation through top-down activation. This is a straightforward argument for interactive constructivism.

2.5.6. The steady-state thermal problem (Fourier equation) and the electrostatic problem (Poisson equation) are mathematically equivalent. Although these two mathematical structures are identical, the physical phenomena they describe are entirely different. This suggests that we use the same constructs for different purposes. This means they are definitely not caused by something outside of us, but rather, are constructed by us.

2.5.7. There can be no truth as such in constructivism. If hypotheses about the same phenomenon can differ and change with new data, then true statements can also become false in a new model. This contradicts the very definition of correspondence truth. A statement can be called true only if it is not in contradiction with other statements in a given schema; this is coherent truth. However, the truth of such a statement loses all meaning when reviewing the hypothesis in which it is agreed upon.

2.5.8. We can create many models that seem to be about the same thing. For example, light can be represented as an illuminating ray, a wave, or a stream of photons. However, not all of these representations exist at the same time. Are we discussing a dualism of light’s properties, or the possibility of different theories of light? Adherents of objectivism are not helped even by apparent contradictions, such as the dualism of physical phenomena, in doubting their views.

2.5.9. What is knowledge from the perspective of constructivism? A model contains all possible variants of what it represents. However, knowledge is the selection of one variant from among all the possible variants in the model. For example, the sky is blue, but not green, although green is a possible color (as seen in the northern lights). That’s what knowledge or fact consists of: it consists of a constraint on the combinability of the variants in the predicate “the sky is blue”.

2.5.10. Constructivism reconciles empiricism and rationalism. It asserts that we generate rational ideas, which then undergo empirical testing to determine their validity. This is the only way of knowing. What is the reason for coming up with ideas, how variants arise, and how they are tested in experience? These questions will be addressed further.

2.5.11. We create a representation of the world not as a tracing of it, but according to our own maps, created by us for the convenience of distinguishing and harmonizing knowledge, for the convenience of operating it. These are not Plato’s shadows; these are just constructs of our minds, resting on the reality of the body, rather than the world. It is clear that the sense organs cannot convey the full richness of concepts, but only help to separate one concept from another, make it possible to distinguish between them. It seems to us that when we construct a sentence, we perceive and describe reality. But in reality, we build it in order to distinguish the perceived one from the same possible ones by finding a predicate for the distinction. It is an elephant, but not a gray elephant, but a blue one.

2.5.12. We create concepts to which nothing outside of us is comparable, but it is convenient for us to use them to construct schemas for our thinking. For example “zero”, “time”, and “infinity”, which some scientists even consider it to exist, although it is obvious that “zero” cannot be an entity, as well as any number, and time as such is just a function of memory and consciousness, and cannot be pointed at with a finger. But if we continue with such an analysis, it quickly becomes clear that nothing corresponds directly to our concepts “out there” beginning with color and sound, which are the primary sensations from which all our concepts are composed.

2.5.13. Why do we cognize by means of our constructs? To address this question, let us imagine a subject who possesses an internal structure yet remains unaware of the external environment. The question that must be addressed is how this subject can create an adequate “model” of that environment in order to be able to act in it. The imprint is not a model because it is static and cannot be used to organize action in a changing environment. All that such a structure has is the ability to act. In order to create a model of the environment, it is necessary to take discrete steps that can be mapped within oneself. In the event that one wall is situated three steps to the right and another wall is located two steps to the left, this will inherently generate a representation of the space between the walls equivalent to five steps. This model will serve as a representation of the environment in which one can navigate, with the ability to recognize when one will reach the wall. It is made up of the subject’s steps, not a measure of space. And it is only the model of the steps that creates space, not the other way around.

2.5.14. The nature of the representations generated and limited by the schema indicates that in the phenomenon of the world, only specific facets are perceived, i.e., only the relation of certain features emphasized by the schema, rather than the whole phenomenon. This can be attributed to the creation of new schemas regarding the same phenomenon, which in turn leads to the discovery of new facets. Consequently, the identification of novel characteristics within a phenomenon is dependent upon our existing schemas, rather than the inherent properties of the phenomenon itself. We can create different schemas for the same phenomena, and therefore the phenomenon has as many facets as we can create different models of it.

2.5.15. The nervous system is capable of predicting its own states, rather than the external world. The nervous system has the capacity to recode all impacts in receptors into its internal code, which does not correspond in any way in content to the external impact (neuron commissures are the same from all receptors). The modality of a receptor is defined as a distinct physical device that elicits a similar neural response as other receptors. All signals from different receptors are transmitted in the same way (through commissures). The nervous system has no goal to cognize, for example, a light wave, but it does have a goal to adapt to its changes by finding an acceptable variant of the possible states of its model in response to a change in the environment detected by the nervous system’s triggers; for example, to wake up in the morning when it becomes light.

2.5.16. One who moves and wants to survive must anticipate, that is, have a model of what will happen, rather than what has already happened. A model with memory came into being when movement came into being. The state had to be memorized so that what had occurred could be compared with what had been predicted, and proper adjustments to the model could be made.

2.5.17. Hypotheses about the world as a model require no proof of their correctness, except for internal consistency of statements and consistency with experience. The viability of any hypothesis is contingent upon its capacity to reflect relationships that are susceptible to empirical scrutiny. The hypothesis that aligns most closely with the observed changes in action is considered applicable. Competition in the application of hypotheses is better than any criterion of truth.

2.5.18. The world is organized according to our schemas. In order to cope with the chaos of the perceived, thinking constructs a world according to a structure that allows us to distinguish, compare, and, most importantly, to act in a schema-marked world. The act of thinking unfolds the world in space, while consciousness unfolds it in time. This temporal unfolding enables the return to the past for the self, thereby establishing a sequence order and cause.

2.5.19. But why, for all its obviousness, has constructivism not yet been accepted in the scientific community as the scientific paradigm that conditions all reasoning about cognition? Because until now there has been no convincing answer to the question of how in this case we cognize the new things around us, how our representations agree with experience, with the world, although everything is just our representation.

2.6.1. Constructivism is opposed to realism because in the old paradigm they are opposed. The author of the present study posits that interactive constructivism reconciles them. The latter argues that whenever we create a representation of “A” it is already one of the variants, because for us there is at least a variant of “not-A”. And such constructivism is no longer solipsistic, because there is a choice. And it is only from experience that one of the two possible variants is chosen, in interaction with the world through perception as a model trigger. That is why it is interactive.

2.6.2. We do not have direct access to the world; however, its existence is proved by the fact that we are not the ones who choose the possible variants in our models of the world. It is only in these choices that we come into contact with the world. Only this choice independent of our will is the proof of a world beyond our constructs. What is independent of us is really there.

2.6.3. No model can describe the world as it is. One can always ask the question “Why?” to any predicate and find one that has no answer. That is why new hypotheses are created; it is only worth looking closely at the predicates of a model and applying a different ruler to them. We are actively building the model. We are constantly seeking to improve it through the question and the experience gained from the answer.

2.6.4. All sensations are variative. We distinguish many colors, and seeing one color immediately implies the potential for distinguishing other colors. This is a perceptual model that acts as a trigger for the model variants we construct; for example, the colors of a car. The neurons from the auditory cochlea do not convey the character of the sound itself; they only convey changes in the sound, as do the neurons of the eyes and skin. The very character of sound and color is encoded in the cerebral cortex, rather than in the sense organ.

2.6.5. But how the model’s coherence with reality is achieved? By change! If the color of the apple has changed from green to red, it can be eaten, even though the color does not exist in the world, it is just our mode of representation that has variants (colors). This creates consistency of the subjective model with the world in terms of simultaneity of change. “Objective” in the model is only the change of state of the triggers and their particular combination in the model.

2.6.6. What does it mean to see? It means to distinguish, and to distinguish means to perform actions of distinguishing, comparing one thing with another, for example, by moving the gaze. This is how we distinguish colors and lines. If we stop moving our eyes, both line and color will disappear. This is how, even at the primary level of intelligence, knowledge depends on experience.

2.6.7. The scientific method is a demonstration of interactive constructivism. It involves generating hypotheses as models that are not internally contradictory within the chosen logical system of axioms and rules. These models are based on existing conventional knowledge. Falsifiability is the presence of several variants in an instrumental model whose values are not predetermined by the model itself. A model with no variants is non-falsifiable.

2.6.8. A model with successive variants allows us to recognize changes. We capture what was not previously and has become, rather than what is (static). How does this happen? Movements produce change, which the model captures as a transition from one variant to another. For example, a boundary is a change in representation, such as from dark to light. Therefore, in order to see, we constantly and imperceptibly move our eyes, crossing boundaries. We only see the boundary in the dynamics of such a change. Even when we see a static object in front of us, there is still a change: the object’s appearance in our field of vision changes, or the position of our head changes when we turn.

2.6.9. Boundaries and lines are actually associated with continuous change due to imperceptible eye movement. However, what we see appears static, constant, and unchanging. The dynamics turns unto constant. This is the focus that our brain demonstrates us. This constancy of sensation is necessary so that we can make decisions based on stable data rather than on things that change every second. This is how we can build constant models.

2.6.10. A model predicts the next state. The prediction is always multiple! When we open a door, we anticipate seeing different things rather than just one thing. However, we don’t assume to see everything either. Seeing a dinosaur behind the door would scare us. However, we won’t be surprised by seeing a porch behind the door. This is a fundamental difference between models in interactive constructivism – a construct, which assumes several possible variants, rather than just one variant. These variants are predicted by us but are chosen by perception.

2.6.11. When we enter a dark room, we reach our arms out in front of us. We hypothesize what we might bump into, such as furniture, but we don’t know exactly what is there or where it is. This is a model of how we perceive the room furnishings. We choose a variant using our sense organs, in this case our arms stretched forward. Imagine our hands detected the size and texture; the conclusion would be indisputable: that of a sofa. However, if we didn’t know that a sofa could be here and didn’t know what its texture is like groping it with our hands would yield nothing. It would be a “soft” mystery if we didn’t have an image of a sofa in our mind beforehand. If we felt something slippery, wet, rough, and moving in a dark room, we would be frightened because it is not part of the model of the room.

2.6.12. We call this process of selecting variants from a range of assumed variants “information acquisition,” but it is actually a selection from variants already present in the model. It is at the moment of choosing a “sofa” from the possible, yet undefined, variants (sofa, chair, table, or cupboard) that we become aware of the knowledge that there is a sofa in the room.

2.6.13. In order to find out when a train will arrive, one must know what a train and time are with all their possible variants. Switching the time variant to “1 p.m.,” as seen in the timetable, tells us the train’s arrival time. All possible arrival times are stored in our mind as a series of numbers. The timetable only switches to one of the variants in the series. However, we interpret this as obtaining information about the arrival time of a train from the schedule.

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Примечания

1

A. B. Khomyakov. A new method of finding analogues as a means of studying language, thinking, and the construction of artificial intelligence systems. Philosophical Problems of Information Technologies and Cyberspace, 2024; (1): 77—88. (in Russian).

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