I am not suggesting that we are just novelty producing machines. What I am trying to convey is that we can only experience the world in terms of similarities and likenesses with respect to our history. Everything we encounter, no matter how new and surprising, has our stamp on it already. Nothing is ever completely unfamiliar to us. We can’t make any claims about a world beyond this relationship without lapsing into incoherence. — Joshs

I think we can accept the fact that, in our interaction with the rest of the world, we're influenced by our past, our culture, our society, our physical characteristics, and by the rest of the world, and still make warranted judgments, which are testable, regarding the rest of the world in which we exist. That's because our relationship with the world is a part of the world, as are we. We may say that our interaction with the rest of the world is different from that of the bee (may as well keep the bee for these purposes), but that's only to say that we're different from bees. That doesn't mean that we can't make claims regarding the rest of the world.

Reality on the other hand should[must] have something unchangeable, from which we can derive a set of rules. Since it is undisputed that the material expression of reality is in a constant flow, what should[must] we compare our picture of reality with if not with predictions we make of future conditions using these rules. — Mersi

I nominate changeability as that "something unchangeable" of reality. Physical laws (i.e. "a set of rules") are invariant structures of our best tested models for explaining how, under what precisely quantifiable conditions, do 'transformations of fundamental states-of-affairs into one another' (can be made to) happen.

Part of the problem which I see is that certain objective aspects of reality are easier to see than others. Those are the ones backed up by empirical evidence, as well as those of logic. — Jack Cummins

I don't foollow you, Jack. What makes the "others" objective if they we cannot "see" them via empirical evidence and logic? How do you/we know these unseen "others" are, in fact, "objective aspects of reality"? Examples please.

Well, when you're a part of the world, you're not waiting for it in any sense. Nor do you create it. You live in it. — Ciceronianus

:up: Why embodiment – embodied cognition – is still such a fashionable, faux-academic, blindspot puzzles me.

This was hoped to be 'the atom' - the changeless point-particles that are the irreducible constituents of the Universe. But, alas.... — Wayfarer

... Planck units of excitations of QFT (with which swirling-swerving-atoms-in-void are quite concilient). You're sadly incorrigible, sir :roll: :point:

objective reality — Mersi

I find disturbing the notion that some things are more real than others. The thought that reality and objective reality are distinct has a nonsensical quality about it. It brings us one step closer to the notion of the actually real which in turn is just a step away from the really actually real and down the rabbit hole we go.

We like to see ourselves in a continuous process in the course of which empirical gain leads to an increasing convergence between human imagination and objective reality — Mersi

Is that so? Only followers of a specific view towards the nature of reality like to see them that way. It seems though that Popper's days are gone.

This means that a physics graduate in 2020 had a more accurate imagination of reality than such a graduate in 1950. — Mersi

This is not true. They have different imaginations, and the graduate in 1950 could even had a more accurate one than present day graduates.

That may be true but only a few graduates will agree on this point.

Moreover there is undeniable progress in knowledge at least in specific fields. It is expressed in the ability to make more accurate forecasts. Meteorology comes to mind.
Another could be the increase in life expectancy. Given that the majority of us wants to postpone theire demise, longevity is an advance due to an increase in knowledge.

If I can get smarter in specific areas, won´t my overall knowledge increase too?