Reality Perception and the Limits of Conceptualisation

Three positions have historically dominated philosophical attempts to account for the relationship between human cognition and reality. Naive realism treats perception as largely transparent — assuming that reality is broadly as it appears, and overlooking the mediating role of cognitive and perceptual systems. Constructivist approaches correctly identify that cognition actively shapes experience, but some formulations risk collapsing epistemic mediation into ontological dependence — moving from the defensible claim that experience is cognitively structured to the stronger and more problematic claim that reality itself is constituted by perception. Theological realism extends conceptual systems beyond their domain of validity, attributing stable properties to what lies outside the conditions under which such properties remain meaningful. Each position fails by extending its core assumptions beyond the conditions under which they hold. This paper proposes an alternative framework occupying a distinct space between these positions. Drawing on Kant's distinction between noumenon and phenomenon (1781/1998), predictive processing models in cognitive science — particularly the work of Friston (2010) and Clark (2016) — and the philosophy of language from Wittgenstein (1921/2001), it argues that perception functions not as a direct representation of reality but as a constructed interface shaped by biological, cognitive and functional constraints. The framework treats the gap between reality and experience not as a static epistemic limitation but as an architectural feature of finite systems optimised for functional interaction rather than exhaustive representation. Within this framework, conceptual systems are understood to operate within domains of stability defined by their internal structure. When extended beyond those domains — particularly when applied to totality, ultimate causation, or unbounded quantities — they lose coherence and generate characteristic outputs that signal their own breakdown rather than describing the domains they are directed toward. The paper introduces the term boundary markers for these outputs, and argues that concepts such as God and infinity function in precisely this way — not as descriptions of underlying reality but as indicators of where finite conceptual systems encounter their structural limits. The paper situates itself within a form of inferential realism combined with epistemic humility. It maintains that a mind-independent reality exists and constrains finite representational systems — accounting for the differential success of models, the intersubjective stability of experience, and the cumulative refinement of knowledge — while refusing the claim that any finite system achieves complete or unmediated access to what constrains it. It concludes that the apparent ineffability of concepts such as God reflects structural limitations of finite cognition rather than the absence of an underlying reality — and that recognising this distinction transforms certain persistent philosophical disputes from unresolved questions into predictable consequences of finite systems operating at their architectural limits.