As you noted, this isn’t a critique of the OP. All philosophical positions are like this: so I am failing to see how you are resolving the paradox or denying its existence. — Bob Ross

After reading your response, I went back and reread the OP. I think I misunderstood the argument you are trying to make. I still don't think there is any paradox, but I certainly haven't made that case.

you didn't even attempt to address the OP at all. — Bob Ross

I'll quote the part of the OP again to which my first post is a response

..what grounds do we have to accept Kant’s presupposition (that our experience is representational)? — Bob Ross

Examples of illusions, dreams, hallucinations etc. ... — jkop

For many indirect realists, arguments from illusion, dreams etc. are "grounds" for accepting representational experience.

Kant is more sophisticated, but his presupposition (that objects are conformed by the categories and the perceptual apparatus) amounts to the conclusion that we never experience objects directly, only indirectly by way of experiencing conformed versions first.

For many indirect realists, arguments from illusion, dreams etc. are "grounds" for accepting representational experience.

You just quoted the OP out of context, and made an argument that does not even remotely attempt to resolve the paradox described in it.

Why don't you see any paradox, now that you understand the OP?

I think you’re sensing it as a paradox because you have an innate conviction that the world is innately real - and yet Kant seems to call this into question. So it’s more a kind of cognitive dissonance. Isn’t that the source of the paradox you’re claiming to describe, in simple terms?

I am not following how you are avoiding the paradox described in the OP here. If one takes a realist or an idealist approach, they get the same problem.

The paradox is that the ‘thing-in-itself’, which Kant most definitely claims must exist as a transcendental truth, cannot be known if our conscious experience is representational; but to know that one’s conscious experience is representational requires us to trust that very conscious experience to know some aspects of the things-in-themselves (such as that we exist with a nature such that we represent objects which impact our sensibility).

What you are noting that Kant calls into question, is the material world’s existence; and depending on which version of the CPR you will find that part taken out. All it suggests, as Schopenhauer noted, is that Kant was entertaining (ontological) idealism at one point; but eventually swapped it for indirect realism.

This OP’s problem for indirect realism applies just as much to any (ontological) idealism which posits that our conscious experience is representational.

The two elements of our cognitions I mentioned were phenomena and conceptions. I have yet to mention a priori knowledge for the simple reason at the juncture of phenomena and conceptions, in and of themselves alone, there isn’t any to mention, in that the faculty of reason which is the source of it, isn’t yet in the explanatory picture.

An a prior conception is a prior knowledge: that is knowledge which one has independently of any possible experience.

The end result of the unity of those two elements, phenomena and conception, is thought

So when you see a ball, you would call that the “thought” of a ball and not the “phenomena” of a ball? This doesn’t seem to cohere well with Kant’s semantics, but admittedly I don’t have the time to go back through the CPR and grab quotes—so take this comment with a grain of salt.

The object we experience is called, is expressively represented by, whatever name understanding thinks for it

This is cheating. I am asking what you call, generically, the thing which is the result of the intuition and cognition—of which we experience—and you just replied with “it’s whatever our brain thinks it is—e.g., a ball”. I would call it, most generically, a phenomena: I am still unsure what you call it.

To be fair, you may have a legitimate paradox in mind, but the expression of it herein, the conditions by which you promote its validity, cannot follow from the text in which you say it is to be found.

Do you not believe that transcendental idealism presupposes that one has cogent knowledge that the individual exists in reality as it is in-itself and is of such a nature as to have representative faculties which represents objects which exist in reality in-itself according to how it is pre-structured to sense and represent? These are all claims about the world as it is in-itself, and not merely as it appears to us.

Correct. A 'thing in itself' is a logical limit. If we observe some 'thing', there has to be something to observe. But if we are observing it, we realize we are observing it by interpreting things like light, sound, touch, and nerve firings. Logically, we cannot see the thing as it is 'in itself' because we are always observing it through another medium, and then creating one or many identities or discrete experiences out off it.
…
I do not believe in apriori knowledge apart from instinct.

Without admitting that there are a priori means by which your brain cognizes objects, then you have no basis to claim that our observations are limited—that they are not 100% mirrors of reality as it is in-itself. Direct realism would still be on the table.

To be fair, what you described is, in fact, a simplified statement of exactly what a priori knowledge is...so I am not convinced you actually disbelieve in it (;

This “logical limit” that you described is the same as saying, in philosophical jargon, “the thing-in-itself cannot be known, because we can only ever experience a ‘thing’ which was the result of a prior processes and of which pertain solely to the way our representative faculties are pre-structured to represent”.

So, likewise, I don’t really see how you are getting around the paradox either.

Even though I'm seeing a red ball in front of me, I'm really seeing the light and interpreting it. The light is bouncing off the ball, so something is there. But I can't understand what its like to see a ball without light bouncing off of it.

The ball which you see, and any experimental investigations of the light and how it reflects off the ball, is conditioned by the a priori means by which your receptivity senses and your brain represents; and so you cannot understand what the ball is like itself at all—not just what it would be like without color.

Viz., your understanding of the ball is fundamentally construed by the two pure forms of sensibility (i.e., space and time), riddled with a priori concepts (e.g., quality, quantity, relation, etc.), a priori mathematical relations (e.g., 3 ft diameter, etc.), a priori logical relations (e.g., principle of non-contradiction, excluded middle, identity, etc.), etc.; and so there is absolutely no way for you to know how that ball exists independently of those means of knowing it (re: just try to strip away the a priori means of understanding the ball, and you will certainly have nothing conceptually left but an object with no definite properties).

Thus the placeholder for this logical determination is a 'thing in itself'. And there is nothing more to know about them then that.

The paradox arises, and of which you have not really resolved, when you realize that you had to trust your experience to tell you that you exist in a transcendent world, you have representative faculties, and that those faculties are representing external objects—all of which are claims about reality as it is in-itself. You right to note that the ‘thing-in-itself’ is off limits if those claims are true, but that’s exactly why it is paradoxical: you had to accept that very claim is false to accept the original claims to begin with, and then by accepting those claims come to deny the other one. See what I mean?

I just realized I forgot to note that the acceptance of the material world being identical to the subjective world (of conscious experience) does not entail ontological idealism. Realism is still on the table.

No worries! Just let me know if you decide to tap back in!

The paradox is that the ‘thing-in-itself’, which Kant most definitely claims must exist as a transcendental truth, cannot be known if our conscious experience is representational; but to know that one’s conscious experience is representational requires us to trust that very conscious experience to know some aspects of the things-in-themselves (such as that we exist with a nature such that we represent objects which impact our sensibility). — Bob Ross

The way in which we know our own being, and the way we know the existence of other objects, is
different. It's the distinction between the first- and third-person perspective. I think that Kant agrees with Descartes that knowledge of our own being is apodictic i.e. it cannot plausibly be denied, as it is a condition of us knowing anything whatever (cogito ergo sum). However, knowing that we are is not the same as knowing what we are. And you may remember other elements of the famous essay in which Descartes made that claim, where he considers the possibility that all of what we perceive might be the consequence of an illusion cast by an 'evil daemon'. So the fact that we can have certain knowledge that we ourselves exist, yet be unsure that all our cognitions are reliable, is not in itself paradoxical, but instead one of the insights that Kant is responding to in his work.

just try to strip away the a priori means of understanding the ball, and you will certainly have nothing conceptually left but an object with no definite properties — Bob Ross

An object with no definite properties is not an object at all. To be an object is to have properties.

when you realize that you had to trust your experience to tell you that you exist in a transcendent world, you have representative faculties, and that those faculties are representing external objects—all of which are claims about reality as it is in-itself. — Bob Ross

Again, the key difference about knowledge of objects, and knowledge of your own faculties, is that the latter have an immediacy and first-person nature which affords a direct insight into their operations. I think Kant is intuitively exploring the nature of knowledge and reason through interogating the operations of his own mind. That is quite a different process to analysing e.g. the motions of bodies, which is done through precise measurement and specification of the conditions under which measurements are taken. Again its the distinction between first- and third-person understanding.

It has been claimed that Kant is a precursor to cognitive science ref. But rather than go into the detail of that, suffice to consider your 'paradox' in light of that framework. What Kant is famous for is the insight that our knowledge of the world is a constructive activity of the mind (his famous Copernican Revolution of Philosophy). We're not, as Locke and Hume say, tabula rasa, blank slates upon which ideas are inscribed by experience. The mind is actively constructing 'the world' (in the sense of the world of lived experience) moment by moment, which is where the categories come in. That is what makes Kant a source both of modern cognitive science and phenomenology, although they develop his insights in many different ways.

The perceived paradox hinges on a misunderstanding of the different types of knowledge that Kant is discussing. While Kant acknowledges that we have an apodictic awareness of our own existence as thinking beings (first-person knowledge), this does not imply that we have direct knowledge of our cognitive faculties as things-in-themselves. The recognition that our experience is representational is a product of transcendental reflection, not direct knowledge of the faculties themselves. Thus, the claim that our knowledge of the world is representational does not require us to have knowledge of things-in-themselves, but rather to understand the conditions under which experience is possible—conditions that Kant elaborates through his analysis of the categories and the forms of intuition.

and recognize that we can have some degree of incomplete knowledge of things-in-themselves? — wonderer1

I don't see any puzzle. It comes down to what is meant by saying we don't know things in themselves. Insofar as they are thought as what gives rise to our experience of a world of things, then of course we can say we do know them. But it can also obviously be said that we only know them as they appear to us. — Janus

How do we know that we have incomplete knowledge if we didn't already know what was missing? If we come to the conclusion that something is missing then how did we do that, and does that really mean that we have incomplete knowledge if we know what is missing?

Kant begins with the presupposition that our experience is representational and proceeds to correctly conclude that knowledge of the things-in-themselves is thusly impossible. — Bob Ross

Yet we use words to represent things that are not words and don't have much trouble understanding each other. I don't see how representations prevent us from getting at things in themselves in a deterministic universe where causes leave effects and we can communicate and solve crimes by using the effects to get at the causes.

How do we know that we have incomplete knowledge if we didn't already know what was missing? — Harry Hindu

Because the knowledge people have about things (including other people) is not a black and white matter, but a matter of degrees.

You speak as if you are getting at things as they truly are, or are you saying your statement is only true to a degree? If the latter, then how do you know the degree of truth in your statement if you didn't know what was missing from your statement to say that it is only true to a degree?

I don't think it's a black and white matter either. It is dependent upon our current goal and what information is irrelevant, not missing, to our goal.

You speak as if you are getting at things as they truly are, or are you saying your statement is only true to a degree? — Harry Hindu

Suppose I design some complicated electronic gadget, and sell it to someone who has a use for what the gadget does. Most commonly the purchaser of the gadget doesn't know the gadget to anything like the degree that I do.

But then my knowledge of the gadget is far from complete, because to make the gadget I bought subgadgets to build the gadget out of, and I don't know everything that the subgadget designer knows about the subgadget. Furthermore, as we descend the gadget/subgadget/... hierarchy we are going to run into the uncertainty principle.

Yet the gadget works 99% of the time, and when it doesn't we find out the problem and issue a recall or release an updated product. The macro world and quantum world have not been sufficiently merged into a consistent whole. This indicates that there is a problem with one or the other (or maybe both), but then we can only use our senses to get at and solve the problem.

Yet the gadget works 99% of the time, and when it doesn't we find out the problem and issue a recall or release an updated product. — Harry Hindu

Well, whether the product "works" can be a matter of degree as well. Suppose the gadget is a voltmeter. Whether it works to measure voltage with the accuracy and precision desired can be an important question, and at some level the accuracy can only be a guess because for practical reasons what a volt is, is going to be defined by some metrological body (in the US NIST) which will only provide a limited level of uncertainty. Furthermore, the uncertainty provided by leading national metrology institutes is very much a function of the NMI's ability to account for quantum factors.

The macro world and quantum world have not been sufficiently merged into a consistent whole. — Harry Hindu

You might be surprised at the extent to which practical matters bump into quantum limitations in today's world.

E.g., If you can trust the appearances of your experience to tell you that you exist with a brain which cognizes objects that are outside of it (and that this is true in reality as it is in-itself: not appearance); then this contradicts the notion that you cannot know the things-in-themselves and that you can only know appearances.

Well, it helps to pull apart popular "uses of Kant" and Kant's actual philosophy here. Kant doesn't speak of brains, neuroscience, genetics, etc. when making his case. Nor is he by any means the originator of the idea that our sensory system, the particularly human way of reasoning, etc. shape how we experience the world. This is in ancient and medieval thought, and the way Kant is often invoked today is often more in line with the ancients/medievals and British empiricists than Kant himself.

Kant's arguments are based on "what must be necessary for thought to exist as such."

To be honest, it's sort of a mystery to me why Kant's name is invoked alongside appeals to neuroscience, genetics, etc. People could as well point to Aristotle or Aquinas on the idea that "everything is received in the manner of the receiver." Kant's line actually differs significantly from how his name is often invoked, and this is why the "paradox" shows up—it's the result of mixing Kant's conclusions with empiricist arguments about the way perception is shaped by biology, physics, etc.

Now, the other thing you get at is that Kant does seem to dogmatically assume that perceptions are of objects. That's Hegel's big charge, worked out in the Logic. Hegel agrees that perceptions are of objects, but he thinks that starting out by presupposing this is how Kant ends up with the noumenal and his dualism problem.

..and recognize that we can have some degree of incomplete knowledge of things-in-themselves?

Exactly. Representationalism might be challenged on other grounds, Occam's Razor (if things are already likenesses of themselves why are we positing additional likenesses?), an infinite regress of Cartesian theaters, a rejection of substance dualism leading us to question the need to posit mental representations, the greater parsimony of enactivism theories, etc. but it does not presuppose total ignorance of the "the world outside perception." Kant's stronger theses about knowledge of the "noumenal" don't need to go along with representationalism.

An a prior conception is a prior knowledge: that is knowledge which one has independently of any possible experience. — Bob Ross

Given the procedure shown below, there is a systemic distinction between a conception and knowledge. We think an a priori conception iff there is no condition from experience contained in it, conceptions themselves being the purview of spontaneous discursive understanding or transcendental pure reason, a priori knowledge simply indicates that knowledge possible from a priori conditions. In other words, the conception alone is not knowledge.
————

The end result of the unity of those two elements, phenomena and conception, is thought.
-Mww

So when you see a ball, you would call that the “thought” of a ball and not the “phenomena” of a ball? — Bob Ross

If I see a ball, I don’t call it either of those you mentioned. I call it a ball iff I already know it as such, or, if you inform me that’s what that thing I see, is.

When I see a ball, is not the same as what happens when my cognitive system operates correctly according to theoretical transcendental idealism.

In operating correctly, the system is affected by an object….
(I sense via vision, re: I see….)

(Remove long typically over-blown dissertation on correct metaphysical operations. You’re welcome. (Grin))
—————-

This is cheating. I am asking what you call, generically, the thing which is the result of the intuition and cognition—of which we experience—and you just replied with “it’s whatever our brain thinks it is—e.g., a ball”. — Bob Ross

Ok, generically, you’re correct enough. Generically. In everyday situations. Mere convention. But convention cannot satisfy the relation between my “the unity of phenomenon and conception”, something we subconsciously do, and your “what do you see when you see a ball?”, an experience, something we consciously have. So I wasn’t cheating; I was being overly-analytic. Unnecessarily precise.

And I didn’t say whatever our brain says it is; I said whatever our understanding says it is, insofar as the faculty of understanding, in its full procedural operation, thinks, judges and cognizes….all those systemic artifices which are grounded in logic as opposed to being grounded in external reality and externally affected physiology, and internal reproductive imagination, re: intuition, the sum of which is called sensibility.
————-

Do you not believe that transcendental idealism presupposes that one has cogent knowledge that the individual exists in reality as it is in-itself and is of such a nature as to have representative faculties which represents objects which exist in reality in-itself according to how it is pre-structured to sense and represent? These are all claims about the world as it is in-itself, and not merely as it appears to us. — Bob Ross

I do not believe, more accurately stated as I do not hold with the opinion, transcendental idealism presupposes humans possess knowledge of some kind or degree, but does presuppose nonetheless, that the human individual is of such a nature as to have representational faculties imbued in a system by which any knowledge at all is possible. It follows that whatever cogent knowledge a human has, simply makes explicit the system presupposed as contained in the nature of individuals, is sufficient for the provision of it, and thereby denies to that system Locke’s notion of innate knowledge as such, while at the same time refuting Hume’s rejection of pure knowledge a priori.

I do not see all these claims as being about the world as it is in itself.
————-

Could it be that the biggest problem for indirect realists, is being called indirect realists?

Could it be that the biggest problem for indirect realists, is being called indirect realists? — Mww

:100:

How do we know that we have incomplete knowledge if we didn't already know what was missing? If we come to the conclusion that something is missing then how did we do that, and does that really mean that we have incomplete knowledge if we know what is missing? — Harry Hindu

I don't know if this was meant to be addressed to me since I didn't say we have incomplete knowledge of things in themselves. That said I agree with the idea. Just as an example we have good reason to think other animals see things differently than we do. We can't see things as they do so there way of seeing things is a different kind of knowledge of things than ours. There for we can say that our knowledge of things is incomplete. We also seem to necessarily think that things must have an inherent existence that is not (fully, at least) apprehended in their appearances to us, or even the totality of all their appearances to all the creatures they appear to.

Could it be that the biggest problem for indirect realists, is being called indirect realists? — Mww

Might it be an even bigger problem, to label oneself with a philosophical label at all? To me it kind of suggests a closedness to different ways of looking at things.

(Not to say I won't make use of philosophical labels, as succinct ways of attempting to communicate a crude sense of what my perspective is.)

Might it be an even bigger problem, to label oneself with a philosophical label at all? — wonderer1

:up: The direct/ indirect polemic seems to me to thrive on the failure to recognize that the two ways of thinking about our experience are just two different perspectives. It doesn't have to be an absolute either/ or but is rather just a matter of different ways of thinking in different contexts.

Might it be an even bigger problem, to label oneself with a philosophical label at all? To me it kind of suggests a closedness to different ways of looking at things. — wonderer1

Hmmmm…..

I think we’re allowed a certain closedness, which may reflect a related philosophical label, provided we’ve been intellectually honest in the procurement of it. We’re not entitled, on the other hand, intellectual honesty notwithstanding, when such closedness is falsified upon stronger ground.

I have no qualms about admitting to the rejection of some different ways of looking at things.

:up:

I don't know if this was meant to be addressed to me since I didn't say we have incomplete knowledge of things in themselves. That said I agree with the idea. Just as an example we have good reason to think other animals see things differently than we do. We can't see things as they do so there way of seeing things is a different kind of knowledge of things than ours. There for we can say that our knowledge of things is incomplete. We also seem to necessarily think that things must have an inherent existence that is not (fully, at least) apprehended in their appearances to us, or even the totality of all their appearances to all the creatures they appear to. — Janus

To say that animals see things differently than we do implies that we know something about how they see things. We sense things differently using different senses. Seeing a surface and feeling a surface provides us the same information in different forms. If we can be informed of the same thing via different methods then it seems to me that there isn't much more, if any, to the thing in itself. If there is then we'd never know it and wouldn't even be able to use it as evidence that we don't experience things as they are.

Do we experience our mind as the thing in itself? Is that what one means by the thing in itself is that you have to BE the thing?

Well, whether the product "works" can be a matter of degree as well. Suppose the gadget is a voltmeter. Whether it works to measure voltage with the accuracy and precision desired can be an important question, and at some level the accuracy can only be a guess because for practical reasons what a volt is, is going to be defined by some metrological body (in the US NIST) which will only provide a limited level of uncertainty. Furthermore, the uncertainty provided by leading national metrology institutes is very much a function of the NMI's ability to account for quantum factors. — wonderer1

Again, the goal will determine the level of accuracy (information) that is needed to accomplish the goal. All other information is irrelevant, not missing or not known. If it weren't known we wouldn't even be able to talk about it and use it as an example of missing something in the thing in itself.

You might be surprised at the extent to which practical matters bump into quantum limitations in today's world. — wonderer1

Examples?

It seems to me that any merging between the macro and quantum worlds is going to happen with a good explanation of consciousness.

To say that animals see things differently than we do implies that we know something about how they see things. We sense things differently using different senses. Seeing a surface and feeling a surface provides us the same information in different forms. If we can be informed of the same thing via different methods then it seems to me that there isn't much more, if any, to the thing in itself. If there is then we'd never know it and wouldn't even be able to use it as evidence that we don't experience things as they are.

Do we experience our mind as the thing in itself? Is that what one means by the thing in itself is that you have to BE the thing? — Harry Hindu

We infer that they see things differently on the basis of observation and analysis of their different sensory setups. We can infer that they see different ranges of colour, or even only in black and white for example.

It's true that we can get the same or similar information from different sensory modalities, but the sensations themselves are different. All of that information falls inot the category of 'how things appear or present themselves to us'. It seems natural to think that there must be more to things than just how they appear or seem to be. Of course we can never know more than that, but the fact that we are compelled to think of the 'in itself' has many ramifications for human life. Not in terms of something we know, but in terms of what we can never know. The knowledge here is just self-knowledge.

As to our experience of mind I think this is a real minefield. If mind consists only in our experience and judgements would it follow that we know all there is to know about it? Psychedelics and altered states in general show that we have the potential for very different experiences, so it would seem presumptuous to imagine that we have explored all there is to know about what it is possible to experience.

Again, the goal will determine the level of accuracy (information) that is needed to accomplish the goal. — Harry Hindu

As much as the marketing department where I work might wish that were so, that isn't how things work as far as I can tell. There seem to be hard limits to what can be done in a great many ways regardless of goals.

You might be surprised at the extent to which practical matters bump into quantum limitations in today's world.
— wonderer1
Examples? — Harry Hindu

There are all sorts of metrological limits, in addition to the ones which affect measurement of voltage.

Modern logic ICs are running up against quantum limits which pose problems for shrinking transistor size.

Then to look at things from a different angle, you can buy a quantum random number generator to plug into your computer.

To be fair, what you described is, in fact, a simplified statement of exactly what a priori knowledge is...so I am not convinced you actually disbelieve in it (; — Bob Ross

I really liked the term a priori when I first entered into philosophy, but I found it had problems over time. I do not believe 1+1=2 is apriori for example. Which is why I boil it down to instinctual and intellectual capacity. IE, that people are capable of doing logic is innate, but the practice of classical logic specifically must be learned.

This “logical limit” that you described is the same as saying, in philosophical jargon, “the thing-in-itself cannot be known, because we can only ever experience a ‘thing’ which was the result of a prior processes and of which pertain solely to the way our representative faculties are pre-structured to represent”. — Bob Ross

Close, but not quite. A dog can experience a thing as well, but it cannot come up with the idea of "a thing in itself". That requires language, thinking, debate, etc. It is not an innate conclusion, but one of applied reason.

But let me see if I can get closer to your point without apriori. If I understand correctly, you're essentially noting that we observe and conclude things about the world. Since we can only observe representations, how do we know there's something under those representations? We only know because sometimes, the world contradicts our interpretations. Therefore the only logical thing we can conclude is that there must be something beyond our perceptions and interpretations that exists. Its not a proof of "I see the thing in itself" its a proof of, "Its the only logical conclusion which works."

so you cannot understand what the ball is like itself at all—not just what it would be like without color. — Bob Ross

Correct. We know that aposteriori is what I'm claiming. We have the capacity to reason and understand this, but it can only be argued as a matter of logic, not any innate knowledge.

The paradox arises, and of which you have not really resolved, when you realize that you had to trust your experience to tell you that you exist in a transcendent world, you have representative faculties, and that those faculties are representing external objects—all of which are claims about reality as it is in-itself. — Bob Ross

Its not necessarily about trust, its about experience. You and I have both had instances in our lives where our perceptions and beliefs about the world were contradicted in unexpected ways. Thus we conclude that there is something that exists apart from our understanding and perceptions. Once we explore this further, and understand how the senses and the brain work, we come to the logical conclusion that we cannot know anything in this world apart from interpretation. Yes, even the "Thing in itself" is an interpretation. An simlilar analogy is 'space'. Space is 'emptiness' which is defined in relation to other things. "Things in themselves" are defined in relation to what we cannot interpret. Its a logical construct that helps us understand the difference between what we interpret, and 'what is'.

I don't see this as a contradiction, as long as one is not trying to assert that one has special knowledge of a 'thing in itself' apart from a logical representative construct itself. Yes, if we claimed, "That" is a thing in itself, it would be absurd. But we're not claiming this. We're simply claiming, "There are contradictions to my will and beliefs int the world. Therefore there must be something beyond my interpretation that exists independently. I cannot know what this is specifically, but the logical concept I will represent as "A thing in itself".

Good discussion as usual Bob! I always like how you drill in. I'm heading out on vacation this week to Yellowstone park with some friends, so I won't be available to reply for a while. I'll read your reply when I get back for sure. Until then, stay great and I hope the discussion is interesting!

As much as the marketing department where I work might wish that were so, that isn't how things work as far as I can tell. There seem to be hard limits to what can be done in a great many ways regardless of goals. — wonderer1

I don't understand the point you're making here. Providing real-world examples would be helpful here. The hard limits would be the limited relevant information to achieving some goal. Most information is irrelevant to achieving some goal. You don't need to know how fast your lawn grows to get a spacecraft to Mars. We don't need an infinite number of significant figures after a decimal point to successfully land a spacecraft on Mars.

There are all sorts of metrological limits, in addition to the ones which affect measurement of voltage.

Modern logic ICs are running up against quantum limits which pose problems for shrinking transistor size.

Then to look at things from a different angle, you can buy a quantum random number generator to plug into your computer. — wonderer1

Events appear random when we don't have a proper explanation of the event. Once we do, the event is no longer random but predictable. What roles does the observer effect play here, ie consciousness? Our senses are macro sized objects trying to get at quantum sized objects. There's bound to be some kind of preliminary misinterpretation of the behavior of quantum sized objects. There are many different interpretations of quantum mechanics to say one way or the other.