Prolegomena to any kind of knowledge

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.