i enjoy this conversation because it allows me to refine my ability to explain this even to myself. for almost two decades i was a staunch advocate for all of the arguments made by Mr Lidsky. i looked for every explanation that would bolster my supply of proof. from brain science, psychology and optics to quantum mechanics, even linguistics, i had all of my angles covered. the subjective is admittedly a huge part of individual perception. i think most people do not appreciate how much of what we experience is made up by our brains, but there are still events that exist outside of our ability to create them. nuclear radiation, cosmic rays, inertial and gravitational effects, force gradients, chemical pressure waves, more things than i can name here, anything that exists outside of even our unconscious perception, these and more can be measured independently, with equipment external to our nervous system, by anyone who can view the readout. this can be adapted to braille, just as there are braille computer monitors. all of scientific knowledge takes advantage of repeatability. if everything is subjective, repeatability from person to person is impossible. instruments that repeatably measure conditions, that can be used by more than one person, one time, which is what repeatability is, this is dependent on our interaction with objective reality.
this is similar to reading a book. if two sighted people read the same book, that is not altered between readings, the words remain the same. the meaning may be vastly different from one person to the next, but the book remains. even if the second person is not literate, the book remains. objective reality exists, our perception and comprehension are what diverge from one person to the next, and/or from one time to the next. objectivity is to be found in the repeatable and external.
I think I understand your point of view. I will, once more, choose to gracefully disagree.
The basis of my disagreement is change. Everything changes. Repeatability doesn't exist, it's an illusion we create by our ability to discern what is different and what is equal. Two seconds are both equal and different. They are different in that one is "older" than the other, but they are equal in terms of the "slice" of time that we agree they represent (time is relative, you know that). So two seconds are not truly "repeating" one another.
Change is all pervasive, the person you were 5 minutes ago, when you wrote your comment is different from the person you are right now, reading my comment. We impute a concept of "me" on top of this continuous change, on top of this observer of phenomena and we cling to it. And we grow a cognitive system on top of this clinging of "me". Eventually, this system is the one that creates the lack of happiness and fulfillment we experience.
It's a very difficult pill to swallow, I know, because it creates even more confusion. Which, to an extent, is true: there's no real meaning in this world or in this life. We create that meaning by fear of non-existence.