I recently discovered someone working on radical relationism, which is very close to what I’ve been trying to do with ontocubism. It was a bit uncanny but pleasant to read the linked summary.
The hard problem relies on a background assumption so widely held, most do not even realise it is there. This is that there exists a single, third-person, objective reality, a “reality-in-itself”, existing intrinsically and independently, which is what’s “really real”.
To begin with, this reality-in-itself is taken as being a third-person physical account, in terms of atoms and neurons and the like. Then, in response to the hard problem, it is common to propose adding some special substance such as “qualia” or “souls” to our idea of ultimate reality.
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This is the idea that there is a single absolutely correct description of the universe, with a single true ontology, and without any limitations of perspective (it is a “view from nowhere” or a “God’s eye view”). It is a world which is at base absolute and non-relational, in which what exists “simply exists”.
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Our common use of the word “real” is much more pragmatic: a thing is real if it makes a difference. A chair is real if you can sit on it and unreal if you cannot. The value of an item is real if you can actually sell it for so much. A body of water is real if your camels can drink from it and you can wash your feet in it.
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The alternative I am putting forward is what I call “radical relationalism”. There is no non-relational existence. No reality-in-itself. No view from nowhere. No absolute ontology or fundamental reality (not even one consisting of relations — even relations are entirely relational). What there are are things existing entirely in relation to one another. To be is to be in relation. There is no “thing-in-itself”, there is only the “thing-in-relation”.
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This gives us a non-foundationalist and pluralist view of reality. There is no one absolutely true or definitive metaphysics or ontology. But many different (and conflicting) ontologies may simultaneously be true. We do not need to say whether chairs “really” exist or not.
Rahi uses the word “true” here, which I’ve tried to avoid as likely to confuse. I think he is just trying to express in terms of “true-for-Jack” that Jack “lives” in his belief as the shape of Our-world-for-Jack.
Protagoras was taken to say something like “all beliefs are true.” But Plato, for instance, was deaf to what I’d call ( and project as ) his ontoperspectivism — or radical relationism. People “trapped in truth” can’t grok the splintering.
I’ve suggested to Rahi that he join us here. I hope he does.