Philosophers and scientists often strive to investigate the 'objective' properties of a mind-independent reality. But how have their personal models of reality – that could include a belief in Yeti – been constituted in the first place?
In this master's thesis in theoretical philosophy, I will ask whether we could produce a subjective approach to ontology, where our sense of what exists and the specific manner it exists could be comprehensively explained by the phenomenal properties of our prior experiences. In an answer, I will argue both Husserlian phenomenology and Integrated information theory feature a viable subjective approach to ontology, explaining how our prior experiences could make up and specify our own subjective models of reality that do not necessarily correspond with the supposed mind-independent structures of the world.
In chapter 2, I will make a survey on the Husserlian phenomenological approach to ontology. In this, I will provide a bottom-up account of Husserlian terminology concerning e.g., consciousness, intentional matter, form, embodiment, experienced objects, and universals, and how it acquires an ontological function in describing how experienced things are constituted in the mind in passive and active synthesis in the specific form the subject thinks of them as existing. The final product of these constitutive processes is the subject's manifold of the world i.e., its subjective model of reality.
In chapter 3, I will argue IIT's principled neuroscientific account of experience must also feature a subjective approach to ontology, where two of its central components, the axiom of existence, and the central identity, entail a subject's sense of what exists – and in what specific manner it exists – can only have an explanation on the cause-effect structures of the subject's physical substrate of consciousness. I will also make the case the experiential counterpart of the subject’s substrate's cause-effect structure itself (as measured by Φ) could be interpreted to be its subjective model of reality based on its prior experiences.
In the work, I will argue a subjective approach to ontology could offer a wider theoretic scope for ontology, explaining such irreducibly subjective things as Yeti, beliefs, hypotheses, dreams, illusions, and music; be less problematic theoretically, avoiding problematics related to Cartesian imp i.e., brain-in-a-vat -scenarios and some metaphysical paradoxes; and have tangible real-world impact in more realist policies, in the area of societal resilience, and in the development of artificial intelligence.
