---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote :
Simply put, no objects exist independently of their being known. I think the problem might be your language. The way this reads seems to suggest that there is no external reality and that we are required to collapse waveforms and create the world. Is this what you intend? This is important because terms like "consciousness is the ultimate reality" are pretty loaded and for someone like me who puts everything into a physics and evolutionary context gets the heebies with mystical mumbo jumbo because it has no basis in physics and I can't see how it doesn't contradict what we know about evolution entirely. As these are the cornerstones of knowledge it has to fit somebody has some explaining to do and I don't think will be me. Several people cannot see the same object and see it exactly as it is. We see only the attributes of an object, that is, we see only it's properties. We do not see gestalt wholes exactly as they are. Objects appear in consciousness as wholes, or 'gestalts'. They enter experience already made by each individual. According to my professor, it is obvious that different people may not see the same object exactly alike; just as it is - but may perceive different objects when confronted by the same stimulus source: "We fail to take into account the constructed character of knowing" - the term 'constructed character' of knowing is used to name the synthesizing process that goes on in the brain before experiences are produced. The various nervous impulses do not appear in consciousness to be knowingly assembled or constructed into an object. Consciousness is the ultimate reality - without it people would not be conscious - there would be no perception. This is a dirt simple fact of life requiring no further proof. No rational person would claim that don't exist, unless they were insane or demented - it's just not rational. We are conscious of ourselves enough to know that we exist and are self-conscious. It's all obvious if you ignore the misleadingly mysterious language, what I notice is that it doesn't offer an explanation other than that there must be "something else". Replacing a mystery with a mystery in other words, I say wait until a bit more work has been done before we get all religious about it.
