> Tim--based on the comment above and some of your previous comments, like
> "What color are the clouds where you come from?", you seem to imply that
> reality is a function of consciousness.
Close, but not quite. *Identity* is a function of consciousness. Reality
will go on about it's business with or without identification. But
Identity is, by definition, dependent on /someone/ (or something) doing
the identifying.
> It's like an idea that the mind
> is a synthesizing device which shapes and distorts reality according to
> its perceptual filters and does not validly perceive an objective
> reality.
No, but the mind, the synthesizing device, shapes and distorts *EVERY*
perception of an objective reality. Such that the only thing that we can
be positive is, in fact, valid is that everything we know of objective
reality is, in on way or another, filtered.
Look at it this way, if all you knew of the outside world was what you
learned from TV you could probably make some very accurate predictions
about what the world was like. But when it came right down to it the only
thing you could /know/, for sure, is that you /had/ a TV and that /it/
received messages from an external source (and even that part you couldn't
be sure of until you opened the sucker up). You want to watch TV and find
out about the world that's on it, more power to you. I, however, want to
take the set apart and see how these elusive radio signals are made into
pictures and why.
> Things exist as they are, regardless of anyone's consciousness. But
> consciousness can perceive the same existence in many ways. The entities which
> have identities already exist in reality, but it is consciousness which
> identifies those entities.
See above, about reality and identity.
> But sometimes the mind gets tricked, since it is accustomed to seeing
> certain patterns, and mis-identifies something that is not part of an
> established pattern.
[clip a very good example]
> But, these mistakes
> can be corrected, since the mind can identify reality.
"The mind can identify reality"??? Prove it. The mind can impose
definitions /on/ reality, but if the mind could identify reality it could
never be "tricked". As you say, it can be tricked, and if it can be
tricked, you'll have a hard time proving that *anything* isn't just
another trick (regardless if whether it is or not!). Just because there
/is/ an objective reality does not mean we have free access to it.
-Prof. Tim