This sounds like the improvements on realism made by Scotus via his formal distinction, which was improved by Peirce's pragmatic semiotic, at least to the extent a mediation is involved in an irreducible triad, of course in a fallibilistic sense.

I try covering all the bases. I guess there's just no satisfying some folks. ;-)

We could draw a distinction between what is real and what exists. ;-)

By the way, I didn't realize I was talking to Matt Damon.

Yeah, well, how do you like them apples? ;)

Actually the new photo is a bit of an inside joke. IRL I go by Damon MacDonald but friends will often call me "Mac Damon" due not only to my name but also my supposed "uncanny resemblance" to the character Will Hunting.

Touché, the stereotype is unfair. I've retracted the statement.

Strange Notions is the best.

It'd be much better if all of the atheist commenters who were banned en masse and without warning were allowed to return here. Otherwise, I wouldn't have to go to the other Notions site for the entire perspective.

Where else can an average guy talk about God and human existence with intelligent and civil people who disagree enormously? Strange Notions is the best. (By the way, I didn't realize I was talking to Matt Damon. How about a celebrity endorsement for the site?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominational_positions_on_homosexuality

Not if Christians believe homosexuality is objectively immoral, which they do. You'd have better luck convincing them that homosexuals don't exist.

If something as rudimentary as the color red is a "mirrored" reality,
just another picture on the mind's "map" of the territory, what about
something less determinate in that map - say, beliefs about the world
"out there,"

Any belief about the world is, necessarily, part of our maps. Beliefs are subjective, they don't exist outside our own minds.

starting with the belief that there is an "out there" to begin with?...How can we really know anything about the world itself - or that there even is a world to begin with - if our every experience is swallowed up in the self-contained sphere of mind?

Well we can't be certain, after all "we" are both brains which, as near as we can tell, are housed inside of a skull, in total darkness. So there is a shred of possibility that nothing we experience corresponds with anything real, unless you can definitively prove that at least some of your subjective experiences correspond with something "out there." I'd be interested in an attempt at this.

Yet when my friend asks me, "how many fingers am I holding up?" my brain will conduct a series of physical processes to generate a "map" that shows my friend holding up a certain number of fingers, let's say five. So then my brain will send signals to my mouth and voice box to produce sounds that convey to my friend that I see five fingers. My brain will then interpret sounds from him in which he confirms, yes, he was holding up five fingers. Other people around us will send out similar sounds that my brain interprets as confirmation that they saw five fingers too. As far as I'm concerned, this is enough evidence to conclude that my friend was, in fact, holding up five fingers. I therefore believe that my "map" of five fingers was an accurate map that corresponded with the territory at that time.

So I believe that, in general, our brains build useful and accurate (to an extent) maps of the territory. The important thing to remember though, is that even though our maps may be accurate and useful most of the time they are still just maps, not the territory itself.

As the saying goes, "The map is not the territory, but you can't fold up the territory and put it in your glove compartment."

EDIT: Also, Becklo, thanks for sticking around in the combox. It makes for a better discussion when the OP responds to comments.