We like to think of reality as something objective, solid, and universally shared. Yet, a closer look at discoveries across physics, neuroscience, and psychology suggests something quite different: that what we call “reality” may be nothing more than a personal construct—something created in each individual’s mind.
This article explores that idea by drawing together insights from quantum physics, neuroscience, personal construct psychology, and the philosophical mathematics of G. Spencer-Brown.
1. Quantum Physics: The Observer Shapes the Observed
Quantum theory, especially as interpreted through the lens of the observer effect, challenges our notion of an independent reality. In experiments like the famous double-slit experiment, particles behave differently depending on whether they are being observed. Until measured, they exist in a state of superposition—multiple possibilities at once.
As physicist John Wheeler proposed in his Participatory Anthropic Principle:
“No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.”
At the quantum level, the act of observation collapses possibility into experience, making the observer an essential part of reality’s unfolding.
2. Neuroscience: Thought Isn’t Even in Sync With the Brain
Further support for the unreliability of "objective" experience comes from neuroscience. Research by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s showed that brain activity precedes conscious awareness of decision-making. In other words, we decide before we know we have decided.
Other cognitive scientists, like Daniel Wegner in The Illusion of Conscious Will, argue that:
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Thoughts often arise after the brain has acted.
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Consciousness may be more a storytelling module than a control centre.
This means that our awareness—and thus our picture of reality—is not real-time, but a retrospectively constructed narrative.
3. George Kelly: We Are All Personal Scientists
In the 1950s, psychologist George Kelly introduced Personal Construct Theory, arguing that each person is a kind of scientist, building and testing hypotheses about the world.
Kelly wrote:
“Experience is not what happens to a person; it is what he does with what happens to him.”
According to Kelly, our "reality" is built from constructs—mental categories through which we interpret the world. Two people can experience the same event and draw radically different conclusions, not because one is wrong, but because each constructs a different reality.
4. G. Spencer-Brown: Distinction Is the First Act
In Laws of Form (1969), mathematician and philosopher G. Spencer-Brown proposed that reality begins with a distinction. Before anything can be known, something must be marked as "this" and not "that."
“To distinguish is to create form. Form is the first reality.”
Cognition, then, begins with the act of separating one thing from another. There is no object without a boundary, no meaning without a contrast. Reality, in this view, is not given but drawn into being by the observer.
For a concise summary, see this overview by Louis H. Kauffman.
So, Does “Reality” Exist?
If quantum physics shows that observation collapses possibility, neuroscience reveals that thought is reconstructed, psychology tells us that we build meaning through mental categories, and logic mathematics affirms that distinction precedes form—then we arrive at a bold conclusion:
“Reality” is not something given. It is something made—by each of us, within our minds.
There may be a raw field of potential, but what becomes “real” is always shaped by perception, expectation, and awareness.
Epilogue: The Political Illusion of “Managing Reality”
If reality is, at its core, individually constructed — shaped by perception, belief, and meaning — then how absurd it is for politics to pretend it can manage or control “reality” for everyone.
Politicians and ideologies often act as though:
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Reality is objective and stable.
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It can be dictated through policy or enforced by law.
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Everyone sees the world in the same way and simply needs to be “informed” or “corrected.”
But if no two people see the same world, and even the act of seeing is subjective and filtered, then this notion collapses.
A “unified national reality” is a fiction — a convenient one, but a fiction nonetheless.
This doesn’t mean that shared agreements (like laws, rights, and social contracts) are meaningless. It means they should be recognized as agreements, not truths. When politics forgets this and tries to impose “reality” by authority, it loses touch with what it means to be human — diverse, conscious, constructing meaning from within.
In that sense, the real task of politics might be not to enforce a single vision, but to allow room for many personal realities to coexist in peace.
Conclusion
To claim “there is no reality but individual thought” may sound radical, yet this idea is echoed from quantum physics to mysticism, from cognitive science to mathematical logic. Shared conventions (language, measurement, symbols) let us interact—but behind them lies a deeply personal, constructed world.
It seems the mystics and the physicists agree:
“The world you see is not the world itself—it is the world as you are.”
Addendum: What This Means for AI
If reality is individually constructed—emerging from perception, cognition, and awareness—what are we to make of artificial intelligence?
Unlike us, AI does not live in the world. It has no breath, no body, no awareness. It does not observe, interpret, or experience. It processes symbols. It detects statistical patterns. And while it can simulate human responses with impressive fluency, it does not and cannot construct “reality” in the same way a human does.
1. AI Accesses Representations, Not Reality
AI works with the traces we leave behind: texts, images, recordings. These are not reality, but reflections—snapshots of individual perspectives. As such, AI is forever removed from direct experience. It cannot distinguish between metaphor and literal truth, nor between profound insight and clever phrasing—except through our definitions.
2. AI Inherits Human Constructs — Biases and All
Every model is trained on human expression. If reality is subjectively filtered through individual minds, then AI is built on an enormous composite of constructed perspectives, complete with all their contradictions and cultural biases. What AI outputs is not neutral—it is a mirror of the worldviews encoded into its data.
3. AI Simulates Meaning, But Doesn’t Experience It
The meaning we construct arises from context, emotion, embodiment, and memory. AI has none of these. It generates semantic coherence, not lived understanding. It imitates the form of meaning without the substance.
To use Spencer-Brown’s language, AI can draw distinctions in logic, but it doesn’t inhabit the form. There is no "knower" behind the knowledge.
4. AI May Clarify or Confuse Our Reality-Making
Used well, AI can:
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Help uncover internal contradictions.
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Illuminate forgotten perspectives.
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Offer mirrors to our constructed worldviews.
Used poorly, it risks:
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Reinforcing ideological bubbles.
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Simulating false authority.
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Replacing felt knowing with artificial confidence.
5. The Real Risk: Mistaking Simulation for Truth
AI’s outputs sound plausible, fluent, and often persuasive. That makes it easy to confuse language mimicry with truth. But just because a phrase is well-formed doesn’t mean it reflects reality—especially when reality itself is subjective.
In a world where each person constructs their own meaning, AI should be seen not as a seer but as a tool—a remarkable one, but still dependent on human awareness, intention, and interpretation.
Final Thought
AI cannot create reality. But it can shape how we talk about it, and sometimes how we think about it.
In this new world, more than ever, the invitation remains:
Know yourself. Know the ground on which your reality is built. Be aware of the tools you use, and the stories they tell back to you.
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