The objectiveness of reality

1) There is an objective reality that is independent of our senses. For example, quantum mechanical phenomena such as virtual particles, entanglement and tunnelling are aspects of the Universe that are not affected by our senses. Furthermore, the Universe manifested geometric properties such as the curvature of space which leads to the formation of gravity according to general relativity, the concept of speed, the orbit of planets and the arrangement of atoms in a molecule, long before we humans existed. If as you say, reality depends on what we can sense, how did planets, stars, galaxies and black holes form according to mathematical patterns, as mathematical structures before we existed? You speak of the abstract but even abstract concepts such as a singularity have been proven by science to exist, in this case within a black hole. For example, through the abstract mathematics of quantum theory, scientists such as Niels Borh and Warner Heisenberg were able to extrapolate key concepts of the physical world such as radiation and the relationship between electrons and photons, meaning that the abstract provides a way to find those hidden aspects of nature that we cannot be aware of merely through our senses. 2) I agree to the extend that the perception of reality varies according to what biological system you are looking at. For example, a bat may rely on echolocation to structure the dimensions of its surroundings while we humans rely on our eyes but even so, consider the following situation: Imagine a worm. The worm does not perceive light nor sound in the way that we do and if you say that reality depends on the senses, what would happen if you were to drop a bomb in the vicinity of the worm? If the worm can't sense the bomb and his consciousness is not aware of that explosive artefact, then the bomb is not a part of his reality, however, even if his senses are not aware of that bomb, the explosion a consequence of physical reactions the worm is not conscious of, will still affect it, effectively killing the worm. In the case of a dog, its true that they smell and hear things that are beyond the capacity of our senses but they are still subject to laws they cannot perceive. For example, if you heat up a dog to a sufficient degree in a large oven, his atoms will react to heat therefore changing state which means that there is an objective reality that is separate from what the senses can perceive. We humans are not aware of radiation yet it still damages our cells producing cancer. Similarly, the laws of gravity which dictate the perception of time are at work independently of our senses. 3) Good point. Kant's interpretation is exactly what you said, however though there might be several ways of processing the light that reflects from say a chair, in such a way that a human may see it as brown and a cat may see it as grey, there is still a fundamental composition of that chair that does not vary and that is the molecular world that makes up that chair. Sure, if the anatomy of the eye changes, so does the color of the chair but the atoms never change, that's why I say reality is objective. Here is an idea I propose regarding the objectiveness of reality: -The way in which we see, hear, smell or feel the world may vary according to the anatomy of our brain and that goes for every animal that exists. However, the fact that all matter is formed by molecules, atoms, electrons and quarks never changes. You can get a frog to look at a rock and it will see it differently to the way in which a human perceives it, because of the difference between their anatomy, yet, wether you see the chair as red or brown, wether you see it or not, if you heat up that chair, it will begin to evaporate because of the interaction between its atoms and heat. Wether your senses see something, weather your mind visualises something or not, cannot affect the fundamental quantum essence of all objects. For example, wether you see a black hole or not, wether you imagine it or not, it does not change the fact that it will eat a planet millions of light years away. Say you have a cell and you bombard it with some radiation. The fact that you don't see nor feel nor hear radiation does not change the fact that it will still interact with the cell wether you see it or not. This shows that there is a fundamental set of laws that are independent of the mind otherwise, chemical processes such as the formation of DNA, the formation of atoms in the heart of distant stars (nucleo-synthesis), the process which lead to the prevalence of matter over anti-matter (baryogenesis) would have never occurred if indeed reality depends on the conscious mind because there was no consciousness when these processes took place.