The epistemic problem of "deriving truth from scratch "

[Someone here]

On 11/03/2026 at 2:17 AM, LastThursday said:

Truth requires some amount of persistence of some aspect of experience. Persistence is just a kind of memory. A truth which is always persisting is an absolute truth, by some measure of "always".

A lot of what can be understood in experience are constructions (or interpretations) in experience: chairs, people, sky, air, food, self. The constructions are a kind of truth by virtue of the fact that they are a kind of memory. I understand a chair, and chairs exist, because the chair construction persists as a form of memory, and that construction is applied whenever something in raw experience matches the "template". 

Constructions are fluid and so don't persist absolutely: chairs are not absolute truth. Constructions given to you by other people, are not absolute truth either.

To get at a different truth then, you have to deal with the non-constructed parts of experience. One such thing is that experience exists all the time, it's hard to deny that something is there, something is happening; it is an absolute truth.

I would say it is potentially impossible to know if you're dealing with a construction or not, maybe everything in experience is a construction, it's hard to tell. Is the colour red a construction or not? Certainly the word "red" definitely is, but is the direct experience of it a construction, where does red start and end in experience? What about, nearly red? Anything that delineates reality, is almost certainly a construction of some type. But isn't reality just distinctions?

 

Thank you

. Chatgpt:

 

Your perspective is interesting because it blends epistemology (how we know truth) with phenomenology (how experience appears). Philosophically, it contains several strong intuitions but also some tensions and questionable assumptions. Below is a structured critique.

1. The Core Claim: Truth Requires Persistence

You suggest that truth depends on persistence in experience, which you equate with memory.

Philosophically, this resembles ideas from:

(experience and pragmatism)

(temporal structure of consciousness)

(ideas as copies of impressions and habits)

Critique:

Truth vs recognition

Persistence may be required for recognizing truth, but not necessarily for being true.

Example: a one-time cosmic event can still be true even if never remembered.

Memory is fallible

If truth depends on memory, then truth inherits memory’s unreliability.

Philosophically, truth is normally defined independently of human cognition (e.g., correspondence theories).

Category confusion

You are blending:

Truth (a property of propositions)

Experience (a phenomenological event)

Many philosophers argue truth belongs to statements about experience, not experience itself.

This tension would be criticized by analytic philosophers like .

2. Constructions as Memory-Based Templates

Your idea that concepts like chairs are persistent templates applied to experience aligns with several traditions:

— categories structuring experience

— meaning through language practices

modern predictive processing theories of perception.

However, there are problems.

Problem: Conflating concept formation with truth

The fact that a concept persists does not make it true.

Example critique:

“Unicorn” is also a persistent conceptual template.

Persistence alone does not validate ontological status.

So persistence might explain how we organize experience, but not why something exists or is true.

3. The Claim that Experience Itself Is Absolute Truth

You argue that the existence of something happening is undeniable.

This resembles Cartesian certainty:

— “I think, therefore I am.”

However, your formulation is closer to:

“Something is happening.”

Strength

This is a powerful minimal epistemic certainty.

Philosophically similar to:

Husserl’s phenomenological givenness

some forms of phenomenological realism

Critique

Even here there are challenges:

Who or what experiences?

If everything is construction, the subject itself might be constructed.

Buddhist and phenomenological critiques

Traditions such as Buddhist philosophy argue even the notion of "experience" is conceptually imposed.

Self-referential problem

If everything that delineates reality is a construction, the statement itself is also a construction.

So the theory risks self-undermining skepticism.

4. The Construction vs Raw Experience Distinction

You propose that truth might lie in non-constructed experience.

This is philosophically controversial.

Many philosophers reject the idea of pure, unstructured experience.

Example:

famously criticized what he called the “Myth of the Given.”

His argument:

There is no raw, uninterpreted sensory given; all perception is conceptually structured.

If Sellars is right, your project of finding non-constructed truth may be impossible.

5. The Red Example

Your question about redness touches a classic problem in philosophy of perception.

Is redness:

a physical wavelength?

a neural process?

a phenomenological quality?

Philosophers call this qualia.

Key issue:

Even if the experience of red is immediate, the concept of red still structures how we interpret it.

So the raw/constructed distinction becomes very difficult to maintain.

6. The Distinction Problem

Your final question is philosophically deep:

“Anything that delineates reality is probably a construction. But isn't reality just distinctions?”

This resembles ideas from:

— Laws of Form

structuralist and Buddhist philosophy.

Critique:

If all distinctions are constructed, then:

either reality itself is constructed

or our access to reality is necessarily constructive.

Both undermine the possibility of pure non-constructed truth.

Overall Evaluation

Strengths

Your framework captures several important insights:

perception involves pattern recognition

concepts are socially transmitted constructions

minimal certainty may lie in the existence of experience

These align with phenomenology and cognitive science.

Weaknesses

Key philosophical issues:

Truth vs cognition confusion
Persistence explains recognition, not truth.

Persistence criterion too weak
False beliefs can persist.

Unclear notion of “raw experience”
Many philosophers reject its existence.

Self-undermining skepticism
If all distinctions are constructions, the theory undermines itself.

✅ A stronger version of your theory might say:

Experience is structured through persistent interpretive patterns.

Truth is not persistence itself, but stable successful coordination between interpretations and experience.

This would move your view closer to pragmatism.

If you'd like, I can also:

show which existing philosophical positions your view is closest to, or

help formalize it into a coherent philosophical theory (because it’s actually close to several modern cognitive theories of perception).

[Someone here]

On 11/03/2026 at 5:14 PM, Sincerity said:

To sum up, here's my best advice: for good contemplation on the fundamental, you need to have a solid grasp on some reference point (like "I", "now", "reality"). You need to know clearly what you're contemplating on, even if you don't see it's nature yet. Have it on your radar. And then laser focus on it.

This is pretty logical: when you're contemplating on "what is now?", you need to understand what "now" is referring to. The contemplation is on that which the word "now" is referring to. That is a reference point.

I'd go as far as to say there is no thing in direct experience which might be an actual perception of "now". There is no solidity to anything.  

[vibv]

38 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Yes I agree ..language is a huge part of the conundrum. What is language?  A commony agreed upon verbal to describe objects ..what are objects without names?

If you learn to perceive without language you gain access to greater intelligence.

[Sincerity]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

I'd go as far as to say there is no thing in direct experience which might be an actual perception of "now". There is no solidity to anything.  

God/Now is always elusive and non-solid. That’s true. But still, you can train yourself to know what to contemplate on and how to raise state to such a level that you have a profound awareness of God.

I’m speaking from experience. You could do it too.

Edited 2 hours ago by Sincerity

[Carl-Richard]

On 11.3.2026 at 8:42 PM, Sincerity said:

Well, I think you obviously can have genuine insights about eg. morality. If I contemplated morality, I would primarily focus on my behaviours and think whether they were right, good, loving. What made them loving or unloving? Are these assessment objective in any way? Does that matter? Why do I even care about morality? Etc.

So yes, I think you can go deep into concepts once you bring them back into „reality” during contemplation. And if that’s done, you can have some great insights. Not absolute per se, but still true/wise.

Simply don’t contemplate concepts „in a vacuum”. Think over specific examples.

But then we're talking deep in the Walmart sandbox kind of deep. That's why I think "insight" and "belief" are truly not firm distinctions. Insight (unless if we're talking about non-dual awakening as kind of insight, which here we're not) is just when something bubbles up from the pool of other beliefs or the same cognitive architectures underlying those beliefs (language, concepts, words, expressions).

It might be highly salient, highly meaningful, by virtue of it bubbling up in that way, but still, it is bubbling up from the pool of beliefs / cognitive architectures and presents itself as that. "Eureka! My mind just had a mind blast!". Ok, but are you the universe yet?

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Sincerity]

49 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

That's why I think "insight" and "belief" are truly not firm distinctions. Insight is just when something bubbles up from the pool of other beliefs (unless you're talking about non-dual awakening as a kind of insight, which here we're not).

I think there can definitely be overlap between insight and belief. Having what felt like a „profound insight” which later turned out to be false and based on fake foundations. I’ve had that in life. Being wrong is a bitch. 😆

But I wouldn’t draw insight as just a subset of belief. I think it can depend on 1) whether you’re approaching contemplation (especially on the fundamental) from genuine beginner’s mind and interest in truth and 2) whether your insights from this beginner’s mind repeat across time.

I think genuine interest in truth for the sake of it is a mechanism that cleanses you of the corruption of invalid beliefs. Across a long span of time, that is. Doing the work to see truthfully and to throw all that isn’t true out, if you care about that. Having done that, I think the possibilities of true insight are real.

And you’re obviously always still fallible, even if you care about truth.

Edited 1 hour ago by Sincerity

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

But then we're talking deep in the Walmart sandbox kind of deep. That's why I think "insight" and "belief" are truly not firm distinctions. Insight (unless if we're talking about non-dual awakening as kind of insight, which here we're not) is just when something bubbles up from the pool of other beliefs or the same cognitive architectures underlying those beliefs (language, concepts, words, expressions).

It might be highly salient, highly meaningful, by virtue of it bubbling up in that way, but still, it is bubbling up from the pool of beliefs / cognitive architectures and presents itself as that. "Eureka! My mind just had a mind blast!". Ok, but are you the universe yet?

I think that's a great way of articulating the problem. 

My guru told me "any answer you get from the outside is false.look within ". Isn't that itself an outside authority telling me what is true and what is false ? 

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Someone here said:

...then what is left ?

Truth