Indeed. I think it might be a mistake to think perspective emerges at life in the first place. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well I agree with that, and already said so.

From the map, if it is a contour map, one can construct elevations along a sightline and thus reconstruct the perspective at any point in any direction.

I therefore conclude that perspective is not personal (as Banno points out if we swap places, we swap perspectives), but a feature of topography. — unenlightened

And when perspective is extended as metaphor to include psychological dispositions and expertise and limitations of the senses, and social limits, these can each be located case by case.

But you seem to conflate subjectivity with mental life as perspective. What I am saying is that subjectivity is prior to mental life of even the most primitive sort. I am I suppose heading towards that problematic definition of life — as being its own subject - that which is self-defining. The yeast cell responds differentially to the environment in a way that constitutes and gives significance to its own boundary for its own continuation. Sugar in; carbon dioxide out.

We don't think corporations and states have their own mental life, but they do seem able to posses knowledge and priorities that differ from the sum of their members' knowledge and desires (e.g. when the US security apparatus "didn't know what it knew" re: 9/11, but later uncovered this through intentional reflection). And the existence of such knowledge/priorities entails perspective and a form of aboutness, even though the first person "aboutness" appears to be absent. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is an interesting one. Institutions are made of living beings, but might have archival memories. But it is a repetition at the human level of colonial organisms like siphonophorae and complex insect colonies such as ants and bees. In such cases there are aspects behaviour that are individual, and aspects that are functions of the larger 'social organism'.

BTW, it occured to me that a very similar set of problems addressed by this OP shows up in phenomenology through the debate about transparency and object intentionalism.

Are the contents of experience just what we experience? How can we describe an experience to someone who hasn't had it? Generally, when we try, when we try to explain sight for instance, we just end up explaining the things we see, colors etc., not the experience of seeing itself.

So is experience just a transparent window into the world? But if everything else interacts with the world the way it does because of its properties, then it seems a little strange that experience would lack any properties and be so transparent. Yet if experience does have properties, then it seems we should be able to divide it up, at least through abstraction, and talk about how the parts relate to the world.

And this gets to the issue of "indirect realism," as well. I personally am no big fan of indirect realism because it seems to suppose some sort of humonculous that "sees" the representations. But if its representation all the way down, then indirect realism turns out to be just the same sort of interaction as realism.

Transparency in phenomenology, while at first glance closer to direct realism, seems to me to have some similarities with indirect realism in that it supposed a unified whole, perhaps without properties, to which experience is "presented." And this sort of thinking seems to make it easy to fall into circles asking about what things are maps and what things are territories.

I take consciousness to be the awareness of awareness, and perhaps awareness is the judgement of judgement, and judgement is the first responsive action, and the first judgement is the distinguishing of the organism from the environment by the organism itself. — unenlightened

:up:

I like the concepts of sapience and sentience. I'd say there's a un-self-thematizing consciousness in sentience, and that something fancier appears with sapience. Judgement is linguistic, and, within a community, one is held accountable for one's judgements. Definitely getting into Brandom / Sellars territory here.

Are the contents of experience just what we experience? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think so lately, and for me it feels like a great clarification. Lots of ways to say it, but one way is : consciousness is precisely the being of the world from or for a perspective. This chucks indirect realism out the window. My toothaches and daydreams are in your world, but language always intends our world. My 'private' thoughts are just locked away in a dark closet which is nevertheless very much within the inferential space of the community.

Nice essay and presentation.
I think though that it is somewhat burdened with concepts, -isms and philosophical views. E.g. if one accepts idealism and physicalism (or materialism) as the two main philosophical and opposing views of the world, even if one states that they are not necessary in conflict, one is restricted in either of these systems or frameworks of thought and cannot have an independent view, which may touch one or the other system but is not confined in or even dependent on either.

Let's take your question How Does Mind ‘Create Reality’?
You take it as granted that reality is created by the mind. Is this maintained by idealism, e.g. Plato's idealism or is it your own view? In the first case you are confined in that view system or framework. In the second case your thought is free from such a restriction.
Now, what about the widely accepted philosophical view that reality is created by consciousness? (BTW, I'm surprised that consciousness is totally absent in your description of the topic.) It seems that you ignore it or at least not accept it yourself. Yet, it is a view that can only belong to idealism, since in physicalism it is believed that the nature of consciousness is physical and more specifically it is created by the brain.

So, based also on what follows, it is clear that you are presenting your own view about the creation of reality, although you seem to favor idealism.

By ‘creating reality’, I’m referring to the way the brain receives, organizes and integrates cognitive data, along with memory and expectation, so as to generate the unified world–picture within which we situate and orient ourselves. — Wayfarer

This is clearly a physicalist/materialist view. It belongs to Science and its materialist view of the world.
But in idealism it is maintained that reality is created by the mind or consciousness.
So, there's already a conflict between your pro idealism and what you are describing.
There wouldn't be any if you were not talking about idealism and physicalism. It could stand perfectly alone, as an independent, personal view, independent of the two philosophical systems.

I have too my personal view on how reality is created, which is independent of any philosophical system. If it were, it wouldn't be my own reality! :smile:

I hope I made my point clear.

There are other things in your description that I would like to comment on, but this is already a lot. :smile:

To put it in blunt vernacular terms, it is the assessment of life in general, and human life in particular, as being basically the product of mindless laws and forces. — Wayfarer

So this is where the axiom of 'the reality of mind-independent objects' has its origin, and it is precisely that which has been called into doubt by the 'observer problem' in quantum physics, — Wayfarer

Okay, thanks for that explanation! I missed a few days and this thread seems to have gotten away from me, so maybe what I am saying has already been covered. In any case...

So for Nagel the 17th century brought the idea, <That which is real is spatio-temporal; the human mind is not spatio-temporal; therefore the human mind is not real>.

Yet your 'perspectivalism' seems to be a quasi-rejection of mind-independent objects, and that strikes me as an overcorrection, like falling off the other side of the horse instead of regaining balance. It's a bit like moving from the extreme of nominalism to the extreme of Platonic idealism. Of course rejecting mind-independent objects will avoid Nagel's conclusion, but it will do more than that!

It seems to me that the 17th century spatio-temporal error is a variety of scientism, and in particular a reduction of external reality to that which is measurable (and able to be manipulated). Notably, though, it is not an error to accept the existence of mind-independent objects. That was being done long before the 17th century. So I'm wondering if we need a smaller scalpel to excise a smaller portion of the 17th century's presuppositions.

The subject-object relationship is a fact of life, even in simple life-forms. — Wayfarer

It’s a conceptualization. I don’t think of myself as a subject or the world as an object when a I’m cooking dinner. I don’t see how any microorganisms are seeing the world that way either.

But I think I’m digressing from your main point, so I’ll leave it at that.

You define it as "inherent in the object". But according to the article of the op, the human mind has no access to what is "inherent in the object". — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't say 'the mind has no access to what is inherent in the object'. Plainly if my shower is too hot, I won't get in it, if my meal is cold, I won't eat it. They are objective judgements. As I say at the outset, I'm not disputing scientific judgements, but calling into question what they're taken to imply. It is especially pernicious when humans and other sentient beings are treated as objects, as if the objective analyses provided by evolutionary biology and the other sciences have the final say on human nature. Beings are subjects of experience, and as such their true nature is beyond the purview of the objective sciences.

I like to read this in terms of the famous ontological difference, in terms of being itself not being an entity ---though of course the concept of being itself is indeed an entity. — plaque flag

Quite! Some aspects of Heidegger have seeped through to me, although I've never bitten the bullet of doing the readings. I have been accused in the past of engaging in ‘onto-theology’. One thing I did read about Heidegger is the anecdote of a colleague of his finding him reading D T Suzuki, and admitting, ‘If I understand this man correctly, it is just what I’ve been trying to say’ or something along those lines. Not that he would ever endorse the adoption of Buddhism as a matter of practice.

It's a bit like moving from the extreme of nominalism to the extreme of Platonic idealism — Leontiskos

Oh, I don’t know. If you read on to the section about Pinter’s book Mind and the Cosmic Order, he says there are quite valid scientific grounds for his proposals, which I hope my arguments conform with.

I’m not saying that everything is a matter of perspective, but that no judgement about what exists can be made outside a perspective. If you try and imagine what exists outside perspective, then you’re already positing an intentional object.

I don’t think of myself as a subject or the world as an object when a I’m cooking dinner. — Mikie

There’s no need to, but I think the distinction between self and other is nevertheless basic to consciousness, isn’t it?

I'm surprised that consciousness is totally absent in your description of the topic — Alkis Piskas

Thanks for your feedback!

That’s because for my purposes I’m treating ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’ as synonyms. They’re not always synonyms, for instance in some medical or psychological contexts, but for my purposes. And yes, I have framed the question in terms of idealism and materialism, as I see that as the underlying dynamic that is playing out in the debates. There are many varieties of each of course.

This is clearly a physicalist/materialist view. It belongs to Science and its materialist view of the world. — Alkis Piskas

Not at all! I think many elements within science itself are actually starting to diverge from a materialist view of the world. I actually address that objection in the extended version of the essay. Both neuroscience and physics have tended to call into question the modern understanding of realism.

And this sort of thinking seems to make it easy to fall into circles asking about what things are maps and what things are territories. — Count Timothy von Icarus

We need to understand the ‘mind-making’ process on a practical level - actually grasp how the mind is doing that. Otherwise, you do really have ‘the hand trying to grasp itself’!

Are the contents of experience just what we experience? — Count Timothy von Icarus

‘The content of consciousness is consciousness’ ~ J Krishnamurti.

Oh, I don’t know. If you read on to the section about Pinter’s book Mind and the Cosmic Order, he says there are quite valid scientific grounds for his proposals, which I hope my arguments conform with.

I’m not saying that everything is a matter of perspective, but that no judgement about what exists can be made outside a perspective. If you try and imagine what exists outside perspective, then you’re already positing an intentional object. — Wayfarer

Right, but it seems that you would then go on to draw a further conclusion, "...and therefore there are no mind-independent objects," and that is where things get tricky.

For example, I agree with Locke that shape is a "primary quality," and disagree with Pinter. Yet Locke and Pinter are in agreement that color is a "secondary quality." The first point is that there really is a distinction to be had between primary and secondary qualities.

The second point, regarding shape, is that if a boulder rolls over a small crack it will continue rolling, but if it rolls into a "large crack" (a canyon) then it will fall, decreasing in altitude. This will occur whether or not a mind witnesses it, and this is because shape is a "primary quality." A boulder and a crack need not be perceived by a mind to possess shape.

At the tail-end of this is the idea that intentional objects can represent real properties, and this is called Realism. It's also the thing that scientists take for granted. So if one extreme says that only the spatio-temporal exists, and another extreme says that there are no mind-independent objects (or that the mind is not capable of knowing mind-independent realities), then I want to navigate the middle path and avoid both extremes.

I don’t know if I said ‘there are no mind-independent objects’, although I suppose it is something that can be justified in Schopenhauer’s philosophical framework, for which ‘there are no objects without subjects’. So I suppose it is a reasonable inference. But the way I put it was this: ‘I am not arguing that [idealism] means that ‘the world is all in the mind’. It’s rather that, whatever judgements are made about the world, the mind provides the framework within which such judgements are meaningful. So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle.’

I feel as though your response is made on the basis of a step after the suppositions that inform mine. You’re saying that given that objects exist - boulders, canyons, and so on - then we can say….

Whereas the thrust of the argument I’m offering is solely to call attention to the role that the mind plays in any and all judgements about supposedly external objects. I’m not saying that, outside our perception, things don’t exist but that any judgement of existence or non-existence is just that - a judgement.

As for realism, the point about modern realism is that assumes the reality of mind-independent empirical objects.That’s where the problem lies, as empirical objects are by their nature necessarily contingent. Scholastic realism on the other hand presumes the mind-independent reality of the Forms - these are independent of particular minds, but can only be grasped by a mind. That is where I’m coming to in my analysis.

Whatever is out there, strictly speaking, cannot be called "objects" - there no good neutral word for it that comes to mind, unfortunately.

So, let's take the neutral "thing" or "stuff", whatever it out-there is, in part, responsible for how we take these objects to be, they stimulate us into reacting as-if, external objects existed.

But in principle, they are not necessary. But in practice they are.

I don’t know if I said ‘there are no mind-independent objects’ — Wayfarer

I think you are committed to the idea, or something like it. For example, "By investing the objective domain with a mind-independent status, as if it exists independently of any mind, we absolutize it. We designate it as truly existent, irrespective of and outside any knowledge of it." I am not using the word 'object' in any specialized sense. You could replace it with 'thing' if you like.

I feel as though your response is made on the basis of a step after the suppositions that inform mine. You’re saying that given that objects exist - boulders, canyons, and so on - then we can say…. — Wayfarer

I am claiming, "This will occur whether or not a mind witnesses it, [and therefore shape is mind-independent]."

So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle.’ — Wayfarer

But is my claim about the boulder meaningless and unintelligible outside of any perspective? Does not the idea that a boulder has a shape transcend perspective?

And how does the existence of the universe prior to the evolution of life rely on an implicit perspective? If the universe's existence at that time relied on a perspective, then whose perspective was it relying upon? I would say that the proposition, "The universe exists," relies on a mind, but the existence of the universe does not rely on a mind.* Thus the universe truly exists in a mind-independent way, even though the true proposition, "The universe exists," would not exist without minds. The common meaning of 'existence' does not connote minds or perception.

This is why that additional conclusion, "...and therefore there are no mind-independent objects," is tricky. It is equivocal, having various different meanings.

Opposing various forms of idealism, I would claim that reality exists and minds are able to know it. This is not to say that all knowledge is objective, but lots of it is.


* Presupposing naturalism for the moment.

Presupposing naturalism for the moment. — Leontiskos

It’s the natural thing to do!

But is my claim about the boulder meaningless and unintelligible outside of any perspective? Does not the idea that a boulder has a shape transcend perspective? — Leontiskos

Yes and no respectively. Is ‘shape’ meaningful outside any reference to visual perception? We see shapes because it is essential to navigating the environment - Pinter shows this is true even for insects.

Yes and no respectively. — Wayfarer

So again, here's the argument in question:

The second point, regarding shape, is that if a boulder rolls over a small crack it will continue rolling, but if it rolls into a "large crack" (a canyon) then it will fall, decreasing in altitude. This will occur whether or not a mind witnesses it, and this is because shape is a "primary quality." A boulder and a crack need not be perceived by a mind to possess shape. — Leontiskos

So you are saying that boulders will only treat cracks differently than canyons when a mind is involved?

Is ‘shape’ meaningful outside any reference to visual perception? — Wayfarer

Yes, because boulders fall into canyons and do not fall into cracks on account of their shape. Thus shape is meaningful, irrespective of visual perception.

So you are saying that boulders will only treat cracks differently than canyons when a mind is involved? — Leontiskos

It’s safe to assume not, but then it is an empirical matter isn’t it? But then I am at pains to say that I have no need to call empirical facts into question.

I suppose ‘smaller’ and ‘larger’ are a priori categories, though, so larger things cannot fit into smaller spaces deductively not inductively. (But that’s it for now, I’ll be away for rest of day.)

It’s safe to assume not, but then it is an empirical matter isn’t it? — Wayfarer

Well, it's not a directly empirical matter, because it could never be directly empirically studied. But if we can have knowledge about the mind-independent world, then we can have knowledge about this. As you say, "It's safe to assume not."

It's often helpful to place the two things side by side and assess our certainty:

1. Boulders will treat cracks differently than canyons whether or not a mind is involved.
2. Boulders will only treat cracks differently than canyons when a mind is involved.

I'd say we have a great deal more certainty of (1) than (2), and you seem to agree.

I suppose ‘smaller’ and ‘larger’ are a priori categories, though — Wayfarer

We are conceiving of a crack as something much smaller than a boulder and a canyon as something much larger than a boulder. I don't think the definitions are problematic.

It's often helpful to place the two things side by side and assess our certainty:

Boulders will treat cracks differently than canyons whether or not a mind is involved.
Boulders will only treat cracks differently than canyons when a mind is involved.

I'd say we have a great deal more certainty of (1) than (2), and you seem to agree. — Leontiskos

As I said in the OP ‘there is no need for me to deny that the Universe (or: any object) is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. But what we know of its existence is inextricably bound by and to the mind we have, and so, in that sense, reality is not straightforwardly objective. It is not solely constituted by objects and their relations. Reality has an inextricably mental aspect…’

…which is introduced as soon as you make any hypothetical object the subject of a proposition.

So, let's take the neutral "thing" or "stuff", whatever it out-there is, in part, responsible for how we take these objects to be, they stimulate us into reacting as-if, external objects existed. — Manuel

Sure, 100%. I’m not claiming that ‘the world is only in your mind’. If you look at the cognitive scientists who appear in the BigThink video I posted ‘Is Reality Real?’ all of them start by saying, of course there is a world out there. It’s just that we don’t see it as it truly is (but, the Kantian philosopher would say, only as it appears to us.)

I always thought the maxim 'know thyself' was simply about seeing through your own delusions and false hopes.
— Wayfarer

…..which, of course, presupposes knowing what they are, by the subject, or self, effected by them. — Mww

Being able to discern delusions and false hopes is not a tall order, is it? It’s obvious that a lot of people don’t do that, or aren’t capable of it. But I associate the saying ‘know thyself’ with Socrates (although of course the Delphic maxim preceded him), and his quest for understanding piety, justice, goodness, and so on, seems to me to clearly require a deep kind of self-awareness, doesn’t it? (A digression perhaps but a worthy one.)

But is my claim about the boulder meaningless and unintelligible outside of any perspective? Does not the idea that a boulder has a shape transcend perspective? — Leontiskos

Hi, Leontiskos ! Though I'd jump in here.

The boulder's shape is independent, in some sense, from this or that individual human perspective. So it transcends the limitations of my eyesight or yours. But it seems to me that what we could even mean by 'shape' depends on an experience that has always been embodied and perspectival.

Has anyone ever experienced a spatial object a-perspectively ?

So you are saying that boulders will only treat cracks differently than canyons when a mind is involved? — Leontiskos

I was going to also add, that measurements of space and distance are also implicitly perspectival. You could, theoretically, conceive of the distance between two points from a cosmic perspective, against which it is infinitesimally small, and a subatomic perspective, against which it is infinitesimally large. As it happens, all of the units of measurement we utilise, such as years or hours, for time, and meters or parsecs, for space, ultimately derive from the human scale - a year being, for instance, the time taken for the earth to orbit the sun, and so on. Given those parameters, of course it is true that measures hold good independently of any mind, but there was a mind involved in making the measurement at the outset.

Yet your 'perspectivalism' seems to be a quasi-rejection of mind-independent objects, and that strikes me as an overcorrection, like falling off the other side of the horse instead of regaining balance. — Leontiskos

I think J. S. Mill has a nice take. Objects are only independent in the sense that they are 'permanent possibilities of sensation.' So the world is not a video game where the couch disappears when we leave the room. Instead we understand couches in the first place in terms of how humans tend to experience them. I can wander into the living room and plop down with a book. And the couch doesn't vanish when I die (I inherited it, after all.)

Speaking as someone who embraces perspectivism and correlationism, I'd would not call the world 'mind-created' or basically mental. But I would insist that the lifeworld is a kind of unbreakable unity, and that embodied perspectival creatures like us don't have a strong grip on the idea of independent objects -- except for one that boils down to 'permanent possibilities of sensation.'

'To be is to be < potentially > perceivable. ' And this, in my view, is more of a semantic claim.

And this sort of thinking seems to make it easy to fall into circles asking about what things are maps and what things are territories. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I like to think of maps as little pieces of reality that have some of the same structure as bigger pieces of reality.

I think we can (and do, without always noticing it) put all entities in the same inferential nexus. So it's all real, but various things exist differently (prime numbers don't exist like petunias.)

I think we can 'fix' and update Berkeley. Or that it's already been done, but it's helpful to retrace the steps.

It is indeed an opinion STRANGELY prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But...what are the fore-mentioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? and what do we PERCEIVE BESIDES OUR OWN IDEAS OR SENSATIONS? and is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived? — B

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4723/pg4723-images.html

Berkeley should not, in my view, have said that we perceive our own own ideas and sensations. What he [ should have ] meant is that we understand such things as they tend to be perceived. And any 'idealist' must address the permanence of mountains, for instance, which outlast generations.

Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, viz., that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind, that their BEING (ESSE) is to be perceived or known... — B

He goes on to drag in God, and he problematically takes spirits in the same naive way his opponents take independent objects. @Leontiskos mentions overcorrection. I think Berkeley overcorrects. The 'pure' subjectivity of the spirit is the 'same' error as the 'pure' aperspectival object on the other side.
[/quote]
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4723/pg4723-images.html

What is given is a daily embodied experience of the usual objects in the familiar lifeworld. Someone like Berkeley could have merely challenged the semantic emptiness of talk of the pure object.

The philosophy of perception that elaborates the idea that, in the words of J. S. Mill, ‘objects are the permanent possibilities of sensation’. To inhabit a world of independent, external objects is, on this view, to be the subject of actual and possible orderly experiences. Espoused by Russell, the view issued in a programme of translating talk about physical objects and their locations into talk about possible experiences (see logical construction). The attempt is widely supposed to have failed, and the priority the approach gives to experience has been much criticized. — link

https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100322668

As William James and Ernst Mach saw, such pure 'experience' is no longer experience consciousness or awareness at all but just the neutral being of a world given perspectively. This neutral stuff is of course organized into 'appearance' and 'reality' with respect to practical goals.

We find a version of this in Kant.

That there may be inhabitants in the moon, although no one has ever observed them, must certainly be admitted; but this assertion means only, that we may in the possible progress of experience discover them at some future time. For that which stands in connection with a perception according to the laws of the progress of experience is real. They are therefore really existent, if they stand in empirical connection with my actual or real consciousness, although they are not in themselves real, that is, apart from the progress of experience. — Kant

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4280/pg4280-images.html#chap77

[Re: Consciousness missing in the description] That’s because for my purposes I’m treating ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’ as synonyms. — Wayfarer

I know, some philosophers do that. But it is certainly wrong. These two things are ralated but they are of a different kind and nature, so it's a bad habit to equate them, even for just descrption purposes.

(I know that I'm quite strict with vocabulary but this is because I believe that esp. in philosophy we should use terms and concepts with caution, otherwise misunderstanding or lack of undestanding or even confusion can occur. But even if one needs to equate two terms, one should note that, as you did in your reply here.)

[Re: This is clearly a physicalist/materialist view. It belongs to Science and its materialist view of the world.] Not at all! I think many elements within science itself are actually starting to diverge from a materialist view of the world. — Wayfarer

I see that you refer to neuroscience. Indeed, from what I know, there are a few neurobiologists who admit e.g. that consciousness is not a product of the brain and accept the hard problem of conscioussnes. Thankgod. But the vast majority of scientists stick on the brain. This is their world. They can't work outside the material world.
So, my comment was based on seeing that you are using too the brain to describe the mind and reality.
Mind and brain are related but they are of a different kind and nature. Like consciousness and mind.
Their hierarchy and relation (connection) is:Consciousness <-> mind <-> brain. (I can describe how this works but not here.)

I don't say 'the mind has no access to what is inherent in the object'. Plainly if my shower is too hot, I won't get in it, if my meal is cold, I won't eat it. They are objective judgements. — Wayfarer

I can't see how you understand this as consistent with your definition of "objective" as "inherent in the object". Clearly any judgement similar to the ones mentioned, "hot" and "cold", are proper to the subject, and so these judgements are not "inherent in the object".

It seems like you are not distinguishing between the judgement itself, and what the judgement is about. Yes, the judgement is about an object, and it may be a judgement about what inheres within the object, but the judgement is not inherent in the object, and therefore cannot be "objective" by the definition you provided.

I believe that this is a very significant and important point to respect because it is the justification for, as the reason for, the idealist/phenomenologist assertion that even an "object" is a creation of the perceptual system of the living being. We sense the existence of "objects" surrounding us, as constitutive of our environment, but even this act of perception, by which things are perceived as objects, is a sort of judgement made by the sensing being, the subject. Therefore even the judgement of "object" which is an inherent part of the perceptual system, the very act of perceiving, which presents "objects" to the mind of the conscious subject, and which inclines us to take the existence of "objects" for granted, is itself a subjective judgement.

This is what Manuel points to:

Whatever is out there, strictly speaking, cannot be called "objects" - there no good neutral word for it that comes to mind, unfortunately. — Manuel

When we understand as fact, that apprehending the environment as consisting of distinct entities, unities, which we call "objects", is common to all human beings, and also most likely the case for many different types of animals, we need to respect that there must be a reason for this. So we might accept as reality, that there is something about the mind independent "stuff", which makes it appear to us, and influences us to accept as a fundamental ontological principle, that there is "objects" out there.

Being able to discern delusions and false hopes is not a tall order, is it? — Wayfarer

Humans are naturally endowed with a relational intellect, for which the capacity, as function, for discernment is integrated necessarily, but in doing so, in enacting, as operation, the functional capacity, re: being able to discern, there must already be that which serves as ideal against which the content under discernment is complementary. Herein, then, against being able to discern delusion there stands extant truth; against being able to discern false hope there stands practical reason**.
(**sidebar: practical reason justified under the assumption “false hope” is an illegitimate cognition, insofar as the attainment of its object is considered given but under false pretenses, which practical reason would expose. The common euphemistic proof being….you can’t get blood out of a turnip)

So it is that these ideals against which discernment directs itself, are purely subjective conditions, dependent only on the aesthetic judgement of he who holds them. Reduce it yet another step, and it happens that even if the subject in the act of discerning isn’t immediately aware of the ideal against which he is relating the particular occasion, there must be one, for otherwise he wouldn’t be in the relational situation in the first place, he being satisfied with whatever happens to have been the status quo. And here is the appropriateness of the Socratic, “know thyself”, and the systemic Enlightenment sapere aude, wherein being able to discern, and, having the capacity for discernment, while two very different functional parameters, insofar as the former presupposes the latter but is not necessarily a manifestation of it, in which it occurs that the subject actually does comprehend a delusion for what it is, and does recognize a hope as having an unattainable object.

So…..before the digression becomes uninteresting, or perhaps any more uninteresting, yes, being able to discern can be a tall order, iff the subject has no immediate awareness….no immediate knowledge a priori…..of the ideals against which his reason directs its functional capacity. On the other hand, Everdayman, who only under the most extreme occasions asks himself to consider any of this, has to think ever-more to determine the ideals against which he is relating his internal controversy, and is apt to just leave it at….as is wont to say…..damned if I know, but it sure don’t feel right.

Being able to discern shouldn’t be a tall order, because we come naturally equipped to deal with it. Speculative metaphysics describes why it nevertheless sometimes is, and, what to do about it using that equipment. But descriptions themselves don’t fix stuff, so now we have clinical psychology. (Sigh)

Yes, ontological principle which makes us postulate "external objects".

It becomes very murky very quickly.

As I said in the OP ‘there is no need for me to deny that the Universe (or: any object) is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. But what we know of its existence is inextricably bound by and to the mind we have, and so, in that sense, reality is not straightforwardly objective. It is not solely constituted by objects and their relations. Reality has an inextricably mental aspect…’ — Wayfarer

But you seem to be holding to two conflicting principles. Either the mind can know mind-independent reality as it is in itself, or it cannot. If it cannot, then there is always a reason to deny the existence of external objects a la post-Kantian philosophy (thus modern philosophy is intrinsically bound up with solipsism). If it can, then reality does not have an inextricably mental aspect a la western science.

It seems to me that the scientists got tired of the post-Kantians and their solipsism (or quasi-solipsism). The philosophers were preoccupied with trying to figure out whether the external world exists, and the scientists decided to ignore them and build cars so that we could travel from city to city. I'm sympathetic to the scientists, and I'm not very impressed with post-Kantian philosophy. I'm not convinced that any philosophy that takes Hume or Kant's starting point has ever worked, or ever will work, even if that starting error is mitigated as far as possible.

Suppose there were an argument about a piece of glass. One person says that anything perceived through the glass has "an inextricably glassy aspect." Another person disagrees, holding that this piece of glass is perfectly translucent. As far as I can tell, that's analogous to the argument over the intellect between Realists and Anti-Realists. If the former person is right, then nothing viewed through the glass can be seen as it is in itself. If the latter person is right, then things viewed through glass need not have a glassy aspect.

(Note that the analogy limps: glass is material, and therefore inherently imperfect. Hence the classical realist's claim that the intellect is immaterial.)

I was going to also add, that measurements of space and distance are also implicitly perspectival. You could, theoretically, conceive of the distance between two points from a cosmic perspective, against which it is infinitesimally small, and a subatomic perspective, against which it is infinitesimally large. As it happens, all of the units of measurement we utilise, such as years or hours, for time, and meters or parsecs, for space, ultimately derive from the human scale - a year being, for instance, the time taken for the earth to orbit the sun, and so on. Given those parameters, of course it is true that measures hold good independently of any mind, but there was a mind involved in making the measurement at the outset. — Wayfarer

This is the same problem from a different angle. Units of measurement are arbitrary, but this does not prevent comparison of finite objects.

But this need not be inherently human-biased. The point about shape, with boulders and cracks, has to do with the relative size of mind-independent objects, and these relative sizes will hold good whether or not they are measured. It must be so if boulders treat cracks differently than canyons whether or not a mind is involved.