(AP) What Happens When We Close that Door?

A recent excerpt from the Karl Jaspers Forum, showing the results of Cartesian skepticism applied to the question of mind-independently existing things:

IS THE LIGHT ON IN THE FRIDGE ? OBJECT-IN-CONTEXT AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD
by Lauri Järvilehto
12 September 2007, posted 15 September 2007

....The idea of perception I defend hangs on the thought that objects can only be said to exist as objects-in-context – but that the same way the unmeasured particle exists as a "black-boxed" probability wave, unobserved objects do still exist as their full conceptual potential, the superposition of states of affairs. In both cases it’s like the matter of whether the light is on in the fridge when the door is closed. We can only observe the light when the door is open, so whatever we can know about the state of the light when the door is closed must be deduced from other factors than direct evidence. In quantum mechanics, a discrete state of a particle is by definition the result of a measurement – whatever happens between measurements is clouded. In perception, we perceive only what is perceived. Whatever happens to the world when it is not perceived meets the fate of the light in the fridge. The easiest way out is, of course, esse est percipi: Let’s refrain from saying anything about the "closed fridge". But certainly we can deduce a number of things from what we perceive. That is what I have attempted in my paper....