Attention logicians. Facts are constructions!

I may be in a loop because it is a loop. Can you prove there is something independent of your mind without making a loop? I have yet to see you do it.

I think you grasp part of the point about "construction", which is that "objects" are objects of "consciousness", i.e. segmentations of "the world" which have no ontological status in their own right. But a major point is that " observation" of "objects" is active not passive. We don't walk around categorizing objects, like trees, rocks or police cars etc unless and until they have functionality in particular instants. (Heidegger's term was Zuhanden). We can say that "objects" are "brought forth" as we need them, and that includes the bringing forth of a "conscious self" as the "needer".
It is the reporting of such "bringings forth" which constiutes what we call "facts".
This is not to say that an individual " perceptual system" does not respond automatically to "sensory signals", but that the classification of such signals as sense data (including their suppression) is mediated by consciousness which in turn has been conditioned through human needs which are predominantly encapsulated by language.

It is as though both the modern concept of sensory signals impinging on particular functional networks is partnered by the ancient idea of the senses "actively putting out feelers". Kant's term "perceptual a priori s" could be interpreted in either direction.

Apparently (and it is hard to tell since you talk in this peculiar language , I call philosophese, you believe that how we understand what happens depends partly on our own background beliefs, and our sensory faculties. No one in his right mind denies that. It is a truism. But what has that to do with the nature of what happens, the facts, and whether we have methods for reducing, or even eliminating, the influences of the factors that come between us and our knowledge of the facts. Nothing much that I can see. We all have our own personal histories, and those views we are born with, but we all are capable of agreeing that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, and, if that is a bit too sophisticated, that many nights there is in the sky, a shining object we variously call, "la lune" or , "the Moon". That there is some variation in our beliefs about things depending on who we are, and where we come from, and other such factors, is no reason to believe that there cannot be a broadly-based and warranted agreement. It is fallacious to let the second be obscured by the first. Science agrees on many more things than are disagreed with. Let's not go overboard with Kant. Let him swim Or more likely, drown) alone., so that we do not drown in the Obscurantist Sea with him.

Science agrees on many more things than are disagreed with. Lets not go overboard with Kant. Let him swim alone.

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Kant is important because he clearly put forth the point that there can be no facts independent of the activities of observers.

He may have put that forth, but if he did, it is simply false. Clearly, our beliefs about what facts are, are depended on the observer. But is does not follow from that, nor is there any reason to believe, that the facts are dependent of the observer. You, like so many other posters, systematically confuse beliefs about the facts with the facts, and the existence of facts. Different people, at different times, may, for different causes, have different beliefs, about the same facts. What you mean by "paradigmatic" agreement, I am not sure. It sound like something out of Kuhn. But what makes you think that there is something fishy about "paradigmatic agreement"? Can't paradigmatic agreement, whatever it means, be a good reason (what better reason could there be?) for thinking that what is paradigmatically agreed about is true? After all, there probably is a good reason there is agreement, paradigmatic or not, about whether ice is cold, and water of wet. Namely, that it is true that ice is cold, and water is wet.

fresco wrote:

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Kant is important because he clearly put forth the point that there can be no facts independent of the activities of observers.

He may have put that forth, but if he did, it is simply false. Clearly, our beliefs about what facts are, are depended on the observer. But is does not follow from that, nor is there any reason to believe, that the facts are dependent of the observer. You, like so many other posters, systematically confuse beliefs about the facts with the facts, and the existence of facts. Different people, at different times, may, for different causes, have different beliefs, about the same facts. What you mean by "paradigmatic" agreement, I am not sure. It sound like something out of Kuhn. But what makes you think that there is something fishy about "paradigmatic agreement"? Can't paradigmatic agreement, whatever it means, be a good reason (what better reason could there be?) for thinking that what is paradigmatically agreed about is true? After all, there probably is a good reason there is agreement, paradigmatic or not, about whether ice is cold, and water of wet. Namely, that it is true that ice is cold, and water is wet. Apparently, you believe that the best explanation for why the facts are as they are because we agree they are, but that is exactly backwards. The best explanation for why we agree as we do, is that the fact are as they are.

I think the belief in 'mind-independent reality' is a religious belief.

In that case we finally have the long sought-after conciliation of religion and science, for mind-independent reality is not only a scientific belief, but it is one that is supported by science. It is science that supports the belief that the Moon existed before minds existed, after all. And that the Moon will continue to exists after people vanish.

Namely, that it is true that ice is cold, and water is wet.

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Namely, that it is true that ice is cold, and water is wet.

So ice is "cold" for seals and water is "wet" for fish ?
....and "the moon" is a "a big thing in the sky" for ants ?...etc,etc.

I know very well what I meant and we have been round and round with this sort of thing. You say that there are independent things, I say there are independent things. You say the independent things are the facts. I say the facts are descriptions of the independent things.

Well certainly, although seals may not feel cold (or as cold as we do) and fish may not perceive the wetness of water. I would not know, since I am neither a seal nor a fish. Of course fish and seals do not have the concepts of wetness or cold (and neither has the ant the requisite concept) but the question was not, after all, whether seals feel cold, or fish perceive wetness. The question is whether ice is cold, or water wet. Unless you distinguish question, you apt not to know what you are asking. Is water H2O for little infants? Of course not! Is water H2O? Of course it is!

GoshisDead wrote:

I may be in a loop because it is a loop. Can you prove there is something independent of your mind without making a loop? I have yet to see you do it.

I don't have to prove a thing. It is up to you to give me any good reason to think that objects are not mind-independent. After all, the initial probability (to use Baysean language) is that they are, since they don't vanish when we are not observing them, and we know that objects existed before people existed, and it is pretty certain that the Moon, for instance will go on existing after there are no longer any people left. Have you any (good) reason to believe differently? Or even that the reasons I just gave are not decisive?

And you know they don't vanish when you aren't observing them how? You know objects existed before you did how?

Instead, your consciousness is an active agent which constructs reality partially on the basis of sensory input, but also on the basis of an enormous number of unconscious processes, memories, intentions, and so on.