Finite Realism I: Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Physics Under Finite Conditions
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: I develop and defend Finite Realism: a program on which epistemology, metaphysics, and physics are continuous with one another under explicit finite conditions. All inquiry is resourced and therefore bounded—by precision, bandwidth, time, and feasible intervention—and finitude is taken as foundational, not as a defect. Ontological commitment is earned by what remains invariant and actionable under those conditions: structures that reliably compress records and sustain counterfactual control within identifiable windows of scale. On this basis I set out a lean operational starting point (records, contexts, channels, interventions), extract core epistemic norms (coherence; Bayesian/Jeffrey updating tied to calibration and learning; explanation as compression under control; objectivity as a fixed point of honest communication), and read central physical structures as earned invariants. One concrete example: under standard causal-regularity conditions, causal order determines a conformal light-cone structure in general relativity; with a clock/volume normalization the metric scale is fixed. A second: quantum outcomes are ε-facts—definite up to the finite operational resolution sustained by admissible measurements. Singularities then mark window failure rather than ontic abysses. Proof sketches and references are provided, and a companion paper supplies a sheaf-theoretic formalization of the program's core claims.
DOI: 10.17613/xn7ya-phh76
Author: Holmander, Craig
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7080950985
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