@Leadfoot,
Your recorder in the woods example still begs the question. No one is saying that there isn't sound waves produced when a tree falls - (with a perceiver) that fact doesn't need a tape recorder. By using the tape recorder example you have only removed the show to another stage, but same show..We still have to perceive the thing..this time from a recorder..
What is at question is that that wave appears to be a wave because we perceive it that way. What it is otherwise, who knows? Or is it anything otherwise? Would it exist without us? I think so, but I cannot say that it logically would because I cannot validate anything outside of my own perceptual world. Its as simple as that. This is no external point of reference. This IS a logical issue. It shows us that we can only go so far in our justifications for knowledge, that at some point there is no further justification possible, we have reached the limits of our understanding and we just say, "I believe".
Again, this isn't a pragmatic concern - which if it were your trivializing of this issue would make sense. This is about the nature of knowledge and our limits concerning it. If this discussion ended with all of us copping to the fact that we cannot resolve this issue with the satisfaction that we resolve things that are "in front of us", things that are at a level of justification, then we would all shrug and say, ok then..NEXT!
