Doubly Subconscious

If, as Glasersfeld hypothesises, each individual constructs their own reality, how can one account for the fact that people do not simply construct for themselves the ability to, for example, walk through walls? It could be that they subconsciously construct walls as undeniably solid, based upon experiences in early childhood, before they could adequately consider the advantages of walking through walls. The idea of a first experience with something in a constructed reality carries problems of its own, but even disregarding these, why is it that people do not simply re-construct things later in life so that they can walk through walls then? Perhaps their subconscious minds prevent them from doing so. In that case, why do they not construct their minds so that they contain only conscious thought, and eliminate the inconvenient subconscious? The natural answer here seems to be that they cannot do so - because their subconscious minds prevent it. Thus, they are subconsciously constructing their subconscious minds. This circular reasoning is, I think, yet another problem with the theory of radical constructivism.

Q&A 2, Second Answer

My question is: If the laws of logic and reasoning may be merely personal constructs, how can one even know that one has a mind?

Descartes' justification for knowing that he possessed, at the least, a mind rested on the logical argument that one must have a mind in order to think. Sensory evidence alone is not sufficient to lead to such a conclusion, even if one is inclined to place faith in such evidence, which both Descartes and Glasersfeld are apparently not. In order to reach this conclusion, one requires logic, or reasoning - which Glasersfeld suggests may be constructs only. As such, I conclude that according to the theory of radical constructivism, one cannot know that one has a mind. Combined with my previous post regarding humans' abilities to know about objects and concepts, I also conclude that radical constructivism precludes one from knowing anything at all.

Q&A 2, First Answer

My question is: Vico claims that one can only know things that one creates, because in creating them one learns their components. However, one still does not know the components of the components! Does this mean that one cannot know the completed object or concept either?

I think that it does. Regardless of how small the pieces one uses in constructing an object, they will not be small enough - size goes on nearly into infinity. Furthermore, objects of a certain smallness become impossible for humans to perceive or work with except with the aid of specialised machinery, and as they probably do not know the composition of the machinery either, that introduces a whole new problem - the question of how a thing is constructed as well as the materials it is constructed of.

Constructing a concept poses a slightly different dilemma, as the composition of thoughts is rather more vague than that of material objects. However, I think that any explanation of such composition would likely contain an explanation of the thoughts' origins, which creates perhaps even more of an issue than the composition of objects. Where does a thought originate? It has a basis in past thoughts of a single person, but that person created those past thoughts from other past thoughts, and so on back to thoughts which originate in experiences in the material world.  As one presumably does not know the composition of all the material things which influenced the thought, even if one could identify each and every one of those things, the exact composition of a thought appears to be more elusive even than the composition of an object.

Thus, if knowing the components of an object or concept is the only way to know the object or concept, no one can know any objects of concepts at all.