Reality

3-2-06
One of my favorite movies was "The Matrix." Not for the bullet-time shots or the hot leathers on Carrie Ann-Moss (although both were great) but for the main topic of what is reality? The Wachowski brothers did a lot of research into evolutionary psychology, philosophy, cybernetics, etc. to come up with a great story line. Perhaps the most intriguing question was posed by Morpheus to Neo...what is reality? Is it the world we live in or is it the world we live in inside our heads? The best answer is the latter...and this philosophical approach is called Radical Constructivism. Radical Constructivism - ‘What is radical constructivism? It is an unconventional approach to the problem of knowledge and knowing. It starts from the assumption that knowledge, no matter how it is defined, is in the heads of persons, and that the thinking subject has no alternative but to construct what he or she knows on the basis of his or her own experience. What we make of experience constitutes the only world we consciously live in. It can be sorted into many kinds, such as things, self, others, and so on. But all kinds of experience are essentially subjective, and though I may find reasons to believe that my experience may not be unlike yours, I have no way of knowing that it is the same. The experience and interpretation of language are no exception.’ p.1 - ‘Growing Up Constructivist’, in, ‘Radical Constructivism - A Way of Knowing and Learning’.