Open peer commentary on the article “Foresight Rather than Hindsight? Future State Maximization As a Computational Interpretation of Heinz von Foerster’s Ethical Imperative” by Hannes Hornischer, Simon Plakolb, Georg Jäger & Manfred Füllsack. Abstract: Future state maximisation (FSX) offers a clear departure from both fixed reactive systems and systems that learn models based on reactive experience. In this commentary, I argue that FSX is not replacing these previous ideas but that, rather, the interplay with FSX and the older concepts create a powerful hybrid.

Abstract: In the commentaries, a number of intriguing projections of Future State Maximization (FSX) on a multitude of different systems are suggested, which raised the need to clarify certain definitions. We discuss several core terms and concepts within the context of FSX and address the compatibility of FSX and Heinz von Foerster’s Ethical Imperative.

Context: Linguists and philosophers, as well as psychologists, have not yet offered a coherent explanation of the logic behind the intricate grammar of counterfactuals, the meaning of irreality and the role of this concept in human life. Problem: I investigate the role and mechanisms of irreality as a special form of experience. Method: Based upon the results of the philosophical analysis, I introduce the principles of experiential methodology grounded on the open-ended reflective approach to human experience proposed by Varela, Thompson and Rosch. Results: I show that counterfactuals are the experiencer’s non-linear counterbalancing of the intentional and attentional directions of her perceptual activity. Counterfactuals occur in and through the reflected abstractions from the bodily movement in which one attentional object follows another. Reflecting upon the sequence of attentional objects, the experiencer reorganizes the sequence and experiences the difference as a relational change. As a result, new experience is constructed out of the changed value of the lived past. Implications: The epistemological insight into counterfactual ways of acting helps reconsider many semantic, particularly grammatical, problems of counterfactuals in terms of the subjunctive and the so-called “irrealis.” Besides, the findings of the research have implications for psychological studies of communicative behavior. Constructivist content: To explore the problem of irreality, I offer a detailed philosophical analysis of key constructivist and enactive concepts such as reality, experience, languaging, scientific method and others.

Key words: Experiential analysis, time reversibility, counterbalancing reality, reflected abstraction, languaging, reference, attentional direction.

Open peer commentary on the article “Construction of Irreality: An Enactive-Constructivist Stance on Counterfactuals” by Andrey S. Druzhinin. Abstract: I first argue that rigorous and systematic first-person research on lived experience is essential to understanding irreality as experience. Then, based on first-person research, I briefly show that the lived world of human experience is quite diverse. Moreover, I argue that, in many cases, people’s insight into their own and others’ experience is poor. Consequently, to claim that observing film characters’ behavior and utterances from the third-person viewpoint to understand the experience of irreality is the best alternative to classical text analysis or task-dependent laboratory experimentation is an overstatement. There is a gap between the method of observation of the target article and what it promises as its result.

Open peer commentary on the article “Construction of Irreality: An Enactive-Constructivist Stance on Counterfactuals” by Andrey S. Druzhinin. Abstract: In the target article, it is argued that empirical investigation of counterfactual-based acting is not possible, therefore we should look into movies. However, movies are an even worse solution since they are clearly not as rich in possibilities and constraints as natural settings.

Open peer commentary on the article “Construction of Irreality: An Enactive-Constructivist Stance on Counterfactuals” by Andrey S. Druzhinin. Abstract: What Druzhinin, in the target article, names as “counterfactuals” are stories that an observer claims are more valid than another story. Normally, we treat such conjectures lightly, though all reflections change us somewhat. When strong emotions pertain to alterative conflicting criteria for the acceptance of the validity of one story over another, this may lead to difficulties.

Open peer commentary on the article “Construction of Irreality: An Enactive-Constructivist Stance on Counterfactuals” by Andrey S. Druzhinin. Abstract: Druzhinin’s insistence that the behaviour portrayed in fictional films can be considered a “reliable source of evidence for […] experiential analysis” of the cognitive use of counterfactuals is progressive and highly laudable. However, there remain outstanding dots, of a cybernetic nature, to be connected in his argument. Once connected, they contradict his self-imposed limitations on the possible nature of experimentation.

Open peer commentary on the article “Construction of Irreality: An Enactive-Constructivist Stance on Counterfactuals” by Andrey S. Druzhinin. Abstract: Since an observer arises in the experiential domain of languaging, and because everything said is said by an observer, it would be misleading to refer to a single reality constructed in language. Rather, we should assume multiple realities whose construction depends on individual memories as complex dynamic systems of past perceptual experiences - this is where the target article falls short.

Open peer commentary on the article “Construction of Irreality: An Enactive-Constructivist Stance on Counterfactuals” by Andrey S. Druzhinin. Abstract: I propose constructive alternatives to selected statements made by Druzhinin in his description of the irreal, and I remind ourselves that the words we use are not the experiences we are attempting to describe.

Open peer commentary on the article “Construction of Irreality: An Enactive-Constructivist Stance on Counterfactuals” by Andrey S. Druzhinin. Abstract: Schopenhauer and the two linguists, Tokieda and Miura, are indispensable figures to elucidate the logic of construction of our counterfactual experiences. In addition to the conditional and the subjunctive moods, the imperative could be regarded as a form of counterfactual experiences. According to Schopenhauer, these experiences belong mainly to the class of willing or acts of will.